Vocal Legal Tender?

So last week I went to a concert at First Ave. The show itself was entirely uneventful, but this happened to me outside:

I step out for a cigarette between acts like I always do, when some creeper with long ass crackhead fingernails staggers up to me to bum a smoke. I know what it's like to really want a cigarette, so I never say no when people ask for one. Even when they're crackheads. While I'm digging through my purse to find my pack, Scratchy McCrackhead offers to sing me a song in exchange for the smoke. I try to tell him that there's really no need, but he insists. And then he breaks into song.

His eyes half closed as he lost himself in the song, and he threw in an arrhythmic finger snap that must have been included purely for showmanship. He was singing some Michael Jackson ballad, though it was hard to determine which one given the lack of discernable melody. All I know is that it lasted forever. Between each verse I tried to inch away, hoping he was finished. But he just kept leaning in, singing his heart out, right in my face.

People were definitely staring.