Trick of Light

by Hunt-David

  Two sporting guns in particular attract attention, a twelve-gauge Boss made for Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales, and an over-and-under made by Westley Richards on commission for T. E. Lawrence — Lawrence of Arabia. It is this gun that I am hoping will attract Ramsey Carson to the auction, for I have come today not to drool over weapons but to observe the bidding and the bidders.

  Nine fifty-five a.m.: I return to the auction room to reclaim my seat. The setup is formal, an elevated lectern in front for the auctioneer, TV monitors above so everyone can see slides of the items as they come up for sale, a couple of hundred chairs lined up in even rows to the back of the room, two long tables on either side, ten telephones lined up on each, attended by auction house employees poised to take bid orders from collectors around the world.

  I check out the crowd. Ninety percent are men, some in suits, others in windbreakers, still others in polo shirts, western shirts with string ties, even one paramilitary type dolled up in fatigues. Noting the way these prospective buyers banter back and forth awaiting the start, I strike up a conversation with my neighbor, an elegant gray-haired gentleman with intent eyes and an ironic smile, decked out in dark blazer and striped bow tie.

  Explaining I'm new to the game, I ask if he wouldn't mind helping me identify the important players. Saying he'd be delighted, he hands me his card ("Cutler 'Cut' Beresford, Rare Gun Appraisal," with a Nob Hill address), then points out several major dealers, adding that close observation of their bidding from the start will reveal much about the current state of the rare gun market and prospects for today's sale.

  I look for Carson, don't find him, think about changing my seat to obtain a better viewing angle on the crowd. But most of the seats are already taken. Figuring I'll spot him if he comes in, I settle back to watch the show.

  The first several lots, nineteenth century Colt percussion revolvers, are rare and pricey, so at once there's tension in the room. The bearded, shaved-headed auctioneer quickly takes control, working with a few aggressive bidders with whom, Cut Beresford tells me, he's worked out signals in advance. I can't see the face of the most active bidder, seated in the first row, but notice that he keeps his head down except when he raises, at which point he tilts it up just the slightest bit. He buys the first two lots at prices considerably above the estimates.

  Things move swiftly. Bidding rarely lasts longer than a minute. The tenth lot is hotly contested between the nodding gentleman in the first row, a stern-faced man in a striped shirt seated in the rear and a telephone bidder who eventually captures the prize, a pair of engraved Colt dragoon revolvers, for $310,000, causing a murmur to ripple across the room.

  After the flurry over the rare Colts, things settle down. New bidders, competing for medium-priced items, show more passion than those going for the big stuff. These men, identified by Cut Beresford as collectors bidding for themselves, grin or grimace depending on the outcome of the contests.

  An hour passes. The fine shotguns are about to reach the block. Scanning the room, I notice the arrival of several new players sporting a different kind of clothing and demeanor. Decked out in silk ascots and tweeds, they carry themselves with the erect confidence of old-school British gentlemen. No gaudy grins and loud guffaws from these types, rather the sophisticated smiles and charm of gun-collector aristocrats.

  An engraved twenty-gauge Parker is the first fine shotgun to come up. Once again tension rises and bidding becomes intense. A man in a plaid golfing cap vigorously wiggles his pen. Three telephone bidders are also in the game, plus one of the dealers who had been fairly quiet during the bidding on the Colts. Golfing Cap gets the Parker, then, perhaps puffed up by his success, again starts wiggling his pen to gain a matched pair of Purdeys. He wins the Purdeys, competes for a Holland & Holland, but is defeated by a bidder on the phone. He tries for another Holland & Holland, fails again. Dejected, he sits out the next two rounds.

  Concentrating on the travails of Golfing Cap, I barely notice the man who slips into the seat three to my left. But after Golfing Cap's second defeat, I give the newcomer a glance, then nearly double-take. It's Carson, I'm certain of it, dressed in a white shirt, sober tie and dark pin-striped business suit, scanning the room, taking in the vibes.

  Our eyes meet, he smiles slightly, then, when I match his gaze, narrows his eyes with curiosity. A moment later he scans past. I study him but not too long; I don't want him aware of my interest. He looks just as he did in Chap Fontaine's G.G.C. photographs — leonine and intensely masculine, with a weathered face and appealing Clark Gable squint, his hair perhaps slightly more silvered than before, but still very much the swain/gallant. The animal magnetism is apparent too, for, I note, I'm not the only one aware of him. Cut Beresford whispers his name in my ear. Then: "Watch him on the big sporting guns."

  When I check out Carson again, he's done with his survey. Now he sits back, leg casually crossed over his knee, arm resting carelessly on the back of the neighboring chair. The Edward VIII Boss is up. Bidding starts high at $100,000. As it escalates, I twice notice the auctioneer focus on Carson, his stare met each time by a barely perceptible shake of Carson's head. $200,000. $250,000. $270,000. $275,000. The gun is finally won by a telephone bidder at $280,000.

  Another matched set of engraved Purdeys goes for $110,000. Then comes the Lawrence of Arabia gun. Again, the opening is $100,000.

  This time, as the bidding rapidly escalates past $200,000, I detect complicity between Carson and the auctioneer. Carson neither nodding nor shaking his head, simply staring, coolly meeting the auctioneer's eye, as if calculating the best time to enter the fray.

  Bidding on the Lawrence gun reaches $285,000.

  "Going once," the auctioneer declares.

  Suddenly there's activity at the telephone table. A phone relay man, hitherto silent, calls out $300,000.

  Dead silence in the room. Then the man who's just been outbid calls out $305,000.

  $325,000 from the phone.

  $330,000 from the rear.

  $350,000 from the phone.

  A brief silence as the room reacts.

  The auctioneer looks to Carson. This time Carson evidently gives some kind of signal, for the pleased auctioneer announces, "Three-sixty from the center."

  $375,000 from the phone.

  $385,000 from the center.

  $400,000 from the phone.

  Cut Beresford leans toward me, whispers: "Probably a rich Saudi at the other end. Or D'Arcy Chambers in Dublin. He's a big collector and Lawrence of Arabia buff."

  "Four-ten from the center."

  "Four-fifty from the phone."

  "Four-sixty from the center."

  "Four-seventy-five from the phone."

  The auctioneer stares straight at Carson. There's a force field between them. I lean forward to better watch Carson's face. His stare is frozen. The auctioneer calls out first warning. Carson winks his right eye twice.

  The auctioneer calls: "Four ninety-five from the center."

  This time silence from the phone.

  First warning. Second warning. "Sold!" Amidst ardent applause, the Lawrence gun is hammered down at $495,000.

  Two lots later, Carson slips out of his seat. I turn to watch as he strides up the aisle, nodding to acquaintances, shaking congratulators' hands, then takes a standing position in the back, arms folded, master of the room.

  "Look at him, he's happy now," Cut Beresford whispers, "but give him a couple weeks. He'll be on the prowl again. Collector's syndrome. I see it every day. The more they get, the more they want."

  I thank Cut for his tutelage. During an interval, I slip up the aisle myself. At first I'm disappointed. Carson's no longer standing in the rear. Then I spot him in the lobby with two other men, equally well-dressed, the three of them spouting hearty good humor, carrying on the way men do at stag functions and sporting events.

  I got to the lobby counter, pretend to peruse auction catalogues while listening in.

  "Had to be Chambers," Carson
says. "Been chasing my ass for years."

  "You sure own his ass today, Ram."

  "He's probably throwing up right now," the second man says.

  "I like that image," Carson tongues his lip. "Old D'Arce on his knees in front of the toilet vomiting out his bile. Best part is he knows it's me who beat him."

  The three guffaw. "Ha!ha!ha!" They slap one another on the back.

  "Way to go, Ram!"

  "Ram-the-man! Go get 'em, pal!"

  "I always do," Carson says, smug grin plastered on his face.

  Big smiles all around, more guffaws, more "Ha!ha!ha!'s. Another round of slaps on the back, followed by slap-palm handshakes. Then the two other men move toward the door, while Carson, still aglow from his triumph, resumes his arms-folded Master of the Universe stance at the rear of the auction room.

  * * * * *

  I'm home alone tonight. After dinner I carry my coffee to the living room window, stare out at the city so still behind the glass. The towers of the financial district, aglow with lights, appear as stark abstract forms against black cumulous clouds, their edges etched by the three-quarters moon. I know there are passions roiling out there, but from here the city seems serene. As I sip I wistfully consider how greatly I would like to find that same serenity within myself.

  Again I try to sketch the bee. With each attempt the quality of my drawing improves, but I can't seem to get it right. Like the animals in the foliage, it should have a face, which, for some inexplicable reason, I cannot manage to draw. I flip back through my sketchbook, look again at my drawings of the animal-voyeurs. The monkey has a face, as do the leopard and the pelican. So — why not the bee?

  I pull out Chap Fontaine's album of G.G.C. photographs, find the men I spotted with Carson this morning in the auction house lobby. Both were younger than Carson, and for all the chumminess between them, behaved more like acolytes than equals. In the photos, dressed in T-shirts and shorts, they show the lean builds, carved features and aggressive stances of males thrilled to participate in a hunt.

  I study their faces, take in their most prominent features, then try and sketch them, exaggerating in the manner of a cartoonist. Then I try superimposing these sketches on sketches of several of the animals. The face of the first man, the hearty one, fits well on the fox. The face of the second, the one who conjured the image of the defeated D'Arcy Chambers throwing up, goes nicely on the body of the crocodile. And Ramsey Carson's face well suits the leopard, who, in my sketch of the engraving, is the alpha animal.

  I search the album for a face that will fit the bee, but find nothing that works or even sparks a memory. Perhaps, I think, the bee did not stand among the other animals, but lurked elsewhere within the scene.

  * * * * *

  I phone Cut Beresford. Courtly as ever, he invites me to his Jones Street

  flat at four this afternoon to answer all my questions concerning rare guns and gun engraving.

  I take an early aikido class, my first since my return from Nevada City. Afterwards Rita asks me how it went with Dakota. I tell it went well, that I'm no longer gun-shy and have even purchased an automatic.

  She nods, but I detect a measure of disapproval. "Lethal force — don't know, girlfriend. I prefer what we do here, applying just enough force to do the job."

  "I prefer it too," I tell her. "I've also decided about the shodan. I want to go for it."

  She brightens. "Great! If you work hard you'll be ready by the end of the summer. Then you can take your exam on retreat."

  The prospect of being tested for my black belt in front of several hundred devoted aikidoists from all over the state is frightening and exhilarating at the same time. The judges at retreat exams are big shot Japanese instructors. At some retreats as many as thirty people are tested.

  Rita, sensing my anxiety, reaches for my hand.

  "You can do it, Kay. Work with me every day and I guarantee you'll be ready. You need this now. I really believe you do."

  * * * * *

  Cut Beresford lives but three blocks from Baggy Bigelow, but his apartment could not be more different. While Baggy dwells in a hothouse salon of twisted Barbies and calculated "bad taste," Cut receives me in an underfurnished white living room — so blindingly white I must ask him to draw the drapes so I can see.

  Even then I must wear a pair of dark red wraps to make out my surroundings — one wall composed of floor-to-ceiling shelves of books on the history of guns, another covered with framed engravings of gun mechanisms. As for actual guns, there's not one in sight, which surprises me until Cut explains that he himself is not a collector, rather a scholar of firearms specializing in authentication and appraisal.

  He's even more nattily dressed than at the auction, in a light linen suit and floppy bow tie. He raises his eyebrows when I broach my interest in erotic guns.

  "Kind of an esoteric subject," he comments.

  "You mean — for a woman?"

  He smiles. "Actually not. One of the most important collectors of erotic arms is Baroness von Heinholz. I visited her castle outside Munich a couple of years back. She has incredible stuff, most of it engraved sixteenth- and seventeenth-century German wheel-locks and eighteenth-century French flintlocks."

  I'm surprised. "They made erotic guns back then?"

  Cut nods. "It's an old tradition, though you don't hear much about it. Pieces rarely come on the market. There's only been one article written about them, a chapter in a book by an expatriate Englishman, privately printed back in the 1940s."

  When I explain I only just discovered such firearms exist and am eager to learn more, he goes to the bookcase and retrieves the book, promising to send me a photocopy of the applicable chapter.

  Back in his chair he eyes me wisely. "Yesterday you were sitting next to the number-one erotic gun collector in the world. But you knew that, didn't you?"

  I admit I did.

  "Is there some reason you don't want to talk to Carson about all this?"

  I nod. "He's hot on the chase. I figured you, an expert, could give me a cooler view."

  Cut smiles. "You're right about Ram. He's a pretty formidable character, obsessive, prideful, acquisitive. He probably wouldn't like it if you tried to pick his brains." He eyes me. "So you want a cool overview?"

  "I'd love it, Cut — if you have the time."

  He nods, starts to talk, his presentation intelligent and concise. The decoration of objects, he reminds me, is a natural human impulse. Since prehistoric times, men have marked stone, carved wood, drawn pictures on the walls of caves. Erotic decoration also goes back to early times, men and women having always been fascinated by sex. Thus we have numerous ancient Greek vases painted with erotic scenes, as well as erotic mosaics and frescoes. Hunting and war weapons, being mystical objects, were always decorated, and of course hunting and war, by tradition, were purely masculine pursuits. So, Cut asks, is it at all surprising that we find erotic decoration on edged weapons and, with the invention of gunpowder, firearms as well?

  "Since you put it that way, not surprising," I agree. "But what astonishes me is that it's still going on. Erotic art and pornography I can understand. Beautiful, finely crafted weapons — I understand that too. But why combine them, especially now when there's so much sexual openness? What I'm asking is — what's the connection between guns and sex?"

  "Ah!" Cut grins. "You've got it wrong. It's not about guns and sex, it's about aggression and sex, which go perfectly together, always have. Why? You'd probably do better asking a psychologist. I have my own theory, namely that hunting and war are actually erotic activities which stimulate us, make our eyes glisten, cause us to breathe hard and salivate. I think we're hard-wired for blood sports. If we didn't like killing so much, we wouldn't do it, in which case we'd be an entirely different species — soft, kind creatures no doubt, but probably quite boring. Not artists, builders, hunters, warriors. More like sheep grazing peacefully in meadows.

  "You think eroticized violence is at the root of civil
ization?"

  "A philosophical question, but since you ask, yes, I do. And if you look at things from that perspective, erotic guns aren't nearly as odd as they seem. Just listen to the way soldiers talk. Look at the phallic shape of guns. It's a natural connection, and the fact that such guns are still produced is in the great tradition of decorated arms. Gun engraving, remember, is a genuine art form, of which erotic engraving is a natural subset." He looks at me. "But you know, Kay, interesting as all this is, I don't think it's what you've come to hear. I have a feeling there's something specific you're looking for. If you tell me, maybe I can help."

  He looks at me in such a sympathetic way I'm tempted to tell him everything. But, I remind myself, I barely know this man. Better, I decide, not to reveal too much.

  "There's a particular erotic gun I'm interested in."

  "Contemporary?"

  "I think so."

  "I know the work of all the top engravers. There're not many, perhaps fifty in the world. It's a dying craft. If you can describe the engraving, I might recognize the style. It would be better, of course, to see the actual work."

  I bring out my sketchbook, show him my drawing of the two couples in the glade. Watching him as he studies it, I detect no shock or amusement at the subject matter, rather the demeanor of a connoisseur closely inspecting a work of art.

  "If the engraving's half as good as this, it's very good indeed."

  "It's a lot better," I tell him. "I made the drawing from memory."

  "Interesting... Work this fine and detailed is what we call bulino. But the scrollwork, this entwined sexual organ motif along the edges, looks like classical engraving of the British school."