Super

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.