Nobody likes the Middle Man

Was cruising around on my bike down in L5P, wrapping the day up with some urban gliding and a little people watching. The Square was swarming with human traffic. Couples sleepwalking hand in hand through the vagrant clusters, small migratory herds of tween shoppers watching wearily the gutter punks sitting along the store fronts. Spare change hustles, cell phone conversations, gawking OTP tourists, Krishna elevator pitches, shrieking laughter of young ladies and through it all I suddenly hear behind a violin playing Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony'. I turn my bike around and glide her through the crowd. Up ahead is a young African-American woman, with hair straightened and a bright blue lock dangling in front of her wide eyes. She's got the violin crooked between chin and shoulder and she weaves the notes a little clumsily but with a beauty that touches me in a place past this melancholy I labor under of late.

I brake to a stop by her side to drop a few singles into her violin case. This startles the violinist and with wide apprehensive eyes she immediately stops playing.

"It's really nice, I haven't heard that song in forever." I say reaching behind for my wallet.

She just nods nervously, watching my hand as it withdraws my wallet. She looks at the wallet like its loaded with a badge and I'm gonna flash her some citation or ticket her up. Instead I slip out two singles and drop them in the case.

"Thanks" The violinist mutters and reluctantly goes back to playing... a different song. Something classical I vaguely recognize off NPR.

I turn my bike back and there's a row of gutter punks staring at me. Occupy Terminus in full effect. At the sight of me a few of them throw bandanas up over their faces or cloak their eyes with a pull of their hoodies.

"Hey officer!" A young hobo in a Cannibal Corpse shirt and a black baseball cap fitted with spikes. His girlfriend, dirty chubby face and unkempt dreads pulled back, snarls at me in perfect reflection of her dog.

I snort a laugh and pedal off. I can feel the heat of their derision and the glare of their rage simmering on my back.

Funny, ten minutes up from here and the cops slow down to a cruise watching me suspiciously from their squad cars and trying to figure out what the 'white boy' is doing in the Old Fourth Ward. Not but three months ago in fact I got grilled by three of the biggest mother-fuckers with badges I've ever seen. They made me for a vagrant when they realized I didn't have enough cash on me to score whatever it is they thought I was looking for.

I guess that's me of late... trapped in a world where the angels and the devils think I'm each others side. Life in limbo it is then...