Zini, 24 x 36" Oil on panel.

His lifetime involvement in organized crime has always kept him on the move, but for the past 5 years he has been in Homer, earning his first honest living as a cook at the Otter Room as a 40-something year old. He loves it and now sleeps through the night.

As a child his mother taught him how to read cards. He got very good at this and it became the first way he earned money.

He moved to Alaska to be with his dying girlfriend for the last few weeks of her life. After she passed, he just stayed. He has serious reservations about leaving Alaska because he isn't sure if he can come back across the border to the US.

His fast talking Albanian accent is thick, making him easily funny to me. Zini calls all women "babe." Like any European man he has a particular sensitivity in talking with women, or, an ability to be or appear to be captivated by her. He can convince you of anything. Zini is a man of his word. He promised a day trip to Seldovia, a town across the Kachemak Bay- but without a boat or a plane I assumed it just wouldn't happen. I was wrong. Means do not make a man, his word does. I am sure he made a fabulous criminal and lover.

He comes off pessimistic and blasé when he drinks. Becoming nasty, arrogant and short, he dwarfs difficulties of all measures by toasting his usual: "It's two tears in a bucket- Fuck it. Salute!" I feel glad that I never saw a whiskey-drunk Zini, I think.

His best friend Bill, who Zini calls "Hill-Billie," is the bartender at Duggan's. Bill goes to the Otter Room every Thursday for rib-eye night and Zini doesn't charge him. When Zini gets off work, Bill repays him with free beer at Duggans. I like their exchange system.

Out of all eleven portraits I started in Alaska, Zini was the only one who was truly excited to have his portrait painted. Zini immediately hit his pose professionally and never broke eye contact. When painting someone, the person either retreats or proceeds. Most are uncomfortable, awkward or embarrassed and retreat. You have to pull things from them as subjects and search. But Zini just pushed his insides out unapologetically. No censors. Open and raw. Red.

His hair is salt and pepper and curly. His eye lids are as heavy as the bags under his eyes. Gravity pulls at all of his facial features. Always a 2 day scruff, usually wearing his Time Bandit tee "because it was free." Shorter than most men, his tucked in shirt pronounces his hard pot belly that protrudes above his hips, making his pants hang lower than they should. He walks with his toes pointing outward a little, bopping from side to side more than normal, always keeping the same gate that is a little faster than most. He swings his hands like they are heavier than he would like them to be. He likes his heavy hands in his pockets often and moves his head and neck around while he talks. dark eyes. shapely brows, an almost perfect cicle on the end of his nose. a wide grin. missing teeth. Clown like. His face is close to being finished, most work needs to be done around him on the grill and counter that surrounds him.

Carcase is finished- and my crush on him just got a little bigger.