The rhythm of the sidewalk was the only thing Tony could count on. At twenty-two, with his hair feathered just right and a paint-stained shirt that felt more like a costume than a uniform, he walked through the Brooklyn morning as if the concrete were a stage [1].

"Stayin' alive," he sang softly, stepping off the curb and into the flow of the city [1].

He wasn't just walking to work; he was surviving. He was dancing on the edge of a Brooklyn dream, and as long as the song didn't stop, he'd be alright.

"Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man: no time to talk," he muttered to himself, matching his stride to the four-on-the-floor beat thumping in his head [1, 2]. People pushed past him, heading toward the subway, but Tony moved around them like water. He was a master of the "Stayin' Alive" strut—a mix of confidence and the desperate need to keep moving so he didn't have to think about the $5.00 in his pocket or the lack of a plan for tomorrow.

He felt the eyes on him—the "music loud and women warm"—even though the morning air was actually quite brisk [1]. He’d been kicked around since he was born, or at least it felt that way [1]. His boss at the hardware store was always shouting, his father was always disappointed, and the city was always loud. But when he moved like this, he was untouchable.

He stopped at a corner, catching his reflection in a deli window. "Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me," he whispered, the lyrics catching in the back of his throat [1, 3]. He smoothed his collar. The world was trying to break him down, but he had the wings of his shoes and the rhythm of the Bee Gees to keep him upright.