Why do you draw, Gene?

Back when my mother was living, she got killed on Laurel Street. I was going to Ward Law High School . . .

``Ward Law?'' Tom asks, flipping open a notebook and jotting it down. ``You sure it was high school? Cause didn't you go to high school in Fort Mill also?''

Well, I went to Ward Law Elementary School.

Getting information out of Gene is like this. He rambles from memory to memory, spouting incoherent information like a stock ticker, often listing names of people and places that make no sense to anyone but him.

I was 8 and lived on Laurel Street, and my mother committed suicide with a gas stove.

``If you were 8 and you were born in 1936, that would have been around 1944, maybe,'' says Tom, who's always discovering more about the artist. ``With Gene, everything's a maybe.''

The days, the years and months go by so fast I don't have time to do the paperwork.

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