You’re looking at a Wednesday day and the following Thursday day (after tip out and stage). I can tell you where some of that money did not come from: an old regular asked to sit at my rack on Wednesday and pay me on Thursday. This means that he did not have the $2 in order to tip me $1 per song. He explained that he was waiting for his unemployment check to go though. It was hard to stay mad at his broke ass.
“So you’re a bisexual, right?”
“What? Yeah…why?”
“Well, I’m bifocal! What do you think about that?”
It was so stupid. I died laughing. Like head back, good posture out the window, half naked body heaving and contorted with laughter. It was a shame that he had no money anymore and was useless. As if he could sense this, he asked if I needed anything from the bar. I wanted a Sprite, which he then confessed was out of his budget and that he was thinking more along the lines of…water. I think I must have looked at him with pity. He volunteered that he had a little bit of money, but that he needed to ration it for cat food. I imagined him buying a single can of wet food with pennies and it made me sad.
He pulled a mint out of his pocket and offered it to me. “Did you just get that from the jar on the bar?” It was a nice gesture, but really, I could pick a mint out myself and it wouldn’t be warm from traveling around in his pants.
“Oh! Uh, where did I get this?”
“You got that from the jar of mints, didn’t you?”
“Oh…I guess you must be right!”
I pointed out that the sole of my shoe needed to get glued and that it was talking to him. He exclaimed that he had double-sided tape in his car, “That has to be worth $2!”
“Well, I could use it.”
“Great, I’ll go get it.”
Except, he suddenly gave me a hug goodbye and ran off before I could even ask what all that tape talk was about. He never came back the next day. I’ve seen him since then but he hasn’t paid me. I hope the cat is okay.