Scribbles

The subway station is massive, an underground sprawl spreading over multiple city blocks. With its wide corridors and modern architecture, the place seems a monument to the 21st century. The various street gang graffiti on the walls, competing for space, tell another story. The luminous looks of the place are only a surface dressing. For the neighborhood’s people, the place is a dangerous one. For the local police, it’s a nest of vermin. For Scribble, it is home. It has been for years.

In the beginning, people were intrigued by this thin kid walking around with his box of colored crayons all over the station. The authorities were called. They came, but at the slightest whiff of a cop or social worker, Scribble vanished. He didn’t hide, not really. Commuters could swear seeing him all over the place. Yet he never was where the cops and civil servants looked for him. Years went by. Scribble became a young man, and everybody got used to him being there.

Scribble always smiles and never speaks. He says nothing and asks for nothing, spending his days drawing portraits of the commuters on the floors of the station. He draws reality. He omits no scar, no wrinkle, no wart. His drawings are beautiful and seem to shine with an intense inner-light.

Every day, Scribble draws.

Every night, cleaning crews wash away the art.

Every morning, Scribble starts drawing again.

He smiles. He draws. He says nothing.

Well, almost nothing. Some days, he can be seen speaking with a man, always the same. The man, with his long hair and beard, with his dark skin, dirty jeans, and bag of tools, looks like a carpenter on his commute. He radiates kindness. Nobody knows what the talks are about. Art, maybe? Who knows? Nobody really listens.

Once the talks are over, Scribble goes back to drawing. The art produced after those talks is always better, for some reason. Then comes the evening, with the cleaning crews and the cycle starts again.

***

Mark walks down the corridors of his new domain. Earlier, he sprayed the logo of his crew on a wall. A shiny blue tag now announces to the world that the Hoods control the spot. Some people noticed the young man vandalising the place -he didn’t really hide- but nobody intervened.

With his leather coat, his heavy boots and his mean face, Mark believes he is the living incarnation of threat and intimidation. He’s right.

His mother would tell you that his mean-face needed hours of work in front of a mirror, so hard was it to twist his features thus.

After tagging the place, the hood walks around the station, looking for an opportunity. He always follows the same code. Find. Tag. Act. He found the station. He tagged it as his. Now he will act. At the end of the hallway, Mark sees an old lady. His hand slips in his pocket and finds the cutter hidden there.

His mother would tell you how cute he was when he was little…

The old lady walks on, lost in an old lady’s thoughts. Her lips tremble. The smell of mothballs, pushed by a draft, precedes her. On her arm she carries a big handbag. Mark’s hand, wet with sweat, tightens on the cutter.

His mother would tell you how nice he was as a child…

The hand takes out the knife, pushes the blade out, brandishes it under the nose of the old lady. She stops, looks up at the young man who, despite his size and beard, reminds her of her grandson. Mark points a finger. The old lady surrenders the bag.

Bag in hand, Mark slashes at the woman’s face. She stumbles, sees the blood on her hand and falls. Mark looks at her, looks around, pockets the knife, and makes his way to the men’s bathroom. He found, he tagged, he acted.

His mom would tell you he was the image of innocence…

Scribble draws. Sitting on the floor, he doesn’t pay attention to the people around him. They mill about and look and jabber as cops try to control the crowd while EMTs take the old woman out on a stretcher. The crowd surges and pulses, offended, worried. People clamor for justice, for revenge.

Scribble draws faces with a stable hand. Despite the crowd’s agitation, nobody trips on him. The sound of crayons scratching on the pavement gets louder. Scribble now draws in quick, intense motions. The crowd, drawn-in, looks at the drawing and gasps: Scribble drew the assault! Both the victim and her aggressor are recognizable. Around the face of the young man, who holds a cutter float dark, grinning silhouettes. Scribble finishes his work through mounting sobs. Cops come through the crowd. An agent kneels by Scribble and guides him aside while her colleagues take pictures of the artwork: if the boy depicted there does exist, it might be possible to find him.

***

Mark is watching the news bulletin. His crime gets mentioned and Mark feels proud at first but deflates: his face is on the news! Somebody drew him with crayons, of all things! Mark, teeth clenched, shakes with rage. Somebody saw him.

***

The carpenter holds Scribble and tries to appease him as best as possible. The cops let him go after a fruitless interrogation. For hours, the bearded man listens to the mumbles of the distraught artist. The sounds may lack coherence but the pain behind them is undeniable. Commuters look on, curious, then move on with their lives, as usual. That night, the janitor will find the floor free of any pictures and let out a disappointed sigh.

***

Scribble wakes up from a dream about his mother. He sits on the bench that serves as his bed, stretches, grabs his colors, and starts to draw on the wall. It’s the first time he draws on a wall, the first time he feels a need to preserve his art from the cleaning crew. He wishes everybody could see his mama. Scribble finishes his work and steps back. On the wall, at the height his head normally rests when he sleeps, there is now a face covered in freckles and framed in curly red hair. The woman is young and has a radiant smile. Scribble stays there for a long time, looking at his mom.

***

Mark walks down the stairs leading in the station, throwing mean glances around. Most people clear a path for him.

His mother would tell you this he was quite a polite kid…

Mark goes through the spot where he assaulted the old lady. A tremor runs through him and he caresses the knife in his pocket. His crime got him a hundred dollars, an old paperback, and some mints. The money has been spent. The book went to trash. The candies… Mark ate one, but it recalled images of his own grandmother and he tossed the sweets. Thinking about the candies, Mark feels sad.

‘Shake it off’, he mutters to himself as he walks into the station proper.

Mark walks to a bench where a ‘no smoking’ sign is displayed, sits, and lights a cigarette. At the same time, Scribble puts the finishing touches to his mom’s portrait.

Mark looks around. He sees a kid with a Mickey Mouse shaped balloon. Mark clenches his fists. He never had a Mickey balloon. Never had a balloon at all. Further away he sees an old man with a cane, wearing a hat. Mark imagines the man falling, maybe breaking a hip. Old people always break their hips. Behind the man comes a fat lady, a pretty lady, a tall man, an endless parade of useless people. Tall, fat, skinny; ugly and pretty. And then Mark sees Scribble, who just walked in and takes his usual place on the floor, rummaging through his box to select a crayon.

-Check out the freak show, mutters Mark.

Mark notices that Scribble is looking at him. Frowning, Mark stares at the young man with his crayons and realizes that the weirdo is looking at him and drawing! Puzzle pieces click together. What if the weirdo saw him and the old lady? What if he’s the one who drew him for the cops?

Mark gets up, puts on his meanest face, and walks towards the weirdo who, focused on his drawing, doesn’t notice. Mark grins as he kicks the box, sending colors flying every way. Scribble freezes the starts sobbing while trying to gather the only possessions he treasures. Mark pushes him back and starts to crush the crayons, kicking the last one on the tracks. Scribble cries and drags himself to the edge of the platform. He reaches for his crayon. The first one the carpenter gave him, years ago. Mark snickers and shoves Scribble off the platform then turns around to look at the drawing the young man was working on.

Scribble crawls towards the crayon and grabs it. He smiles once more. A train rolls in.

***

EMTs are collecting Scribble’s body from the track. Mark, on the platform, stands transfixed. He cries. He feels shame. Bile rises in his throat. Police come in and people point at Mark. Mark doesn’t care. They take him and he doesn’t fight. He takes one last look at the drawing and leaves with the officers.

On the floor, a face is visible. A smile, too. For years to come, people will wonder about the picture of the redheaded woman on the wall but most of all, about that face, which looks so luminous, so peaceful. Mark will be haunted by this picture. The cleaning crew will never erase it.

Marks mom would tell you he had exactly this face when he was little…