All it takes is a beat up piano, a mobile, and the truth

It happened about seven months after moving to New York. I stopped being so aware of everything around me. I carried my iPhone with me, turned up the tunes, and drowned out the babble around me. People in New York City talk a lot, about everything, and very loudly sometimes. Every once in a while, you need to take a break. I hear some of the most private and revelatory things on the subway. I can’t stand it.

So, benumbed and anticipating another long anxious winter of early evenings and cold weather, I trodded down the stairs of Union Station and landed on the N Train platform.

New York always surprises. As I walked down towards my favorite spot on the platform, I could hear over my headphones the tinny sound of a beat up piano. Peculiar.

And then I spotted him. Hard to miss. The Crazy Piano Guy. Sitting in the middle of the platform on a piano he bought on Craig’s List for US$200, the guy was banging out a pretty decent ragtime ditty.

The people on the platform had stopped to watch. He was getting a lot of attention.

Three trains went by. An R, a W and then the Q. I could have taken them. I waited. The N train came by. I got on. When I left, he was being congratulated for his audacity in wheeling a whole upright piano intot he subway and delighting the commuters who had had a long day. One woman shook his hand. “You go for it. You keep it up!” she said. He gave her a thumbs-up.