NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Walking along Walton Lane, through the bare-twig winter-woods, we can see debris everywhere from the recent Derecho. Numerous trees and branches have fallen at odd angles supporting each other in the cold gray light and dripping through warm humid air. A big red cedar blocks the lane and its massive root ball cracked open the sidewalk when it erupted. We can hear something nearby on the other side of the thick evergreen mass.
“Sounds odd.”
Lou has stopped to listen, supporting his right arm with his thumb in his back pocket, as he regards the obstacle across our path.
“Could it be a Terrier, Lou?”
There is a series of high pitched barks.
“Now that was a terrier.”
We don’t hear the strange sound again and the dog stops barking. A blue jay rasps the quiet around us with a loud call and flies across the lane.
“Yes, one was definitely a terrier but what about the other?”
We walk off the sidewalk on soggy black ground showing between dead oak leaves, twigs and shreds of bark and a flattened Mountain Dew can. Stepping around the shaggy root ball and the shallow watery hole it left in the ground, we can see a teenage girl with her phone in one hand and two small dogs pulling hard on their leashes into the green chaos blocking the lane.
She looks up and says hi, to Lou.
“Pam this is Fred, Fred, Pam Dirac.”
“Hi Pam, didn’t you used to study chess with Derwent Soot?”
“Yeah right, he was a great teacher!”
“I’ll bet he was. Are those your dogs?”
Pam has a single leash in hand with a fork at the end holding two short leashes for the two dogs.
“No they are Nadia’s. I took care of them while she was away, but I still walk them all the time.”
“Nadia?”
“Yeah, you know. She just got back from a trip. She is staying over at the Plank’s, next door to us.”
“Okay, so what is wrong with the black one? She doesn’t sound like a dog.”
“Yeah, I know Lou. That’s Meson. She got a throat injury when she was a pup. Now she sounds more like she’s quacking, querking or quarking or something”
“What is the Westie’s name?”
“Well, the Scottie is Meson and the Westie is Muon.”
“I thought the Plank’s dog was Boson, a big hound, or something.”
“Oh yeah Boson!”
Muon is trying to pull Meson towards me. Pam has to use both hands on the leash while still holding the phone in her left. Lou steps forward and holds the leash below her hand.
“Thanks, I nearly dropped my phone!”
The dogs are calmed as Lou bends over to pet Muon, but Meson stays close to Pam’s legs.
“Boson went with Liberty. I think he is in California now.”
A white SUV pulls up slowly, with smooth rounded contours, wet, and shiny like a metallic white wale. Twigs snap under the wheels with a slight ring-sound in the tires.
The dogs are pulling hard on her outstretched arm back towards the fibrous peeling bark. Pam looks at them and back at her phone.
The driver’s side window opens silently. The Westie, Muon, looks up.
Chuck Newsom is looking at us from under a NY Yankees baseball cap. He removes his dark glasses and waves with them in hand in a single sweep of his extended arm.
“How you doing?”
Both dogs seem to recognize him and bark and quark furiously at him. He puts his glasses back on, turns off the engine and steps out. As the sun comes out, the door on the other side slams shut immediately after his.
Pam pulls Muon back while Meson is pulling the opposite way towards Chuck.
A young red headed woman walks around the front of the ‘whale’ in tight white jeans and a blue sweatshirt with “Palin” in big red letters across her chest. She keeps tossing bouncy red curls out of her face and she squints with the sun in her eyes. She and Chuck hold hands and stroll over to Pam and the dogs, who greet Chuck with tails wagging. They both start up again when a third door slams shut, on the other side of the SUV from us.
A short bald man comes around the back, zipping up a red windbreaker over his protruding belly as he walks.
“Hey guys, how are you doing?”
Lou nudges me.
“You remember this guy, Fred?”
“I think it is Gloriani, Boris Tarantula’s agent.” He walks up to us with short quick steps in his pointed black shoes.
“Hi, Giuseppe Gloriani, glad to meet you. I think we’ve met before, at Lou’s party.” He talks fast in a high-pitched voice.
Giuseppe is shaking hands with Lou.
Chuck introduces his friend, Paula Pocock.
“Spring in February guys! How do you like it?” Paula tosses her hair again and raises the long red nailed index finger of her free hand to pull a loose curl from her eye.
“Yeah, great, great, great, Paula.” Gloriani stands next to Paula with his fists pushing out the pockets of his windbreaker. A breeze blows some moisture out of the beech tree above us, still full of last year’s gray brown leaves hanging like shriveled fruit.
Chuck scratches the back of his head and wipes a few drops of water from his forehead.
“Giuseppe, you know these folks?”
“Yeah sure, I met Fred before, and ah, Lou, I remember you too, from someplace.”
“Yeah it was at my party, Giuseppe.”
“You guys friends with Daisy Briscoe? You know? The stained glass artist that lives around here?”
“Oh yes, I know her well Giuseppe.”
“Yeah, right Fred, well I just got her a contract with Chuck and maybe a job out at PU Arts Center. We’ll see.”
“Yeah, that’s so great Giuseppe, I can’t wait to meet her. Giuseppe is such a great businessman. I am meeting so many interesting artists since I got with Chuck.” Paula giggles with a blazing expanse of moist dental enamel. Pam is busy looking at her phone and then at Muon and Meson, who gradually pull her away from us.
“Yeah, Paula, I know tons of people for you to meet. You know Boris or Frank? You know, Frank Vasari, out at the Arts Center right?”
“No Giuseppe, but I know Chuck has a beautiful new sculpture in front of his house. Isn’t that one by Boris, Chuck honey?”
“Sure is baby!” Chuck’s long arm pulls Paula close and she stands on tiptoe in her SanzE pink and yellow track shoes to nuzzle his neck. Chuck takes off his cap and smoothes his blond hair, and smiles down on us, nearly a foot taller than any one else.
“Either of you guys seen Tarantula’s latest works out at PU?”
“No Chuck, I haven’t seen much for years.”
Chuck gestures to Lou with his cap in hand.
“Tarantula is now making human figures out of computer circuit boards, wire and other associated hardware.”
Giuseppe looks up at him.
“Damn good investment Chuck, if I do say so myself.”
“Yeah no doubt, but I want to see some more first.”
“Oh you can! You can! You can! Next week for sure, Chuck. How would you like that Paula?”
“Oh sure Giuseppe, you know how much I love art! Oh this is just such a great day. All this warm sun came out like it is specially for our spectacular new president!”
“Yeah, right, right, right, Paula, he is quite a spectacle, great business man…yeah, sure, but you know Paula, some of Boris’s new figures incorporate video screens of various sizes showing details of the human body; a finger joint, a foreskin, the upper eyelid. You know, real anatomical detail!”
Chuck is laughing.
“Where could I exhibit a thing like that?”
“Hey my friend, it would be great publicity! His figures showing details of male and female genitalia draw attention. You would have those people out of CUPA swarming all over it.”
“Giuseppe, I think it is a little, ahhh, kind of obscene. I mean like pornography.”
“No, no, no, Paula, listen, this is art. This is the real thing. Look at all the old masters, Rembrandt, Titian, Velasquez, and new ones like Larry Rivers, they all painted the female anatomy and some male too. Check out those fat baby putti with their ‘junk’ hanging out. Boris is doing real avant-garde Art, Art, Art, with a capital A!”
Paula pulls on Giuseppe’s arm as gets more and more excited.
“Take it easy, okay?”
Giuseppe goes quiet, and looks up into her face.
“Did you say putti or pussy, Giuseppe?”
Putti, Putti, Putti, Paula, that’s Italian, Putti from Putto. They are fat little cherubs. You got to let me take you down to the National Gallery some time. Look at some old oil paintings. You and Chuck and me, okay?”
“Well, the old masters are art. I know that, but videos, that sounds like something else to me.”
“Okay, Oaky, Okay, Listen Paula, hey Chuck you should hear this too.”
Chuck has stepped over to look at a branch that just fell on his SUV.
He pets Muon and Meson who chase after his legs along the way. Pam is focused on her phone. Chuck ignores Giuseppi’s shout. He turns back to Paula.
“Listen, Boris Tarantula, is one of the greatest artists of the twenty first century.”
He looks over to Lou and me.
“You guys could make out big if you want to invest, say 20K!”
“No thanks Giuseppe. It isn’t my kind of thing.”
“So what do you like Lou?”
“Old stuff, Norman Rockwell, or even Grandma Moses, you know, I like American art. I do have one of Frank Vasari’s early paintings.”
“Hey! Tarantula is applying for citizenship. I have him working with my lawyer, but he won’t study! He is too busy with his art!”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Lou, he is doing art in America alright?”
“I don’t know what he is doing.”
Paula is distracted by Chuck’s walking away. Giuseppe steps over to get her attention.
Paula, Paula, Paula, listen… his figure, Tarantula’s sculpture, you know, that shows close up video details of male and female genitalia. In fact that already drew the attention of CUPA. They want it removed from the gallery at PU, that, or close the place, and gallery attendance tripled the next week. You see what I mean about publicity?”
“Well it is sensational.”
Paula has drawn back. She is watching Chuck remove some twigs from the hood of his big white SUV.
“Giuseppe maybe CUPA are right…”
She shouts out to Chuck.
“Say honey! Is it alright?”
Chuck turns and smiles at her, and comes back to her.
“No problem baby.”
“Yeah, great, great, great, Paula.”
Giuseppe steps close to her.
“You know that publicity is going to raise the value. You see what I mean?”
“Well sure, Giuseppe, but that doesn’t make it art.”
“Who’s to say what art is, Paula? If I can sell it, then it is art. I promiss you that. I mean, you know, it’s a market, that is for sure, sure, sure!
Lou is backing away slightly, his face pinched his eyebrows low over his eyes. He is looking at the ground. Kicks the remains of a 9 volt battery towards the side of the road where a torn ‘big gulp’ cup lies with shreds of black plastic all tangled with twigs and other detritus.
“What’s the matter Lou? Something bothering you my friend?”
“Yeah.”
Giuseppe’s hands come out of his pockets, spread in an open gesture in front of him.
“Well, what is it my man?”
“Spring in February, this is the Northern hemisphere.”
Pam Dirac has moved further off, dexterously thumbing her phone’s keyboard in one hand, and holding on to the leash and Muon and Meson, black and white, surging ahead of her past the parked SUV.
