I see you

He is there each day. The cup does not jangle or bounce with coins. He switches to the next song, cane leaning, his voice rising and trembling but also confident as if he sings them to an old friend. I always drop a few pesos. I love his frail sweet voice. I could never sing like that.

I am in Oaxaca, at a film festival, crowding into rooms, rubbing elbows, swapping business cards, laughing too loud, talking too low after I lose my voice one more time, exhausted, sweaty, riding a series of waves towards a shore that keeps getting farther away.

And then I am back in this crumbling street and there he is, singing those old songs. He is the constant, the sun, the rain. I am wild-eyed and half-drunk, propped up on late afternoon coffee, on ambition, a record jumping around the grooves maybe going nowhere fast. Then I stop, buy a plastic cup of horchata from a woman with three teeth that smiles like she just won the lottery. I sit on old stones, smelling gasoline and burnt corn, cigarettes and stray dogs. The sun is swooping low across the rooftops now. Soon night will come, the next networking party, the next parade of smiles and handshakes, stale jokes and cold beer. I think he goes home then, because I do not see him at night. I wonder if he has a family, or maybe just a cat that greets him at the door with a healthy rub against his leg.

If only he could know that I see him and he helps me.