DRAWRING

“Excuse me. Excuse me. Yeah sorry to interrupt. Is your name by any chance Cody?”

The man looked to be around mid-fifties. He was balding and mustached, and had a round quality to him. He spoke without commas, quickly and confidently. His skin was slightly dark like his mismatching brown suit. He looked like a professor, and I knew I recognized him, even knew him, but could not think from where.

“My name is Cole, is that close enough for your purposes?”

“Cole! Cole! Yes Cole.” He was friendly, but with eyes and energy just piercing enough to appear slightly aggressive. The friend with whom I had been making small talk pulled back slightly but looked on intrigued. “And did you used to be in LSA?”

“I was in the Law Students Association all right. All the way back, basically in the beginning.”

“Yeah yeah Cole?” He seemed to be pondering my name, trying it on for size. “And did you do this drawring.” He stabbed a hard second ‘r’ into the word every time he said it. “Just a second.” He fumbled in his pocket and then pulled out a phone. I expected him to show me a picture of the LSA logo, which I had designed, and say that LSA needed me to send them a soft copy again because they had lost the old one. He held the phone up for me to see, shielding the screen against the glaring dessert sun.

At first I could not see anything. Then I made out a dark, pixilated image of a fleet of Cairene buildings stretching up towards the citadel. It was a charcoal picture I had drawn nearly three year earlier, and I could not imagine where he would have seen it.

As if responding to my thoughts, he continued, “I saw this drawring in the gallery here on campus,” he indicated down the main spine of AUC towards our art department. “I saw it and I said ‘isn’t that that Cody kid.’ Well I’ve been looking for you for a year and I carry a picture of your drawring around with me just in case I ever found you. I just have to ask you,” and here he paused, or at least in my mind time stood still for a moment. “Do you ever sell your work?”

I told him that I sold one piece back in grade school.

“Well you don’t have to decide right now. You look at that drawring for a week or two and then let me know what you want.” He told me his name was Tony. We had been together in LSA and now he was teaching Rhetoric at AUC and night classes in legal writing. We exchanged numbers and I said I would give him a call. And then, he walked away.

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