Raw

An artist decides to take a road trip through a savage city of prostitutes, junkies, and nazi skinheads. Sketching art in its rawest form.

Ramirez was a quiet artist, one of those people who sat in a coffee shop. Most people thought he was just another freak in a crowd when really he silently sketched people around him, paying attention to intricate details in their faces not concentrating as much on the rest of them, in fact, most of the paintings had no body at all, only a head. Ramirez was done with the coffee shop scene, he decided to sketch real people, in the raw. Where better to do this than Detroit, a city of savagery and crime, raw art.

He climbed into his station wagon and left the small town in Michigan he was in, saying no goodbyes. He traveled the country between the cities, pulling over and sketching a particularly nice flower or person who passed. he stopped at a motel about half way through the journey in a small town, a prostitute stood on the corner of the sidewalk, Ramirez approached her, "I'm on a journey through America, sketching raw art, would you like to take part?" The w***e looked at him with the eyes of a lost dog, something about the stranger made her want to, she climbed the stairs to his room with him. "Just sit, I want to sketch you right now." She sat calmly gazing at him, "you paying me for this?" She croaked out suddenly. Ramirez nodded and continued working.

He was driving the next day and reached the outskirts of Detroit, the city looked like s**t and he had barely entered the city limits. He saw some people walking and decided to sketch them, they took no notice. A small, thin man approached him scratching at his needle marked arm, "hey man you look new." Ramirez raised an eyebrow at the junkie standing a few feet away. "I want to sketch you, I have a hotel, come on back." The junkie felt like he liked this guy he didn't know. "Ok ill come with you, just don't kill me though man, please?"

"Hey pull over here, I gotta go score." The junkie, Dan, got out of the car and rang the doorbell of a small project house, he was invited inside by a small fat Hispanic man. He stayed inside for five minutes than emerged with a syringe and a large bag of china white heroin, "you rip the poor f****r off?" Ramirez asked driving away. Dan shook his head, "just drive."

Dan started melting the powder down into a liquid and poured it into his syringe. He picked up the piece of rubber and wrapped his arm tightly. He stuck the syringe into his arm slowly. Meanwhile Ramirez drew his face as the rush came on and he nodded off, relaxed.

A nasty looking skinhead came by the hotel room as Dan woke from his drug induced coma, the skinhead burst through the door with a baseball bat and located Dan. "You piece of s**t, I knew I'd find you here!" He screamed, bringing the bat down on dans face, bones crunching as it connected, the skinhead continued wailing on Dan until he was broken and dead on the bed. Ramirez got up from his bed, "I want to draw you." The skinhead jumped back, dropping his bat. Ramirez rushed to his sketch book and charcoal than started drawing the skinhead, quickly and brutally. The skin picked up his bat, "um, you're alright kid" Ramirez didnt answer, he just continued shading, the skin left. Ramirez ended his sketchbook with a view of the skyline

Reviews

[Pax]

I like the story ~ as for a struggling artist myself i find it hard to draw in raw ~ i take photos first and then draw them ~ :) I like the way the story progress to a tragic end of his subject ~ One thing i find that make this quite a rush ending is that ~ you didn't put any details on how this person(skinhead) found Dan in Ramirez's hotel ~ because in the first place this skinhead person and Ramirez doesn't know each other ~ with that all i truly enjoyed this short tale ~ short and just ripe for the taste :) Great work! ~100