A CRIMINALIZED SENSITIVE AMONG THE NUMBSKULL CLASSES

Living out here in the Texas flatlands, a place where high elevations, both physical and spiritual, are rare and far between, those whose only crime consists in being somewhat sensitive (or delicate) often find themselves virtually jailed by flat milleux. You are definitely one of those. It shouldn't seem strange to you, then, to find yourself riding in the back of a large truck, rolling down Singleton Boulevard, far out in impoverished West Dallas, a convict among convicts, literally chained to the bed of the proverbial lorry.

You really don't feel at home there in the back of the truck. Sure, the wind blowing what remains of your hair is bracing and cool (it being Autumn), but what is this context in which you find yourself? All around you, bumping and bouncing in the back of the flatbed, are ruffians, hoodlums, convicts, transients, mendicants and drug addicts. The contrast between yourself and these odd men couldn't be greater: As you sit there, watching the hardscrabble landscape swim by as you pass old tire shops, battered restaurants and pasteboard houses, the men around you are hooting at various women, many of whom are standing on streetcorners, waving back. Moreover, as you contemplate the beauty of the scene, taking note of the earthy details of an almost forbidden landscape and trying to fit it into some understanding of the world, the men around you seem to be thinking in terms of lust, of wanting out of all this, of wanting to rebel against anything and everything.

Strangely, the guards riding in the cab of the truck are taking the entire group of you to some sort of art project.

"Today, you're gonna be artists. Hear?"

You definitely do hear the guards. They're laughing. But what are they laughing at? Are they scoffing at you and your inadvertent compatriots as all of you, guards and prisoners together, try to parse exactly how being a criminal and an artist are going to mesh today? Or are they making sport of this torture du jour? Art. As torture. What on earth is going on here?

Everybody within this scene looks roughed up: The man chained to your wrist has multiple scars on his wrists--as if he's tried to commit suicide dozens of times. His three-day stubble makes his face look dirty, just as does the windburn and the implicit ruddiness of his complexion. His voice is rough and gravelly. His hair, streaked with gray, reminds you of a drunkard's bedhead. But, like you, he wears the institutional orange jumpsuit that indicates prisoners are being transported across Dallas, the International City, for some sort of mission of pure drudgery.

Is art drudgery? Apparently it is for these prisoners. As for you, well, you're almost looking forward to this "field trip" to some sort of art center where, for once, you'll be able to represent your more sublime instincts to strangers. Perhaps, you're thinking, one of these strangers will see you for who you really are, not merely a prisoner, not merely some sort of criminal, not a run-of-the-mill hoodlum whose idea of art is a shoot-em-up B-movie along the lines of a Quentin Tarrentino knock-off.

Of course, this situation itself is a kind of Quentin Tarrentino knock-off. All the elements are there: Do art and beauty hide like butterflies in cocoons of criminality and violence? Is this the beauty of the underclass that you, caught like a fly in amber, also get to view from a position of relative mental distance?

The truck slows, pulls to the left of the road and rolls across a dirt drive to the so-called destination. But this isn't an art center. It's not even a community center. No. Rather, it's an auto parts store. What? You're going to be expressing yourself artistically in an auto parts store?

You're pulled outside your initial amazement at this unexpected turn of events because the guard in the passenger seat has pulled out a large shotgun and is watching your group of prisoners closely as his partner unchains the chain gang from the truck.

"Ya'll better not try nothin' or you'll get some of this, ya hear?"

Then he laughs. "Ya'll's gonna be artists! Stupid mutherfuckers!"

You bow your head and acquiesce. Inwardly, you're pleased. As your leg-ironed feet clank in rhythm with the others in line, the entrance to the auto parts store opens. It looks a lot like Dallas' famed Deep Ellum "arts district". The building itself is weathered and stained by decades of misuse.

You file into the room, where, to your surprise, you see several beautiful women, all of them car parts clerks, and they're all watching with some interest this line of criminals moving to a table where a number of cheap art supplies are piled. Two women, in particular, strike your interest. They look like simple girls, but also worldly women; girls with very little formal education, and of that, even less of it education of quality. It's obvious they're coarse and a little wild, but at this point in your life, who really cares? They're women, and you haven't been in this close proximity to women, much less beautiful women, in quite some time. You decide you're going to use your sensitivity to impress them.

"You all here," grunts a guard. "You all here are here to make posters inviting people to this here auto parts store. You are going to make signs that are gonna greet customers and stuff like that. We're not gonna do any funny stuff or anything. No smart alecs or we could shoot you right here. You hear that? We want you to mention this here 'Criminal artists of Dallas program' thing. There's your crayons so have at it!"

The other guard then proceeds to unlock each of you from the chains. One of the women moves from behind the counter and locks the front door. It doesn't matter, apparently, about lost business for the auto parts store. What matters more than anything is that you not escape from the auto parts store.

Quietly, and somewhat warily, you slowly walk to the table and take a black marker, a green marker and a yellow marker. Strange. You have unconsciously selected three colors that indicate exactly how you're feeling at this moment: black for the grief of a prisoner, yellow for the fear you must be feeling deep down, and of course, envy for those in the world who are truly free. Your heart hurts at this acknowledgment. Then, you take a relatively unwrinkled piece of manilla paper, the type of paper you once used in elementary school. This, too, seems ironic. You, a great artist? Using the cheapest institutional paper? How on earth can you preserve a great work of art on paper that will surely crumble in a decade or two? Are you
taking this joke too seriously?

You're being treated like a child. You don't like being treated like a child.

Nevertheless, you take marker in hand and begin to draw. Slowly, surely, a beautiful design begins to shape itself on the cheap paper. The design is angular and a little lopsided. Still, there is an almost unearthly beauty to it. In fact, you like what you've done. That's when you notice one of the women looking at you. Knowing you're being watched, you begin to make flourishes with the marker--like a burlesque of an artist's movements. The woman, however, shows no recognition of what you're doing--even though you're making a show for her. You glance at her. She's still looking--sure she is--but you get the impression she doesn't really see what you're doing. What on earth is she thinking about? Lunch?

Finally, you take your "work" in hand and stride over to the counter. "What do you think of this," you ask the woman. "Do you like it?"

"It's O.K.," she sighs.

"Is this what you want?"

"I guess."

"What does it make you feel?"

"Oh...I dunno...."

You don't know about any of the other prisoners, but the woman's comments--or lack of commentary--hurts you. In fact, it's torture. You wanted her attention, and now that she's passively shrugged you off, you want her attention even more. Looking at the prisoner next to you, you see his so-called artwork: It's scribbled with a plain old red pen, and in almost rudimentary handwriting, it says, "CUM ON TO DAVE'S AUTOPARTS STOR BE-CAUSE THIS MEAN YOU TOO!"

A total work of genius. Bastard can't even spell.

Unfortunately for you, the girl whose attention you want, sees the sign and says, "That's purty cute!" This disgusts you. It's not cute. It's inane. As a sign, it wouldn't work because the lettering is so faint you'd have to get so close to it that you'd already have entered the premises of the auto parts store to have noticed it. There's no artifice, there's no artfulness, there's no practical value, and it's meaningless. But the girl behind the counter thinks it's cute? What on earth does she value here?

"What's so cute about that guy's stuff?" you ask her. You're trying to be polite, but years of formal education and, well, "book-learning" are turning your social effort into a parody of itself. "What's so cute about that thing?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Well, it reminds me of, well, I don't know...."

The woman obviously has no taste. She wouldn't know art if art itself came up behind her and screamed, "LOOK AT ME! I'M ART! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT! ART! I'M ART!"

You look across the room, working on tables crowded with dusty auto parts, convicts are scrawling childish and often inane signs that have little or nothing to do with art as you know it on the planet Earth. Most of the "art" you're seeing looks like garage sale signage: A couple of stick figures here, a lumpy looking face there. No sense of perspective, a complete absense of proportion, and worst of all, absolute ignorance of the concept of meaning in art. These are naifs. No, it's worse than that. As far as culture is concerned, they're retards. That's probably why they're in jail. They have no cultural understanding, no comprehension regarding how the human individual fits within his or her requisite culture. They are nothing more than bundles of nerves that respond to hunger, lust, danger and rage. In other words, they're children, big, mean, illiterate children.

All this time, you've been trying to be polite to the children around you--that's what you're thinking. But now it's apparent: This is your death, this is where it all ends. Your drawing, all of the spirit that went into it, the passion, the symbolism of the colorations, the shadings, the angles, the almost palpable meaning of imprisonment all caught up in the abstract, means absolutely nothing to the girl. How can it be? How could it have come to this?

Finally, you can take it no longer. Angrily, you turn your drawing upside down, and begin a completely new rendition. This time, you make crude scrawls that, in a matter of moments, congeal into a hastily rendered impression of a curvaceous woman. She has big tits. She's got big eyes that are surrounded by green eyeshade. She looks a little like the girl behind the counter.

Above this almost despicable image, you scrawl out a kind of laundry list:

UP FOR: HELPING MURDERERS GET STRAIGHT

IN FOR: BEING TOO CUTE TOO BELIEVED

WHERE AT: DAVE'S AUTO PARTS PLANT

REASON TO: COME LOOK AT CRIMINAL DALLAS ARTISTS

DATE OF TIME: AT SATURDAY'S UNTIL CLOSED

***COME IN CUTIE PIE***

***I THANK YOUR CUTE***

***X X X O O O X X X***

Finished with the so-called work of art, you hold it up to the girl. She smiles at you. Brushes her hair behind her ear. She's showing you she hears you. She's connecting with you.

"That's cute, mister," she says. "What's your name?"