Blind Side

by William Bayer

  Shadow was a regular there. People greeted her when we came in. Kim was greeted too, by a heavyset man at the bar with big sad eyes and gray wavy hair. She shrugged when I asked her who he was.

  "Just one of your own, Geoffrey. Another photographer."

  After we ate, Shadow excused herself. She had a late date, and had to go home to dress. When she was gone, Kim suggested we go on to one of the downtown clubs.

  "I feel like dancing. For hours," she said dreamily.

  "Maybe it's the age gap," I said, "but I hate those places. I really do."

  "Oh, don't be such a stick, Geoffrey. It's time we had some fun."

  "It wouldn't be fun for me," I said quietly.

  "Something's the matter, isn't it?" She was staring closely at my eyes. I shrugged.

  "It didn't go well-the session, I mean." So she knew.

  "No," I said, "it didn't go well."

  "You looked like you were getting into it."

  "I shot her body. I couldn't shoot her face."

  "Well, that's a start at least. Next time it'll go better. It will. You'll see."

  "Maybe if she hadn't gotten undressed," I said.

  "I think that distracted me."

  "My fault, Geoffrey." She took my hand.

  "I was worried when I saw you hesitate. I thought you needed a distraction. I'm sorry. I really am."

  I think that may have been the moment that I fell in love with her, consciously at least. She was so sincere, solicitous, so sensitive to my needs. She'd seen I was in trouble and had tried her best to help.

  "I'll tell Shadow you weren't satisfied," she said.

  "I'll tell her you don't like to show work you don't think is good. She'll understand. She'll respect you for it. Next time, and there will be a next time, Geoffrey, I'll bring her down and you'll do it like nothing was ever wrong at all……

  In the taxi on the way back to my loft she told me she'd been invited to a dinner party by a painter friend and his wife.

  "It could be amusing, but I don't want to go alone. I'm going to turn them down. Unless . . . well, if I could get you invited too, as my date"@he smiled"would you come? Would you, Geoffrey? Please."

  I told her that of course I'd come, and that I'd love to meet her friends.

  She kissed me, and when we got home she asked me to put on Double Indemnity again. She wanted, she said, to define for me the very moment when Barbara Stanwyck makes her decision to seduce and recruit Walter Neff.

  The next hot, sticky Sunday I took her on an afternoon tour of Soho galleries. I wanted to see the work of various up-and-coming young photographers whose pictures had been touted lately as "photographic art."

  I hated everything, and by the time we reached the last gallery I was so annoyed I swept her by the pictures fast.

  She chased around after me.

  "Hey! Stop! Let me look."

  "Nothing here worth looking at," I muttered, guiding her to the door.

  When we were out on the street, she turned to me, mad.

  "What's the matter? I liked that stuff."

  "All those perfect prints of sodomy!"

  "Well, I kind of liked the style of them," she said.

  "Sure, they're pretty. What he does, he applies 1930s fashion-glamour style to sleaze. The idea is to make ironic comment on the meaning of glamour. Assuming anyone's interested.

  "Well, okay." She pouted for a moment.

  "Whose work do you like? What about that Susan Kaufman's?"

  "Her stuff's okay, but awfully easy. Take pictures of yourself standing in weird positions, then inscribe feminist slogans across the tops."

  "Stan Kesten?"

  I curled my lip.

  "Hang out at beaches, airports, amusement parks, shoot snapshots while allowing yourself to be pushed around by the mob. All based on the no doubt sincere belief that by this false-naive technique you'll record the frantic rhythm of contemporary life."

  "You're cruel, Geoffrey."

  "Am I? That's what I'd call Johansen, the one Artforum says is such a corner. For me he's the most sinister."

  "Sinister? Why?"

  "On account of his approach, the smarmy way he goes into a suburb, then uses his camera to coldly trap the residents. Their hideous houses, gilded furniture, polyester clothing, overcooked food and mottled skin-all evidence of their pathetic aspirations, their mean and vulgar taste. Back in the darkroom he deliberately slops on chemicals to make his prints look ragged and handmade. He makes one print of each shot, destroys the negative, then encases the print in an incredibly expensive frame. The idea, you see, is that what is tasteless in someone else's house can be turned, by being photographed, into a precious tasteful artifact. The person who buys a Johansen buys cultural superiority. And by making each print unique, Johansen negates one of the great strengths of photography, which is that a photograph is endlessly reproducible.

  She raised her eyebrows when I finished my tirade. It was a while before she spoke.

  "Maybe you're right, Geoffrey. I trust your taste. But I worry about you when you talk like that. You sound bitter and ungenerous, as if you feel the success of younger artists takes something away from you. Thing is, I bet those kids consider you a hero, and I don't mean just for the PietA either. For your night scapes, your portraits, the pictures you've been taking of me if they could see them. You've told me art isn't a zero-sum game, that there's room in the galleries for anything that's good. You are good, Geoffrey. You know it too. Maybe you lack the ruthless streak it takes to make it in New York these days, But I think that's something I might be able to help you with. . . ." God! She knew how to make me feel good!

  She got me an invitation to her dinner party, and whei we got there and I discovered who was giving it, I wa surprised-I hadn't known she moved in such exalted circles.

  I Our hosts were the painter Harold Duquayne and his society wife, Amanda. Duquayne was famous, one of the young "New York heroics." It was alleged that he and Amanda were possessed by an insatiable craving for publicity. Certainly one read about them frequently enough. I had seen numerous photos of the pair, including one on the cover of New York that showed Duquayne, intense and bearded, clothing spattered with paint, glaring at the viewer while Amanda, wearing a black leather jumpsuit, gazed at him with sorrowful longing.

  A recent Duquayne painting filled the background, instantly recognizable because all his work looked pretty much the same. He painted on an enormous scale, but his drawing was not very good, with the result that his canvases usually looked better in reproductions point made by several critics when they reviewed his midcareer show at the Whitney.

  His stylistic trademarks were borrowed from painted icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church: gold leaf applied to the backgrounds and the heads of his figures surrounded by halos. However, Duquayne's figures were never engaged in spiritual pursuits but in the most mundane contemporary activities: housewife vacuuming a flight of stairs; high school kid in prom dress greeted by her date, etc. The contrast between these trite actions, the mannered postures, and the disks of radiant light surrounding the figures' heads created a strange and troubling effect.

  The Duquayne loft took up an entire floor of a castiron building on Spring Street. The moment we entered I was struck by its luxury: chairs and sofas upholstered in glove-soft leather, and superbly lit large-scale contemporary paintings on the walls. I counted a Schnabel, a Fischl, a Bacon and a very good Kitaj. There was also a collection of framed photographs, vintage prints by Arbus, Outerbridge, Mapplethorpe and Man Ray.

  Amanda Duquayne greeted us warmly. She and Kimberly embraced like very close friends. Harold Duquayne turned out to be stocky and short. He spoke in a gravelly whisper, and twitched his nostrils the way cocaine users like to do.

  The other guests were the distinguished and elderly art critic Philip Treacher; his sluttish student-lover, Ivan somebody; and a husband-wife writing team, specialists in cooking and luxury, whom I recognized from the photo on the front jacket of
their book The Good Life: Entertaining with the Vanderkamps. . With the arrival of the soup course, a California version of mulligatawny, the Vanderkamps launched into a vicious attack upon a well-known restaurant critic.

  "Have you seen her lately? She must weigh two hundred pounds."

  "She loathes salt. She adores desserts."

  "We hear she takes bribes. Don't quote us, of course."

  "No other explanation when she gives four stars to that fraud Desforges."

  Philip Treacher interrupted.

  "We ate at Desforges the other night. Thought it was pretty good."

  The Vanderkamps exchanged a look.

  "He uses bottled Maggi instead of stock."

  "I didn't know that," Treacher said.

  "He says, 'Zee Americans don't know zee difference."

  "All these French chefs-when they come over here they think they're slumming." And meantime," added Mrs. V., "they make carloads of money!"

  The Vanderkamps continued to interrupt each other, each vying to make the better bon mot.

  "Course they're all hypocrites. Only decent places left to eat are in Chinatown," Mr. V. proclaimed. "Except for a certain divine little Mexican bistro tucked away in Chelsea. We use it as our local canteen."

  "What's it called?" I asked. Mr. V. brought his finger to his mouth.

  "Can't tell you. Word'Il get out and the place'll be ruined." I looked over at Kim. She smiled and rolled her eyes.

  "Well, I like greasy hamburgers," I said.

  "And I love greasy anything," Ivan added, turning to Treacher, running his tongue across his upper lip. With the pasta course, borne by a beaming Hispanic woman, the conversation turned to the current art scei about which Harold Duquayne made a little speech, gist of which was that the new painters, the ones still in ,their twenties, had no guts because they had no appetite for money.

  "they rebel against my generation by tightening down their scale. The latest fad is to paint small and be trivial. And they try to make a virtue out of being noncompetitive. they call us 'overblown,' say we're consumed by money, fame, rivalry and envy."

  "But you are, dear boy!" Treacher said.

  Duquayne laughed wickedly.

  "Stick it up your ass, Philip. You know more about envy than anyone in the room." He turned to me. "What do you think, Barnett?""

  "I think you've got a point," I said, not wanting to tangle with the little tyrant.

  Isn't it the same in photography? The way the level of ambition keeps dropping? Just wait-in a couple of years you'll be grateful for anything that isn't a Polaroid."

  "I noticed your collection," I said.

  "Who do you like in photography?"

  "No one. I detest photography. I collect only for investment. No tactile experience. Everything's glossy and small. to me the talent of Arbus was in finding all those freaks. Then it was just stick it in their faces and 'Pretty for the picture!'

  He was taunting me. I glanced again at Kim, who encouraged me with a nod. When I turned back to Duquayne and saw his smirk, I decided to take him on.

  "If it weren't for photography," I told him, "you wouldn't have anything to paint."

  He flushed.

  "What the hell're you talking about?"

  "All those little scenes you blow up so big-the girl mashing down the lever of the toaster, the father barbecuing hot dogs on the patio. You got those images from print ads in magazines. In other words-photographs."

  For a moment he looked stunned. Then he said, "But look what I do with them."

  "You gussy them up with ideas you got from looking at photographs of Greek and Russian icons."

  "Well said, lad." Philip Treacher beamed. He and Ivan were holding hands.

  "I think you're being a little hard on my husband, Mr. Barnett." We all turned. Amanda had been quiet till then.

  "Well, isn't that the essence of New York?" I said.

  "We warm up tearing into the latest eateries, then go on to tearing up each other?"

  "Hey! That's it, man!" Duquayne liked me now.

  "You're okay. Glad you could come. When Kimberly called and said she had this photographer friend-we didn't know what to expect."

  "Kimberly has brought around some of the oddest men," Amanda said. She smiled at Kim.

  "Haven t you, dear?"

  "Guess that depends on what you mean by odd. they always seemed to fit in here," Kim said. Something about the way she and Amanda smiled at each other suggested an undercurrent, some kind of complicity.

  With the main course, a platter of rabbit sausage and al dente vegetables, the conversation turned back to painting. Big sums of money were mentioned, gallery owners' seductions were analyzed, collectors were mocked, and half a dozen major artists were exposed as frauds. With the salad we dissected some current films, and with dessert the subject returned to food, a discussion again dominated by the Vanderkamps, who decreed that no matter what famous restaurant one went to in New York, one was doomed to disappointment.

  Outside the air was sticky and thick. Kim and I quarreled the moment we hit the street.

  "How do you know such people?"

  "Harold and Amanda-I think they're kind of cute."

  "Yeah. Like a couple of vipers."

  "You seemed to be enjoying yourself."

  "How do you know them anyway?"

  "I just know them, okay?" Her forehead was glossy.

  "What's the matter, Geoffrey?"

  "It was a wasted evening."

  "Why use that word?"

  "Their unearned opinions, clever put-downs. I hated the whole thing. Everyone was repulsive."

  "Maybe they were. But why do you have to be so sour all the time?"

  "You said that to me once before."

  She glared at me.

  "And now it seems we have the proof. I was offended. I knew she was right, but I didn't want to hear it.

  "Maybe we're seeing too much of each other," she said.

  "Maybe we need a little rest."

  "I'm sorry you feel that way. Until just now I thought we were getting along pretty well."

  "Did you?" She gave me a withering look, then stepped into the street and raised her hand to flag a cab.

  "Hey! Wait! Not so fast!"

  "No, Geoffrey. I think we need a break." The cab pulled up. She opened the door.

  "Time I slept in my own apartment for a change….

  She got in the cab and slammed the door. Then she looked straight ahead. I called to her, but she wouldn't turn. When the light changed, the cab sped uptown. I stood watching until it disappeared.

  I couldn't sleep that night. I missed her. I hadn't expected her to walk away. For a long time I'd lived alone, reclusive, turned inward, in a kind of somnambulant state. Then she came into my life and I woke up again. Now, alone in my bed, I felt frightened of slipping back.

  I got up at 3:00 A.M., dressed, packed my tripod and Deardorff, and went out to prowl the streets. The air was dense, still and humid. Within minutes my clothes were soaked.

  I never got around to setting up my equipment, just roamed and felt the city's emptiness. Around 4:00, I wandered over to Desbrosses to find that stretch of wall where she and I had met. The phone booth on the corner was empty as a coffin, Lil's was closed, and there was no one around. The figure in the shadow painting looked as if he'd just been executed. I stared at him, felt wretched about myself. Then, without taking a single photograph, I shuffled my way back home.

  I phoned her early in the morning.

  "Who's this?" Her voice was groggy. Unlike me, she had slept very well.

  "Look, Kim-I'm sorry. You were right. I promise I'm going to lighten up."

  "Oh, Geoffrey-it's you. What time is it anyway?"

  "Of course it's me. Who else did you expect?"

  "I thought we were taking a break."

  "Come on, Kim-forgive." There was a pause. I held my breath.

  "Sure. I'm crazy about you. Didn't you know?"

  She was busy. Satur
day was her day for errands, and she and Shadow had a modeling appointment in the evening. She thought she'd be too exhausted to come by afterwards, so she proposed we meet the following day for a reconciliation brunch.

  When I put down the phone I was happy once again, though I wondered how I'd make it through another night alone.

  As it turned out I didn't have to. She woke me up at 2:00 A.M.

  "It's me. On the corner. Can I come up?" There was an edge to her voice. She sounded out of breath.

  "What's the matter?" 'Damnit, Geoffrey! Can I come?"

  "Of course. I'm sorry. . . ."

  A minute later she rang and I buzzed her in. As soon as I saw her I knew something was wrong. Her eyes were wild, her expression frantic. She rushed into my arms.

  "Geoffrey . . ."

  "Hey I stroked her hair.

  "Hey, calm yourself. Calm. "

  "I'm scared, Geoffrey. Really, really scared."

  "Why?"

  "Some men are after me."

  "What men?" She stared at me.

  "I don't know."

  For a moment I thought she was stoned.

  "Are you on something?"

  "No!" I believed her; she wasn't spacey, just terrified.

  "Pull yourself together. You're not making sense."

  "There's this powerful man. It's people who work for him, I think. But I don't know for sure. I only know he's had people killed."

  "Hey, now … slowly. Who're you talking about?"

  "I don't want to talk about it. Do you have Valium?"

  "What?"

  " Valium.

  "Yeah. I think so. Sure."

  "Get it for me." I hesitated.

  "Please. I'm so scared, Geoffrey. All screwed up inside and scared. .. ."

  When I brought her the Valium, she grabbed the bottle, and before I could stop her she gulped down thirty milligrams. After that I couldn't get her to tell me anything. She hugged me, buried her head in my chest, murmured again about how scared she was, and dropped off to sleep.

  I cradled her for a while, worrying about her, trying to make sense out of what she'd said. I think I felt some omen then that what we had was vulnerable and could be shattered. But the thought of that was too upsetting; I needed her too much. After a while I blanked out too, to protect myself, I think, from the pain of such a loss.