Le Petit Brute (Sketch)

At certain restaurants in Madagascar when you receive the menu you will also receive a small piece of paper and a pen. You write down your order on the paper and hand it to your server. The second fanciest restaurant in my neighborhood is such a place.

I’m in the habit of giving a tiny piece of art with my order — which I draw as small as possible in the corner of the paper provided. (I don’t sign these pieces. I don’t want to buy the restaurant, as Picasso is supposed to have said.)

This week I was at the restaurant with Pizza Girl. She asked me to show her how to draw what I had just sketched. I drew it again, step-by-step, on my phone. She followed along on paper and a blue marker.

It was something of a catharsis for her. She’d been the target of a mean kid at school recently. We joked that this petit brute (little bully) was her school tormentor.

We were both very pleased with the results.

Incidentally: The fanciest restaurant in my neighborhood indisputably is Chez Maxime, a white-tablecloth kind of place where I rarely go.