100 days in cleveland

Day 29/100

Little Italy

I felt very lucky to get a seat for this drawing in front of Presti’s on such a warm and sunny afternoon. The drawing session got even better when 3 Italian men sat down next to us. They were very authoritative: “We need this seat for our friend. You’re going to have to move over.”
One of the men kept throwing money on the table and ordering his younger friend, Carmen, to get him a drink or some butterscotch pecan ice cream. He also kept telling Carmen to help the third, older friend - somehow also named Carmen - to get comfortably seated and served. Older Carmen was hard to understand, but he seemed to appreciate thumbing through my sketchbook. Younger Carmen wasn’t allowed to get a word in because his friend would yell at him to stop interrupting. All three men asked one after another if I went to CIA (as if they hadn’t heard the others ask). I wonder what it would be like to grow up in this tight knit Little Italy community: they kept watching people walk past and saying “Look, there’s _______!” and “Oh, that’s _______’s son!”