Portrait of Whiplash

Portrait of Whiplash; ballpoint pen, ink pencil and watercolor on notebook paper; August 23, 2025; Bothell, WA.

"Why don't you draw guys over coffee anymore, LumberMack?" Falcon asked at Caffe Ladro, downtown Bothell. Determined, I grabbed a barista's ballpoint pen and paper from a nearby table. Of the nearly dozen men sitting at the table, I picked Patrick Hughes, aka "Whiplash," being the oldest and most distinguished of the group at 81. For an Irish-Catholic, Omaha, Nebraskan of the Post War generation, Whiplash has perseverance; posting at forty-five minute bootcamp workouts, or "beatdowns" five times a week, often driving thirty minutes each way from Snohomish throughout Puget Sound.

Patrick noticed me drawing him from across the table, approaching as the group was leaving. "Who you drawing?" he asked, showing him his unfinished ballpoint portrait. "You want me to stick around?" he asked. "You mind?" I said. He sat beside me at nearly a side profile. Looking at my rough scribble based on a distant moving target with the model now still and directly in front of me; I started over on the other half of the folded paper. We didn't exchange a word as I poured every ounce of ability into capturing his likeness. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, I laid the drawing in front of him. "That's amazing" Whiplash said. Over a week later, on Labor Day, I gifted Patrick his portrait — colored and framed — at a large gathering, or convergence, workout at Robinswood Park, Bellevue, Washington.