One time, for one brief moment, I was Bob Dylan.
There’s very few places in America that actually seem different from anywhere else. A lot of it has to do with the architecture. New Orleans, probably my favorite city I ever lived in. It’s a very free place, you go there to lose yourself, not to find yourself.
One day I was hanging out with some street performing friends of mine. Musician types, Roy and Tender. Roy was an old style blues player. Sang while he played and everything was in open D tuning. Tender didn’t really sing, but he could play his cherry red electric Fender like he was Jimi Hendrix.
We were sitting in the usual spot on the corner of Royal and Ursulines playing guitar. Passing the time and the hat. Another guy with a guitar came over and introduced himself. I don’t remember his name. He had a scraggly beard and a not-all-together kind of look. To say disheveled would be to not say enough. He was a street rat, but he was nice.
I asked if he knew how to play any Bob Dylan songs. He said he actually met Bob Dylan. Said he was real nice to him. I started playing, he followed along. We were all singing:
“I came in from the wilderness A creature void of form Come in she said I’ll give you Shelter from the storm.” We sang two or maybe three songs together. But I was running late, I had things to go do.
One day, maybe a week or so later, I woke up really early. 9:30 AM in New Orleans is way early. I went out, grabbed some of those premade chicken popper things from the store and waltzed down the block humming to myself.
A man’s voice softly hollered “can I have a piece of chicken?” I turned and looked at him, I looked at my chicken, I took a piece out, stuffed it in my mouth and handed him all the rest of them. He looked surprised and kept saying thank you over and over. Honestly I wasn’t that hungry anyways. I just kept going down the block. I was maybe five paces when I turned back. I felt like I recognized him. Over my shoulder I said “Do I know you?”
He said “yeah, you’re Bob Dylan.”
I chuckled and waltzed away humming:
“I offered up my innocence I got repaid with scorn Come in she said I’ll give you Shelter from the storm.”