I place my warm pastry, my hot cup of tea, and Harper Lee’s book on a table in the coffee shop of a bookstore. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’—I’m buying it for a friend. I pull out a sheet of hard, sturdy cardstock paper, and carefully measure lines across it. I crease the paper, checking that the book fits like a glove inside it’s new sleeve. I pull out my brush pens, and draw a new cover for this book. My cover.

A man watches me as I alternate between eating my pastry, sipping my tea, and drawing this cover. I’m not using one, but two pens to draw. I’m not using one, but two hands to draw. “You’re an artist, huh?” he asks me. Yeah, I respond. I like to draw. He returns to his book. I to my work. He puts his book down again. “How are you doing that with two hands?”

I push my small plate away. I set my tea aside. I grab a piece of paper. I draw him. He’s surprised, of course. He asks questions, of course. I answer them, while I finish his picture.

Then it’s back to my gift. My friend’s birthday is today. I finish the book jacket, and take another sip. I think through what to write inside. I write a few words. I cross them out. I write a few more. The man now has company.

He’s a big man with a beard. I recognize neither his smell nor his accent. The first man tells the one with the beard: “this guy next to you, he draws with two hands! Look, he drew me!” The bearded man now asks me questions. I pull out another sheet, and draw his picture. When it’s finished, I plan to return to writing.

“Amazing,” the bearded man says, holding his portrait so he could see it. “You know,” he begins. “I collect rare pictures.” The first man joins in: “tell him about your Merkel picture!” The big bearded man is happy to be asked. “You won’t believe it,” he tells me, “but I have a picture of Angela Merkel from the FKK days.” Freikörperkultur is a nudist movement especially common in 1980’s East Germany. He draws back, pleased with his find. “You wouldn’t think so today, but she was quite a looker then. And,” he leans back in to me: “she was completely naked.”

I try not to laugh. I tell him that’s an interesting find. I return to my work, and complete my dedication on Lee’s novel. Finished, I stow my things. “Will you be back here again?” the bearded man asks me. Maybe. “I’ll be here. Every weekend, right in this café.”

I walk into the bar, and find a free seat at the crowded table of the Japanese Stammtisch. “How was your day?” one of the Germans asks me in Japanese, taking a sip from his beer. すごいでした！ (Super!) I respond. I forget that Germans never say they had a great day. They say ‘passt’ (which is something between ‘it was OK’ and ‘it happened’). So my expression of ‘super’ is especially out of place. “Oh?” he continues confusedly, “What happened? Why was today a super day?” I had a wonderful train ride. He almost chokes on his beer, he laughs so hard. “You took the train here,” he switches to German, “…and that’s what made today super?” He’s hoping he misunderstood my Japanese. Yes, I tell him, that’s right.

Just one hour before, I get onto a big train this Friday afternoon fresh off work. My eyes scan this way and that, calculating a place to sit where I can see the most people. I decide on a spot near a group of women. They take a hard look at me, plainly wondering why of all the free places in this train car, I’m sitting near them. Even so, their conversation soon resumes its normal pace. Suddenly it slows down again. They notice my two hands drawing a woman in my view. “Look, look at him!” one whispers to the others, drawing their attention to the portrait quickly taking shape on a bright yellow piece of my drawing paper. The whispering woman twists her body around to see who I am drawing: someone sitting one row behind her. “And he draws with two hands,” whispers another woman from this group.

I finish this portrait. I hand it to the subject, who is quite surprised. She hadn’t been paying much attention. Her neighbors had. But I have much more than these women’s attention when I start on the next portrait. Again, I draw someone I can only see thanks to my particular position near these ladies. This woman nudges her boyfriend, and soon he watches me draw as well. I finish, snap a photo of the portrait, and hand it to her. “This is wonderful,” she exclaims. “You’ll have to draw my mother next,” she says, pointing to the row of seats behind her. “She’s sleeping back there.”

Unfortunately, her sleeping mother is not in view, hidden behind chairs and people I can see. But now the ladies I sit beside are so thoroughly intrigued, I have to draw one of them next. I make eye contact with one of them. She knows the drill now. She tries to keep still. She tells the others how nervous she is to get a portrait. She is finally glad I chose such an odd place to sit.

I draw the second, third, and begin on the fourth of these women friends, when one of the train employees comes by. She’s checking tickets. I put my things aside, show her my pass, and continue drawing. The Kontroller (ticket checker) slows, then stops her work. She stares at my drawing. The women friends now chime in: “yes, he just draws people. He’s drawn almost all of us already, look!” They show the train Kontroller their portraits in turn. She stares a bit longer, then continues with her work. But some minutes later, with all tickets checked, she returns and asks me: “would you be able to draw me too?”

We make good conversation. She’s curious about where I’m from and how this hobby started. She’s so engrossed that she doesn’t notice as passengers try to pass her in the walkway. She’s very happy when I hand her the sketch which, more or less, looks like her. She wishes me luck as the train stops once again, letting on passengers with tickets needing to be checked. She returns to her work with a smile on her face that’s just a little bigger.

I draw an Australian with a leather jacket who’s travelling Europe. “Are you in the Guinness World Records or something? It’s amazing what you do.” I draw two Eritreans. We can’t communicate too well with eachother, but as the train arrives to its final station they shake my hand and thank me. An older German couple I didn’t even draw approach me: “it’s a wonderful thing you do,” they say.


I walk out of the station, still aglow, still sporting a grin, and enter the bar for tonight’s Japanese Stammtisch. I find a seat at a crowded table. “How was your day?” one of the Germans asks me in Japanese, taking a sip from his beer. Super! I respond.