The drum cracked and echoed through the air. The unceremonious opening to a musical concert held for humans and hummingbirds alike. Sitting there, surrounded by upside down buckets, Owen was only faintly aware of the slowly gathering crowd. He wore a stained white t-shirt with an unidentifiable faded graphic across the chest. The sleeves had been torn off exposing his pale wiry arms. A barely legible tattoo on his upper forearm read Play Louder.
It was a typical spring day in New York City. Central Park was overrun with tourists chasing the perfect pictures found only in postcards and travel guides. Locals stretched their legs, relishing in the sunshine, celebrating the end of a long winter’s reign. The ground was still cold. The grass hadn’t yet transformed into its warm midsummer bedding. Soon enough though, barely clothed bodies would gather in the heat and melt into the field’s earthly embrace. Central Park in the summer was a feast for the eyes. Spring, however, was merely New York City’s brief moment to wipe away our winter slumber. Owen took to his perch in the park like a bird returning home.
His cargo pants smelled of stale air and steel from huddling in subway stations all winter. But now he could stretch his legs. His ankles poked out from the bottoms of his pants exposing course black hair and stained socks. Owen liked the sound his odd collection of buckets made when he could finally bring them back outside. In the subway he had to compete with the thundering trains and clumsy commuters. His backdrop of stained tiles and corroded pillars was replaced by painted skies and sprouting shrubs. But none of that mattered to Owen. He only noticed the pace. Out here, everybody was smiling. Nobody was in a hurry.
The seductive tap or strike of his drumstick caught the ear of the unwitting passerby. The sounds carried past the under-groomed hot dog vendor and rustled up through the barely blooming trees. He wielded his wooden sticks like a sculptor with a chisel, carving his story in the wind.
Owen didn’t play for the money. He played because he had no choice. If he went too long without banging on something, the tapping he heard inside his head became intolerable; a mental metronome that was both his savior and his tormenter. But on days like this, he let himself be consumed by sound. The harder he played the lighter he felt. Until he was floating. Swimming in a pulsing ocean of music, the ebb and flow of the tides shaped by every beat. Slow rippling followed by crashing crescendos.
By now he felt a significant crowd gather around him. Passerby drawn in by the undertow of sound. Even the trees seemed to lean in. Owen's hands rumbled like the corridors of Grand Central Station at rush hour, ignited by the heat of the crowd. Faster and louder. He surrendered to the chaos, like pressure valve finally flipped open. And then, quiet. The last strike of the drum carried more silence then it did noise. It rang across the park on a gust of wind—and then it was gone. Owen felt the stillness. This was the moment he played for. The only time when the world went mute around him. The only time that metronome in his head skipped a beat.
After a long breath his heart began to beat again. The birds chirped, the wind rustled, and the applause of the crowed rained over him. He reached down and grabbed for his baseball cap, now filled with a couple bucks and some change. As he stacked his buckets, the circle of people that surrounded him returned to their individual paths and disappeared into the park. The sun was warm on his face and the city lay black all around him. He replaced his drumsticks with a walking stick and ventured out into the darkness.