Day in the City

May 21, 1987

Washington Square — People all over, lounging and browning, the kind of crowd Franklin County only gets for special affairs, such as the county fair. But this was just a park, and just an ordinary Saturday night.

Two black guys flash dancing on a raised stage-like area. A lot of boys on RAD bikes taking turns doing bike-robatics in a circle. A black man wearing a hat that looked like a sofa cushion with a bill, muttering, “Smoke? Smoke?” Bums lying in the grass, sitting in benches, in the darker side areas, filling the area with odor. Four or five guys performing Top 40 songs to a circles of passersby, playing guitars, a harmonica, harmonizing, and the leader, a skinny, small-headed dancing guy, ruling the event with his surprising larynx, deeper and louder than you could believe. A group of six or seven or eight jamming acapela, beautifully, on Top 40 songs. People alone with their portable radios. People hugging wine bottles.

The Village — A mime and a seated guy arguing over a spot on the sidewalk. The seated guy, hispanic and offensive, was the interloper. The mime was a small guy and was arguing but in a soft voice, his arms crossed. A crow watching the unrehearsed street drama. Hispanic guy wouldn’t leave, so the mime did. The crowd broke and the thief said he had done it to get even with the mime, that he would follow him and invade his space again. Thief called himself a street performer, had a piece of flattened box with two hand prints traced on it, plastic wrap around his arm. What does he do? Play a cripple? Handstands?

Nearby, a long-haired blonde guy, looking strung out, obviously a street dweller, sits on a stoop outside tobacco store. Ethnic guy runs out with an aluminum baseball bat, raises it three times to swing, but doesn’t. Longhair won’t leave. Some. Young blacks intercede when the bat is raised the third time.