-So what do you think of the arts of today?

-The arts?  There’s no such thing as the arts, my friend.  There’s art, and that’s it.  People just don’t understand what art is, that’s all.  You can label anything and set some standards and anything can slip into that category, but that doesn’t make it anything.

-What do you mean?

-All I know is, when I see something beautiful, I know it.  When I hear something beautiful, I know it.  That’s art.

He coughs to clear his throat.  His dark face shines with sweat, giving him a more intense deep look.

-Look kid, there’s a lotta people out there that’re gonna try and tell you they’re artists.  Just because you paint it doesn’t make you a painter, just because you write it doesn’t make you a writer, just because you rhyme, it doesn’t make you a poet.  The problem is

He drags on his poisonous cigarette.

-there’s too many painters who paint, but they don’t see, too many writers who write, but they don’t listen.  If we stop anyone walking by right now, how many artists do you think we’ll find?  I bet a world of them.

He smirks and his tight face wrinkles.

-There’re too many artists out there tryin’ to prove they’re artists.  The world doesn’t know what to think.  Why do you think people don’t take art seriously anymore?  Do you think it’s because DaVinci wasn’t good enough, or that Hemingway had no skill?  No, man.  It’s because now everyone wants to be a DaVinci, a Hemingway, an artist, but they don’t feel it, you know?  They can’t feel what real art is, so they don’t know it.

He talks with a smooth deep voice that keeps rhythm tighter than a metronome.

-Do you feel what real art is?

-I feel a lotta things, man, and I tell you it’s the honest truth that I feel art.  I feel the beauty in this world that art really is.  When I wake up in the morning and breathe, that’s art, that’s real art, man.

-Do you think you’re a real artist?

-Me?  Hell, no.  There’s no real art about me.  Real art it taking something ugly and showing it for what it is and turning it into something amazing.  There’s no real art about me.  My life’s not art.  My words aren’t art.  Listen, man, if I was a real artist do you think I’d be sitting here talking to you trying to make a living just to eat?  The only chance at real art I have is in my death.  It wouldn’t be anything of grandeur, but something the world would see.  Something that would be exactly what it is.  Something that people who walked by would see and know.  Now that would be art.

-So what are you?

-I’m just like you, and everybody else, I’m just a person.

He gives one last look before he leaves my table; it’s a sly look that makes me rethink everything he’s said.  As he sits back down on the hot sidewalk near the corner I try to think of who that man really is.  As the morning sun continues to rise passersbys throw change into his cup and it rattles like bones and spray-paint.