Photograph by Michael Putland / Getty

Take a deep breath. You’re going to get through this.

Hear that? The opening chords. They’re likely in a minor key; if not, there’s definitely something sad going on. A lonesome squeezebox. Something.

But there’s no time to stop and listen. In approximately eight seconds, you’ll be approached by an unwashed man in a top hat. He was once a successful ventriloquist, but that was long ago. He hopes his wife forgives him. Wherever she is.

He tells you what brought him here. How his dummy was named Frankie Walnuts. How he performed in a tuxedo, with a red rose on the lapel. He tells you how the rose smelled. He tells you how he threw it all away on whiskey and women, and how the crowds would laugh.

It’s the laughter he misses most.

A trumpet starts playing. Doleful, but there’s a smoky energy just beneath the surface. It might even feel upbeat if it weren’t for Loretta the one-handed prostitute, who is now hobbling toward you. The lantern she carries illuminates her bloodshot eyes, and she asks if you’re looking for company.

Say no. Otherwise Middleweight Jack will get wind of it; he’s Loretta’s regular Saturday-evening john. He used to box in the Navy and has a tattoo of a mermaid, and his last happy memory is of a paper doll he lost when he was four.

Listen carefully now. The chorus has started. The people you’ve met are gone, replaced by a raspy medley of nostalgia and cheap gin. Gather your strength. You’ll need it.

In the next verse you encounter a dog. Haggard, abandoned. Befriend it. It will lead you to a pawnshop that traffics exclusively in wedding rings and antique revolvers. Tell the proprietor what you miss most about your childhood home and he’ll slide you a piece of torn paper. It’s directions to a tavern where the air is all cheap perfume and tobacco and there’s an organ grinder mumbling to himself who hasn’t played in years.

Go to the back room. Past the sawmill workers playing five-card stud. There’s a broom closet you can hide in until the song ends, which has got to be soon, considering that it’s now become a sustained, agonized growl.

Uh-oh. The card players have fallen silent. Exit the broom closet, slowly. There’s one man left, his chips all gone, his words slurred. Looks like we’re in denouement territory. Keep quiet and you’ll be out of here soon.

Listen to the card player’s story. He’s loved; he’s lost. He used to live near Coney Island, but that was long ago and the locket he wears around his neck is empty and he doesn’t remember whose picture it once contained.

And now it’s fade-out time. Congratulations, you made it.

Just pray you don’t wind up in a Velvet Underground song next. There’s no getting out of one of those.