The Lonely Artist

The story of Van Bro

As I peered out the window I could see him there on the sidewalk, he stood as still as a bronze statue.  After what seemed to be an eternity,  he slowly turned his head as a car passed in front of him. I had not seen a person move like he did, it was with the rigidity of a robot, he looked stiff and awkward . Later, I came to believe that he was probably aching from sleeping on concrete in the cold.

I was frequently downtown in those days. My youngest son was in college and he played many gigs at a place called The Riverboat, located on Dauphin Street right next door to the famous Heroes Bar & Grill. I was eating a grilled cheese sandwich,while watching my son, Eric, set up for his show. As I looked around that night; I saw this man for the first time. He looked like he had lived a tough life with no love or attention; sort of a castaway from society. Those are the thoughts that filled my mind that night as I stared out the huge glass windows at this stranger standing there in the streetlights.

He walked into The Riverboat one night and I knew he was the guy I had seen the week before in the street. As he passed my table I noticed he was carrying something in a raggedy cloth bag.  He walked over to Eric and they spoke for a few minutes. Soon he had Eric pose for him, then he pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper and a pencil. He smiled as he sketched his vision of my son.  When this artist finished, Eric handed him $5 and shook his hand. The picture was unique, it did bare a likeness to my son and was much better than I could have done. I looked it over closer and realized this man had some artistic ability for sure.

This gentleman was familiar to the college kids that frequented the bars on Friday and Saturday nights. Many of them paid him to paint their pictures over the years and they enjoyed showing others their picture once he was done.  He did not have a set price, just whatever they had to spare would do. There was one or two in the crowd that were not pleasant to him, but that just reflects the differences in the people walking this earth. I am sure this man had learned to avoid those folks.

Most of the kids downtown called him “Van Bro”…(like Van Gogh), no one I spoke to knew his actual name.

When he stood nearby, I could sense his deep loneliness.  He was always polite and he had a smile every time I saw him. As I think of him I am reminded that often a person smiles on the outside while he weeps on the inside. I think of the comics Red Skelton and Robin Williams who made us all laugh while they were tormented beneath those smiles they wore for us. I suspected the same was true for this man with his pencils and paper.

We spoke briefly several times; he would stand and talk pleasantly about nothing specific.  There was a show on the local news that told of people like him living on the streets, sleeping under bridges, or in the recessed doorways of empty or closed businesses; occasionally they would find the lobby open in a church and curl up in a corner. It spoke of the trek they would make as they looked every day for a place that would enable them to feel safe enough to catch a few hours of sleep. I suspected that true rest was something that had eluded this man for so long because he looked very tired. 

When I go downtown with Eric as he plays his gigs, I sometimes think of Mr. Van Bro and his kind disposition.  I shook his hand a few times and it felt like rough leather that had been outside flapping in the wind; gritty and dried out. Such a simple act of extending your hand to shake his seemed so special to him. 

People like this lost artist just need someone to interact with, even if its only a brief nod and grunting acknowledgment that he was there, he was alive, he was human, he was somebody. I sensed he wanted to be “normal” and he needed to feel like he was a part of this world.

Wrinkled paper and crudely sharpened pencils were his only worldly possessions, yet he could smile and be pleasant.

Years have passed since I have seen him downtown. For some reason he popped into my mind yesterday and would not leave, so I decided I needed to tell the story of Mr.Van Bro. I once heard he was sick with Hepatitis C, but I do not know that for certain. I do hope that things changed for him and he was able to find peace, warmth, safety and even happiness. Inside that homeless man there was a beating heart, a kind spirit, an artist, a person who wanted more in life but he did not know how or where to find it.