Busking in Montpellier

As I turned the corner, my heart started thumping.  Eyes scanning the crowd, muscles on red alert.  Fight or flight?  What if I played dead?  What if I lay down on the ground and did my rasher of bacon impersonation?  I try looking at the people walking past.  Eyes not focusing properly. Blink. Blink again. I try rubbing my eyes with the back of my sleeve.  I can only focus on the first two or three people streaming past me.  And there on the left is my spot.  Walk past my spot.  Turn 180 degrees.  Walk towards my spot.  Eye my spot. Visualise myself at the spot. Walk past the spot one more time. Then just as I'm turning the corner, I get a voice in my head.  It's my gran.  Well okay it's not actually my gran but it's her voice, calm, thoughtful, not at all ghostly, resolute. 'You can do it,' she says gently.  'Seven deep breaths.'

I breathe in once.  Heart pumping so I'm sure people can see it through my shirt.  The question is do I get to the spot and take the breaths or do I time the breaths so I've hit seven by the time I arrive back at the spot?  Second breath and I'm back at the spot.  I put my case down and take another breath.  Look up.  Still can't focus properly, hands clammy. A sweat droplet just brushed the underside of my arm. Fourth breath.  I look up.  It's a beautiful day – vivid blue above, squintingly bright sunlight and Shit!  How many breaths have I got to? Either four or five. No, it must be four.  Take another one but not as slow and steady as the others. A lady with a neat red suit pretends not to see me. Breathe in, breathe out. Flip the first of the three stainless steel case hasps. Then the second. I've got to do this bending over, which makes the seventh breath too shallow. I can feel my lungs contracting.  I'm going to need an eighth breath.  But, do you know what, I'm really going to do this.  Third hasp popped. Guitar lid open.  It's one of those beautiful solid wood acoustic guitar cases with real leather that wouldn't look out of place transporting illicit liquor or tommy guns in an old black and white depression-torn 1920's American gangster movie. I look at the guitar.  Heart screaming. Show time.  Except it isn't really show time.  Just a bunch of shoppers, lovers, restaurant-goers, cyclists and dog-walkers ambling along Rue de la Loge.  But I flip the lid back down. I can't do this. I'm gripped with terror.  I've almost given myself a D-I-Y lobotomy.  I'm not thinking straight.  Another drip. A Jack Russell sniffs the case and is dragged away before it can lift its leg.  And then the voice comes back.  No, it's two voices.  'You can do it!'  'Run!' 'Just open the case and start'. 'Run away!' 'You're hungry.  You have no money. Just do it.' 'Now!'

I open the case again but just as it flips back against the hinges I close it again.  I'm in the middle of some bizarre fan ceremony with a guitar case lid.  This time I close my eyes as if I'm summoning up the spirits of my ancestors and open the case. Pick up the guitar. Put the strap over my head.  Reach into my trouser pockets, search round and then take out a black Gibson plectrum.  It's warm. I drop it on the ground and realise I'm shaking.  In fact both my legs are shaking too.  I rotate the case so it's facing the passers by and then wait.  Not the faintest idea of what I'm waiting for.  It's like waiting for the wind to drop just before you play an iron shot on a links or before you serve a tennis ball when the breeze is up.  And then the fingers in my left hand move automatically to a chord.  They are not my fingers.  An invisible force has taken them over.  I pinch the plectrum with the fingers of my right hand.  Pinch harder.  Hold my breath like I'm about dive below the surface of the pavement and then I start with the hardest and loudest strum my guitar has ever made.  I'm Pete Townsend on speed.  My eyes are tightly closed. I'm wind-milling and find my right knee bent double and my left leg outstretched like a half-Cossack dance.  Then I open my eyes and there's a crowd of three girls watching me giggling, pointing to my hat, which is an old explorer's Pith helmet jigging up and down.  They walk off.  A man in a dark suit with sunglasses pretends to ignore me.  But I don't care. I'm playing. I've done it.  I'm really doing it and I'm smiling.  And then out of the corner of my eye I notice a tall thin guy wearing black.  He's unshaven.  He's relaxed. He's looking at me quizzically.  He has warm eyes which belie his biker's jacket.  He's takes a cigarette from behind his ear, smells it, lights it with a bronze zippo and takes a long satisfied drag.  He seems to have made his mind up about something.  He waits for me to finish my song, steps in close, clapping with the fag in his teeth smiling and hollers, 'Bravo!'

'You are busker, no?'

A comedian.

I nod.

'Zeez no good 'ere.  We French not give money to busker 'ere in street.  You want money, zen eez better in front of cafe.'  He's pointing over to La Place de la Comedie.  He takes another drag of his cigarette and I notice he's got black finger nails.  He thrusts his hand out. 'Vincent'.  I must look either as if I haven't him or am sceptical about what he's saying because he tries again.  I nod.  'Thank you,' I say, 'I'm Charlie.' 

I shake his hand, walk out into the street, put the guitar back in its case, bend down to click the hasps back shut and when I stand up, I find that Vincent's gone.