X-Pickpocket Girl

While I busked at the Grand Central Station’s Shuttle to Time Square the girl who used to be a pickpocket in the subway came to say ‘hi’. I haven’t seen her in a long time. She now has beautiful blond hair. She told me that she is back to work on the trains (as a busker, not as a pickpocket… She sings a-capella). A lady in her neighborhood hates her, she told me, and got her fired from her job. “But that lady now has Cancer”, she said, “so it’s like she got her punishment”. According to the x-pickpocket girl, that lady lied to the Police, telling them that the x-pickpocket girl was plotting to bomb the train. As a result the x-pickpocket girl was thrown in jail for three days, interrogated and strip-searched.

Photographer: © Aaron Porter

I continued playing my music. Half an hour later the x-pickpocket girl returned. She asked me about auditioning for a Music Under New York permit to perform in the NYC subway.