There are good days, there are bad days, and there are days like Thursday.

The space north and east of the fountain was paved with plywood. A few folding tables were scattered about; there was a tented area in the NE corner, and a generator parked by the path. A couple of guys were milling around; this was no place to set up.

I kept going, past Nick, to my spot under the maple. As I unpacked, however, I heard the echoing blare of a saxophone. It came from under the bridge to the east and could not be ignored. So I tried moving westward up the path, but the sax just mocked me. “Saxophones, trumpets and drums should be outlawed,” Arlen once told me, adding, “and ukuleles.”

I set up on the westernmost edge of the path, just as it entered Bethesda Terrace. For the first hour of my set, the dismantling of the plywood stage proceeded apace. Three guys stacked the wood onto a forklift, which then drove the load right past me. I sucked in my gut as it rolled by. “Don’t worry about that guy, he’s cool,” I heard the forklift driver say to his flagman, referring, I do believe, to me. It took 3 round trips to clear the area.

My first and only dollar came from a woman rushing by who said, “I’m going tomorrow, to Hawaii.” She was gone before I could ask her if she’d like to brush up on her hula before she got there.

While I packed up, a couple of EMTs strolled past the fountain to the lake. They were dressed in heavy clothes and boots with lots of metal devices hanging from their belts. With their hands on their hips, faces uplifted, they invited the cooling breezes. No one I could see looked sick.

Such was not the case at the Imagine Mosaic. One of the homeless guys was stretched out in a stupor. The joke man shook him, saying, “Michael, you gotta get up. Wake up, man,” while 2 EMTs stood by, and another 2 talked quietly with a few of the regulars. Out on the road among the pedicabs, 2 FDNY vehicles idled in wait.

On balance, I was lucky to get out of there alive.