Friday, May 14, 2010

week five: documentary of the drawing man

After some opening credits, it cuts to some establishing shots of a regular city park. Everyone is busy going to work, coming home, or whatever it is they do. It's not important. Everything's in a pretty faded color, likely symbolizing the dried-out nature of everyday life. City sounds are audible, but it's just background noise.

Then a black teenager shows up on the screen and he's talking like he's being interviewed, “Look, man, I don't even know how to describe him. It's just this dude who sits right over there,” it cuts to a bench and then back to the black man, “and just draws. He's there every day just drawing his little pictures.”

A middle-aged woman is next, “He's kind of thin, but not very tall. He's got this really scraggly beard and, what is that hair he's got? Like Tarzan or a Jamaican or-” She's cut off in mid-sentence.

The next person is a younger businessman who seems to be in a hurry, “Dreadlocks. He's got blond dreadlocks. I don't know what to say about him, to be honest,” he finishes with an embarrassed smile and then a glance at his watch.

The woman comes back, “And he's always got hippie clothes on. You know, like tie-dye and cargo shorts. But I've only ever seen him from a distance. One day I had hoped to see what he draws but-”

“Oh, I clean the sidewalks,” an elderly Asian gentleman answers. “I don't really notice him. I prefer to watch the birds or the squirrels,” he laughs as the sidewalks and some leaves are shown, “Or the leaves I'm supposed to be cleaning!”

“You know, I don't really know what that dude draws,” the teenager said, “but he's always acting real careful like. It's like this is the most important thing in the world for him. I think he's high.”
The cleaner came back, “I try to peak at what he draws one time, but I could not really see.”

“Yeah, I see the drawing guy on my way to work every day. I walk through here,” the business man tells us as he points. The angle changes to show where he comes from. “He's there on my lunch break too, but when I walk to the subway to get home, he's gone.”

“I wonder where he goes...” the woman thought aloud. “Does he have a home?” She asks the camera as if the man behind it knows.

“Man, I bet he be drawing whatever pops in his head, like he's on acid or something, you know?”
the teenager laughed. “Hallucinations and...” his last word is censored.

The camera goes back to the bench.

The middle-aged woman talks, “I don't think anyone ever sits on the bench except for him. It's like it's his bench.”

The Asian man sits down on the bench and smiles as he tells the world, “I make sure to keep this bench extra-clean! I don't want the drawing-man to sit in bird poop or something.”

A young, very attractive lady is next, “He's kind of cute, I guess, and I'm definitely into the whole artistic thing, but I kind of get the feeling he doesn't shower. Ew.”

“Come to think of it,” the teenager bears a quizzical expression, “I don't know where he goes when he's done. I mean, I just sort of hang around here and he's just always there and then he'll just be gone,” the camera shows a few streets and alleys before cutting back, “I don't know. I guess he's just part of the scenery.”

“It's a bit like he got himself... engraved in the culture around here,” the businessman said as he seemed to start getting into it. He bit his lower lip as he continued, “Everyone just seems so used to seeing him around.”

The woman spoke a bit more, “I've always thought about talking to him, but I just never did. I
guess I just assumed he'd always be around.”

In a somewhat blurry and even more colorless shot, the empty bench is showed.
“Yeah, I don't know what happened to him,” the business man said. “One day I just noticed he wasn't there.”

“He ain't come back for a while,” the black teenager said. “I guess I kind of miss him, you know?”

“What? He's gone?” the attractive lady looked around with a puzzled expression.

The businessman scratched his head as he continued, “You know, it's kind of sad. I don't really know how long he's been coming here and I don't know how long he's been gone. I don't even know what he used to draw.”

“I keep the bench clean because one day, I hope he is going to come back,” the Asian said hopefully. “I want this place to be ready for him because he is special. He never hurt nobody and
he always here.”

“My God, that makes sense,” the woman remarked as she looked at a piece of paper.

“What? That's me!” the teenager exclaimed as he looked at a different sheet.

“I understand it all now!” the woman exclaimed.

“That's... incredible!” the businessman looked at the paper with a barely contained jaw, he then changed his expression to one of questioning, “But wait, how did you get this?”

The camera changes angles to a shots of the papers. They are drawings of the people who have been interviewed. The businessman is eating his lunch, the teenager is talking with his friends, the janitor is sweeping the sidewalk, the attractive woman is flirting, and the middle-aged woman is looking down the road.

“He draw a picture of me? Why he do that?” The Asian man wore a baffled look.

“So, he drew a picture of all us and here we are figuratively drawing picture of him...” the
business man pondered aloud.

It cut back to the Asian and he asks, “He never showed nobody his pictures, how you get them?”

The camera shows the puzzled businessman and suddenly it moves. As it swivels, we get dizzy but then we see a neatly-dressed and trimmed blond man. He smiles into the camera and says, “I drew it.”

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