Dan

07-15-2013

Rittenhouse Square

At Rittenhouse Square I asked a woman who despite the heat was dressed in a trench coat if I could paint her portrait. She softened her refuse with a smile and a complement to my dress. Some people were sleeping on the loan next to their sacks. I walked towards a man sitting on a high granite fence. He looked at me melancholically. “Do you mind if I paint you?” He considered it thoughtfully. “I am always here,” he said. “Maybe another time.” Contrary to what Maurice said, he seemed to be unimpressed with my looks, or was it a full make-up I wore this time? “ In fact, I was just going to sleep," he clarified, “I was already sleeping, but they woke me up. See those cops over there? See, how they wakes people up? I am waiting for them to leave so that I could go to sleep again.” His shirt was fully unbuttoned, a rosary dangling in the hair of his rosy chest. It felt like sitting with a stranger in a bedroom on the edge of his bed. “ You can go to sleep,” I suggested, “and if police comes I tell them that you are posing for me.” He nodded. “Where are you from?” He asked. “From Russia.” “My dad is Russian.” “Where is he from?” “From St. Petersburg.” “I am from Moscow.” “My mother’s dead now," he continued, "but on her side I am British, Scotch and German.” “Are you from around here?” “I grew up in New York. I lived in Florida for fifteen years. It was nice there, not as hot as here.” He was glancing at my sketch, “Were did you learn it?” “ I have always been painting since I was a child, but then I went to architectural school in Moscow. There we had a lot of art training, mostly in drawing, though. We had three semesters of painting there, too, but I don’t thing they taught me anything. They didn’t know how to teach painting…” “My sister is a muralist.” “Where did she study?” “At the Art Institute of New York City.” “Are you in touch with her?” “No, we got untouched.” He smiled sadly. “Is she your baby sister?” “Yes, I am three years older.” “My brother was three years older than me. We were very close as kids. Were you close with her?” “Everyone is close when they are kids.” “What happened?” “Uh… She learned to act like a sophisticated snob. I don’t respect it. She pretends that she is an old money, but she is not. She has a business in New Jersey, Fresh Juices. She is vegan and practices yoga; you know the type. Her husband was a doctor; she divorced him and now she gets…” he looked up, calculating, “about $60,000 a year for doing nothing.” “In child support?” “No, child support is a different story. Alimony. ” “Someone I know got half of her husband’s income after divorce, and they both are doctors and don’t even have kids together.” “That’s alimony.” “Do women ever get to pay alimony to their ex-husbands?” He looked at me in disbelieve and changed the subject,” When did you come to America?” “In 1989. We were not going to stay.” “Ah?” “It was Gorbochov’s time. We came because we wanted to see the world. My husband’s relatives found a doctor here who agreed to give me an infertility treatment free.” His eyes grew big. “Dr. Check from Elkins Park. It was his Mitzvah for some close relative who had recently dyed. He treated me for nine months before I got pregnant, and then a young resident doctor, Dr. Weise, delivered my baby-daughter, no charge.”  “Are you Jewish?” “My husband is. Meanwhile, Soviet Union collapsed and there were no jobs there, so we stayed. Later, though, things got better there, and some of our friends made a fortune.” “But now,” he smiled, “Putin is turning back towards tyranny.” “In terms of politics,” I said, “our time doesn’t not look good from anywhere…” “Obama is a crook,” he stated and added,  “why don’t those cops leave people alone? I just have a few hours to sleep before it gets too hot!” “Don’t you sleep at night?” “At night you have to watch out for crooks.” “Sorry!” “I will get my disability soon,” he said, “I was hit by a car, but I work, whatever I am able to do with my injured leg,” he pointed to his left leg, which looked no different than his right one. “I clean windows for storefronts to make some cash.” A woman paced by. She was the same woman who I mistook for a young guy last Sunday. “She always begs for cigarettes. I don’t smoke,” he said loudly so that she could hear. Like most of my models he was at ease with me watching him closely. I felt uneasy, thought, when the pause in conversation seemed too long. “Now as my children have grown," I filled in the silence, "I have time to paint. I like meeting people. Talking with random people is interesting, you know. It gets me out of the ordinary of my life. It makes me feel good. Do you ever feel good?” He thought for a moment. “I am always all right,” he said.  “Here, Dan,” I said. “I gave you a look of old fashioned Russian intellectual.” 
We shook hands as we said good-by. After a few paces I suddenly remembered that I forgot to take a snapshot. I turned back, but he already lied down. What was I to do, to take a picture of him with his eyes closed or to wake him up? I stuck my camera into the pocket book and went away.