An Artful Corpse

by Helen A. Harrison

  “Boy, have I!” Al replied with relish. “Both Hilton Kramer and John Canaday blasted it in the Times, and Emily Genauer did the same in Newsday. It’s no surprise that Genauer and Kramer would pan it—she’s a big Picasso fan, and he’s all for modern art. But I was surprised by Canaday. He’s usually so conservative, I thought he’d go for it. But he picked up on the clash of Benton’s subject matter and style. How did he put it?”

  Bill quoted from memory: “‘The misalliance between Huck Finn and El Greco.’ I love that. Whether or not I agree with Canaday, and I seldom do, I find some of his little nuggets stick in my mind.”

  “I’ll bet that one is stuck in Benton’s craw,” said Al, “and I hope it’s painful.”

  “Now don’t be vindictive, just because he gave you a hard time. You’ve had it easy with Laning, Mr. Congeniality. You should try Ray Breinin’s class, he’s a real Tartar. I mean a genuine Tartar, straight off the steppes, with a temper the size of Mother Russia.”

  Al was not about to switch instructors. “Maybe I have a thin skin, but I prefer encouragement to badgering. I guess some people thrive on that kind of challenge, but it just puts me off.”

  “Breinin’s okay, he’s just a bit rough around the edges. But he’s a good teacher, really knows his stuff, even if his own work is kind of illustrational. Lots of fanciful Russian folktales, like a darker, more mystical version of Chagall. Not my taste.”

  * * *

  TJ and Ellen were also settling down at their easels, both ready to continue working on drawings they had started the previous week.

  “Have you seen the Benton show yet?” she asked him as she propped her pad on the bench and donned her smock.

  “No, not yet. I had a day off on Columbus Day, but the museum is closed on Mondays. I’ll have to try to get there one day next week, even if I have to cut a class. I’m sure Mr. Laning is going to ask us all what we think of it.”

  “I went on Saturday, and it was packed. The weekend isn’t the ideal time to go, but that’s when I have off. Not that everyone there was an admirer. The reviews brought out both camps. It was fun to eavesdrop on some of the discussions. Perfect strangers were arguing back and forth, very entertaining.”

  “At least, if Mr. Laning asks, I can tell him I’ve seen the New School murals. I guess there’s a lot more of the same at the Whitney.”

  “It’s much more varied than you’d imagine,” she told him. “His early stuff is pretty traditional, portraits and landscapes, a little Impressionism, a little Postimpressionism. He may have pooh-poohed Cézanne to us, but he did a pretty good imitation of a Cézanne still life when he was in Paris before the First World War. Then he went through Cubism and a more colorful variant called Synchromism, but when he got back to the States he dumped modern art and started on his American epic, as he called it. Of course that’s the bulk of the show, but you can see where his formal and structural concepts come from, especially in his analytical drawings and preparatory studies. They’re really interesting.”

  By this time Wally had adopted his pose, and the class was getting down to work. Ellen flipped open her pad and started a new drawing. Unconsciously taking a leaf from Benton’s book, rather than trying to work from detail to detail, as she had before, she began by blocking the figure in rhythmic strokes, getting a sense of the entire body before concentrating on refining the parts.

  TJ was impressed with her newfound approach and decided to try it, too. Sure enough, it gave him a better sense of the overall structure of the body and eliminated the fussiness of his earlier efforts. Damn, he thought, maybe Benton isn’t just full of hot air after all. The rhythm really is important, and now I see what he was driving at.

  When the break came, Ellen had some news. “Guess what? Benton showed up at The Bitter End on Tuesday night. I think he’d been next door to the Dugout before he came in, and he was in a good mood. Kind of surprising, considering the reception his show is getting in the press. Another surprise was that he recognized me from the New School. Called me ‘spunky gal’ and sat with me and Michele. You should have seen his face when she stood up!”

  “I’m sorry I missed that,” said TJ, who’d been grounded with homework that night and unable to take up Ellen’s blanket invitation to accompany her to The Bitter End any Tuesday.

  “I told him I’d seen him at the Guthrie evening,” she continued, “and he said he’d been a longtime fan of Woody’s, though he’d never met him. It was Pete Seeger who told him about it and brought him along. Pete’s father and Benton were in a band together in the ’30s—they even played at the New School when the murals were unveiled. According to Benton they were a big hit. He would say that, wouldn’t he? Anyway, he plays the harmonica. He had it with him and he offered to accompany us when we went on.”

  “And did he?”

  “He sure did. I asked Ed, and he said okay. He knew who he was, and so did Oscar, or at least knew of him from his music. He recorded a folk album, ‘Saturday Night at Tom Benton’s,’ that Oscar had played on his radio show. Oscar invited him on the show, and Benton was pleased as punch. He said he’d be in town for another couple of weeks, until after the Academy meeting in early November.”

  She paused, looking a bit sheepish. “I was kinda nervous about performing with him. He really knows folk music from its roots in the hinterlands. Michele and I are from Queens, and I’ve never been west of Atlantic City, so I was afraid he’d think we were phonies and say so to the crowd. But Michele wasn’t at all intimidated—as you can tell, she’s pretty self-confident. She suggested ‘Banks of the Ohio,’ and he said that was one of his favorites, so that’s what we sang. After we finished he actually complimented us, praised Michele’s harmonies, and said I had a voice like an Ozark thrush. At least I think that’s a compliment.”

  “Was that it? Just the one number?”

  “Yeah, just the one. He said he couldn’t hang around ’cause Rita, that’s his wife, has him on a short leash, but I think he really wanted to go next door and wet his whistle. As you know, The Bitter End has no bar.”

  “Speaking of hanging around,” said TJ, “Bill tells me Benton’s been hanging around the cafeteria at lunchtime. Mr. Laning’s not the only instructor who knew him from his League days. Bill says some of them were practically born here, so I guess he feels comfortable eating lunch with the old-timers.”

  “Probably more friendly than some places he could go. If he hung out in the Whitney’s lunchroom he’d be liable to get an earful about the show, and at the Academy he might bump into the guys who kicked him out. Pretty far uptown, too.”

  “I see the League’s appeal. The menu’s not the greatest, but he’s got a sympathetic audience and he can walk here from the St. Regis and not even be out of breath.”

  Fifteen

  Thursday, October 26

  “Where’s Bill?” asked TJ, who had arrived fifteen minutes early to this week’s class. Chris Gray, whom he didn’t recognize, was opening the studio door. Gray, the aspiring muralist, usually monitored for Laning’s afternoon mural painting and composition class, which met five days a week, and Breinin’s evening life class on Wednesdays, so TJ had never encountered him before.

  “He’s off tonight,” replied Gray tersely as he opened the door and flipped on the lights. “I’m Chris. I’m filling in for him.”

  TJ pressed him. “Is he sick? I hope not.”

  “No, he’s okay.” Chris hesitated, as if to continue, but turned away instead and started inspecting the easels.

  That wasn’t good enough for TJ. He followed Gray on his rounds. “Then what’s the problem? Is there a problem?”

  Chris stopped and turned, sizing him up. “You a friend of his?”

  “Yes,” said TJ confidently. “My name’s Timothy, but everybody calls me TJ. I really like Bill, and I want to help if there’s anything I can do.”

  Chris sat on on
e of the bench easels, and TJ sat opposite him.

  “Last Saturday afternoon I went up to Studio Nine on the fifth floor to get something out of my locker. Nobody goes up there between classes, so I was surprised to find Bill all alone, sitting on the edge of the model stand with his head in his hands, looking really dejected. I asked him what was wrong, and he broke down crying.”

  “He has a really close friend who’s in the infantry in Vietnam,” Chris continued, and TJ assumed that really close meant more than just a buddy. “On Friday he got a long letter from this guy. Bill said it was a real horror story, all about the terrible things he’d seen, and that he’d done himself. Said he was afraid he was cracking up, thinking about going AWOL, or worse. I said I understood what the guy was going through. I’m a veteran, though I never went overseas. I was on permanent party at Fort Hamilton, in the admin office. But I had buddies who served in Nam, and some of them came back in bad shape.”

  Chris paused, deciding how much to reveal. He made up his mind and continued. “Then Bill told me the guy was his boyfriend. I kinda suspected he was queer, but I wasn’t sure, ’cause he acts straight, and he never talks about his private life. But after the letter he couldn’t hold it in, he felt so helpless and scared of what the guy might do.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked him how much longer the guy’s hitch was, and he said, ‘He has another three months to go, and I don’t think he can make it.’ Bill was afraid he’d kill himself, even though he’s Catholic, so suicide would be a mortal sin.”

  “Man, that’s heavy,” said TJ. “I knew Bill was gay—my girlfriend Ellen told me. She had a crush on him, so he warned her off. It sure isn’t obvious. But what can he do about his boyfriend’s state of mind? He must be going crazy himself.”

  “I told him the letter was clearly a call for help. If the guy really was hopeless he wouldn’t have written it, he’d have just shot himself. I think that helped calm him down, not feel so desperate. He said he was gonna write back immediately, tell the guy how much he loves him and that he’s praying for his safe return.”

  TJ digested this news thoughtfully as Chris continued. “So when he came in on Monday he said he felt a lot better. He wrote the letter, poured his heart out, and told the guy to talk to the chaplain. I worked with the army chaplain school at Fort Hamilton, and I know how much lots of soldiers rely on them for moral and spiritual support. I said that was good advice, and he seemed grateful to hear that. Not like the problem was solved, but at least he’d done what he could.”

  “So why is he out today?” TJ wanted to know. Chris explained that the next day Bill had been hit with a one-two punch. In Tuesday’s mail he got a rejection letter from Cooper Union and a summons from the draft board. Without the student deferment he was classified 1-A, so in all likelihood he’d be sent to Vietnam like his boyfriend—only nowhere near him, and in for twelve months while the other guy’s coming home in three, assuming he gets through.

  “Yesterday,” said Chris, “a bunch of us were having lunch in the cafeteria, and Bill came in. The desperate look was back, and I was worried that his letter might have crossed with bad news from Nam. I didn’t want to say anything to, you know, let on about the boyfriend, but he told us he didn’t get into Cooper and was about to be drafted, so that accounted for it. He said, ‘Fuck it, I’m not going! I’ll go to Canada before I let those baby-killers send me into hell! The fucking army can go to hell, but not me!’ He was pretty agitated. Next thing we know he pulls out his draft card, grabs some matches off one of the smokers, lights up the card, and drops it in the ashtray.”

  “Does he know that’s a federal offense?” asked TJ.

  “He knows it now,” replied Chris, “because Tom Benton told him so, at the top of his lungs. The old bastard was sitting at the next table. He’s been holding lunchtime seminars on the glorious career of Thomas Hart Benton, America’s answer to Michelangelo, practically every day for the past two weeks. When he saw that card go up in flames, I thought he’d bust a gut. Called Bill a lily-livered sissy, a sorry excuse for a man, and things I won’t repeat.

  “A couple of the fellows confronted Benton, told him to butt out, it was none of his business. If they thought that would shut him up, they were dead wrong. He called us all a bunch of draft dodgers and actually took a swing at Dan Forsberg, who’s at least six-one and forty years younger. Fortunately Wally was sitting at Benton’s table, and he got between him and Dan. Benton seems to have a soft spot for Wally, so he backed off. Then Jacob Lawrence, one of the other instructors, stepped in and calmed him down while we hustled Bill out the door.”

  By now Wally had arrived, and other students were beginning to appear. Chris excused himself, did a quick check of the easels, and found everything in order. Wally hailed him, “Hey, Chris, I need the pole tonight,” and he retrieved it from the closet.

  TJ got his supplies from his locker and took his place. Normally he would be watching eagerly for Ellen’s arrival, but the story of Bill’s dilemma had distracted and disturbed him. He tried to imagine what it would be like to know that your lover was in harm’s way, not only in mortal danger physically but also mentally, and be powerless to help. And probably not be able to turn to your family for comfort.

  That complication was especially hard for TJ to wrap his head around. How would I tell my parents? he wondered. He said he lives at home, like me. Most likely his folks don’t know he’s gay, and would disown him if they found out. On top of that he faces jail for burning his draft card—Benton will probably rat him out, may have done so already—or becoming a fugitive. Neither one a great option.

  “Earth to TJ,” said a voice that brought him back to the studio. Ellen had installed herself next to him without his even noticing. His embarrassment showed on his cheeks, an involuntary consequence of a sensitive nature coupled with a fair complexion.

  He apologized for ignoring her, and said he’d explain during the break. When the time came he gave her a synopsis of what Chris had told him.

  “Now I see why he keeps to himself so much,” she said. “After he told me he’s gay I figured he had a boyfriend somewhere. I never thought he’d be in the service. Don’t they reject homosexuals?”

  “He may not have told them,” said TJ. “Lots of them don’t admit it because of the stigma. On the other hand, if you say you’re gay most draft boards will take you anyway. They assume you’re lying—that you’re what they call a hoaxosexual—to get out of serving, and besides the army needs the bodies. Some people want a military career, or really believe in the war, like the vet we heard in Union Square did before he wised up, so they’re not going to tell. One gay guy I know from the neighborhood was gung ho like that. He kept quiet and enlisted in the marines because he wanted to prove he was just as macho as the straight men. He came home with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.”

  “So you don’t think they’ll reject Bill if he tells them he’s gay?”

  “Chris said Bill is 1-A. Either he didn’t tell them, or they ignored it. I think to be 4-F these days you have to be practically dead.”

  Sixteen

  Wednesday, November 1

  Inspector Jacob Kaminsky, commanding officer of the Eighteenth Precinct, arrived at the Art Students League with a photographer, a medical technician, and several uniformed police officers at 7:05 p.m. The station house was only a few blocks away, on West Fifth-Fourth Street, so there was no delay in response to a call from Stewart Klonis, the League’s executive director, who reported the discovery of a body on the top floor.

  Kaminsky, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the force, was among the 10 percent of the New York City Police Department who were Jewish. Defying his family’s ambition for him to enter one of the favored professions—doctor, lawyer, accountant, businessman—his strong social conscience had led him to follow the concept of tikkun olam, to improve the world, and he saw a career in law enforce
ment as the ideal means to that end. He was among the distinguished Jewish graduates of the Police Academy class of 1940, who by the mid-1960s included a Chief Inspector—the highest uniformed rank—a female Deputy Chief Inspector, the Chief of Detectives, Chief of the Organized Crime Bureau and Chief of the Narcotics Division.

  At six foot three, Kaminsky’s muscular build carried his two hundred pounds easily, and his ramrod posture signaled his authority silently but effectively. His patch extended two-thirds of the way across the island, from the Hudson River to Lexington Avenue and Central Park south to Forty-Third Street. Among the landmarks under his jurisdiction were St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Museum of Modern Art, all of which he had visited on various official and social occasions, in and out of uniform.

  The League, however, was unknown territory. He had passed the Renaissance Revival building innumerable times, but had never been inside. More than once he’d thought about just dropping in for a look around, but somehow he’d never made the time. He often wondered just what went on in the imposing edifice, designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, who based it on a sixteenth-century hunting lodge in Fontainebleau, France. His own building, known as the Midtown North station house, was a dowdy thing by comparison, built by the Work Projects Administration in 1939 in the Stripped Classical style typical of New Deal–era government construction. It was so generic that no architect was credited on the commemorative bronze plaque.

  When the call came in, Kaminsky decided to satisfy his curiosity and head up the investigation himself. But when he got inside the League he was somewhat surprised by the smallness of the entrance hall and main lobby. Judging by the façade, he expected something grander, even palatial. Instead he found himself and his team in a cramped space filled with students milling about in confusion. At the sight of his uniformed men, the buzz died down and the crowd parted, allowing Klonis to step forward and identify himself to Kaminsky as the man who had placed the call.