My People--or--Brother David Does the Lord's Work

I've been busking for three months now, and I feel, I've pretty much settled in. I have my regulars, people who walk by daily. They seem to spend their lunch hour in the food court or just walking around. There are others who pass by repeatedly during the course of my two-hour performance. Many of them work in the stores and restaurants in the station.
There's my returned Chinese opera singer. The first time she saw me, she stopped to listen. She was with an elderly gentleman. I figured they were husband and wife. She told me she loved my voice and the way I sang. She bought a cd. I thanked her and the older man pulled out his wallet and threw in another dollar. The next day they returned. She told me her son put the cd on in his car that night, and she loved it. "Very relaxing," she said. That's what most people say about August Sky songs. Very relaxing.
Since then I have learned her name. She explained that she is now the caretaker for the elderly judge and spends her days accompanying him to his office, where he still shows up every day in the courthouse. She walks him through the concourse at lunchtime. One time as they were walking by, she smiled and broke into a short aria in Chinese, with a flair of her hand in the air. The judge smiled and shook his head.
There was also the Czech composer, probably in his seventies, who had just had a world premier of his work performed. He stopped to chat and said he liked what I was doing. And the jazz pianist, also in his seventies, who still plays standards at an Italian restaurant. He talked about arrangement of "Autumn Leaves," how he like the jazzy chords I was using. Since then he's been by three times.
Many musicians stop by to chat. There's the harmonica player, the first music major at Temple University to major in harmonica. And there the flute player I met ten years ago while busking in Rittenhouse Square. There's the ten-year-old recorder player who said he was raising money for his school and set up his stage at the end of my corridor and played. I gave him a buck from my case. Then he said he needed to make sixteen more dollars before the end of the day and if I could help him out. I told him, in that case, I guess he'd just have to go play more music. He was a cool little kid though.
Every day I stop at a Chinese-owned lunch counter to buy a bottle of water. Something about this humble restaurant attracted me. The food is inexpensive and they sell beer by the bottle, so it doubles as a poor man's bar. Coffee is only fifty cents. Men and women buy forty-ounce bottles of beer and sit for hours and the owners don't mind. They have good lunch specials, and on good days I'll treat myself to the scallops after singing. Most of all, they are very friendly to me. The mother and father own the store. Their son works behind the counter, and there are two cooks, one Black and one Hispanic.
Occasionally I meet religious people, who seek me out and ask me if I've accepted the Lord, Jesus Christ, as my savior. They are usually very nice to me. Once, while I was sitting in the Chinese lunch counter, two older African-American women asked me if I would join them at their prayer group later that day. I thanked them, but told them I had to sing, so they held my hands and prayed for me. They called me Brother David. Another time, as I was singing, an African-American couple stopped to listen, then told me I was blessed, for I was making music, and the Lord would be pleased. We exchanged names, and she introduced me to her pastor husband as Brother David. They prayed for me and for me to continue doing the Lord's work of making music.
I feel blessed. I am weaving a tapestry of people and it feels good to be part of this community.