by Matteo Sarti
.
It is like multiplying. Everybody can get wrong one in a thousand times. Nothing bad, it is just an error every thousand operations. Almost ten million people are living in New York. A person out of thousand is that inaccuracy. In total there are ten thousand errors wandering around the city.
If you follow me I will try to tell you about one.
.
The first time I saw Charlie he was blind drunk. We were sat down in the subway, I was waiting for the train, he was soaking up his rhum before going back to sleep.
.
Charlie lives down at the red line station on 96th Street, actually nearby my house. He is always there, day and night, summer and winter, at first in a bench and then in another one. He draws the faces of the people waiting for the metro, he does it so quick, really, it is all over in a couple of minutes, he asks in exchange few dollars to buy booze.
.
I already have three or four of his portraits, when it is possible I go down there and pose and he starts drawing and meanwhile he tells me something and then something else.
.
When Charlie was young he was an athlet: specialty high jump, professional team stars and stripes. He had a slim figure, black and very long legs, he was travelling around the world jumping off one foot to clear the bar in front of everybody. Once he made me stay there for half an hour while he was relating me of that night when he jumped as he had never done before. Two metres and sixteen centimetres, summer of 1969, Moscow.
.
Then a letter changed everything. It was signed by president Nixon and he asked Charlie to be at the North Carolina military airport in seven days. Nothing to worry about, the President explained, war was almost over, it was a matter of few months and then everybody would just stayed at home forever. Charlie came back from Vietnam almost four years later, he was empty and dog-tired as the others.
.
One evening I saw him arguing with a german tourist who did not want to pay for his portray, you should have seen him that time, suddenly he became a mad dog, his eyes were bleeding because of the anger, since then I have not seen him anymore, no more.
.
I waited few days and then I started asking around for him: at first nobody knew anything about it, then one morning a neighbourhood policeman explained me that when in New York it is freezing there are always some volunteers who go down the metro and take the homeless to Harlem where they are sheltered in heated dorms.
.
During the last days it has been so cold and the city is all white. I thought something. Who knows, when the snow is falling, whether he can jump high too. Or maybe even more.
When he is back I will ask him, it is a promise.
Take care Mr. Charlie.

Bookmark this