Scumbler

by William Wharton

  WEALTH, THE BRACE OF STANCE TO THIS

  STEALTH: IT WASHES AWAY SO MUCH WITH IT.

  I try out a price of three hundred bucks per painting; hold my breath, and look to see if she’ll faint. That’s over two thousand bucks by a quick stand-up calculation. She rips out her leather-bound checkbook, verifies the spelling of my name and writes a check on one of those California picture checks. She writes it with a real ink fountain pen, right out to the last zero. She blows on the wet ink and hands it to me. I try looking as if I’m paying attention but my brain is short-circuited.

  We sit there and drink cold tea; best damned cold tea I ever tasted. I try to tell her what I’m doing down in the Marais. She’s not much interested; just bought a birthday present for her husband, everyday affair, ho hum. She asks me not to let Bert know she’s bought the paintings; it’s a surprise.

  She stands up and packs the checkbook back in her small purse. I go down with her. I didn’t even eat any pizza. A big money earner like me should eat cold pizza? I leave the stuff on our table. I’m not usually so sloppy, being the homekeeper, but twenty-one hundred dollars, just like that, in an afternoon; it goes to my head. I pick fifty francs from our hiding place behind the mirror and roll back to the Marais on my bike in a rosy haze.

  I recoup my box at Goldenberg’s. I’m wearing a two-mile-wide grin all over my face; I’m actually beginning to look like a guy who’s painting a series of twenty paintings for the Guggenheim. Nothing succeeds like success. Goddamn, I just sold seven paintings; things’re looking up! The scumming slum landlord of Paris is breaking out.

  LUCK IN A BUCKET, WITHOUT HOLES,

  CHANGING ROLES IN ONE STINKING BLINK.

  I set up the box. I hassle a guy into moving his truck. I talk to a little fellow who runs a grocery store on the corner. He’s a Middle Eastern Jew, low man on the totem pole around here. The top Jews came in the twelfth century, sealed into the Marais by the French. “Marais” means swamp. These first ones made something of their swamp; live in swamp palaces now. Middle Eastern Jews moved in mostly after Suez. They have their own foods, own storefront synagogues, own stores, a ghetto inside the ghetto.

  BOXES INSIDE BOXES, WALLS TO DEFEND

  AGAINST WALLS. WE LOCK OURSELVES OUT

  BY LOCKING OTHERS IN.

  I’m deep into my painting, looking down a street, trying to make a bright red stay back there, when I see the Bert man running up the street, almost as if he’s coming straight out of my painting. He’s wearing an eager, serious look on his face.

  I catch on right away; the wife’s a nut and he’s found out she wrote a twenty-one-hundred-dollar check on the old joint account. Dick Diver chases Nicole through the streets of Paris. It was nice while it lasted; I should’ve cashed the check immediately. I’m glad to see him anyway; I’m used to this kind of thing—story of my life.

  “Boy, you sure are tough to find,” he says, breathing hard. “Jan said you were down here somewhere today but I’ve never been here before.”

  “Yeah, Bert. Great place, isn’t it?”

  I’ll let him bring it up. I’m not going to fight, but I’m not going to roll over on my back either.

  “In the office this morning, I got to thinking about your paintings. They’re really important; shouldn’t be broken up. That series should be kept intact.”

  Very nice way out; very nice guy. I try to keep on painting; can’t even get up a proper mad about it. I have the check in my wallet; I’ll give it to him when he asks. I’m a lousy businessman. I’m terrific at nickel-diming, fighting for remnants, putting together broken-down nests, but at the big moment I’m a pushover.

  I have a feeling these thoughts are getting into the painting, so I stop. I’ll give him a chance to get it over with. He’s looking at the painting. He lights a cigarette, offers me one. I take it; what the hell. I smoke six cigarettes a year, one on my birthday, one on New Year’s Eve and four over the rest of the year on special occasions. This looks like a very special occasion, the day I didn’t sell seven paintings.

  “What would you charge for the whole series?”

  He takes a deep inhale and blows smoke out his nose-holes. I usually choke on the first puff of a cigarette anyway, but I almost strangle this time. I cough and choke around in a circle. I stop, stare at him.

  “You mean the whole Canettes series? There’re forty of them, you know. I can’t sell them for nothing.”

  I still can’t tell if this man is serious. I can see in his eyes that he thinks he’s serious.

  “Forty-two. “

  “What?”

  “Forty-two, there’re forty-two of them. I counted.”

  “Oh.”

  How do you deal with a nut like this? I try to take a drag on my cigarette. My hand’s already shaking so I almost shake off the light. No, he can’t be serious; he can’t have any idea.

  “I could never pay what they’re worth,” says he, “but if you can give me a reasonable price, I’d like very much to buy them.”

  Joseph O. Baloney! Did his wife tell him she’d paid three hundred bucks apiece? No. She said it was a surprise. Maybe he has no idea what paintings cost. But he’s a psychiatrist, not an industrialist hick or something.

  Sucking sow! Just then I remember I don’t own the whole series anymore! I sold seven of them this morning to his sculptor-woman wife. This’ll probably screw up the deal. I have to tell him.

  “Bad news, Bert. I sold seven of the series this morning to a buyer from New York.”

  His face almost drops off his head. I feel like some creep working out of Windy Folly’s Gallery on the Right Bank, turning paintings over like flapjacks. He drops his cigarette and stamps it out.

  “Christ, I knew it! I should’ve come back last night. I told Jan they couldn’t last; too good. I’m a psychiatrist, I should know enough to trust my feelings!”

  I’m listening to him and I can’t believe it. This whole scenario sounds like the kind of ego trip I make up when my mind’s drifting, stretching canvases. I’m having a hard time keeping the decaying brain from spinning off on its own again.

  “Which ones did he take? Did he take the one with the inside of an apartment and the little old lady?”

  “Nope.”

  “He must be an idiot!”

  He goes through three or four others, two of which his wife had bought. It reminds me of some far-out Bingo game. He stands there, frustration leaking out the seams. I’m trying to think my way around it. Maybe I could play double agent: put on a raincoat, buy a dagger; stab his old lady, hide her body. He lights another cigarette.

  “Could you give me the name of the buyer in New York?”

  I have to play it by ear.

  “Sorry, Bert, this guy buys confidentially for his clients and I’m sworn to secrecy; professional ethics, tax dodges and all that. You know how the art business is.”

  He seems to go for it. I’m standing, developing cramps from trying not to kick myself in the pants. He’s looking some more at the painting on the easel.

  “OK, I’ll take the rest of them then, including this one if it’s for sale.”

  He looks almost apologetic. I still can’t figure how to handle it. He’s got to be a nut. I haven’t even given him a price. He looks sound enough but he must have some hidden screw loose.

  Psychiatrists are usually crazy anyway. I read somewhere they kill themselves ten times more frequently than doctors, and doctors do it ten times more than the rest of the population. Ten times ten, a hundred to one. God, dying’s so easy, so hard to avoid, especially when you don’t want to.

  DEATH AS INDIAN GIFT, TO BE

  LOOKED AT IN THE MOUTH, LIKE A HORSE.

  How the hell would a psychiatrist have that kind of money anyway? Sure they get a hundred bucks an hour, but how many hours do they work? This could all be some kind of complicated con game. Maybe he really is Dick Diver. When last heard from, Diver was in the Finger Lakes district of New York, but that’s over fifty years ag
o. My mind’s burning out relays all right. Somebody’ll be changing my Pampers and spoon-feeding me soon.

  “Bert, I haven’t even told you how much they cost yet; how can you say you’ll buy them?”

  “That’s right. How much are they?”

  No concern, only brushing gnats out of his eyes. He must be a loon. But I figure I’ll treat it seriously and see how it comes out. I can’t give his wife one price and him another; I tell him the paintings are three hundred apiece but maybe we can make a volume deal. He looks through me with those mad blue psychiatrist eyes.

  “You’re a fool.” He smiles. “I’d’ve paid a thousand apiece or even more.”

  I am a fool, the happiest Goddamned fool in the world. I’m glad I’m selling them to him for three hundred, more than they’re worth to me, and he’s getting them feeling they’re worth a thousand. All business should be that way. I’m exploding inside, like holding back waiting for somebody else’s orgasm.

  He drops his cigarette after two puffs and stamps it out.

  “Let’s find someplace for a glass of wine and we’ll work it out so I can write you a check. Boy, Jan’ll really be surprised; I haven’t enjoyed buying anything so much in years. I could shoot myself I didn’t get the other seven. Those paintings should all be together; one painting leads to the other like a set of symptoms in a classic case study.”

  That’s right, let’s find a place, get them sold and the check written before the mad psychiatrist shoots himself. We go into Goldenberg’s; I order some pastrami sandwiches on me. Rather, on rye. I’m a rich man; on paper. I used to be rich in oil; now rich in money. Yippee!

  Pastrami’s called Pickelfleisch here. You ask for pastrami and you get tongue. Bert takes out a pen, real ink pen again, and we work it out. Thirty-six paintings, counting the one on the easel, times three hundred; harder than ten times ten but we work it out to ten thousand eight hundred dollars. I try to even it off at ten thousand but Bert insists on making it eleven. Like statistics, he says, over five it goes up. I feel as if we’re playing with Monopoly money. Yeah, I’ll buy St. Charles Place and Saint-Sulpice.

  Being Scum the scumbler, I have to ask.

  “Bert, how in the hell does a psychiatrist squirrel enough money to buy eleven thousand dollars’ worth of paintings in one ‘swell foop’?”

  He laughs, says he isn’t a psychiatrist anymore, does brain research; besides, the money isn’t his, it’s Jan’s. She’s deep rich, three generations rich. She likes making money, has a guilt feeling about having so much unless she keeps using it, keeps making more money. Bert seems to think it’s all vaguely amusing.

  We drink another beer. I can see my easel up the street; kids’re getting out from school, hanging around. If one of them touches that painting, I’ll break his arm. That’s three hundred unfinished U.S. bucks sitting out there.

  We finish; Bert has an appointment. I insist on paying, paying with his money. I’m over thirteen thousand dollars richer than I was yesterday. Hot dawg! Here I am doing something I want to do, have to do, and making money at it. How good can things be?

  Before he leaves, Bert asks about frames. He wants to hang the paintings all over his apartment here in Paris the way we have them at our place. We agree to get together and I’ll take him to a frame place. He gives me their phone number. He says we’ll hire a couple taxis and move the paintings to his place, soon.

  I’VE BEEN FAMED, DEFAMED,

  FRAMED, DEFRAMED. MY IDEAS

  ARE LOCKED IN WOOD.

  I go up the street to a little tabac; buy a genuine Cuban cigar in a metal holder with a piece of thin wood wrapped around it. I take a ten-franc bill in the change and twist it as I’m walking back to the painting. There’s a big crowd, mostly kids but all kinds. I go up to the easel, smile around like Al Jolson and pull out my cigar. I take it from the casket, toss the casket over my shoulder, throw the piece of wood after the casket. Kids fight each other to pick them up. I sniff the cigar and snip off the end with my palette knife.

  I take out the ten-franc note I’ve twisted and light it. I get it burning fine. The crowd steps back in hushed shock. I light the end of my cigar and take a few good puffs. The ten francs is blazing away in my hand. I throw it, still burning, on the ground under my easel and get to work. The French are phasing out ten-franc notes anyhow; have a ten-franc coin now, encourages inflation. The hot-dog painter of the Marais is at work. Nobody’s bothering the big man now.

  I work away for maybe fifteen minutes. I didn’t think I could bear down again with all the excitement but I’m doing great. I throw away the cigar after a few puffs; makes my head spin, too strong for me.

  I’m putting in a critical light, letting the sky move down through the buildings where my focus of distance is, when somebody taps me on the shoulder. It’s a flip. There are two of them. One has the burnt remnant of my ten-franc bill.

  A real sacrilege has been committed in the streets. I raped money. He asks if it’s mine. I say no; I threw it away. I ask if it’s his. No smile, no sympathy, no humor. He asks if I burnt the money. I tell him I used it to light my cigar; I point to the cigar in the street. The other cop leans over and picks it up. Evidence? Wants it for himself?

  I try ignoring them, get back to the painting. The flic leans forward, between me and the painting. He salutes. He salutes the insinuating way a French flic salutes when he wants you to give him your full attention so he can chew off your ear.

  “Monsieur, it is against the French law to destroy the French money.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.”

  I put down my brush and reach for my wallet. I take out another ten-franc bill. I hold it out to him.

  “Here, replace it with this one.”

  He won’t take it, so I put this ten-franc bill on the tray of my paint box and get back to work. Both cops close in some more. The crowd’s beginning to thicken; there’s muttering, some laughs. I can’t tell if they’re with me or the cops. I pretend to work; pretend the bastards aren’t even there.

  Big conversations are breaking out through the crowd. Some of them start arguing with the cop, some with each other. Absentmindedly, I wipe my brush off on that ten-franc note. The flic leans over and picks up the bill by its corner. Here, more evidence! I must say it looks fine, lovely colors, some ultramarine and a little yellow ochre.

  “Monsieur, you have done it again!”

  He’s quivering with outrage. I dip my biggest brush in some turpentine and begin brushing off the bill while he holds it. He’s holding it by one corner and backing off to keep his uniform clean. I dab at it with my brush. I’m talking about nettoyage, cleaning; splashing turpentine around. He’s backing off and I’m following him. I’m into being Charlie Chaplin now. The crowd’s definitely with me. People are hanging out windows. The flic finally drops the bill.

  I go back to my easel; I figure they’re not going to shoot me but I’m expecting the worst. I’m enjoying myself so much I’m not really scared as I should be. You never know with the French police; they can be real mean. Those cops have a conference and then leave. I figure they’ve gone for the paddy wagon. Everybody’s worried for me; nobody picks that ten-franc bill up from the street. There it is, a genuine hand-painted ten-franc bill, lying there in the street of the Marais and nobody picks it up. That’s impressive.

  IGNORANCE IGNORED, INTOLERANCE TOLERATED,

  WE ALL FLAIL ABOUT IN FRUSTRATED FAILURE.

  People begin touching me on the arm and saying “Vite, vite.” One even translates, “Hurry, hurry, sir.” I start packing up. Little boys are guarding at the corner to warn me when the cops come back.

  I stop packing. What the hell, I’m not running away; I have a painting to finish. Let them come; first things first. I turn around in front of my easel and wave both hands in the air à la de Gaulle.

  “Liberté, fraternité, égalité; je reste!”

  Everybody’s shocked. They stare at me. I decide to top it off right.

&nbs
p; “Vive Israel!”

  The crowd shouts “Vive Israel!” in response, like a prayer.

  We do that back and forth about five times; then I try getting on with the work. But there’s no chance. Somebody brings out a bottle of wine and some glasses from a café. We pour and toast to another “Vive Israel.” It’s sort of a liquid condemned man’s last meal. We wait for the cops but they never come. It’s just as well. I’m sure those cops got back to the station and told the other cops about the salopard in the Marais. Nobody wants to tangle with a real crazy; they’re afraid they’ll find they’re crazy themselves. They’re crazy not to be having more of a good time with their lives. That’s really crazy, if you think about it.

  XI

  TIME OUT OF MIND

  Now-we-have-some-money,-I-send-off-five-thousand-dollars-to-the-Los-Angeles-County-tax-man.-That’ll-keep-him from selling the forty acres out from under me for a few years; another nightmare-maker parked quietly in reserve. With that out of the way for a while, I feel I should be able to relax.

  I’m ready to tear into that Marais series. I buy a roll of good Belgian canvas, enough for at least twenty paintings. I get some dammar crystals, do my witches’-brew trick and build up my stock of paints. I even replace all my brushes; some of them were worn clear down to the ferule.

  But I can’t paint! Whatever it takes to bear down, concentrate, ignore the normal passage of time, is gone. I get bored. I do one truly crappy painting and it’s pain all the way. My mind is racing, not staying in there with the paint. It’s a really treacherous line one walks as an artist. The cusp of defiance is blended with grateful acceptance in some magic melting alchemy. When, for some reason, the balance is lost, the fall to the normal, ordinary progressions is almost unbearable. I’m on the edge staring into a more than imaginary black hole.

  WHY CRY ABOUT IT? WE TEAR INTO EACH

  OTHER’S TEARS. TYRANNY THROUGH

  INTERMINABLE YEARS.

  Maybe I’ve been painting in the streets too long. A person gets tired painting the same kinds of things all the time. I’m feeling overwhelmed by shutters and cobblestones. Also I’m being asphyxiated by automobiles. I’ve got about a hundred excuses going.