right across town

Last night, Randy and I were walking through Central Park and we came upon some sketch artists. You know the ones… they’ll sketch your portrait for you right on the sidewalk.

We stopped to watch one of them sketching a lovely smiling portrait of a girl who couldn’t be more than four years old, sitting with blank eyes and her mouth hanging agape like she was stoopid er somthin’.

While we stood watching the artist work his magic, two other artists tried to sell portraits to us. I was mildly interested, but knew they’d charge an arm and a leg for it, and so we politely declined both of them.

One of the artists was particularly persistent and offered us a “special rate” if we allowed him to sketch the both of us together. Still, we declined and began to walk away. Unfortunately we had to stop for a traffic light and he caught us again.

“Come on,” he said, “where are you guys from?” Randy answered, “I’m from New York, man,” and pointed up the street. “I live right across town there.”

“OHHHH,” the artist said, “you guys are New Yorkers! Well I’ll tell you what,” and he turned the portrait he was holding in his hand around. On the back was printed the rates he was charging–$70 for a one-person portrait and $120 for a two-person portrait. “This,” he said, “is the tourist rate. Since you guys are from New York, I’ll charge you $35.”

We laughed, and Randy told the guy that we still didn’t have that kind of money right now but, “maybe next time.”