Green

 [Continued from February 19 post, EXERCISE: START HERE]

Hey were you at the Third Avenue Art Supply yesterday by any chance?

Alan had hardly shut the door of the Honda and sat down with his Hazelnut coffee, as usual on the brink of spilling all over the beige leather seats that the man was quite proud of having, finally.

Who me?

Yeah, I had this weird thing where I thought I saw you but it was after we bumped into each other. I tried to track you down but somehow you seemed to have disappeared.

Love is constantly creating future possibilities for the good of all concerned –

Sacrifice, surrender… The words he was trying to memorize were getting all mixed up and what it amounted to was a full on collision between the loving person he desired to be and Alan Nicklebine, an individual who contained multitudes [thank you Walt Whitman… But]… of inane observations, lengthy circuitous stories and an average of 15 to 20 questions per mile in the car. Each ride it came time to drop him off usually ended with –

Well, I guess I have to finish that one later… Peace out and see you next time?

Okay sounds good, thanks Alan.

Early on the man seemed nice enough. It's just that there was no end to anything he ever said. Everything he mentioned made him think of something else, and "come to think of it" reminded him of something that he wanted to make sure and tell his favorite Uber driver about before he forgot. But he was a good tipper and life was short and who knows, even an irritating Sox fan might still have something good to offer from time to time.

The clouds drew themselves over the city for several days and throughout the monotony of gray one could almost sense a weariness accumulating on everyone toward midweek.

At his station near the window he sat sketching in a new pad he purchased at the Third Avenue. He was dying for a cigarette but refused to ask the man a few chairs down for a light. Technically the restaurant was supposed to be no smoking, but so many still enjoyed it that it became sort of an understood thing in town that if you wanted to smoke and drink coffee all day, eat astonishing bakery and people watch, you were at the right place. ANTHONY'S had become an extension of his living space. Seated there by the window was the grand parade that would never disappoint.

Today was no different. His favorite, a marching band from the Catholic High School waving their flags for Ireland. Today was their day: St. Patrick's! Another group from the art school were dancers all body painted green, slender and tall and small and in constant fluid motion, with music bouncing off the coffee shop windows back onto them, tossing them about in a syncopated dance… It reminded him of HAIR from back in the 70s.

He sketched out feet and legs, put a sofa underneath and around the subject, added a lamp… A Burmese cat.

The cool jazz that was playing behind him, turning the air around the swirls of cigarette smoke led him into the sketch even more deeply. He lost a good two and half hours right there and then.