Gene's deep blue eyes never look at you when he talks to you. Sometimes he hears you, sometimes he doesn't. Or perhaps he's just ignoring you when he wants to, the same way he ignores certain features of faces he draws and focuses on the details that interest him.

I love electronics, and I love to play with them, but when they get too complicated I go to the Radio Shack to get answers to questions.

When Gene was 5 he got a bad case of pneumonia that left his brain damaged. He later moved with his father to Fort Mill, and after his father died in the 1970s, social workers kept an eye on Gene, doling out his public assistance money. But he lives on his own and keeps working because working is so important to him.

Gene has worked various odd jobs through the years. He has shined shoes and sold tickets in a movie theater and delivered groceries by bicycle.

I draw for money, to make money with it. I've always tried to work. Recycled cans, recycled metals. I've worked down at the Waffle House. I worked in textiles for six months . . .

Gene whips out his beaten leather wallet, pulls a stack of business cards and holds them up, one by one, pridefully.

Thistledown Gallery and Framing, Spot Jewelry and Loan, Saluda Motors.

I work with them people.

Each one has his name handwritten, in block letters, just like he signs his drawings.

Knox Bail Bonding. National Finance Company.

I used to work with them folks, 'til they wouldn't give me cards no more.

``Gene is somewhat delusional,'' Tom says. ``He'll go to a business and collect business cards and sign his name on them. And there's no difference between that and this for Gene,'' Tom says, pointing at Gene's signature under a drawing of Humphrey Bogart.

I ran into the ``Dukes of Hazzard'' General Lee one day going down to the Rock Hill Telephone, with the gray-haired guy in the car. I had a cowboy hat on and my police scanner. He must have thought I was Roscoe.

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