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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Art / Music / Theater / Dance
- Published: 02/12/2017
He took his little sketch book, put it in his backpack. A rumpled world travelled back pack with little half circle tunnels etched into the side by the stack of Calligraphy pencils pushed up against the material. It was a worn, comfortable, no nonsense at all about it back pack. It’s utility hid the incredible artistry incubated in its leather and velcro exoskeleton.
Swinging it over his slender shoulders (art does not take muscle, just strength), he headed out into the crushing humidity of Panama City. Next to the Canal, where the Cruise Ships dock, is not a developed Nation’s wonderland. No trendy bars, or soft romantic weave of a wide inviting esplanade- no outdoor cafe’s with overpriced but exotic sounding coffees.
No. Just one block from the entrance to the port and you were in what most of the world considers- average: crowed, energetic, alive with both despair and hope. Bright tropical colors fought with the wet blanket of air to startle, or sap, the energy of your dreams. Many rich cultures romanticize the idea of living in poverty, in overcrowded tenements, in a place where dreams are as suffocating as the air around them. It was a hot, boiling with passion and anger, shot through with shards of dreams that wither alongside hope, place where a job, any job, gave you a leg up.
Because human beings lived there, it had all the hallmarks of a soul. Because human beings lived there, it was a contrast in what the environment did to your dreams, and what your dreams did to it. Most folks had one thought, one dream, one hope: to get out. In young people it showed up as a bright smile: I will get out. I will be the one to take my family to rich places. In older people it showed up in their sad smiles as they watched the dreams of the young people brush up against reality so many times that they stopped trying.
It was into the worst part of the Barrio that the backpack and its owner went to draw. He knew that Art, real art, had emotion, passion, feelings, polar opposites, and a touch of luck, love, and learning too. Real Art..is real. The emotions in it, or caused by it, have to be there, like in poetry - where a good word won’t work, a pretty good word is okay, but the right word… well the right word STINGS. So it is with drawings or paintings, or carvings, get it right, and the emotion within stabs you, grabs you, nabs you. You only got that on the edges. The edge before insanity, love, cruelty, or neglect, the place where romance dallies with true love, or betrayal. That was the kind of drawing he did. People as battered as his backpack, as world weary, souls that travelled to the ends of their dreams, and then stopped - not to rest, but to die. It was there that Love could be found, or Heroes, or Mother’s who never gave up. It was where the first kiss and the last kiss, are connected by the time in between. He drew that too.
He sat on the concrete steps, bare grey chipped paint as his cushion. Across the street was a Barber Shop with five young men in tank tops, gold crucifixes dangling over bare brown skin, and hard knuckles and even harder eyes- watching him. He ignored them.
For right in front of the three story apartment building were several young girls jumping rope. On the stoop sat a tiny girl, maybe eight or nine, her crutches resting against a railing that might once have been new or even might still be- but the jungle and the town had wrapped the patina of age around it so tight, that either guess might be right. The girl was watching the young girls jump, her mouth sounding out a number for each successful skip, her eyes leaking her imaginary vision of her young legs being able to hit that next number. She was happy for the girls that could jump, there was no self pity in her look at the girls having fun.
In her mind, the guy with the rumpled back pack could see the dreams forming to be savored later that night. She would jump, and jump, and jump. She would feel the air moving as the rope whistled by, she would feel the sidewalk slap her feet, as her thin shoes flung her frail body back into the air. She would giggle with delight to see the faces of the other girls, watched the numbers collect into piles of ten, twenty, hundreds! She would finally tire, everyone would clap, and she would bound up the stairs to tell Mama how many times she made the rope miss her tiny ankles. It would be a dream that would make smiles surface on her face, bubble, and pop up again and again.
That is what the hand holding the pencil sketched. Not her as she was, her as she was meant to be. Free to giggle, leap, cavort, and play…without crutches, without a degree of separation. Her good heart, her good will, and her great disposition all unnecessary for her challenges had (at least in her dreams) been scraped away, like an empty dinner plate, a sticky shoe, or some muck on the edge of a stairway.
His hand drew quickly, quietly, quaintly. It was a delicate picture, as was the girl on the step. He caught her with full blown hope, unabashed joy, and stuffed with thoughts of strong legs, legs that worked. He walked over and gave it to her > “Felice Navidad Por Ustedes” is all he said- and smiled. It was a picture of her that would make her mother cry, run down the steps to hunt him down and hug him. The mother would later spend two precious Balboas on a frame -and consider it a bargain. It would remain that little girl’s favorite picture for her entire life.
Ten days later, when the ship docked once again on its routine itinerary to transit the Canal, or at least one gate before turning back around- the backpack was once again filled with the pieces necessary to make good art, and the man necessary to make great art slung it over a small shoulder.
He went to the same three grey chipped steps he had last time. Before he could unload his backpack, and survey the street for something to draw, one of the rough looking, dangerous, brooding slim men from outside the Barber shop started walking towards him. The back pack held still on the step, its owner frozen. Watching that young man walk towards him, was like watching the edge of a switch blade poised in its sheath- wondering if it would unfold, slicing him with scalpel like precision, or was there some other intent in that silent glide over to the Gringo?
In clear conversational English, the bladed young man asked if he could have a favor. The man with the backpack wasn’t scared, but he was leery. Was this one of those opening gambits that only had a bad outcome, like when punks ask for the time, just to see if your watch is worth stealing? Or did he need money for something? Or was it truly a favor- only. He didn’t know yet, so he just waited.
“Depends. What is the favor?”
The youth with the blade like appearance pulled an old photo from his wallet. Handing it to the man with the backpack, he told a simple story.
“This was my sister. She died when she was twelve. She would be 21 years old now, just like me. We were twins. It is the only picture we have of her. My mother doesn’t have a single picture of her, she let me keep this one, because we were twins. I loved my sister. My Mom has (he made the sign of the cross and kissed his crucifix) always wondered what kind of woman my sister would have grown to become. I saw the picture you drew of Miranda. Everyone on the street has seen it. It is a gift from God. You didn’t let anyone pay you for it, you just gave it. I ask, on behalf of my Mother, myself and my sister; could you draw her like she would be now, if she had lived?”
“Go get your mother Please. Bring her back here. If she has a doll or a toy, or a blanket, or anything of your sisters, something that was special to her, bring that too. I will need to know more about her from both of you. If you tell me stories that help me know her…I will sketch her for you.”
The blade like boy, strung like wired danger, brought back a woman carrying an old style cigar box. She spoke only broken English, but each item she brought out had a story of her little girl. In that box were things like: two brightly colored ribbons wound around a lock of silky black hair, a small plastic stegosaurus, a small soft multi-colored rubber ball, a veil from her first communion, and a Scapula given to her by her favorite Uncle. A whistle, a Pepsi bottle cap, a small white glove, a top, and a set of jacks. A baseball card of Rod Carew who was born on a train near the Gatun Locks in Panama long before she was born.
The last item she pulled out was a gaudy purple plastic ring. The kind kids get out of those plastic eggs in machines scattered around tourist places. Each item a little piece of her life, a part of her story that brought from her Mother or Brother a memory, a tear, or a smile. Each of those brought another line to life in the sketch forming in the man with the weary backpack’s mind. He had her bone structure, posture and build sitting right beside him on the steps. He could see her in both her Mother and her brother. She would have high cheekbones, her body willowy not thin, with caramel colored skin, dark brown eyes, and hair so black it looked like shoe lacquer. She would have been a couple shades beyond beautiful and a hairbreadth away from stunning. He knew she was curious, bright, playful…kind too. He knew she was loved while she was alive, she probably knew it now- he would sketch that into her portrait too.
He told the Mother and Brother to wait by the Barber Shop, he would call them over when he was done. For a while he just sat there. It looked like he wasn’t doing anything but just sitting there, like a man lost in thought losing sight of his surroundings. He wasn’t. He was visiting with Miranda. They talked of many things, how she hoped to be a Nurse. How she wanted to marry a good man and run a little clinic outside the Panama Zone. How she wanted to be there for her Brother’s wedding, and how proud she would be when her Brother walked her down the aisle on her Wedding Day. She wanted to go to a Professional Baseball Game in the USA.
She talked about how she wanted her children to have painted dinosaurs on their bedroom walls. She talked about how her and her brother were going to bicycle the entire Canal (and back) as her High School graduation present. She loved flowers of all kinds, and could never have enough of them in her house, or in her hair. She loved her Mother’s cooking, and her brother’s voice. She told him that, and more: secret hopes that girls usually only share with sisters or their moms. She had never been to a pool, or to the Ocean, even though the ocean was nearby. She wondered if she could swim?
More than two hours went by before the first stroke of his pencil started to bring her to life. When he was done, she was alive. Not in reality, but in the drawing. The drawing had that same feeling you get when you walk into a room someone just left. Their essence hanging softly in the air. The picture he drew that day had her essence in every line- had she lived, she could not be more alive than she was in that drawing.
When he gave the drawing to the Mother, and the brother, to look at… well, that was too private a moment to put into words. If you could hear a soul scream in delighted surprise, to erupt with joy, to have at least a moment and a memory to savor forever, then you were a witness to that private moment.
Some day, not that day, but some day, the man with the backpack would paint the look they gave him when they saw the picture. Gratitude and awe, when they meet up with thankfulness and wonder, leave an unmistakable look. A look made all the more wonderful by its rarity. When you witness a miracle, you have that look too.
“How can we thank you? How can we pay you?”
“You just did."
The man put his sketch pad away in his backpack. It would be a while until she would finish talking to him. He would draw her again, for himself. He liked Miranda.
The Artist.(Kevin Hughes)
He took his little sketch book, put it in his backpack. A rumpled world travelled back pack with little half circle tunnels etched into the side by the stack of Calligraphy pencils pushed up against the material. It was a worn, comfortable, no nonsense at all about it back pack. It’s utility hid the incredible artistry incubated in its leather and velcro exoskeleton.
Swinging it over his slender shoulders (art does not take muscle, just strength), he headed out into the crushing humidity of Panama City. Next to the Canal, where the Cruise Ships dock, is not a developed Nation’s wonderland. No trendy bars, or soft romantic weave of a wide inviting esplanade- no outdoor cafe’s with overpriced but exotic sounding coffees.
No. Just one block from the entrance to the port and you were in what most of the world considers- average: crowed, energetic, alive with both despair and hope. Bright tropical colors fought with the wet blanket of air to startle, or sap, the energy of your dreams. Many rich cultures romanticize the idea of living in poverty, in overcrowded tenements, in a place where dreams are as suffocating as the air around them. It was a hot, boiling with passion and anger, shot through with shards of dreams that wither alongside hope, place where a job, any job, gave you a leg up.
Because human beings lived there, it had all the hallmarks of a soul. Because human beings lived there, it was a contrast in what the environment did to your dreams, and what your dreams did to it. Most folks had one thought, one dream, one hope: to get out. In young people it showed up as a bright smile: I will get out. I will be the one to take my family to rich places. In older people it showed up in their sad smiles as they watched the dreams of the young people brush up against reality so many times that they stopped trying.
It was into the worst part of the Barrio that the backpack and its owner went to draw. He knew that Art, real art, had emotion, passion, feelings, polar opposites, and a touch of luck, love, and learning too. Real Art..is real. The emotions in it, or caused by it, have to be there, like in poetry - where a good word won’t work, a pretty good word is okay, but the right word… well the right word STINGS. So it is with drawings or paintings, or carvings, get it right, and the emotion within stabs you, grabs you, nabs you. You only got that on the edges. The edge before insanity, love, cruelty, or neglect, the place where romance dallies with true love, or betrayal. That was the kind of drawing he did. People as battered as his backpack, as world weary, souls that travelled to the ends of their dreams, and then stopped - not to rest, but to die. It was there that Love could be found, or Heroes, or Mother’s who never gave up. It was where the first kiss and the last kiss, are connected by the time in between. He drew that too.
He sat on the concrete steps, bare grey chipped paint as his cushion. Across the street was a Barber Shop with five young men in tank tops, gold crucifixes dangling over bare brown skin, and hard knuckles and even harder eyes- watching him. He ignored them.
For right in front of the three story apartment building were several young girls jumping rope. On the stoop sat a tiny girl, maybe eight or nine, her crutches resting against a railing that might once have been new or even might still be- but the jungle and the town had wrapped the patina of age around it so tight, that either guess might be right. The girl was watching the young girls jump, her mouth sounding out a number for each successful skip, her eyes leaking her imaginary vision of her young legs being able to hit that next number. She was happy for the girls that could jump, there was no self pity in her look at the girls having fun.
In her mind, the guy with the rumpled back pack could see the dreams forming to be savored later that night. She would jump, and jump, and jump. She would feel the air moving as the rope whistled by, she would feel the sidewalk slap her feet, as her thin shoes flung her frail body back into the air. She would giggle with delight to see the faces of the other girls, watched the numbers collect into piles of ten, twenty, hundreds! She would finally tire, everyone would clap, and she would bound up the stairs to tell Mama how many times she made the rope miss her tiny ankles. It would be a dream that would make smiles surface on her face, bubble, and pop up again and again.
That is what the hand holding the pencil sketched. Not her as she was, her as she was meant to be. Free to giggle, leap, cavort, and play…without crutches, without a degree of separation. Her good heart, her good will, and her great disposition all unnecessary for her challenges had (at least in her dreams) been scraped away, like an empty dinner plate, a sticky shoe, or some muck on the edge of a stairway.
His hand drew quickly, quietly, quaintly. It was a delicate picture, as was the girl on the step. He caught her with full blown hope, unabashed joy, and stuffed with thoughts of strong legs, legs that worked. He walked over and gave it to her > “Felice Navidad Por Ustedes” is all he said- and smiled. It was a picture of her that would make her mother cry, run down the steps to hunt him down and hug him. The mother would later spend two precious Balboas on a frame -and consider it a bargain. It would remain that little girl’s favorite picture for her entire life.
Ten days later, when the ship docked once again on its routine itinerary to transit the Canal, or at least one gate before turning back around- the backpack was once again filled with the pieces necessary to make good art, and the man necessary to make great art slung it over a small shoulder.
He went to the same three grey chipped steps he had last time. Before he could unload his backpack, and survey the street for something to draw, one of the rough looking, dangerous, brooding slim men from outside the Barber shop started walking towards him. The back pack held still on the step, its owner frozen. Watching that young man walk towards him, was like watching the edge of a switch blade poised in its sheath- wondering if it would unfold, slicing him with scalpel like precision, or was there some other intent in that silent glide over to the Gringo?
In clear conversational English, the bladed young man asked if he could have a favor. The man with the backpack wasn’t scared, but he was leery. Was this one of those opening gambits that only had a bad outcome, like when punks ask for the time, just to see if your watch is worth stealing? Or did he need money for something? Or was it truly a favor- only. He didn’t know yet, so he just waited.
“Depends. What is the favor?”
The youth with the blade like appearance pulled an old photo from his wallet. Handing it to the man with the backpack, he told a simple story.
“This was my sister. She died when she was twelve. She would be 21 years old now, just like me. We were twins. It is the only picture we have of her. My mother doesn’t have a single picture of her, she let me keep this one, because we were twins. I loved my sister. My Mom has (he made the sign of the cross and kissed his crucifix) always wondered what kind of woman my sister would have grown to become. I saw the picture you drew of Miranda. Everyone on the street has seen it. It is a gift from God. You didn’t let anyone pay you for it, you just gave it. I ask, on behalf of my Mother, myself and my sister; could you draw her like she would be now, if she had lived?”
“Go get your mother Please. Bring her back here. If she has a doll or a toy, or a blanket, or anything of your sisters, something that was special to her, bring that too. I will need to know more about her from both of you. If you tell me stories that help me know her…I will sketch her for you.”
The blade like boy, strung like wired danger, brought back a woman carrying an old style cigar box. She spoke only broken English, but each item she brought out had a story of her little girl. In that box were things like: two brightly colored ribbons wound around a lock of silky black hair, a small plastic stegosaurus, a small soft multi-colored rubber ball, a veil from her first communion, and a Scapula given to her by her favorite Uncle. A whistle, a Pepsi bottle cap, a small white glove, a top, and a set of jacks. A baseball card of Rod Carew who was born on a train near the Gatun Locks in Panama long before she was born.
The last item she pulled out was a gaudy purple plastic ring. The kind kids get out of those plastic eggs in machines scattered around tourist places. Each item a little piece of her life, a part of her story that brought from her Mother or Brother a memory, a tear, or a smile. Each of those brought another line to life in the sketch forming in the man with the weary backpack’s mind. He had her bone structure, posture and build sitting right beside him on the steps. He could see her in both her Mother and her brother. She would have high cheekbones, her body willowy not thin, with caramel colored skin, dark brown eyes, and hair so black it looked like shoe lacquer. She would have been a couple shades beyond beautiful and a hairbreadth away from stunning. He knew she was curious, bright, playful…kind too. He knew she was loved while she was alive, she probably knew it now- he would sketch that into her portrait too.
He told the Mother and Brother to wait by the Barber Shop, he would call them over when he was done. For a while he just sat there. It looked like he wasn’t doing anything but just sitting there, like a man lost in thought losing sight of his surroundings. He wasn’t. He was visiting with Miranda. They talked of many things, how she hoped to be a Nurse. How she wanted to marry a good man and run a little clinic outside the Panama Zone. How she wanted to be there for her Brother’s wedding, and how proud she would be when her Brother walked her down the aisle on her Wedding Day. She wanted to go to a Professional Baseball Game in the USA.
She talked about how she wanted her children to have painted dinosaurs on their bedroom walls. She talked about how her and her brother were going to bicycle the entire Canal (and back) as her High School graduation present. She loved flowers of all kinds, and could never have enough of them in her house, or in her hair. She loved her Mother’s cooking, and her brother’s voice. She told him that, and more: secret hopes that girls usually only share with sisters or their moms. She had never been to a pool, or to the Ocean, even though the ocean was nearby. She wondered if she could swim?
More than two hours went by before the first stroke of his pencil started to bring her to life. When he was done, she was alive. Not in reality, but in the drawing. The drawing had that same feeling you get when you walk into a room someone just left. Their essence hanging softly in the air. The picture he drew that day had her essence in every line- had she lived, she could not be more alive than she was in that drawing.
When he gave the drawing to the Mother, and the brother, to look at… well, that was too private a moment to put into words. If you could hear a soul scream in delighted surprise, to erupt with joy, to have at least a moment and a memory to savor forever, then you were a witness to that private moment.
Some day, not that day, but some day, the man with the backpack would paint the look they gave him when they saw the picture. Gratitude and awe, when they meet up with thankfulness and wonder, leave an unmistakable look. A look made all the more wonderful by its rarity. When you witness a miracle, you have that look too.
“How can we thank you? How can we pay you?”
“You just did."
The man put his sketch pad away in his backpack. It would be a while until she would finish talking to him. He would draw her again, for himself. He liked Miranda.
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