Meyreles thrives on spontaneity--"I don't sit down before [performing] and think about it. Everything happens--all my movement, what I do, what I say." But this particulars night, a little more than the unexpected occurs. Between songs, a derelict shuffles through the limited space separating Meyreles and the crowd, halting everything. In front of the musician, the lowlife makes a hollow, pathetic smile. He turns away and quickly scoops coins from the money-laden guitar case.

An onlooker accosts the drunk. An ugly scene is avoided. And the musician deflates the tension by mimicking the strange incident before launching into an original medley.

***

"People hate you as fast as they love you," the street musician says, recalling the incident with the derelict and similar rare but unpleasant aberrations in the festive scenes he creates. Meyreles calls himself a "happy person" and believes he spreads those good feelings. "The nice thing is when people write letters saying. 'I was really down and out but I saw you and you just made my day," he says. But despite the utilitarian role which he attempts to play, Meyreles soberly considers a society where performances like his provide such bright moments.

"Nobody can tell me today that the world is in good shape," he says, "because everybody is crying inside. The only reason I know that is because I cry inside. I'm no different emotionally from anyone else." Indoors and hopefully on tape, Meyreles plans to continue with upbeat music and antics. But his experimentation with one-man "music/theater" in "Comparable Jones"--an original, which deals with the personal battle against addictions of all kinds--signifies an attempt to wrestle with suffering in a more direct, less frivolous way. "One of the things I'd like to do with this new theater is slap people. Slap them hard. Because they've closed their eyes," he says. "That's the way people are. A lot of them close doors."

Meyreles expects to still make people happy as he tries his theater concept and gives his singing career a shot at more recognition and money. But the spontaneity and intimacy of the musician's act which blended so well with the urban surroundings risks getting lost behind a microphone and in a recording studio. Meyreles says psychics have told him he will go far, but he does not rely on them. "If I wasn't doing this, I'd be doing something else and still want to make myself happy," he explains.

For now, though, Meyreles pushes on with a musical career. Soon he'll return from a vacation in Washington, where he is performing "Comparable Jones" and has "a big following." Then he and the Essentials will rehearse, perform and hope for favorable responses to their single.

The musician jokes that he will know he finally made it "when I hit the New York Times entertainment section." But he follows it with another stacatto laugh and then says, "I've already made it. I'm there. The only thing I can do now is make a little more money or get a little more recognition in what I do. Whether I do it in the street or in Madison Square Garden, it's going to be the same thing."

And, while things may be going well now, Meyreles never lets himself forget that "it'll end. When my ego gets too big, I go, 'Don't forget. It's going to end some day and you ain't gonna get it anymore.' It might hurt for a while. But I'd adapt to something new. I'd go into the politics of love--saving the world."

If the world won't take Keyo Meyreles, there's a street corner in the Square which fits him just fine.