I have this thing I do: I stand completely still in a long dress, in silver makeup, and wait for people to pay me a dollar. When they do, I sing an aria and move. For a brief minute, unimaginably loud and beautiful sounds come out of my gullet. Then I return to my prison of immobility, eyes unblinking, gaze fixed, and thoughts going everywhere. During my motionless hours, I am perfecting the understanding of herd psychology as they swim pass; unable to look in their eyes directly, I read their sudden hesitations, the groping of pockets for change, the dance of the bodies of couples and children circling their parents; I am a tactician of peripheral sightlines. I am, for 3 hours of every day, a living statue.
Sometimes I pick a ledge to stand on, like a gargoyle over the people, but today, I was set up on the street level, on my hidden milk crate, but within reaching distance of all who cared to cross the line. Usually noone but the children do, with their grabbing hands or pokey twisted balloons, but today a homeless alcoholic guy walked right up to me and started to talk to me. After five minutes of no reaction—I am, after all, a statue—he holds my hand and starts fondling my fingers. He wants, he wants, and I am not giving, just as I don't give to everyone else who gawks by without a dollar. But he stays and moves in closer. I understand this is a longer, more involved problem. Here is a quandary. Not only will noone put a dollar in while this is happening, but I am unprotected, touched, invaded and unmoving. No sooner does the fear present itself to me, than the crowd gathers, attracted to the real smell of panic. Predictably, one man crosses the arena in front of us and as he leaves, shoots over his shoulder "Leave her alone, man" which gets an aggressive remark or two from the alcoholic, his breath covering me like a rotten bathmat as he barks back. He returns to me, fondling some more with what would seem like tenderness, were it not out of bounds. (Although, with a living statue, where is the rule book?) In my attempt to be motionless, something that passes for reciprocal pressure crosses between our hands as he takes his fingers down through mine. He grunts with pleasure. The crowd is thicker now. Are they coming to watch the relationship between invader and his territory? Or are they coming out of concern? I am the artist, the woman, the operatic ivory tower. I am being defiled and they are gathering. I am fixed on a point above their heads, and my eyes feel desperate, but I know they only look blue to the people. Time passes. I breathe very little. He remains. "Sing something for me, give it to me." Moments turn and something changes. My immobility becomes protection. It is dawning on us both. What is it that he will do, with all these people gathering, silent witnesses. His performance has been noticed, he is noticed. What new act of aggression will he perform on the inert? It is only a matter of time before the possibilities of acts upon me, become less interesting to him than our audience itself. His desire turns to boredom and he ambles over to a group of teenagers laughing in a cluster at the front.
The people start paying like never before.