Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (14 page)

And so, when I’m studying a postcard from Mecca, or one of Utrillo’s suburban scenes, I say to myself, “one thing is as good as another.”
Am I happy? Does it make fun?
I forget about the good life; I forget my duties and responsibilities. I even forget about the poison oak which is cropping out strong again. When I paint I feel good. And if it makes
me
feel so good, the chances are it will make the other fellow feel good too. If it doesn’t, I should worry…. Now what were those pigments I meant to use when looking at the hills a while ago? Oh yes, yellow ochre, Indian yellow, brown-red, raw sienna and a dash of rose madder. Perhaps a touch of raw umber too. Good! It’ll probably look like baby shit, but who cares?
Moi, je suis l’ange de cocasse
. Somewhere I’ve just got to introduce a blob of
laque gérance
. What beautiful names the pigments have! Sound even better in French than in English. And don’t forget, I remind myself, when you mail that book to what’s his name in Immensee—or is it Helsingfors?—don’t forget to wrap it in a “failed” water color! Strange, how people suddenly develop an appreciation for that which is tossed away!
Were I to ask fifty cents for a misfire job it would be refused me, but when I wrap a book with it—as if it weren’t worth a fart—the recipient behaves as if he had been made a priceless gift.

It’s like when I meet Harrydick in the woods. He’s always bending down to pluck something. Sometimes it’s only a dead leaf. “Look at that! Isn’t it gorgeous?” he’ll say.
Gorgeous?
That’s a big word. I look at whatever it may be—I’ve seen it a thousand times and never noticed it—and sure enough, it
is
gorgeous. In fact, lying there in Harrydick’s capable, sensitive hand, it’s more than gorgeous … it’s phenomenal, unique. Walking along—he’s still holding it in his hand, will examine it even more lovingly when he gets home—he begins a dithyramb about the things which lie in one’s path, the things we tread on daily, never even aware that we have crushed them under our heels. He talks about form, structure, purpose, about the unthinkable, inconceivable collaboration that goes on under the ground and above the ground, about fossils and folklore, about patience and tenderness, about the worries of the little creatures, about their cunning, skill, fortitude, and so on and so on, until I feel that it’s not a dead leaf he’s holding in his hand but a dictionary, encyclopaedia, manual of art, philosophy of history all rolled into one.

Now and then, often in the middle of a problem, I wonder if the fellow who was here the day before riffling through my water colors, I wonder if when he paused to look twice at a certain “monstrosity” he had the faintest notion of the circumstances in which it was conceived and executed? Would he believe me, I wonder, if I told him that it was done one-two-three, just like that, and five more to boot, while Gerhart Muench was practicing on my broken-down piano? Would he have the least inkling that it was Ravel who inspired it? Ravel of
Gaspard de la nuit?
It was while Gerhart was going over and over the “Scarbo” that I suddenly lost all control of myself and began to paint music. It was like a thousand tractors going up and down my spine at high speed, the way Gerhart’s playing affected me. The faster the rhythm, the more thunderous
and ominous the music, the better my brushes flew over the paper. I had no time to pause or reflect. On! On! Good Garbo! Sweet Garbo! Good Launcelot Garbo, Scarbo, Barbo! Faster! Faster! Faster! The paper was dripping paint on all sides. I was dripping with perspiration. I wanted to scratch my ass, but there was no time for it. On with it, Scarbo!
Dance
, you gazabo! Gerhart’s arms are moving like flails. Mine too. If he goes pianissimo, and he can go pianissimo just as beautifully as he can fortissimo, I go pianissimo too. Which means I spray the trees with insecticide, cross my
t’s
and dot my
i’
s. I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing. Does it matter? In one hand I have two brushes, in the other three, all of them saturated with pigment. So it goes, from one painting to another, and all the while singing, dancing, rocking, weaving, tottering, mumbling, cursing, shouting. Just for good measure I slide one of them to the floor and grind my heels into it. (Slavic ecstasy.) By the time Gerhart has sandpapered his finger tips I’ve turned out a half-dozen water colors (complete with coda, cadenza and vermiform appendix) that would scare the daylight out of a buzzard, octaroon or tomtit.

So I say, always look twice if you happen to notice a water color signed with my name. It may have been inspired by Ravel, Nijinsky or one of the Nijni Novgorod boys. Don’t toss it away because it looks like a failure. Look for the trade-mark: the iron heel or the well-tempered clavichord. It may have a history behind it. Another day I’ll take you to Hollywood and show you the twenty-five water colors Leon Shamroy was crazy enough to pay money for. Then you’ll see how even a misfire painting, if properly framed, can make your mouth water. Leon paid me a good price for those water colors, bless his heart! He paid an even better price for the frames in which they hang. Two of them he later returned to me, freight prepaid. Wouldn’t stand the test, these two. The test imposed by the magnificent frames, is what I mean. With the paintings I got the frames too. Which was mighty white of Leon, I thought. I tore up the water colors and inserted blank paper in
the frames. Imitating Balzac, I wrote on the blank face of the one: “This is a Kandinsky.” And on the other: “This is a piece of paper white on which we write our word or two and then comes night.”

Signing off now. Time to eat.

“Now works the peace and quiet of Scheveningen like a anaesteatic,” as my
friend Jacobus Hendrik Dun wrote me, circa 1922 or ’23.

I often think of this quaint line when I’m at the sulphur baths and not a soul
around, just sea, sky and seals. A few hours of communion with the elements eliminates all the
detritus accumulated at the base of the skull as a result of entertaining visitors, reading
boring manuscripts, answering letters from poets, professors and imbeciles of all
denominations. It’s amazing how easily and naturally the inner springs resume their
functioning once you surrender to sheer idleness.

At the baths I usually run into Oden Wharton, an octogenarian who had the good
sense to quit a hundred-thousand-a-year job, as executive of a steel corporation, at the age
of forty-five. And do absolutely nothing! Oden has been doing it perfectly for almost forty
years now and his conscience doesn’t trouble him in the least. You wonder, when you talk to
Oden, would the world really go to pots if we chucked everything and lived like the lilies in
the
field. He hasn’t a penny now, dear Oden, but God looks after him.
Getting rid of the fortune he had accumulated as a man of affairs took him a number of years.
Some of them, quite a few, he spent in the Maine woods with a guide, hunting and fishing.
Idyllic days, to hear Oden talk about them.

Now that he’s really retired, a couple named Ed and Betty Eames look after
Oden. By “look after” I mean—wait patiently until he drops dead of heart failure.
*
Oden
is never ill, neither does time hang heavy on his hands. His days pass much like the
butterfly’s. If there’s someone to talk to, he’ll talk; if not, he reads. Twice a day, regular
as Immanuel Kant, he strolls over to the baths and back again, a walk of about a mile. That’s
just sufficient to keep his muscles from atrophying. The reading matter which is piled up
beside his armchair is innocuous enough to put him to sleep by eight o’clock; if it doesn’t,
the radio will.

I always enjoy my talks with Oden. But I enjoy still more talking to “Butch.”
“Butch,” as we call him, is the Eames’ little boy. He’s about the same age as my Tony and
blessed with the disposition of an angel. Now and then I drop Tony off to play with Butch
while I go take a bath. They are about as different in temperament as the two faces of a
coin.

It’s only a year or so since Butch has been able to walk properly. He was born
clubfooted, cross-eyed, and with a growth or protuberance on his nose which threatened to make
a Cyrano de Bergerac of him. After numerous operations, with long sieges in the hospital, all
these defects have been eradicated. Perhaps I am wrong in attributing his unbelievable good
nature to the privations, frustrations and suffering he endured as a child. But that is the
impression I have, and whether right or wrong, the fact is that Butch is like no other child
in these parts.

He always comes running to greet you, a little wobbly on his feet still, his
eyes still threatening to capsize any minute. But what
a warmth and
sincerity, what a radiance emanates from his shining countenance! He makes you feel as if you
were a divine emissary, as if he saw you through a vision.

“I’ve got new shoes, see!” He puts out a foot as if it were made of gold or
alabaster. “I can run now. Want to see?” And he runs a few yards, turns abruptly, then fixes
you with a heavenly beam.

What can be more wonderful for a boy of seven than to walk, run, skip, jump?
When Butch does it, you realize that if we possessed nothing more than this animal endowment
we would still be blessed. Butch makes physical exertion seem like divine play. Indeed, every
gesture which animates him is like a prayer of thanksgiving, like the rejoicing of an angelic
being.

Like every youngster, he appreciates gifts. But with Butch, if you were to
hand him an ordinary stone from the field, telling him it was for
him
, he would
accept it and thank you for it with the same grateful exuberance that another lad would
display only if handed a gold-plated fire engine. The surgeon’s knife, the long days and
nights alone in bed, the absence of playmates, the waiting, the hoping, the yearning he must
have known in the very depths of his soul, have all contributed to “tenderize” his nature. He
seems utterly incapable of comprehending that anyone would want to do him ill, even a rowdy,
insensitive playmate. In his innocence, sublime to witness, he expects of others only goodness
and kindness. There isn’t an ounce of malice or envy in him. Nor resentment, nor craving.
Sure, he would love to have playmates his own size, his own age, and not too rough and not too
nasty, but if he can’t, and usually he can’t, he will make do with the birds, the flowers, a
few odd toys and an inexhaustible fund of good nature. When he bursts into talk it’s like a
bird that’s suddenly begun to warble in your ear.

Butch never asks for anything, unless it be something you happened to promise
him. Even then, he asks in such a way—supposing you had forgotten to keep your promise—that
you feel as if he had forgiven you in advance. Butch couldn’t possibly think of
anyone as “a stinker.” Nor as a “sucker.” Should he stumble, and really
hurt himself, he doesn’t sit and whine until you pick him up. No sir! With tears in his eyes
he picks himself up and throws you one of his golden smiles which, in his language, means: “It
was those foolish old feet of mine!”

One day, shortly after the last operation on his eyes, Butch paid us a visit.
Tony was away and the old tricycle he had abandoned was standing in the garden. Butch asked if
he might ride it. He had never ridden a bike, and to make matters more complicated, he was
still not seeing right. He was seeing double, as he told me. He said it, of course, as if it
were a delightful sensation. I helped him a bit in learning to steer, to back up, and so on.
It took him no time to catch on. His feet were still rather awkward; every time he made a
sharp turn he tilted at a dangerous angle. Now and then he toppled off, but was up again in a
jiffy, always beaming, always rejoicing.

When it came time to go I knew that Butch had to have that bike. It wasn’t
much of anything anymore but it would do to practice on. I explained to him that as soon as
Tony came home I would ask him if he would surrender it. (I knew he would because that would
mean a new one for
him.)
I told Butch I would be going to town next day, that I would
buy Tony a new bike and bring him the old one.

“Will you be down tomorrow then?” were his last words.

When he had gone I could think of nothing but that look on his face when he
heard that he was to inherit Tony’s old bike. Naturally, I was up and off to town early the
next day. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a bike Tony’s size immediately at the department store
where I had a charge account. And I didn’t have the cash to buy one elsewhere.

(Everything costs a forutne these days. I bought a racing wheel from a six-day
bike rider at Madison Square Garden in the old days for the price they now ask for a kid’s
bike.)

I should have gone to see Butch that evening and explained the
situation to him. But I didn’t. I just hoped that he wouldn’t be too
feverish—and that he would forgive me, in his usual way, when I did show up. It was four or
five days later when I turned up with the old bike which was concealed in the back of the car.
As I drove up there was Butch waiting for me, as if it were the appointed time. I could see
that he was on the
qui vive
. At the same time I couldn’t help but observe that he was
holding himself in in case of a disappointment.

“Well, Butch, how are you?” I cried, getting out and giving him a warm hug. As
he embraced me he looked furtively over my shoulder, toward the interior of the car.

“I’m just fine,” he said, his face alight, his hands dancing with glee.

Not to keep him in suspense a moment longer than was necessary, I opened the
back of the car and yanked the bike out.

“OH!” he exclaimed, quite beside himself now, “So you brought it! I thought
maybe you forgot.” Then he told me how he had been looking for me every day, every time a car
pulled into their driveway.

I felt wretched, first for having held him up so long, and second for handing
him a bike in such condition. The seat was coming off, the handle-bars were twisted, and I
think one of the pedals was missing. Butch didn’t seem to mind. He said his grandfather would
put it in shape for him.