Self Portrait Part 2: "Unh huh. Unh huh."
Self Portrait is a four-part serial short story based on experiences described in my “Street Cred” series.
Podcast of entire story is at the top of Part 4.
Virgil had arrived in Esteyville a few weeks before, from parts unknown. Heard it was an OK town. Police didn’t hassle you. ‘Course police rarely hassled Virgil. It only took them a few days to see he didn’t mean any harm to anybody. Besides, it’d be like trying to arrest air.
Virgil never used a cardboard sign. Shook his head at guys on the street who did. And he never did hard drugs. Shook his head at guys on the street who did. Virgil smoked pot. He always had some. It was always good. And he could always sell enough to get by. He’d have a beer once in a while. Can in a paper bag. But only if it was cheap beer. Those fancy beers reminded him of the sour mash his Uncle Teddy used to make. Too intense.
Virgil spent most of his time sitting on a low stone wall by the parking garage—usually with Richie and one or two other guys—earbuds in, listening to faraway music, smiling and nodding at passersby like he’d known them all his life. After a few days of this, most folks felt the same way.
“Hey, how you doin’?”
Some looked down or away. More than you'd expect smiled and at least replied, "Good. How're you doing?"
“Just fine,” Virgil would laugh, maybe pull one of the earbuds out. “Hey, you wouldn’t have a light would you?”
“No, ‘fraid I gave up long time ago.”
“No matter, no matter.” By then he’d be walking alongside you, as if he had been heading in the same direction all along. Just when you thought he was going to ask you for more than a match, he’d slowly dip, turn his sinewy body, and then roll it up until he was facing the other direction—a poor man’s Michael Jackson move—leaving you with a “catch you later” that felt like a promise you’d asked him to make. Then he’d give a little laugh like the two of you had just completed a perfect basketball pick and roll.
After three or four of these pleasant encounters, he’d ask for a buck or two in the same tone as he’d ask for the match.
Once you gave Virgil money, he put you on his list—a worn mental rolodex of potential donors—he was running a nonprofit after all—in cities all over the Eastern seaboard. For a stoner, he had an excellent memory.
Virgil's conversations were punctuated with laughter. He had two ways of laughing. One when you one-upped him and the other when he one-upped you. In both cases he turned his head and looked at you with a suspicious glint in one eye as his smile got into gear. If you had the upper hand, he’d give the slightest of nods, ripple back as if he’d been lightly pushed and then come forward with three quick bursts of laughter, maybe lightly closing the nearest fist and tapping you on the shoulder. Then he’d roll back, with a chortle or two. He might even throw in a compliment, “That’s a good one.” Then he’d take off again walking forward, although it always felt more sideways.
When he one upped you, he’d do the same thing except he’d roll forward first and do his tap on the shoulder and then roll back saying something like, “See?” Or, after a pause, give you a knowing “Unh huh. Unh huh…” while looking at you to make sure you’d seen the error of your ways.
In between laughs, he'd talk in his slow way, often seeming to agree with himself, "Unh huh. Unh huh."
As Virgil’s artist friend Bridget got to know him, she realized that the way he talked was partly natural and partly a parody of how he knew people thought a skinny loose-limbed black guy from the South would talk. But he’d done it for so long it had become his own signature style. His patois was pure Virgil.
She wouldn’t have been surprised to find out he could speak the King’s English.
“So, what you do up there anyway?"
Brigid raised her eyebrows. He rarely showed any interest in her life. She waited a couple of beats. “I’m an investment banker."
“Well, you be giving me more than singles then.” He chuckled. She wasn’t no banker.
“Ahh Virgil, you got me. I’m an artist.”
“So, you paint pictures Bridget?" He said her name in two long syllables like he hadn't decided whether he approved of it or not.
“Yup. Maybe I’ll paint yours someday.”
“And what are you going to pay me to paint my picture?”
Even though Brigid paid her models, this hadn’t occurred to her. Virgil was a pro at turning instinctive assumptions into questionable biases.
“Usually, $10 or $15 an hour.”
“I think the $15 sounds better.”
“I bet you do. But you gotta sit still. Half an hour or so. Then a 10-minute break. Two or three sessions.”
“Sitting still? That’s all I do for the most part…though sometimes I like standing better…Now you be wanting me to pose naked?”
“You wish!”
That got the big rolling back laugh. “And you wish too! Wait…” he said, like he had just thought of it. “How much money are you going to get for this painting?“
“Maybe I’ll just give it to you.”
“Now why do that? I already know what I look like.”
That took her a second. “Yeah, but you don’t know how I see you.”
Virgil just shook his head. He was talking business, not some highfalutin philosophy.
“I don’t know," she continued. "My paintings sell, usually for a grand or two.”
“Well, then, I’ll just take a piece of what you sell my picture for.”
“You want a commission?”
“Let’s just call it my cut.”
“Virgil. I’ll pay you the $15 an hour. That’s all.”
Virgil blew out some air. “What the hell?”
“I’m doing the work. You’re just sitting there doing what you always do.”
"Yeah, but I’ve spent my whole life making this face, you’re just spending a few hours painting it.”
“You gonna sit for the painting or not, Virgil?”
“Oooo, you be sounding like my momma. So, when do you want me comin’ up to your studio?”
Oddly she hadn’t thought of him actually being in her studio. The dynamic seemed all wrong. Even though watercolor portraits were a bitch to do outside.
“No way I’m letting you up to my studio.”
“‘Cause I’m a neee grow?” He asked, with a raucous laugh.
“Cause you’re Virgil.” An answer that kind of made sense to both of them although it proved his point and undermined hers.