Violence in the early morning
It was a cloudy morning during the week. I arrived at the busking pitch around 10 am and waited for my friend to come. He was playing guitar during my show and significantly increased my income by doing so. Another busker showed up just a little bit later on. A dancer and occasional drug dealer. We all agreed to wait until 11:00 to start playing. Â So far, it was just me, my friend with the guitar, and the dancer. As we waited, a man, carrying a 12 pack of beers, approached me: âHey, do you want a beer?â âNo, thank you. Itâs not even noon yet,â I said. âWhat about you guys?â he asked my friend and the dancer. They both declined. As the guitar player and I slowly started setting up our equipment, the man asked us again and again if we wanted a beer. We repeatedly declined. The man had sat down on a bench, close to the busking pitch, and continued drinking. But he wouldnât stop talking to us, asking us to join him in his alcoholism. We finished setting up and were getting ready to play our first song. By now, the dancer was getting annoyed at the guy. He told him a couple times to leave us alone, but the drunk didnât listen. We started playing and quickly gathered a crowd that applauded after we had finished the first song. We played the next one. By now, the dancer had gotten into a heated argument with the drunk, and it had escalated to them going head to head, right behind me, while I was sitting on my little keyboard playing upbeat songs about love. The dancer loudly told the man to back off, but he didnât budge. So he punched the man in the face. The man fell over backward, and his head bounced off the concrete. He was out cold immediately. The dancer bent down and punched the man again, UFC style, before backing away. The crowd in front of us was stunned. My friend and I finished the song to confused and sparse applause and stopped playing. I turned around. The man was knocked out, and blood was dripping down from his head onto the ground. A small puddle of blood formed next to him, and somebody called the police. They arrived shortly after and quickly taped off the entire busking pitch and arrested the dancer. While they put the handcuffs on him, he asked me for a favor: "David, my backpack. Take care of it." Oh, his backpack. He wants me to give it to him. I thought. I quickly got the backpack and showed it to him, but he was obviously unable to grab it with his hands cuffed behind his back. His eyes grew wide. He shook his head. "No, no, man. put it back." I didn't fully understand. "I thought you want..." His face grew more intense: "Put it back," he said through clenched teeth. I put the backpack back to where it was. Then it dawned on me. The backpack was where he kept the drugs. I had almost made his situation much worse by giving him a backpack full of drugs that the police would inevitably go through.
The knocked-out man kept lying on the ground and didn't move for about an hour before the ambulance came and took him away. Afterward, another police car came, with people in apocalyptic hazmat suits that investigated the crime scene.
I played one more show that day, in another place, but everything felt quite odd. As far as I know, the man is alive and well. I haven't seen the dancer in a long time.














