Scumbler

by William Wharton

  I tell him I’m painting way over there, so if he sends any snooper-troopers they won’t find me. I’m getting more paranoid all the time.

  A totalitarian society does it to you. The secret of a totalitarian state is to make so many goddamned rules and taxes nobody can possibly obey the rules, pay the taxes and survive. Then they administer these rules and taxes to favor friends and screw the rest. Communists or Fascists, it’s the same; just different names for the same bunch of crooks. France is into this scene big. There were huge changes during those ten years with de Gaulle. He really screwed up a lovely country.

  The cop gives me back my passport and tells one of the goons to take me away. This jerk lines me up on the side of the wagon with three other victims. They all look scared; I’m scared. I try talking to one of them but the guard lowers his tommy gun on us. This is serious! A crowd’s standing back at a respectable distance. I notice gray CRS trucks in a row clear across the bridge. I can never figure whether they do this because of some tip or they’re trying to start something. Just seeing all those brutes in uniforms, paratrooper boots and helmets with plastic covers, shields and those tommy guns can make trouble happen. Paris is getting to be an occupied city.

  CITY OF LOVE AND LIGHT NOW

  DIMMED BY A BLINDING BLIGHT.

  So here I am a prisoner of the CRS, torn between being scared shitless and pissed off. I’m trying to figure how I can get word to somebody about where I am. People are disappearing all the time in Paris, especially foreigners. They sometimes question suspects by dunking them in the river; no marks. I’m too old for this crap; I only want to paint my pictures.

  I look into the crowd, catch the eye of a young woman. I run my finger over my name on the helmet. She pretends not to notice; probably a collaborator. I try it with an old man and another lady; they don’t seem to catch on, act afraid. Maybe the French left all their guts in the mud during WW I.

  Time passes; we’ve been there more than an hour. Two other goons get out of the truck; they go over to the guard on the left. The one on the right passes in front of us; it’s the changing of the guard. Now’s my best chance.

  I take four steps forward into the crowd and turn around! I’m half expecting to be cut in half by tommy guns. I’m hoping they won’t shoot into the crowd. I stand there. I’m afraid some fink will denounce me, give me away. Nothing. The new guards take their places; first goons get into the wagon. Now inertia’s in my favor; I keep moving back slowly till I come out the other side of the crowd. An old guy gives me a wink, maybe a survivor from Verdun. I’m almost free.

  I have to decide whether I’ll abandon the motorcycle and canvas. I decide to take what’s mine; the hell with them. The canvas is still leaning against the truck. I come up from the blind side, grab it and rope it on my back again. My hands are shaking so they get in each other’s way.

  I move slowly toward my motorcycle. Nobody’s guarding it. It’s still on its side. I pick it up. Gasoline’s spilled all over, melting tar in the road. One foot peg’s bent and the clutch handle’s twisted. I’ll fix them later. I roll out of the gas puddle: blowing up’s no fun either. It takes four kicks to turn over. Good old bike, but it makes one hell of a noise. Now’s when they mow me down for the amusement of the people.

  I drive slowly till I turn a corner, then cut out like a madman, heading north. I twist through all the side streets of the Marais. I get to Goldenberg’s. I’m not much good for painting. I store the new canvas with my box and put down two good shots of slivovitz. My stomach’s flipping; I’m going to have the shits for three days, at least.

  I roll home, tell Kate and the kids what happened. They won’t believe me; they figure I’m only fantasizing, romanticizing again, trying to make life more interesting than it really is. I practically get myself killed pulling off a semi-heroic escape and they won’t believe me. They’re right; I don’t want to believe it myself. I decide to pretend it didn’t happen.

  CRAWLING LIKE VERMIN IN THE DARK ARE

  THE MAGGOTS OF FEAR: WAITING ONLY THE

  GARBAGE OF VIOLENCE TO HATCH, DRY, FLY,

  SPREAD SPIRITUAL-MENTAL LOSS. DIS-EASE.

  After dinner I flop out on the living-room floor, dead to the world. I wake up at three in the morning and start going over the whole thing. I get so mad I can’t sleep anymore. I take a Valium, take a diuretic; got to keep the blood pressure under control; got to plan revenge.

  Generally, I’m against revenge of all kinds. It might be sweet but usually, in the long run, it rots your teeth. I do some deep breathing, try to stop the blood pounding in my head. I bring on the Kee Ring-Kee Rings; picture birds. flying loosely with control against a blue sky. No good; I can’t get those CRS bastards out of my head. I haven’t licked the male sickness in me yet, not by a long shot.

  The next day I go down to Goldenberg’s, pick up the box and canvas. I roll back to the studio and paint a huge picture of violence, with CRS goons clubbing students, boys, girls, old ladies. There are burning buildings behind them in the night, cars turned over, blood flowing at their feet in the street. I paint them blue, Prussian blue, in helmets and visors, cowering behind their shields. I spend three days painting this crazy thing.

  I think maybe I’ll do twenty of these big violence paintings, hire a gallery, call the show CRS=SS. I wallow in this idea while I’m painting.

  Then I stop. “Shit, hell no! I’m not going to do anything stupid like that!” I don’t care enough to spend my time that way. Also, I’d like to stay in France. If the French officials ever get mad and look closely into the way I live my life, I’m a dead duck.

  OUTSIDE THE BOUNDARIES. OUTLAW.

  I’M INLAW TO MY WIFE’S SISTER,

  BUT OUTLAW TO ALL WHO TRY RUNNING

  MY LIFE: INCLUDING MY WIFE AND

  HER SISTER.

  Then I think about my tunnels. I’ll get the motorcycle club together. We’ll operate out of the tunnels, buy gallons of paint, come up everywhere on the Left Bank simultaneously, spray, paint, carve CRS=SS on all the walls. We’ll call the whole caper the “Gruyère Affaire.” James Bond hits Paris.

  Hell, I’m not going to do that either. I’m not going to write anything on those lovely walls. It feels good just knowing I’m not going to do anything.

  Deep inside myself I know that kind of stupidity isn’t worth it. There’s no sense going back to jungle ways. This human animal has evolved; our fingernails, teeth aren’t designed for clawing, biting; our arms have shortened, become more flexible, sensitive to handle tools not only weapons. Physiologically we’ve evolved; emotionally we should move on, too.

  All that physical-dominance horseshit has to be discouraged. We need to be part of life; living with, not against; getting along; not just getting by, or getting ahead. There’s no hurry anyway; we’re all headed for the same place.

  GIVE IN, GIVE WAY, GIVE UP. GIVE

  TO HAVE TIME FOR LIVING WITHOUT STRIFE.

  DOING ANYTHING SERIOUS, LIKE PAINTING

  IS HARD ENOUGH. WHY MAKE IT ROUGHER?

  I go back and dig into the Marais again. It feels great. Those walls, those people give off fine vibes of continuity, life support.

  But something did happen to me. I was violated deeply, psychically raped. Violence to body and spirit like that always leaves a mark. It’s as if we’re each a sort of running balance, registering the good, kind things people do for us along with the mean, violent things. How much we can trust, how much we can love, is in that balance.

  I used to think I had a shit-heavy load on the wrong side. But I’m working on it; nicer and nicer things happen to me every day. By the time I’m dead, I might almost be able to live with myself. At thirty, I was the most angry animal breathing air. I was so bad I couldn’t even trust myself to sleep.

  COMING OUT FROM UNDER PERSONAL CLOUDS

  WITHOUT DOUBT. TRYING TO FIGURE WHAT

  IT’S ALL ABOUT WITHOUT WINDING UP IN A

  SHROUD TOO SOON. TELEPHONE? WHO?

  A
L CAPONE??!!

  XVII

  UGLY ORGY

  The idea of painting the motorcycle club is still bubbling in my mind. I’ll make it a big group portrait, like Rembrandt or Hals; the “Night Watch” of motorcycles. I want something to fill the entire visual field, big as a mural but designed as an easel painting. Maybe it’ll be another way to help everything seem to mean something, hold together. It’d also be a way to immortalize temporarily that wonderful bike of Sweik’s, put off oblivion for a while.

  The-white-on-white painter in the Bastille studio never came back. I settle myself in there; don’t need the rent money right now. The French blue-blood sculptor downstairs is still off in Carrara again cutting fat white stone. Maybe he got tired of all the perfumed creeps hanging over his shoulder, breathing in sculpture dust. He’ll be gone for three or four months, so I have a two-story studio.

  Traude is still upstairs. She’s turned her attic into a fine nest. The whole place is covered with mattresses, so it’s one big bed with that mirror on one end. You have to take your shoes off when you visit her. She has drapes hanging over the ugly parts, and a little samovar Sasha gave her standing in one corner. She hands me a big handleless cup of tea whenever I come. It’s nice, relaxing with her; feel cut off from the hard world.

  She tells me she’s doing examinations for the fifth degree at the Alliance Française; wants to get a job when she’s finished; doesn’t want to go home. She can type, speaks English and German, as well as Dutch and French. She’ll get a job OK. I can’t help imagining what a terrific wife she’d make: bright, sensitive, strong—a real nest-maker. It’s getting harder and harder to find women like her. The world’s churning out propaganda against nest-making for men or women; considered low-class, degrading, bourgeois, unimportant. But what a fine mother she’d be! I’m jealous, I know. It’s rotten enough being male but it’s impossible being an old male; got to get used to it.

  I buy a roll of canvas, two meters twenty high by twenty meters long. Costs seven hundred francs. I unroll eight meters. It’s the longest I can fit in my studio. I spread this on the floor. I get wood from Dubois & Duclos, a lumberyard. I make a gigantic stretcher with the French equivalent of two-by-fours. It takes a whole day, plus a quarter kilo of tacks, getting the beast stretched without wrinkles. I do a double gesso ground and stand it up. Wow! It’s like going snow-blind. I build a small stepladder so I can reach the top. I’ll be running back and forth to paint.

  I spend a week making sketches. I finally settle on one with Sandy and Sweik working on Sweik’s Ariel, Lubar’s tools spread out in the foreground. I’ll do it with a Parrish kind of detail, every sprocket and reflection; tribute to that wonderful machine. I’ll have Lubar and Dale sitting on the bike. Tompkins and Donna will be standing in the left foreground just behind the front wheel, watching. Duncan and Pierrette will be behind the rear wheel, to the right of Dale, drinking beer and looking toward the viewer. I’ll have everyone at different angles to create visual movements through the space. It’ll be some trick holding this baby together. The bike will be at a three-quarter angle to the picture plane. I’ll have the Saint-Sulpice towers in the background. That big church has some feeling of a Harley-Davidson upside down, wheels spinning, anyway.

  THE WHEELS OF HEAVEN SPIN IN SOME

  MONSTROUS GAME OF CHANCE. PUT YOUR

  LIFE WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS.

  I’ll have them up here, one at a time, to work in the portrait parts. I’ll do sketches of Sweik’s bike right there on the Place Saint-Sulpice. This painting will make “Guernica” look like comic-book art.

  I spend another week transferring my drawing to the canvas. I buy one of those little glasses that make everything look far away. I can’t actually get more than ten feet back from any part of the painting as it is now; have no way to tell how the damned thing really looks. I’ll probably need to finish it off out in the alley.

  It’s a stupid thing to do, a painting like this. It’s going to take over a month and nobody will ever buy it; nobody could even pay for the materials; nobody has a place to put it. This is a pure chunk of self-indulgence. It’s wonderful not hustling for money. God bless you, Bert and Jan, volume buyers of fine paintings.

  SOMETIMES AN ENCOUNTER HAS THE THRUST

  OF INSIGHT, THE COMING TOGETHER AT ANOTHER

  LEVEL, TANTALIZING TOUCH OF SUPERNATURAL.

  I start by working up the entire painting in black, browns and whites, a genuine old-master-type cartoon affair; Leonardo and me. I get Sweik in first. I do him on a separate canvas, a 20F. Do him straight on, not the way I’ll have him in the big one, where he’ll be leaning over the bike. I just want to see him. What is it that gives him his spaced-out affectionate look, like a muscular Buddha? Blue-agate eyes wide apart, thick lips, bumpy skin—not pimples, bumps. He goes into some kind of trance while I’m painting him. When he talks, he talks mostly about Sandy. Since Spain they’ve been seeing each other.

  He sits there and hardly blinks, the way the witch I painted in Spain did that time.

  I get it all in one sitting. I’ll paint him into my big painting when he isn’t here. I want to paint everybody not so much the way they look but the way they are to me. I’m the lowest common denominator, the something that’s in all of them. It’s the way they are in this book, all partly me. And me, I’m partly them, the way they want me to be. The people and objects in this world only seem separate. In the big picture we’re all the same thing, one greater being.

  GRAVEL OF TIME DROPPING WITHOUT END,

  POUNDING WITHOUT MOVEMENT. THE MEMORY

  OF SAND, MAGIC OF CEMENT. WE CHASE IN

  DEMENTED CIRCLES THE CONCRETE OF REALITY.

  Generally, I get them in to pose one at a time. Painting Duncan, he says he’s decided to marry Pierrette. “Pregnant?” I ask hopefully.

  “Nope,” he says in his kind of inner-concentrated mind-drifting.

  “Why do it, then?”

  A moment’s pause.

  “Pierrette’d like it.”

  I keep painting, trying for the fadeaway in his cheeks; it can’t be done with a line or a plane, has to be done with color. I can’t get it too cold or he’ll begin to look dead. I’ve got to keep it warm and make it go back. Good problem. Duncan’s got high, side-moving cheekbones, makes for deep shadows. He’ll be painted head straight on, looking out, a skull head to get something of the danger in bikes.

  Holy Moses! I’m getting literary here. My mind goes in crazy circles when I’m painting. Writing about painting is like trying to kiss with a mouth punched full of novocaine. You know you’re doing something; everything’s in the right place but you can’t feel it. I look up; Duncan’s staring off into space.

  “I’ve never been married yet; I’m thirty years old; thought I ought to try it out.”

  That’s good a reason as any, but marriage without kids is a bread sandwich: two slices of bread; nothing inside, except maybe some butter or margarine.

  I pull off one of Sandy I like. I do her very tough: arms folded, wearing her “What the hell” look. I miss the dolphin somehow; oil and water don’t mix. I also get that asking look in her eyes; asking and telling at the same time. I try to paint what I feel for her: the powerful grandfather-granddaughter three-generation incest, the way she makes me feel—open, soft, vulnerable—but I can’t get that either. We talk a lot about Sweik. I have his portrait and Duncan’s on the wall behind me.

  Dale’s very uptight. She keeps backing away. I paint her like a bad Tampax ad; very Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. There’s a tightness around those pop-up eyes of hers. In the painting she looks like the kind of girl who spent her teens in teeth braces and “A” cups. That must be a hard time for a little girl, when she’s wondering if she’s ever going to make it as a woman. A girl needs lots of help from everybody then; it’s a giant leap. Too many never make it, stay girls. There aren’t enough women in this world, at least the world I know; not many men either, for that matter.

  Tompkins i
s a natural. I get the spiral-helix torque of physicist-poet. His eyes are open, soft, amazed at the world. His mouth is bearing into it. He has a twisted jaw, malocclusion; probably grinds his teeth at night. Donna sits there while I paint him and he stays on while I paint her. I don’t think she trusts me. When Donna looks at me, big zeros register across her face; really zero; no negative numbers, total null.

  Unfortunately, I get too much of that zero in the portrait. It looks as if she’s watching a Western on television at two in the morning. It might well be the worst painting I’ve ever done; it even looks like her.

  I try getting her to concentrate on Tompkins while I’m painting; turn up the flame a bit, but nothing happens. This is a very private woman. I decide I’ll have her drinking from a bottle of beer, face half covered; those double-zero eyes looking over her hand.

  My best painting is Lubar. I forgot he was coming that day. He had to struggle his way out of his office at IBM and cruise over on his BMW at lunch break. He catches me in but I don’t have a blank canvas. So I paint him over an old canvas—dumb, poor practice technically and any painting is worth the twenty bucks in materials. Also, I don’t trust my short-term judgment: too close; I’d probably paint over my best work.

  I get Lubar sitting with his little bird head sticking out of his overwhelming leather jacket. The jacket has zippers all crisscrossing like scars. I paint his close-together eyes and bird-beak nose lapping his thin-lipped mouth in a snide half smile. The jacket’s open showing white shirt and tie—modern man in disguise. The IBMW man.

  He tells me his wife and he are finally divorced, she has the little boy; it doesn’t seem to bother him. That part of life doesn’t mean much to some men.