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Drawing in the ParkBy Gregg Winkler
The man sets his red sketchpad down on the park bench while he pulls his tan overcoat off his broad shoulders. He smoothes out some of the wrinkles, laying it over the bench, then sits down, pulling the pad back into his lap and looking out at the running, screaming kids in the park. He smiles faintly, a Mona Lisa smile, and watches the boys on the monkey bars and the girls in the swings. He chuckles at the children on the merry-go-round, and hisses as a young freckle-faced kid falls and skins his knee. Further down the sidewalk, a young harried-looking mother smiles at him and waves. They're regulars. He smiles and lifts a hand in return, the wind blowing through his long, blonde locks."Excuse me?" says a woman standing near the bench. "I was wondering if this seat was taken."
The woman is not very tall. She has long honey-blonde hair that should have been gray by now. Her shirt is short and tight, revealing a diamond stud in her navel, just above a pair of short shorts. She has a tattoo on her ankle of ivy wrapping around her tanned leg. Her knees are bony. A large, round, yellowish bruise stands out on her thigh, sneaking out of her too-short shorts.
"That's fine," the man says, then turns his attention back to the kids.
"I'm Lisa," the woman says. "Lisa Layman." She holds out her left hand for him to shake. He does and notices the huge diamond on her finger. Conspicuously huge. Like her breasts and lips and hair and eyes. Each one just a bit too big to be natural on her small body. "Nice to meet you," she says and manages to squeeze a pack of cigarettes out of her shorts' pocket and lights up.
"Mommy, look!" a cute little girl standing at the top of the slide shouts, trying to keep her bangs out of her eyes as the wind blows them around her face. Lisa, Lisa Layman shouts, "I see you, honey!" and watches as her daughter goes down the slide.
"So what's with the notepad?" Lisa asks as soon as her daughter's feet slap the dirt at the end of the slide.
"I'm an artist," he says. "I like to sketch the kids."
"Sensitive type, huh?" Lisa says and puts her arm on the back of the bench. He can feel her hand brush his back. She leaves it there. "I used to want to be an artist. I was pretty good, too," she says. "I could draw horses and shit like that real good. Of course, nothing ever came of it. My husband -- oh, he's not here, he's at work -- didn't like it, and besides during the summer, we spend so much time out at the lake -- Oh, my husband owns a boat -- and during the school year, I'm so busy with the kids, I just don't have time."
The artist glances at her artificially tanned knee just below her awful yellow bruise and says, "So, that's your daughter?"
"Yeah, that's little Michelle. I've got two more," in a flash, she whips out a small purse and pulls out a picture of three children. "The oldest one, her name's Nichole. She's a bitch. Won't go to college. Won't get a job. She just sits around the house all day smoking cigarettes and watching soap operas. I tell you, she's on my last nerve. And next to her is my son, Aaron. See how tall he is? He's fifteen -- well sixteen now. His father's tall like that. His father's six-nine."
Lisa's hand, the one resting on the back of the bench and against his shoulder blade has begun to move, stroking him. The man sits up straighter.
"He's been getting into a lot of trouble lately," she says. "Sneaking out at night -- oh, my son, not my husband. He's been pulled over for drinking and driving, and he doesn't even have a license yet. Luckily, my husband and the cop are friends, or who knows what we'd have paid."
Lisa smokes the last of her cigarette then bends over and drops it near her ankle where she crushes it out with the toe of her flip-flop. "And there's little Michelle. My little angel -- though, to be honest, even she can be a handful at times. So fucking needy all the time, you know? I mean, I'm getting too old for this full-time mom gig, you know? I wish the Pied Piper would just come and take her away sometimes. I mean, I don't really want her gone, but just a break, you know?"
The artist glances at her. Michelle Layman stands in line to go down the slide again. She looks toward the park bench every few seconds to see if her mom is watching.
"Oh my god," Lisa says putting her boney fingers on the artist's shoulder. "Have you been watching the news? There's been another kidnapped kid, can you believe it? That makes twelve in two years. Twelve kids! Jeez, that's crazy, right? I mean, it makes me so depressed just to watch the news anymore. It's all bad news. Missing kids. People getting killed. Ugh!"
There's a moment of silence as the artist watches the children play. The harried-looking woman, with her two children and baby stroller, walks past the bench. The woman waves at the artist, and he returns the gesture. Lisa watches this transaction and something like jealousy crosses her features; there one second, then gone.
"Say," Lisa Layman says smiling wickedly and sliding over close enough to the artist for her enormous breast to touch his arm, "Do you smoke?"
"No," he says.
"No, I mean, do you smoke? Man, I was so wasted before we left the house, but all this talk about the missing kids has totally brought me down."
"No," the artist says, "I don't smoke."
"Damn," Lisa says. "Oh well. It's not like I need it. I don't really get addicted to things," she pulls out her cigarettes again and lights another.
The artist watches her, his eyes flicking from Lisa's botoxed lips to her bruised thigh and out to little Michelle that sits in the swings, pumping her legs back and forth, climbing higher and higher in the air. His eyes go from her, back to Lisa, and then back to Michelle. Finally he says, "Do you mind if I sketch her?"
"Hmm?" Lisa asks, sucking on the end of her cigarette.
"Your daughter. Can I sketch her?"
"Oh. Yeah, I guess so. You know, I'm not surprised you asked. Everybody wants to take her picture. We've been told that if she wants to, we could get her into some modeling gigs."
The artist opens his sketchbook and pulls a sharpened pencil from one of the pockets of his overcoat. He begins carefully drawing the little girl, quickly sketching a rough outline of her body and begins to add details to the clothes first, leaving the face a blank orb above the sketch's shoulders.
"There was one guy who wanted Michelle to pose for some calendar he was putting together, and my husband got so pissed! I told him about it, and he said that nobody was going to turn his little girl into some slutty centerfold, and he drove to that man's house and beat the shit out of him. He did! He told him to stay away from his wife and stay away from his family or he'd kill him." She pauses for reaction, but the artist just goes on with his sketching. "But he's just like that. He doesn't really mean it. He's a big guy and that's just the way everyone expects him to act, you know?"
The artist does not reply. He adds detail to the girl's shoes here, a detail to her shirt there.
"You know," Lisa says reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. His pencil stops moving for just a moment. "You're pretty big yourself." Already close, she slides a little closer, her breasts not just brushing his arm, but pressing into it. "You got a girlfriend?"
"No," he says, and looks back at his sketchpad.
"Awww, you're cute," she says taking one last puff of her cigarette and dropping it down to her feet. "All shy and shit." She puts her arm around his shoulder, blowing smoke in his face. His nose wrinkles, but he doesn't look up from his sketch. "You know," her hand reaches out and stops on the artist's own, "I'd let you sketch me. All of me." She caresses his hand, her breasts pressing into his side. They were firm, too firm to be real.
The artist looks up from his sketch. He has done an incredible job of drawing the girl's clothes and was beginning to sketch the face, already drawing her mouth and beginning the nose. The only thing that the picture was really lacking was the eyes. "I don't think that's a good idea," he says. He lifts her hand off of his and continues to draw.
"Oh, come on," Lisa leans over and whispers the words directly into his ear. Her hair tickles his face. "It's not my husband, is it? He's not really that bad. Besides, I'd never tell him."
The artist says nothing, working diligently on the eyes in his sketch. He draws a line, stops, erases, then tries it again. His tongue sneaks out of his mouth as he works.
"Don't you find me attractive?" she asks.
When he doesn't answer she says, "I can give you the best blowjob you've ever had in your whole… fucking… life. Right now. Where's your car, I'll show you." This also gets no response from the artist who feverishly draws away. "Ohh, you are so cute! Am I making you nervous?"
Finished, the artist slaps the sketchbook closed and stands up from the bench. He grabs his overcoat and pulls it over his shoulders. "You should pay more attention to your child," he scolds and walks away quickly, leaving her with her mouth agape, staring after him.
Lisa did not take rejection well, and it did nothing to improve her mood. It was time she and Michelle went home. Coming to the park, it was beginning to seem, was a bad idea.
Lisa stands up from the bench and looks out at the slide. Michelle isn't there. Nor is she on the swings or on the jungle gym. Lisa walks toward the throng of squealing children going up and down on the teeter-totters and swinging along the monkey bars. Michelle's gone.
"Michelle?" Lisa says quietly to herself. Then again, louder. "Michelle!" Still, no answer.
Her shouts reach the artist as he walks away from the park. He shakes his head in disgust, but chooses not to turn back to help her search for her child. Besides he has a brand new sketch in his pad that will go perfectly with the dozen he already has. Twelve sketches, one for each of the missing children, each one safely framed and hanging on his wall -- away from the awful influence of inept parents, and perpetually in a state of innocence, untainted. Frozen, that is, except for the eyes, which stare out of the sketches at him, their expressions unreadable. Perhaps those eyes are saying thank you. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for plucking us. Thank you for drawing us.
And the tears that run down the paper, smearing the lines and wrinkling the sheet? Perhaps those are tears of gratitude.
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© Winkler, 2009
Oklahoma born, Gregg Winkler spends his days beating the heat by staying inside under the air conditioning, writing stories, and editing the online humor zine, On the Brighter Side. Gregg's most recent work has been published in magazines such as Necrotic Tissue, The Shantytown Anomaly, and in the anthology, Fried! Fast Food, Slow Deaths. You can visit him on the web at www.ninefingerstentoes.com.