He's in his 70's, thin man, a chipped front tooth. He came in once during an opening and said some funny things I can't remember, but left the impression that he is quite the character. So he strolls in, comes right up to me and asks me if I can draw.
"Draw what exactly?"
"A nuthatch."
I told him I draw more abstract things but he kept on insisting telling me he'd give me 5 dollars and it was for his daughter, he was giving her a birthday card and hasn't had a very good relationship with her as he put a card on my desk that said in bold letters on the front Throw Me A Line. He told me a story of when she was younger they had bird that wasn't supposed to be let out but they did anyways and it would circle the house a hundred times and always come back. It would take little bites out of everything and therefore he had enclosed her birth certificate with little bites in it and a 50 dollar bill. He wanted me to draw a nuthatch on the envelope taking a bite out of the letter A, because that was the first letter of her name.
I thought this was a nice gesture but kept trying to back out of it because I don't consider myself an adequate artist of realism, and the last thing I'd want to do was screw up the picture for something so important. I kept shaking my head and saying, "Ehhhh I don't know, can't you ask someone else?"
"Oh common, you have twenty minutes left here and what are you going to do with it? I'm sure you could draw a fine nuthatch. Bring it up on your computer."
He turns his head to see a younger man walking past, head in the clouds and tells me that he knows him and he also doesn't get along with his father and ask me to tell him that fathers are good as he hastily walks out of the door saying, "Now wait a minute, you're not going to get away from me." And stops him and talks to him, as I'm thinking how much I really don't want to draw this picture, potentially ruin it, and I don't want to bring another person into this conversation. I always fear these less than ideal situations creeping up as my time to leave and freedom awaits is almost at hand.
The older man talks to the younger one for a minute and he comes back in, the younger man behind him. We all introduce ourselves (I'll call the older man Tom and the younger Andy) and as I tell them my name Tom exclaims, "Fay?! no ones name is Fay! Did people call all your boyfriends in high school King Kong? You know right?."
I looked downward, gave a faint smile and said no, and yes I did know what he was talking about-Fay Wray played the main character in the original King Kong. Oh this poor guy was getting sucked into the wild antics of Tom. I asked Andy if he wanted to draw it, giving him a hopeful and encouraging smile but Tom had already decided he wanted me to. He went on to expose Andy telling me again that him and his father didn't get along and his father was an Episcopal Pastor (is that the right term?). I could tell immediately that Andy was a gentle perhaps introverted person and I'm pretty sure we both felt silly listening to Tom go on, but it was amusing.
He threw a few dollar bills on my desk and at this point I was feeling belittled and embarrassed at the gesture and told him I'd do it without his money, and of course he insisted so I finally took the envelope leaving the bills on the desk untouched as they burned around me.
Meanwhile Andy walked around observing the art as Tom continued to blab and embarrass us both in such a lighthearted way it made me smile. One of which he told me that Andy was a poet; when Tom had went outside I asked him about it and he said he wasn't but I saw his rationalizing of accepting Andy's claim as from not wanting to 'get into it.' Just one of the many things we both rationalized as Tom went on.
And then I finished the picture-the Nuthatch taking a bite out of the letter A. He loved it, he praised it and it was finally 6 o'clock and the rest of my day, and a shower were calling me.
