I am walking in a city at night, maybe it’s Indianapolis,
maybe it’s Peoria or Des Moines. The orange glow of sodium street lights give
everything a strange, sickly pallor. But it’s is a sickly pallor that we’re all
accustomed to, so no one pays it any mind anymore. The people around me walk in
and out of bars and restaurants, they get in and out of Uber vehicles, they
text, they talk, they laugh, they move on. The jaundiced tinge to the world
doesn’t disturb them.
I am carrying an oversized drawing pad and a pouch of
pencils. Its large white sheets of heavy paper now appear a dull orange under
the street lights. Without regard for
the other pedestrians around me, I sit down on the sidewalk, cross-legged, with
the sketch pad in my lap. I flip open the cover and find a fresh page to begin
drawing.
I am interested in the buildings, the skyline, and various architectural
details. The people around me disappear as my hand moves across the page. I see
only the graphite lines I am creating nothing else until
A slurred, mush-mouthed voice says, “Heaaay there, buddy. Do
you need shome money?”
I look up from the drawing pad. An inebriated man is
standing there in front of me, fumbling with a bottle of beer in one hand and his
open wallet in the other. His female companion stands next to him with her
hands jammed resolutely into the pockets of her coat. “Don’t give him cash,
Larry,” she warns him. “He’ll probably just use it to buy books…”
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