*******

I have always loved music. Growing up, I worked as a newsboy, hawking the headlines with my best friends and all the while wishing for a musical career. Once, I tried being a street musician, but pianos are hard to move from buildings to street corners; I learned that the hard way.

Now I'm twenty-eight years of age. Can you believe that? Kid Blink, the twenty-eight-year-old piano man who works in the speakeasy on the corner of Broadway and 32nd.

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday,
The regular crowd shuffles in;
There's an old man sitting next to me
Making love to his tonic and gin.

I look at the greasy drunk who has made himself welcome on the left half of my piano bench as I try to keep my tempo. He reeks of alcohol, and his speech is so slurred that I can barely understand a word of it.

He says, "Son, can you play me a melody?
"I'm not really sure how it goes.
"But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes."

Not exactly sure what song he wants me to play, I ask him. He looks distant and tries to sing the melody to me, but I can't pick up on the scattered notes. Shaking my head, I tell the man that I don't know the song and continue on with my current piece. Several bums in my crowd begin to call to me.

"Sing us a song, you're the piano man.
"Sing us a song tonight.
"We're all in the mood for a melody,
"And you've got us feeling all right."

When my song is done, I abandon my piano and sheet music for a hard drink. Stretching my sore fingers, I make my way to the bar.

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine.
He gets me my drinks for free.
And he's quick with a joke, or to light up your smoke
But there's someplace that he'd rather be.

John has always called me "Bill" for some unexplained reason. Maybe it's because he wants to call me something rather than "Kid Blink", which is the name I've always answered to. It's funny, but I don't remember my real name.

He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me,"
As the smile ran away from his face.
"I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place."

I smile because John tells me this every day. He wants to star alongside some gorgeous broad in a silent film. I tell him I don't know why he would want to be on camera for everybody to see, but he just smiles and tells me that I don't understand and that I would if I'd worked in a bar all my life. Smiling again, I tell him that he's had too many drinks to be tending the bar and that he needs to take a break.

Paul comes sauntering through the door at that moment and sits down in the chair beside mine. He's a forty- year-old bachelor who comes in every day to have a drink and hear my music.

Now Paul is a real-estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife.
And he's talking with Davey, who's still in the navy
And probably will be for life.

Thinking back on my few years of friendship with David Jacobs, I smile. He joined the navy in 1903 and plans to stay in for the rest of his life. Paul is good friends with Dave and they keep in touch, so I get the news from the South Carolina coast often enough.

Now the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned.
They're sharing a drink they call lonliness,
But it's better than drinking alone.

My crowd begins calling to me again.

"Sing us a song, you're the piano man.
"Sing us a song tonight.
"We're all in the mood for a melody,
"And you've got us feeling all right."

Putting my glass down on the counter, I stand up and, stretching my sore fingers, make my way back to the piano. I survey the crowded speakeasy as I pick a path to the piano.

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday.
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows it's me they've been coming to see
To forget about life for a while.

I sit down on the wooden piano bench and quickly select a song. I begin to sing and play.

And the piano, it sounds like a carnival.
And the microphone smells like a beer.
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, "Man, what are you doing here?"

As I finish the song, I hear the slurred voices of the bums calling.

"Sing us a song, you're the piano man.
"Sing us a song tonight.
"We're all in the mood for a melody,
"And you've got us feeling all right."

And I have to smile, because I'm the piano man, and they come to hear me sing and play. I can't let my crowd down.