Everyone is Watching (17 page)

A few months before that day, I was at home as usual. My kids came home from school and ran straight up to their rooms. My husband came home from work and sat down in his chair in the den as
usual. The rooms and corridors of the house were silent. The TV flickered in the corner of the room, on but not watched by anyone. My husband, sitting in the chair, was dozing. I was standing in
the hallway watching him. I was sure there must be something I needed to do but there was nothing. I could not go out. There was nowhere to go. I could take the car but where would I drive? I
wasn’t even sure I could find the freeway. The scene in front of me came from the past. I was a child standing in the hallway of my childhood home and the man sitting in his favourite chair
was my father, and the children sleeping upstairs were my brother and sister. I thought, You could have moved away to the city. You could have shared a place with your friend from college. You
could have jumped on a bus and made your own way. You could have walked the streets, walked all day and all night and no one would have cared. You would have been invisible to others yet entirely
known to yourself. You would have made something of yourself. You would have turned yourself into a work of art, and this is what people would have seen, everything that you promised to be from
such a young age, standing there on a street in the city. You could have been something. You would not be this woman who confuses time.

I made dinner. I came through to tell my husband it was ready. He was already asleep in his chair. I looked out of the window. I saw the dark expanse of lawn, the shadow of sycamore trees, my
son’s bedroom light. The street was black.

I took the car keys.

The car was very cold. I did not know how far I would go. I hoped to see a sign for the station, and I did. I found the station. I parked the car. I just wanted to see. I wanted to stand on the
platform and watch the train pull in. The guard said I couldn’t enter without a ticket, so I bought a ticket. I stood on the platform.

I suddenly remembered my mother used to sit and stare at the living-room wall. I always thought that when she did this it was because she was thinking something through from start to finish. I
thought I must not break her concentration, as one must never wake a sleepwalker. I thought my mother would stop as soon as she solved the problem. But the silences became longer and I thought,
I’ve left it too long. I should have done this sooner. I should have known to try.

The train approached. People got off the train. They pushed past me. I climbed aboard. I stood in the entrance. I couldn’t do it. I climbed back down. The train left.

I didn’t tell my houseguest this. I talked about other things instead, about the local school, about the teachers that neither of us liked. We talked this way for a half-hour more then she
said goodbye and left the house. I hadn’t remembered my attempted escape until that afternoon. I would not have thought about it had it not been for this stranger. Within a month, I had moved
to the city. I found this place. A great weight has been lifted off my shoulders, Mrs Jacobs. As you can see, moving here has been a great success. The city has a lot to offer a single woman like
me.

Patti Smith’s room contains dresses, lipstick, books of poetry, sheets of paper, shoes, pencils, crayons, paint pots, brushes, underwear, bed sheets pulled off the bed,
in a tussle with a dressing-gown belt, sheet music – Bob Dylan, his face in close-up, looking humble – the stuffing from a feather pillow, grey feather boa (someone else’s),
guitar strings, china plates filled with cigarette butts, bottles of piss lining the wall, catching sunlight, Twinkie wrappers, plastic sandwich casings, extra blanket lying on the floor like a
picnic rug, no food, typewriter on the floor at the end of the mattress; one night she got her feet stuck in it. Posters on the greying walls – Dylan, Hendrix, King – an altar set up by
the window, Robert’s idea, never used it, sick of the religion, can’t create art in a museum or a factory, must come from the throw-up of everyday life, which is this, her life, strewn
across the floor. She once returned and didn’t know whether she had been burgled or not until she saw the broken window. Robert’s leather jacket was missing, Robert’s favourite,
so upset. Then they found the jacket on the fire escape – Didn’t they want my jacket, Patti? She consoled him, said the burglar was probably disturbed. It’ll be worth a million
bucks some day, he said. No kidding, said Patti, sick of the money, the talk of money, the lack of money, the lack of food, the lack of art, the art all over the floor, the neatness of art in the
museums, which is nothing, which isn’t her and isn’t him, which isn’t nothing but a pretty picture, and she’s going crazy living like this, there is too much of her here,
there is no restraint, there is nobody telling her no, she is yes all the time, she says yes, and they say yes, and it does no fucking good. It isn’t good, this saying yes to everybody, this
incessant consent, implied, she’s slipped in, she’s slipped down, she is slipping down, she’s Alice, she’s the Queen, the rabbit, the fucking pocket watch, she’s the
tie that binds them all together, she’s pulled hard in a knot and can’t be untied from this, she’s Houdini getting old and tired of the trick knots and the chains and the locks,
because what good is breaking out of places? This is just a way to get out of tidying your room, Patti, says Robert. He has a grin on his face because he has already tidied his and it’s not
yet noon. I’m going out, he says. She throws her pillow, misses him, misses him completely, knocks over a bottle of piss. Piss and Dylan meet like sweethearts.

Manhattan means options, Robert Mapplethorpe says. I can be creative here; I can do anything. But it’s not easy. There’s incredible pressure. Everything in New York
is expensive. This means you have to be productive all the time.

He is talking to a journalist in his home. Lined along the walls behind him is his glass collection, and many objects on shelves: wooden figurines, a figure of the devil. He is calm while he is
talking. His hands are interlaced neatly on his lap. The sweater he is wearing is thick, bulky. He speaks slowly, doesn’t get excited.

An artist has to be immersed in his own time, he says. Art is a statement of the moment it is made. Art should look to the future but it is not about the future. Art should be so accurate that
most people don’t see it. My life began in the summer of 1969. Before that I didn’t exist. I’m not so excited about what’s going on in the arts today. I don’t want
today’s paintings. Perhaps I’m just old fashioned.

He smiles.

Robert rides the elevator to the top floor of the Whitney Museum of Art in 1988. The curators are waiting to greet him there. They rush to help him out of the elevator. He
walks unaided past them all. He stands before a wall of photographs and looks at his self-portrait. It shows a skull-topped cane in the foreground and his blurred face behind. He doesn’t feel
he is this man.

They are asking him about the Perfect Moment.

Robert is nodding but he is thinking, Which one? The one when I picked up a camera for the first time, the one when I met Patti Smith, the one when I met Sam Wagstaff, the one when I was told I
would die, the moment of my death?

Is there anything you would like us to change? they ask.

Black frames, white mounts, black and white photographs. Dancers, black and white – evening dress. Lisa Lyon. Flower. Breast. Statue. Ajitto. Andy Warhol. Christ. Wig. Flower. Stretched
man. Fish on paper. Coral sea. Grapes. Ben Sherman and Ken Moody. Ajitto on a plinth. Coloured flowers. Rippled muscle, shown in quarters. Flowers. Vases. Red mount. Milton Moore. Cock. Robert
Mapplethorpe wearing make-up. Stars. Crosses. Whip. Cock on a marble slab. Patti Smith. Moody. Moody. Man with dagger. Louise Bourgeois. Naked Patti Smith and a radiator. Patti is young. Andy
Warhol. Neck brace. Coloured faces. Cock. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Breast.

He is looking at the photographs. These people have selected the pictures and organized them in a line. Here is his life.

I need to go, he says.

In the studio Robert tells Laurie Anderson to look down at the ground.

Look right down. Now close your eyes. Now open them. Now put your hands against your face. Frame your face with your hands. Look down again. Good.

Robert takes her picture. She is looking away. Her eyes are closed.

You wouldn’t want to change one thing about this picture, he says. Just look at how beautiful she is.

Laurie Anderson leaves the studio and crosses Bond Street. She walks west along it towards Broadway. Posed, she feels serene, not like the city at all, which is chaotic. She
turns right onto Broadway. The day has been cordoned off but Laurie Anderson is free. There is a rope around life. She knows Robert looks for evidence of life through his studio window, down on the
street.

Edmund is watching couples tango dancing in Central Park. Their bodies collapse into one another. Their moves are deliberately slow. The gravel beneath them is marked by the
swivel of pivoting feet. On the surrounding benches people lean in to watch. The dancers know where other couples are. Together, they are an active mass. They twist and step together. This is a
pleasant day. The women in the group are wearing blouses, jeans and sensible shoes. The old men dance with their eyes closed. They hold their partner’s hands gently. This is the centre of
Manhattan Island. The centre is the heart. The heart is the organ of love. Edmund wants the constant pressure of another body against his, not the rough and tumble of the city, avoiding people
coming his way as he walks down the street. Not the elbow in the back on the subway or the grip of a hand on the back of a seat, or the nudging to be next in line – these are all temporary
shunts. What he wants is constant pressure.

Edmund walks towards the bandstand, towards another crowd. People are surrounding a group of men beating African drums. The audience is clapping and stamping to the beat. Children are
dancing.

This park used to be dark and barren. This was where all the unwanted people came. There was no grass left at that time. The benches had been vandalized and fences were broken. There were no
park lanterns and no hansom-cab rides. The fountains were dry and stood abandoned. There were no boats sailing on the lake. The water in the lake was poisoned and dangerous. Central Park has never
been a natural space. It was designed from the outset. It was planned and organized.

In the park, things could go one way or the other. Here, it would only take a slight dip and things would go back to the way they were, the rusted gates and the barren lawns, the dried-up
fountains and the vandalized restrooms, the lights going out, one by one, people leaving. What would happen then would be this: the men would pick up their drums and the park would stand empty.
These children would be dead already. He has seen the barren lawns. He has brought lovers to this place. He has experienced vital exchanges. The movement between them took place in the dark.
Nothing is ever fixed down, he thinks. This park is just another vision of mine. By being here, I am walking through a dream. This is a video caught on a loop. There are no seams to break the show;
it will continue, just the same. Edmund has lived this day a thousand times. He has already described it and written it down. He and the park are exactly the same. They created themselves out of a
design but this design has not always been well maintained.

Couples are rowing boats on the man-made lake. Edmund walks to where the great boulders are. They are another fabrication. He scrambles to the top. From here the line of truth is obvious. The hard line of the outer shore of the lake and the
swoop and swerve of the shoreline, the pier where the boats are moored and the formation of this rock are things from a picture book. There is nothing to mar this vision. If this place were a man
Edmund would think him too perfect. He would not excite Edmund White, though he should think him very beautiful. He wonders what he will leave behind when he dies. There are the stories in his
books. Then there are the books themselves. I don’t know how I will change, he thinks. This comes from wanting to write about New York. He looks at the city and he sees himself. But a man is
not a city, thinks Edmund White. Once I am dead there will be no way to reform me – my body will lie deep in the ground and it cannot be changed. Perhaps he has no centre any more. Perhaps
there is no way to fix him down. His lovers are mostly dead. For now he sits in Central Park.

He cannot now remember when he was young. Instead, he has a memory of a sunset. The sun had fallen behind the west side of Manhattan. It left a black silhouette, the Eldorado, visible above the
reservoir. In the darkness he couldn’t see the trash on the shoreline or the garbage floating in the water. It was in this extreme half-light that this city came alive. Edmund cannot imagine
it happening now, the gradual falling of light, the blazing horizon. Instead, he imagines a light lit one moment and extinguished the next.

Edmund slips down from his rock and walks through Strawberry Fields. Here, a man is selling watercolour portraits of John Lennon, peace badges and I
NY
T-shirts. Everyone in New York is in love, except him. Edmund walks quickly from the park.