Kumbaya, Kind of A Monotonous Song After A While

Portable version, 2018

April 30, 2017

I heard a protest going down 14th Street out the office window a few hours ago, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and I didn’t run out to join them. I didn’t go out with the sign at all today, and only for a short time yesterday — still time enough to have a few conversations with people, one of whom gave me both a high-five and a “namaste.”

I haven’t stood in the park in weeks, not since the weather got nice. There’s not enough real estate. The green market is crowded, the Hare Krishnas are in the spot where I stood in February and March. There’s freelance musicians, people hawking for salons, a guy selling CDs, the Water Is Life guy. The other weekend, the LaRouchians had their table set up with their own handmade signs, and it unnerved me, how alike they and I looked.

Later:

Grey haired woman on subway mutters in disgust and wraps her sweater around herself tighter when she sees my sign. I don’t sing. At 34th, a guy gets on — short-sleeved business shirt, pleated khakis, glasses, bald spot — sits across from me, and gives me a once-over, then an “OH PLEASE” smirk.

Now I sing. Softly to myself at first, then louder to the guy across the aisle. The college-aged kid next to me curls into his friend like, You made me sit next to the sign lady and now she is SINGING. The smirky guy stops smirking as I look in his eyes and sing, “He doesn’t even know what country he’s bombing, kumbaya.”

I get to the end of the verse and pause and look at him expectantly, like, “You sing one now.” He looks away. There’s a very attractive young woman in dance clothes and sensational posture in full make-up and hair. She is much better to look at than me. I lean back in my seat and look at her and hum.

But the guy can’t resist coming back for another round of smirking, so I strike up today’s verse two: Sebastian Gorka is a Nazi, Trump put his daughter and son-in-law in charge of everything, etc. Kumbaya. Pausing after each line, like, “Where is the lie?” He looks pained and avoids my eye.

I finish my verse and am quiet. We’re nearing the next stop. The grey-haired woman gets up and cries at me in a Baltic accent, “You have a disease in your brain! You should stop what you do!”

Immediately, the young woman across the aisle: “Fuck Donald Trump.” Another young woman leans over from her seat and commands, “Keep singing, lady.”

Kumbaya.

(To read Kumbaya, Motherfucker in chronological order, click here.)