Money Dummy

THE HOUR WAS growing late and the hustle and bustle of Central Park’s Great Lawn was steadily decreasing, as was the number of people willing to toss loose change or bills into the upside down baseball cap that lay at my feet. An elderly gentleman approached and I stood erect, a phony clenchedtoothed smile plastered across my face.

The old man, clearly fighting to keep a straight face, leaned in close and asked, “I'm sorry, but aren't you exploiting child labor?” Before I could respond, my 30inch companion snapped, “Damn straight he is! Worse than exploiting! See those dollar bills in that hat? I'm not gonna see a damn cent!” The old man chuckled and went on his way, but my own smile quickly faded as I shivered from the increasing cold. Yes, the joke, truly, was on me. At 26 years old, my wild ambition, multiple talents and considerable charm had brought me here: begging for money in Central Park with a ventriloquist dummy named Charlie.

To be fair, it was curiosity as much as desperation that had led me here. I've been performing on and off as a ventriloquist for years and have always wondered what kind of cash I might make busking. That said, in the past, the potential humiliation had always kept me from taking any action. Now, though, with my longtime movie studio job suddenly vanished like smoke, it seemed to matter less what anyone else thought. I could actually use the cash. So, during an unusually sunny week, I decided the time had come to take charge, man up and bring my puppet to the park.

On my first day, I spent nearly as much time scouting out a good location as I did performing. I eventually settled on the large terrace surrounding Bethesda Fountain and, upon taking out the dummy, was almost immediately surrounded by a large group of high schoolers on a class trip. I'm actually doing this, I thought to myself, and realized that I wasn't sure my regular material would really be adequate for such an interactive kind of venue. I did my best, though, telling some stock jokes, and managed to keep them entertained long enough for them to laugh, take some pictures and walk away without leaving me so much as a quarter.

I proceeded to spend the next few hours performing near the fountain, telling jokes and singing songs, mostly for children or tourists. And while the awkwardness never quite wore off and the money rarely came in, I did manage to enjoy myself, at least some of the time.

As it got later, I grew curious about what other performers were working the park and what might happen if I tried to engage them. For whatever reason, I had an image of the other performers as being bitter or territorial, but was that really accurate?

I spotted a female flamenco dancer performing with castanets near the fountain. “Mind if we join you?” I asked and soon Charlie and the dancer were interlocked in an old Spanish courting dance from the 1800s, as I struggled to keep up alongside them. A writer by day and burlesque dancer by night, “Grace Gotham” told me she'd started dancing in the park for fun, “but people kept telling me to put out a hat or something, so I did.” As for me, though, I couldn't help but be disappointed to discover, upon counting my earnings, that I'd only made a measly five bucks.

My second day in the park, I picked a far more strategic position, the wide path that surrounds the Great Lawn.There were no other performers in sight, perhaps because they prefer more open areas where people can easily congregate, but I found that the increased foot traffic more than made up for any spatial disadvantages.

There was, however, one major problem with my new location.With so many people around, I kept running into ones I knew (including, woe unto me, one colleague from my old job). In all cases, I claimed I was just doing this as a social experiment. My friends and acquaintances would nod and smile, but I knew what they were really thinking: Social experiment my ass, puppet boy.

After several hours of successful busking, with 20 minutes or so of sunlight remaining and a fairly respectable $26 in my cap, I approached a young, Mediterranean-looking hipster with a black guitar case. “Let's make a deal,” I said. “You take out that guitar and play, I'll take out my dummy and he'll sing, and whatever we make, we split 50-50.”

We sat ourselves at the edge of a fountain and, for about 15 minutes, my new friend churned out beautiful classical guitar pieces as Charlie did his best to improvise decent lyrics and melody lines. Once the sun had descended too low to continue, we formally introduced ourselves. The young virtuoso's name was Javier Escudero, and he'd come from Spain on a special music scholarship that allowed him to play anywhere he wanted, under the tutelage of anyone he wanted. “New York is the greatest city in the world,” he told me, listing some of the incredible opportunities he'd come into since arriving here. “These things, they just don't happen in small towns.”

I turned to my dummy and contemplated the past few months, how they had taken me from a relatively comfortable existence with a steady income to doing what I was doing now. But somehow, I didn't feel any bitterness.This is a city that has long been characterized by struggle, as much as by the incredible ways it can sometimes reward that struggle. I was doing my part, so now, as Ol’ Blue Eyes once sang, “It's up to you, New York, New York.”