This is why I love America: There is a man outside Shea Stadium banging a bucket with two sticks.
He wears a white t-shirt, soiled at the arm pits, a trail of sweat pours off his nose, because he is doing his absolute best, to provide to the 40,000 people leaving Shea Stadium on a muggy summer night, a bit of rhythm in their steps.
I do not love America for the baseball game. I do not love America for hot dogs or the long rays of summer, or the rocket's red glare.
I love America because this man, with no more venture capital than it takes to acquire a plastic paint bucket and two wooden sticks, is making a living for himself.
He sees an opportunity: Thousands of people walking towards mass transit.
And he capitalizes.
Every so often someone from the crowd will toss the bucket beater a single, or whatever change they kept in their pocket, and he’ll reward them with a celebratory rim shot.
Who is better than the bucket drummer, I wonder, who has the talent of an alchemist, who turns a walk home into gold?
I am not entirely sure that the energy expended--both in the cost of travel to the stadium, and to the caloric energy of banging--will be recouped by his modest profits, but does it matter?
His freedom is infinite. How could a dollar add or subtract to that end? If he so wished, next game he could bang two buckets with four sticks. Or five buckets with the same two.
He could bang four buckets with three sticks. Or one bucket with one stick. Or even, he could bang his sticks with a bucket.
Anything his mind dreams, he can achieve. Because this is America. The land of limitless sticks, and countless buckets.
The land of the free.
I salute you bucket drummer, for you honor the flag that’s still there. Even if, really, honestly, I don't have any change to spare, right now.
Maybe next game. |
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