THE PEOPLE YOU MEET, SOMETIMES...

My driver's side front tire was acting up on my car. My steering wheel was shaking and it felt as if I were continuously driving over mini-speed bumps. The alignment seemed screwed up. So, on Wednesday, I took my Focus in to a place called Brakes And More and had them look at it. I figured it had something to do with my alignment or maybe something with exotic-sounding names like "half-shafts" and "CV-boots" or some shit like that. Turns out: no. The friendly folks at Brakes And More determined that 'twas my left tire that was giving me the business, as it were, and they told me that I needed to get another tire. See, the radials were seperating--verily, a dangerous situation. I asked them if they had a tire that they could plop on there. No, it turned out, they did not. But they did have the acumen to exchange both of my front rotors ("They're shot.") and also the front brake pads for the low low price of $253.08, parts and labor included.

A fool and his money are soon parted, said Ben Franklin.

Money grows wings and flies away, say I.

Anyway. To me, the ability to stop a 2000-pound vehicle is important and so, while it was money with which I really did not want to part, I did. And the next day, I went tire-shopping. I went to a new and used tire place called JRE Tires, first. They didn't have the tire in stock (my tires are small, apparently) and if they had to order a new one, it would come to about $75.00, parts and labor included. Having just blown my wad on my brakes, I declined their overtures and decided to swing by a local garge, to see if they had any appropriate tires.

I went today; they didn't have the kind of tire I needed. But the guy who owns the place, Wade, called his buddy down the road at Ray's Tires and talked to a guy named Dennis who just so happened to have the exact tire that I needed. Sweet! So I jumped into my car and whisked down the road to Ray's Tires and talked to a guy named Dennis and said that Wade had sent me and then I...waited. There were people ahead of me and so I ended up having to wait about an hour before all was said and done and I had a new tire for which I had to only pony up a measly $30.00. Damn! I wish I had gone there, first.

Anyway. The sole reason I wrote this post is because I met an interesting fellow, there, at Ray's. His name was Ken, and he fancied himself an artiste. Within a minute of talking to the fellow, I knew that he wasn't quite "all there." His eyes were a guileless light blue and his hair was scraggly and greasy and leonine. He held a clipboard. I was standing right next to him at the counter in the dingy utilitarian tire shop and I made the mistake of asking him how it was going.

"I'm doing well," he said. "I'm doing well." And then he turned his full attention to me and proceeded to talk my ear off for the next 25 minutes.

He was an artist, you see, and he'd been drawing pictures for 47 years, since he had been six years old. His specialty was looking at a photograph and recreating it with his pencil, blowing it up to a larger size. And, for the low low price of $3.00, he could draw a picture for me. "Pick anything," he said.

I have a soft heart. I am soft-hearted. Perhaps I am stupid. I saw that the guy was down on his luck; he was dirty and his clothes were slovenly and he was unshaved and his left foot was in a soft cast. Help him out, an interior voice admonished. Plus? Who knows? He could be like an idiot savant, with that pencil! Wouldn't it be cool to see?!

So I gave him my license and I followed him to the row of grungy orange metal chairs and we sat and I watched him draw my likeness as he rambled his life's story into my right ear. He was bipolar. He took Depakote and some other psychotropic drugs and he'd been taking said drugs for nigh upon ten years. He lived in Detroit and he needed money for bus fare back, albeit the city was not what it had once been, what with drive-by shootings and murder and people getting shot in the head.

"I've been drawing for 47 years, you see," he informed me. "I'm so good now, I don't even make mistakes, no more. I never have to go back and erase, you see. Some people take forever to draw a picture. I can do yours in five minutes, you'll see. And if I do a whole family of four, I can do it in forty-five minutes, you'll see."

"Dennis," called the leather jacket-clad guy a seat over from Ken. "I'm going across the street to get a cold one." As he got up and walked out, he cast a sidelong glance at the artist and grimaced.

I looked at my likeness on the paper. I was unimpressed. My interior voice had been dead wrong. This guy Ken was not a savant. Rather, he was someone who was down on his luck and unbalanced and he did what he had to do to eat...or get drugs or alcohol or whatever. I settled back into my seat and listened to Ken as he rambled.

"Some people need to practice. I practice, too, but I'm so good, I don't even need to erase, no more."

I know, Ken. You already told me. I think Kenny was in his manic phase. I mumbled some encouraging words.

"I've practiced 1.6 million hours, I think," he said. "I don't even need to erase no more. Just every line is right where it's supposed to be."

I muttered some encouraging words and telepathically tried to expediate the process.

Finally, Ken was done with his photographically-exquisite work. He pulled the paper from his clipboard and handed it and my driver's license to me. I lay three wrinkled dollar bills on the orange metal folding chair between us. I held the paper up and looked at the drawing. Ken was doing something funny with his lips--kind of sucking them in and pursing them out and he was breathing rather heavily. "It's good," I said.

He smiled. Pursed his lips. Smiled. "I work for tips, too, sometimes people they give me tips."

I looked at him and I nodded. "Yeah, I bet they do," I said. "This is good work." I folded the paper and put it in my coat and I stood up. "Listen, I gotta go outside and get a smoke."

Ken rose. "Me too." Great. He pulled a pack of Smoker's Choice from his weathered flannel and he followed me outside. Great. I went to my car to get my smokes and I scrounged around for a lighter and when I got back to the front of Ray's Tires, ole Ken was gone. Good.

I pulled my portrait out, again, and I looked at it. Photographic in its quality, I say! Photographic! You know who it looks like, a little bit? Hines Ward, a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hines is half African-American and half South Korean. I had no idea that those ethnicities were in my family tree. You learn something new every day, I reckon.

The people you meet, sometimes....