“Trade you for a Starburst.”
“What color?” said Danny.
Tim fished around in his pocket. “Red,” he said, inspecting the sweet.
“Deal.”
“I love chocolate limes,” said Tim as he unwrapped the sweet and popped it into his mouth. “They remind me of my gran. She was like a chocolate lime dispenser.”
“Yeah, well, they remind me of what a stupid idea this whole thing was.”
“Hey, I was performing for weeks before somebody gave me my first chocolate lime. Stay positive, you’re making progress.”
“Not fast enough,” said Danny, closing his lunchbox with a sigh and stuffing it into his bag. “How long have you been doing this anyway?”
“Four years. I used to come here to practice whenever my housemates at uni got sick of the noise. I wasn’t planning on making a living out of it or anything, but, well, I wasn’t planning on being adopted by a cat either.”
“You two seem like a pretty good team,” said Danny, nodding at Milton.
“Team?” said Tim. He laughed. “This isn’t a team, this is a prolonged hostage crisis. One day I found him asleep in my guitar case and he’s followed me around ever since.”
“What were you studying at uni? Music?”
“Finance.”
Danny laughed. “Seriously?” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just… you don’t exactly look like the finance type.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Tim. “I wanted to be an investment banker, believe it or not. Correction: my mum wanted me to be an investment banker and, well, she was paying for my education so I didn’t really have much say in the matter.”
“I bet she wasn’t too happy when you dropped out, then,” said Danny.
“You think I’m a dropout just because I play a guitar and have a cat on my shoulder?”
“No, I think you’re a dropout because you’re literally wearing a badge that says DROPOUT,” said Danny. He pointed to a cluster of colorful pin buttons that decorated Tim’s breast pocket.
“Oh. Yeah. I just bought that because it seemed edgier than a badge that said MASTER OF FINANCE on it.”
“So you graduated?”
“Top of my class.”
“Then no offense or anything, but what the hell are you doing here? You could be raking it in, mate, you don’t need to be doing this.”
“Most of us don’t need to be doing this. We do it because we enjoy it. This isn’t the Foreign Legion, you know. People don’t just become street performers because they’re in some kind of trouble. Well, apart from you. No offense or anything.” Tim smiled.
“Touché,” said Danny.
“I tried it for a couple of years. The banking thing. I hated it. The money was good but I was totally miserable, and so was everybody I worked with. Whoever said that money can buy you happiness clearly had no idea what they were on about.”
“Nobody said that,” said Danny.
“What?”
“Nobody ever said money can buy happiness. They said money can’t buy happiness.”
“Really?”
“Pretty sure, yeah.”
“Then my mum’s full of shit,” said Tim.
“Well, money seems to make him happy,” said Danny, nodding at El Magnifico, who was busy counting his bills for the umpteenth time.
“It’s basically the only thing he cares about. Well, that and his gown. He’s very attached to the gown. Some kid accidentally stepped on it once and he threatened to fucking destroy them. Those were his actual words. The mother was quite rightly mortified.”
“It’s not even a gown, it’s a woman’s bathrobe. He stole it from his ex-girlfriend.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“No, I mean are you sure he has an ex-girlfriend? Like, a real one?”
“Oh, she’s real all right,” said Danny. “Real mean. Incredible dancer, though, I’ve never seen anything like it. I asked her to teach me but, well, she called me a twat and gave me the finger. And then robbed me.”
“Maybe she’d be more willing to help if you came bearing gifts.”
“Like what? I can’t even afford the bus ride home.”
“How about a nice silk bathrobe?” said Tim, his eyes fixed on El Magnifico, who had finally stopped counting his money and was now carefully folding up his gown. They both watched him slide the garment into his bag.
“We can’t,” said Danny.
“Why?”
“Because. It’s stealing.”
“You can’t steal something that’s already stolen. It’s like, you know, double jeopardy or whatever. And anyway, think of it as payback for stealing your clothes.”
“We don’t know for a fact that was him.”
“The human statue saw him do it. She told me.”
“And she didn’t try to stop him?”
“She didn’t want to break character.”
“Brilliant,” said Danny. He chewed his lip and stared at El Magnifico. “Okay, how are we going to do this?”
Tim grinned.
“Follow me,” he said.
* * *
El Magnifico was busy emptying his sleeves of flowers, playing cards, and colorful strings of handkerchiefs. He didn’t see Tim approaching.
“Milton’s written a song for you,” said the musician. “Want to hear it?”
El Magnifico ignored him.
“Great,” said Tim, strumming his guitar and twiddling the tuning pegs until he found the sound he wanted. He cleared his throat and began to sing in the style of a medieval ballad.
“There once lived a rubbish wizard, his gaze was icy like a blizzard, his face was ugly, like a lizard, his name was El Magnifico.”
“Go away, hippie,” said El Magnifico without turning around.
“He liked to dress in women’s clothes, he wore a bathrobe to his shows, beneath it he wore pantyhose, and not just at the weekend.”
“I’m warning you,” said El Magnifico, unaware that Danny had crept up behind him as he turned to face Tim. “Leave now, while you’re still not on fire.”
“He thought he could set things alight, with nothing but his mental might, his face would go all red and bright, but nothing ever happened.”
“Right!” said El Magnifico. “You’ve asked for it!” He pointed at Milton. “Say good-bye to your little friend!” He placed his fingers on his temples and grimaced like he’d stubbed his toe. He didn’t see Danny gently tugging the robe from his bag.
“Then one day his head went bang! ‘Thank God for that!’ the people sang, flowers bloomed and church bells rang, and world peace shortly followed.”
El Magnifico started to tremble like the back row of an adult movie theater. Behind him, Danny gave Tim the thumbs-up and tiptoed away with the robe under his arm. Tim nodded and began to walk off in the opposite direction.
“That’s the ending of this tale, now it’s time for us to bail, ’cos H&M are having a sale, and Milton wants a turtleneck sweater.”