Man on the Corner Sings Praises of Generous Fans

He asked that he be called “Isaac,” as if it was close enough.

Isaac, then.

“I get to know people,” he said. “People get to know me. I sing for them.”

On the corner of 11th and Figueroa streets, two hours before the Lakers would play the Indiana Pacers for the NBA championship, Isaac sang, softly.

“See the man,

“Give a hand.

“Oh, put a little love in your heart.”

No one stared. No one laughed.

But neither did they add to the 11 shiny pennies sitting in the bottom of Isaac’s paper cup.

The Lakers won’t be the champions of Isaac’s world. He has a girlfriend and a daughter in one of the run-down hotels nearby, and in a few hours they’d all be at the mission, at Los Angeles and 4th streets, for dinner.

No, Isaac’s champion will be the guy in $120 trousers and a $600 sport coat on his way to his $1,600 seat who crams a fistful of change in the Burger King cup.

Isaac, 45, has deep brown eyes that blur into yellow on the edges of his irises. His eyelids are heavy, but he raised them easily at the thought of all that money rushing past.

“You can’t give me a quarter out of that?,” he asked. “Don’t be so selfish.”

Room and board: This is Isaac’s favorite corner, particularly when the Lakers play, but primarily because he got his first $20 bill here. Clipper, King, Avenger fans, concert-goers, they don’t have the money or just won’t give it. But a Laker fan gave him $20.

He said he’s never gotten so much as a nickel from the celebrities who slide so elegantly from their limousines. But celebrities aren’t the only folks with money, not on these nights on these streets, when the Laker season extends well into June and the people who pass are happy and basketball drunk.

Isaac can earn about $250 on game days, he said, money that pays the hotel bill. There are three more Laker games, at the outside, at Staples Center. After that, he’ll have to see about the hotel.

“No, it’s not embarrassing, not now,” he said. “I feel like I’m doing fund-raising. That’s what I tell myself. Once you get past that, it’s OK.”

A big loss: He wasn’t always destitute. Isaac said he had a job at UCLA up until about six months ago. He landscaped and cooked.

He tugged at the tattered sleeve of his black jacket and shrugged. It wasn’t always this way, he said.

“My second wife,” he said, “she ran off with $500,000.”

Half-a-million dollars?

“In cash,” he said without blinking.

He said he’s working back toward it. He shook his Burger King cup. Eleven pennies at a time.

It’s not the Fed: Not far from Isaac’s corner, the economy of the streets was a little slower for Keith Johnson.

Johnson, from Carson, said he was 14, but he looked about a foot short for 14. He carried a Nike shoe box under his right arm.

“Excuse me, sir,” Johnson would say when he discovered a friendly face, “would like to buy some candy for my youth-program field trip?”

Then he’d open the box that once contained hundreds of dollars worth of sneakers, showing candy bars and licorice.

“Five dollars,” he’d say.

“Where’s the field trip?,” he was asked.

“Magic Mountain, sir,” he said.

He hadn’t yet sold a candy bar, two hours into his shift.

“That’s OK, though, sir,” he said. “I’m just working hard.”

What about the people who pass, he was asked. They won’t buy?

“I guess not,” he said. “I’m asking them and they’re saying no.”

Overheard: A man in khakis and a Hawaiian shirt was handed a leaflet from a man whose blue T-shirt read, “Jews for Jesus.”

“What about Jews for Lakers?” the first man asked.

“Hey, I want the Lakers to win!” the second pleaded, the paper still dangling from his right hand.

Lights, camera, hello?: It takes more than a rolling television camera to rally the psyches of L.A.’s sports fans.

One local station put a cameraman on the sidewalk in front of Staples Center, hoping for the kind of red-light reaction one would expect in, say, New York or Detroit or Tehran.

No luck.

So, a producer stood behind the cameraman and shouted at passersby, “Who’s going to win tonight? Huh?”

Just so sad.

At the buzzer: Out back, as Game 1 began, there were five men dressed in red and black, looking tired and defeated after a lot of running and driving.

They were not the Trail Blazers.

They were the valet parking attendants. It was game time.

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell had come through. Ed Norton. Ice Cube. Chris Rock. James Worthy. Kevin Spacey.

The attendants, however, could only think of a Laker victory. That’s when the tips are big, so the many dashes into the Convention Center parking structure--five miles worth, by one estimate--seem worth it.

The price to have your car parked? That’s $65 in the regular season, $75 in the playoffs, according to one of the valets.

One of the cars that went by was a Toyota that looked to be 20 years old. The height of laziness, perhaps, is to pay one-tenth the cost of your car to have it parked.

The tips fluctuate.

“It depends if they win or lose,” one said. “The Lakers lose and we get stiffed, or we get 50 cents or something.”

My car, Mr. Pippen?