Cheyney Fox (13 page)

“The back room.”

“Well, are you going to let us in?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course. Hi, Cheyney. I thought you’d look worse. Yeah, come in.”

They dripped, just inside the door. Closing the umbrella, shaking off the rain, stamping cold, wet feet. Paul flicked a wall switch. A lantern in the hall landing above them came to
life and a dim yellowish light trickled down the stairs.

“Do we get to go upstairs, or do we stand here, Andy?”

“Oh, oh, yeah, sure.” But he made no move to lead the way. Instead he spoke to Cheyney. “It must be terrible, all the awful things people are saying about you, Cheyney. Is it terrible? Was it awful when they threw you out of the gallery?”

I’m crazy standing here listening to this, she thought. She looked forlornly at her two companions, who returned her look, embarrassed. “Well, what do you think, Andy?”

“I think it’s too bad you didn’t have more money. With more money, you’da made it. Everyone thought you had a lotta money. It’s not the brains, it’s the money and the success you need. You should’a had more money. You could’ve at least picked a lover with a lotta money.” This dissertation issued in a monotone from Andy’s mask-like face.

Several stairs turned downward to a lower level. Andy bent over the banister and shouted, “Mom, it’s okay. They’re my friends.” Cheyney saw a shadow fade from the stairwell below. More carpetless wooden stairs rose through the hall to the first floor above them. Sludgy, cold, and dingy, this was the Warhol residence.

Andy appeared to be just the same at home as he was in her gallery, or at Serendipity, or anywhere else. Just as much the alien, the odd-man-out, there as everywhere he went. Home may have been what he called it, but it was more like the annex of a second-hand furniture and curio-shop. It was chock-a-block with Andy’s indiscriminate shopping, his Saturday bargains.

Everywhere she looked there were things, and things upon things. There were mahogany bureaus and dressing tables, and chests of drawers in walnut wood and cherry and maple. Some hand painted; all shoved against the walls in between an Early American rocking chair, a Chippendale settee, a garishly painted life-size wooden Indian.

Everything was piled high with quill boxes, ivory boxes, and cardboard boxes, glass bottles, books, wooden fruit, jugs, and Russell Wright plates by the dozen, stacked between yet more things. In a cup Cheyney saw a bracelet solid with moonstones, a necklace of gold leaves. Framed pictures in all sizes and shapes, watercolors, drawings, and paintings peeped out
from behind more junk or were stacked ten-deep facing the walls. A Victorian gold-leaf mirror, ten feet high, with more chipped gesso showing than gold leaf, half blocked a doorway.

Early American biscuit tins by the dozen surrounded a wicker doll’s carriage, which held two Victorian dolls with cracked porcelain faces and torn limbs, a stuffed turtle, and a cuckoo clock, the yellow-and-red, cross-eyed cuckoo leering from the trapdoor on a spring gone limp. She counted five other clocks, none of which worked, two Indian tomahawks and one feathered headdress, and they had not moved from the first-floor landing yet.

“Andy, you live in a warehouse!”

“Oh?” Puzzled, he looked around as if seeing it for the first time.

The radiators were hissing heat, and there was a gray film of dust everywhere. Cheyney had never realized just how pathological his passion for shopping was. He’d have shamed the proverbial squirrel, instinctively greedy, amassing his treasures for that cold winter day that could catch him unprepared. Cheyney suddenly took his greed personally. Her cold winter day had come, and, unlike Andy, she had no store of anything to fall back on. She had never been squirrel enough.

It was all too ugly. Kitsch, and camp. But, amid the ugliness, she was able to spot a really good painting, a fine drawing, slung in some corner. Andy’s disconcerting gift was his ability to have the same enthusiasm for one of those choice articles as for a giant plastic Donald Duck, a tin drum, one Carmen Miranda shoe.

“Can we sit down?” asked Paul.

“Oh, sure, if you want to.”

He opened a door to the front room overlooking the street. The lighting was terrible, the place no less crowded than the upper landing and hall they had just quit. A salon of a hundred Saturdays’ shopping. A merry-go-round horse with a shabby mane and a broken ear, its tail missing, loomed out of the shadows. And so did a large drafting-table set near the window overlooking the street. A modern goose-necked lamp screwed to it highlighted an illustration in progress and its creator, an emaciated nervous young man, brush in hand.

“Oh, I forgot. Arthur’s working in here.”

He allowed them no introductions, but hurried them from there to the back room, a larger version of the hall and the front room. Just another room of too much
stuff
. He emptied a grotesque Victorian wing chair of a box of broken Japanese masks so that Cheyney could sit down. Paul chose the arm of an art deco sofa. Tom removed a cardboard box of signed, glossy black-and-white movie star photos from a French butcher’s table, dusted it off with a Chinese embroidered shawl, and perched on the corner of that.

“How can you live like this, Andy, with so much clutter? It would junk my mind. All these things. What do they mean? Why do you want them? The effort, the time it takes to collect all this. Don’t you ever get tired of shopping?”

“Never. It’s the most fun I have, shopping. You just never know what you’re really getting, the value it might have after you’ve discovered it. So I buy everything. I’m not exactly a collector, I’m a many-kinds-of-things buyer. You have to have things. It’s better to have things than not have things.”

“But you can be selective.”

“Why?”

Cheyney couldn’t begin to answer that. She sighed, knowing it was a waste of time anyway.

“Part of the fun is just going into a store. You see something, you point to it, and it’s yours. I like that, it’s better than thinking about it. It’s too tiring, all that thinking: do I want it, should I buy it? I just like everything. Everything looks terrific, I don’t buy things ’cause I need them or use them — well, eh, maybe sometimes — but mostly ’cause something catches my eye and I just want it. I like that. Fun-buying. It’s all fun.”

“Instant recognition, instant gratification, and on to the next purchase, is that it?” asked Cheyney. She wondered how much of his stuff he looked at a second time.

“Sort of. I don’t think about things like that.”

“What do you think about, Andy?”

“How to get rich. I go to church every Sunday and pray to become rich. I want to be the wealthiest, most famous painter in the world. A celebrity. That’s all I think about, mostly.”

The atmosphere tensed. The pale, ghost-like Andy, immobile before the seated Cheyney, was aggressive, pushing, demanding without saying a word. The icy wave of his determination chilled her.

Chapter 13

“L
eo Castelli won’t take me. He won’t give me a show. And I can paint as well as Jasper Johns can. I’m as good as any of these new guys. I hate it when they say I’m too commercial, I’m not inspired. Inspired — what does that mean, anyway? Why won’t he give me a show? Why can’t I make it, Cheyney?”

“Andy, I don’t really want to hear your troubles, or to talk art. The New York art world is not my favorite subject at the moment.”

“How can you not want to talk about the New York art world? You might just as well be dead.”

“Exactly.”

“But you’re not dead.”

“Oh, but I fucking well am,” she shouted. “Andy, for God’s sake, don’t you feel anything for what’s happened to me? Don’t you realize I have lost everything? Not just the gallery, but a lifetime of work and my whole credibility in the world of art? Lost. It’s all gone.”

“No.” His tone was flat.

“No?” she repeated, tears brimming from her outburst.

“All that’s happened is that you didn’t have enough money to keep going. Hold on till some new wave of art hits big and strong enough to make real money, big bucks. That’s all that’s
happened to you. You’re the smartest, cleverest of the new dealers. With a hundred thousand dollars behind you, you would have made it.”

A hundred thousand. Cheyney rose from the chair, ready to leave, and promised herself that from then on she would not see Andy Warhol again. “Andy, I will not talk about the art world. I didn’t want to come here, didn’t want to see you. Now I know why. I don’t want to suffer just because you want to be an art star. And make no mistake, talking art is pain and suffering for me.”

Paul interrupted, “Andy, why not get us some coffee? That’s what we came for. Stop hustling Cheyney.”

“Coffee?” Again that dumb surprised look on his face.

“Yes, Andy, coffee.”

“You want coffee, Cheyney?”

She looked up from the floor. She had dropped her gaze so as not to look at the men in the room. Wanting to hide at least some of the anxiety smarting in her eyes.

“No, I don’t want coffee. I don’t even want to be here. Let’s go.” The look on her face showed her pleading to be relieved of Andy’s itching, trivial ambition.

Andy reached out to touch her. She recoiled. It meant nothing to him, he carried on, “Wait a minute, Cheyney.”

He paused, and then he came out with it. “Make me the most famous painter in the world.”

“You don’t listen, Andy. I tell you I am a has-been in the art world. Who puts his money on a loser, if he’s looking to be a winner?”

“I like having failures around me. I find it inspirational sometimes. It’s fun.”

“Because they have nothing more to lose, and, in some perverse way, might have something to offer?”

“That’s too complex for me. I just like failures, that’s all.”

“Oh, I see. It’s more like ‘one man’s shit is another man’s flowers.’ ”

“Yes, I guess you could put it that way, Cheyney. What you need to do now is to make me what I want to be. You know it all, and better than anybody. Just put it together. If you tell me what to do, I’ll do it. Then I’ll become the most famous painter in the world.”

“You’re mad.”

“Okay, I’m mad. Now just tell me what to paint. That’s all you have to do. Tell me what to paint and how to get a show.”

“How much do you really want to be the most famous painter in the world? How far will you go?”

“I’ll do anything, everything.”

There was silence and a shift of atmosphere in the room. Tom broke the stillness by switching on a lamp. Then he found another in a carton on the far side of the room, pulled it out, and plugged it into the wall socket. Paul found a lamp shade and placed it on the harp over the naked bulb. Something strange was happening. Andy, who at the best of times never looked quite alive, was the color of ash, completely silent, all aggression gone. He was passive to the point of almost not breathing, whereas Cheyney, who had not moved from the wing chair, had come alive. The light caught her eye. She felt a surge of energy, a sense so positive and strong as to make her heart race. She emanated a confidence and excitement that transformed the room, without her saying a word, moving a finger. It was as if enlightening someone else might absorb the darkness that had all but extinguished the old Cheyney Fox.

“The coffee. Shall I ask your mother to make the coffee?” asked Tom.

“Never mind the coffee,” said Cheyney. “It seems we have more interesting things to brew here. But I have two conditions. The first is that it will cost you.”

“How much?”

“Fifty dollars, before I say a word.”

Andy left the room and returned almost immediately with a check and handed it to her. “What else?”

“I want your word: if, after you have become the most famous painter in the world, you are not happy, it hasn’t fulfilled all your expectations, you will not hold me responsible.”

“Okay.”

“All right. Now tell me, Andy, what do you love more than anything else in the world?” Her catechism had begun.

“I don’t know,” Andy said. “What?”

“Money,” said Cheyney. “Why don’t you paint money?”

“That’s a terrific idea. And nobody else had done it. Henry — you know, Henry Geldzahler, the curator over at the
Metropolitan who is interested in the new artists — Henry keeps telling me I should develop new images. Ones no one else uses. But I couldn’t think of any. Boy, money’s a great one,” said Andy. “He’ll love that.”

“Now listen carefully, Andy. So you understand what this is all about. Your mistake until now has been that you have not understood that any great artists paints the things he knows best, whatever he loves or hates best, and understands, down to the core of his subject. With you it’s money and things. Most of all things, objects that are instantly recognizable, that you don’t have to think about. It is not that you’re too commercial a painter, but that you are not commercial enough in what you do. Your Bonwit Teller art is for the selected Fifth Avenue few. Money, kid, that’s for everybody. That’s art that everyone understands and wants to hang on the wall in one form or another. Paint money, and you will knock the stuffing out of the elitist art world.”

“What kind of money?”

“Dollars. American dollar bills. All denominations. Huge canvases of one-dollar notes, a fiver, a two-dollar bill, fifty, twenty, a hundred. Nice, fresh, crisp dollar bills of alluring proportions that will swallow up the viewer.”

“Faaaabulous!” exclaimed Andy. Cheyney wondered if she had made him see himself momentarily as Croesus or Midas. “What color?” No, he was being businesslike.

“Money color. Faded, bright. As seen in bright light, in shadow. Done in oils, pastels, charcoal, and pencil, and on large canvases, enormous canvases. Or medium ones, small. The dollars can be drawn or painted as prim and proper portraits, or crumpled, or torn in half, or with their corners bent back. You could even paint dirty money. You could do an entire exhibition of the bills in their actual size. Lots of lovely money all over the walls. People will adore it. Pay a fortune for a dollar.”

“Do you think Leo Castelli will take them?”

“Forget Leo Castelli, he has his new artists. You don’t want to be where Jasper Johns is, or Rosenquist, Oldenburg. Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, they’ve found a home for themselves. Don’t look to muscle in on their patch, find your own. Go up against them, create your own limelight in another space. Then
you can think about sharing galleries with them.

“The dealers are nervous, taking chances, great leaps in the dark. And the more dealers who take a leap, the better for the ones who already have. It creates momentum in the marketplace. Momentum and a label for the newest movement in American art is what’s needed now. One more inspired painter who can add to the Jasper Johns, Rosenquist, and that lot’s statement in paint, backed by a good gallery, should just about do it.

“You, Andy Warhol, will be what they’re looking for, the new inspired image painter. And your work will push the art market over the edge for all the dealers. That’s what we have all been searching for, our salvation, to get the market buoyant again. Somewhere to go after Abstract Expressionism.

“Just get that one-man show. That’s all it’ll take. A single one-man show. The timing is perfect for you. You have your idea. Why, you don’t even have to think, just go to work.”

Cheyney was up out of the chair, bouncing ideas off various parts of the room now. Andy dragged out a large, stretched canvas he had. “What do you think? This size?”

“Yes, of course that size, and larger. Remember, the bigger the better. This is America and we’re talking American art.”

“It would be easier in watercolor. Should I do them in watercolor? You know it’ll be an awful lot of work doing them all by hand. Paint money by hand? I mean all that detail, painting money. It’ll take hours, maybe even days. A long time. A whole show of painted money. Wow, but what a lotta work.”

“Well, what did you think it was going to be, Andy? Do you want to stamp your pictures out?” He seemed to brighten at the possibility.

“Well, that’s not a bad idea.”

“You want to be a famous painter! You don’t want to have to think. You’re lazy. You don’t want to work. Well, I hate to tell you this, but you’re fucking well going to have to work at it, deliver the goods,
before
you become famous. That’s the way the art game is played.”

“Okay, so I paint a whole show of money, and I find myself a gallery to give me a one-man show. And what if it’s a success?
What if they ask me to have another show? What’ll I paint then?”

“All right. I’ll tell you what to paint next, and, I won’t even charge you for the the idea this time around. After that, though, you’re on your own, so far as I’m concerned. I think you should know that I am only doing this because I think it might just take as many as two shows to really get you up there where you want to be. But remember, you must do everything exactly as I tell you. If you don’t, it might not work.” Cheyney felt the power of talk.

“I promise I’ll do exactly what you tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got your first show in New York or Timbuktu, U.S.A., just get a reputable gallery to give you a show and make sure it’s reviewed. You follow it up with a second show, as quickly as you can get one. The art world, the dealers and the collectors, will do the rest.”

“Okay, but what’ll I paint for this second show? It’ll be terrible if I can’t think of something.”

“I just told you, Andy, I’ll tell you what to paint. It must be something just as familiar, as everyday, as money. Something so familiar that nobody even notices it anymore. Something that Americans take for granted, just like money. Maybe, a can of Campbell’s soup. That’s it. Most every American, sometime in his life, has to confront a tin of Campbell’s soup. It’s destiny. Our national pap. The nutritious American cream.”

“That’s another great idea.”

“Yes, it is actually. It’s a very great idea. Paint Campbell’s soup cans.”

“How big?”

“Bring me your largest canvas.” He dragged one in. “Nope. Not big enough.”

“Well, big like what?”

“Get me a yardstick. We’ll make the tin itself as tall as I am.” He found a tape measure, and they decided on her five-foot-seven inches, or close to it.

“What flavor?”

“Tomato, chicken noodle. It doesn’t matter.”

“Make ’em all chicken noodle?”

“No. For your first one-man show you paint one tin about
twice its natural size on a single canvas. Then repeat the process for every taste the company produces. Frame them and hang them as neatly, as regimented, as the real thing is stacked in a supermarket. Just bare white walls of Andy Warhol Campbell’s soup cans. The new art.”

“Wow!”

Cheyney began to laugh. There was not a sound from Tom and Paul. Andy asked, “Why are you laughing?”

“I don’t even know, but I have a strange feeling the joke is on me.”

“It’s brilliant, Cheyney.”

“If you say so, Andy. But you mustn’t let it end there. You must paint Warhol Campbell’s soup cans in all sorts of ways. With their lids pried open, with torn labels, the cans dented, upright, lying on their sides, empty, upside down, en masse on one huge canvas. It will be fabulous. Everyone will want them. But Andy, don’t think about how much work it is. Think about the fame and fortune, the stardom, all your dreams come true. Oh, and make the Campbell’s soup cans your first exhibition, money the second. Soup’s more audacious — less meaningful than money. The impact will be terrific.”

The room seemed to buzz at the thought of manufacturing so much art. The three men and Cheyney appeared aware that they might have invented a rather special recipe. Stretched blank canvases were strewn everywhere, and huge sheets of watercolor paper slipped over themselves on tables, the floor, a chair. Nothing had been painted or sketched, and yet the Campbell’s soup cans and instant art had transformed the dusty, junked-up room. It was no longer a storeroom of inanimate things. It was boiling over with excitement.

His questions went on and on into the night, and Cheyney somehow answered them all. Then suddenly it was over. She had given him what he wanted. She checked her handbag to make sure she had not misplaced the check. Cash was more solid than art or soup. It was her dog who needed a can of something right now. Ideas could pay for that. Art in America could look after itself for tonight.

Some curtain call for you, though, Cheyney Fox, she mused. And what was it all about? An urgent need for dog food. A mournful bark. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Cheyney
rose from her chair, feeling weaker than the banality of her inspiration warranted. She said,

“Over to you, Andy Warhol. I hope it’s all going to be worth it. If not, don’t blame me. I gave you my best shot.”