Skinny Legs and All (33 page)

Spoon was already mute. She hadn’t uttered a sound in hours. She just stood there by the grate, looking as glazed as if she’d spent all day in a plate of Patsy’s jellied chicken salad.

The plan was relatively simple. As the sun sank, as St. Patrick’s umbra turned a half-block of Fifth Avenue into a coalfield, immediately before Turn Around Norman, to zero applause, brought his geologic pivot to a screechless halt, Spoon was to slip through the grate (parting, like veils, the candy wrappers and wadded-up Scientology leaflets that the wind pressed against its bars), slither as quietly and quickly as possible along the five yards of sidewalk between grate and Norman, and dive into the performer’s donation box right before he bent to snatch it up.

As in most things, it was the timing that mattered.

Like Ellen Cherry, the objects had become so familiar with Norman’s routine that they could predict with exactitude the moment when he would close the show and take off with the receipts. Now, as his doll-baby lashes commenced to flutter like those of a windup Jezebel; as his screw-top brow relaxed, assuming some of the placidity of cork; as his lips unpuckered and his violently blue orbs shifted focus, Painted Stick gave Spoon a nudge, Conch Shell gave her a blessing, and
clink tink
, she was suddenly through the grid and shooting down the sidewalk like a stubby silver arrow released from a toy bow.

“Bon voyage,” whispered Can o’ Beans.

“See ya later, alligator,” called Dirty Sock.

Spoon didn’t hear them. More terrified than she had been in her life, she heard only the
clink tink dink
of her body against cement, and the noise was so exaggerated by fear and excitement that she imagined that it could be heard above the rush-hour parrot-thunder of midtown traffic. “Oh, dear! O Blessed Mother, Mary of God!”

Clink tink
. There were only two more yards to go, but she felt footfalls so close behind her that she was certain she was about to be stepped on. She glanced behind her—just for a second—but in so doing she angled inches off course and sideswiped the rise of the first step of the cathedral, which sent her flying out of control.

“What’s that
thing
?” she heard (or thought she heard) a human squeal. A shadow fell over her (though she was already in shadow), and she could sense (or believed she could sense) a rough, inquisitive hand reaching to yank her from the pavement.

In full panic now, unable to reason or breathe, she took a desperate flying leap into the nearest enclosure, which happened to be the partially open doggie bag that was at Ellen Cherry’s feet.

And as Turn Around Norman gathered up his meager earnings and melted into the crowd, Spoon lay in darkness, next to a foil-wrapped serving of
shish tawook
, and shook so hard that a passerby might have surmised the bag to be full of mice.

It was after six now, and the zillions of tiny particles that comprised Manhattan’s atmosphere had slipped out of their loud sport clothes and donned tuxedos. As she returned to Isaac & Ishmael’s, hopeful for demotion, Ellen Cherry walked inside a bag of night nearly as black as the one in which Spoon trembled. Only the discreet neon of the sushi bars or the flashing headlights of taxicabs clipped random bow ties of brightness and color to the formal collars of evening’s molecules. Spoon had calmed down enough to comprehend her general whereabouts, and although still rather terrified, she was comforted by the realization that it was to Ellen Cherry Charles and not some stranger that her fate was wed.

Back at St. Patrick’s, Dirty Sock was groaning. “She blew it. Oh, man, she flat out blew it. I knowed I shoulda done the job myself.”

Can o’ Beans, on the other hand, was unperturbed. He/she explained to the stick and the shell that Spoon, in her panic, may have made a fortuitous choice. “As far as I’m concerned,” he/she said, “the little dear’s better off with Miss Charles than with Turn Around Norman. Just because our mysterious Mr. Norman has discovered the welding defect in humanity’s ironclad notion of progress doesn’t mean he’s ready to actively participate in the schemes of the inanimate. True, Miss Charles may drop dead at the prospect herself, but unless she’s changed, we do know that she’s compassionate and eccentric—an excellent combination in a human being; we know that she kept me for four years without opening me up; we know she was fond of Miss Spoon and of your beloved Jezebel; and I feel we may be able to squeeze some valuable assistance from her without directly revealing ourselves to her. You know what I mean? A modicum of subtle manipulation. Harmless, of course.”

Conch Shell nodded, while Painted Stick stared off into space, perhaps reminiscing about a time when the gulf between animate and inanimate was not quite so wide.

“Anyhow,” the bean can continued, “Miss Charles shows up here in front of the cathedral almost as regularly as Mr. Turn Around. If Spoon uses her wits and follows your instructions, she’ll be back with us tomorrow or the day after. And with any luck, we’ll be better informed about our chances for Jerusalem.”

Alas, Can o’ Beans would have been less optimistic, Spoon less brave, were either of them privy to Ellen Cherry’s private thoughts. As she trod back down East Forty-ninth Street, wagging the doggie bag in the frigid ebony air (the added weight of the dessert spoon going unnoticed), Ellen Cherry was deciding that since she was forsaking her personal artisthood, she must also forsake art over all. In general. Period. Otherwise, it would be akin to divorcing a man about whom she still cared, then hanging around to watch how he got along with his new wife. Could she not be a participant, she damn sure wasn’t going to be a spectator.

But if her vow of rejection would end her dilemma about whether or not to attend Boomer’s show (the exhibition had her both itching with curiosity and recoiling with distaste), it would likewise end her cultural pilgrimages to Fifth Avenue, her repetitive homages to “the only real artist in New York.” By the time that she reached the Mel Davis Dog Boutique, its turkey cutout now a nostalgic silhouette in the night, she promised herself that she had been to see Turn Around Norman for the very last time.

Clearly, Ellen Cherry was going to miss the street performer. What was less clear was
why
.

Earlier, she had told herself that she was drawn to him for the same reason that Spike Cohen was drawn to Jerusalem: Turn Around Norman was not about money.

But was it entirely accurate to claim he was not about money? And if so, what was the big appeal of that?

Turn Around Norman didn’t turn around for free. Nearly, but not quite. One could watch him for hours, weeks, and not pay a penny. On the other hand, his donation box—a cardboard container in which a child’s jigsaw puzzle had once been packaged—was invariably in plain view, and there existed no overt prohibition against monetary contributions of Rockefellerian scope. Still, he was fortunate if he collected three bucks a day. Thus, while he seemed willing, even mildly eager, to accept a cash offering as an expression of appreciation for his work, his art, his turning around slowly on the street, he obviously had motives beyond the financial. Or else he was shooting without film in his camera.

To Ellen Cherry’s mind, the fact that Turn Around Norman was dedicated to a rigorously controlled minimal act to the extent that he performed it relentlessly, day after day (except Wednesday afternoons), in sweet or murderous weather, before oblivious and occasionally abusive audiences, regardless of negligible material reward, all of that signified that he believed in something. No doubt, Jerusalem believed in something, as well. She didn’t know what. For that matter, she had only a hunch about Norman’s beliefs. Apparently, he believed in turning around.

“The trouble with these new New York artists,” she had once complained to Boomer, “aside from the fact that they’re busy stealing from the dead and each other—if that’s not redundant—is that they’re only in it for fame and fortune, they don’t
believe
in anything.”

“Yes, they do,” argued Boomer. “They believe in fame and fortune.”

So. Were there qualitative differences in believing in turning around slowly, very slowly, on the street and believing in fame and fortune? Was an obsession with money a slimy, shameful, rodent-lipped thing compared to an obsession with art?

Being two months behind on her rent at the Ansonia and facing a self-imposed reduction in wages, Ellen Cherry was in the uncomfortable position of having to consider a settlement from Boomer, of having to ask to be cut in on the earnings from his show at the Sommervell Gallery, a show she had just made up her mind to boycott. In order to maintain her current standard of living, she would have to be subsidized by sales of artworks created by a man who she knew didn’t believe in anything, which is to say, who believed neither in his work nor hers. She had never objected to trading paintings for dollars. In fact, there was a time when she, Ellen Cherry, had maintained a salivary hankering for fortune and fame. It was not so long ago. But something had changed. . . .

Observing it at close range, artistic success, in socioeconomic terms, proved more of a demon than she had bargained for. Gradually, she found herself repulsed by the realization that her lifelong eye game (her private amusement and personal salvation) could be reduced to a commodity, like soda pop, jeans, TV Christianity, or Preparation H. The relationship between art and money was incomprehensible to her. It was as complicated as the Middle East, and not a rug in sight.

Money itself was incomprehensible. Almost from its inception, it had perplexed and befuddled those in whose lives it had appeared, and although modern people were used to it, although they dealt with it on a daily, if not hourly basis, and although it worked in their every thought the way that yeast worked in bread, they were no closer to understanding it than they had been at the beginning. Preoccupied with it, dominated—and ultimately bewildered—by it, introspective men and women finally had to confess that it clouded their vision of the world like . . . yes, you guessed it, like a veil.

When the fifth veil falls, and with it the illusion of financial worth, individuals might recognize themselves again, might find themselves standing, as if naked, among ancient values in a long-lost landscape.

Meanwhile, it can be stated with some validity that for all of the clamorings and phobias that it generates, money barely exists. An abstraction, a symbol, an act of faith, an IOU backed only by a banker’s word, money is first and foremost a substitute. The funny part is that it’s a substitute for things that often do not exist.

Within the framework of its temporal unfolding, however, turning around on the street is real.

Both money and art, powdered as they are with the romance and poetry of the age, are magic. Rather, money is
magic
, art is
magik
. Money is stagecraft, sleight of hand, a bag of clever tricks. Art is a plexus of forces and influences that act upon the senses by means of practical yet permanently inexplicable secret links. Admittedly, the line between the two can be as thin as a dime. What’s more, the magicians of capitalism strengthen their hold on their audience through the manipulation of artistic images.

Long before the veil of commerce drooped down over the eyes of art, it had impaired the sight of religion. Ancient temples, pagan or otherwise, almost always doubled as treasuries and mints. The Temple of Jerusalem was no exception. The First Temple and both versions of the Second had served as financial centers for the state of Judah/Judea. Ellen Cherry wasn’t aware of that. The Reverend Buddy Winkler probably was, but the light in which Buddy had seriously examined religion’s ties with wealth was understandably dim. Can o’ Beans was definitely aware of it, yet in his/her speculations on what the Third Temple might resemble, he/she had avoided any conjecture on if and how it might interface with the Bank of Israel. Even the fearless intellect of the bean tin found the subject forbidding.

What is plain is that neither money nor the love of it is the root of all evil. Evil’s roots run deeper than that. Anyway, money is not a root. Money is a leaf. Trillions of leaves, actually; dense, bushy, dollar-green, obscuring the stars of reality with their false canopy. Who says that money doesn’t grow on trees?

The introduction of money, with its seductive, if largely ambiguous promises, added a fresh measure of zip to the sport of life, but the zip turned to zap when the players, stupefied by ever-shifting intangibles, began to confuse the markers with the game.

So, even for those of us who can’t personally witness Salome’s dance, the fifth veil surely will fall. It will fall at the moment of our death. As we lie there, helpless, beyond distraction, electricity stealing out of our brains like a con man stealing out of a sucker’s neighborhood, it will occur to many of us that everything we ever did, we did for money. And at that instant, right before the stars blink off, we will, according to what else we may have learned in life, burn with an unendurable regret—or have us a good silent laugh at our own expense.

THIS IS THE ROOM
of the wolfmother wallpaper. The room where the lobster tore the pillowcase, mistaking it for. . . . Whoops! Hold on. Speaking of mistakes, this is actually a far cry from the boudoir the wolfmother papered. This is not a room at all. This happens to be the intersection of East Forty-ninth Street and United Nations Plaza, where an abrupt, unexpected flurry of snow, propelled by a gust from the river, whipped Ellen Cherry’s chapped face, driving all thoughts of money and art from her cerebrum, causing ice crystals to collect in the badly sprung honeycomb of her hair, and momentarily precipitating a hallucination of crustaceans and bed sheets, a flashback, perhaps, to a room in which her neurons may have strayed off course a forgotten dream ago.

Shaking off the image, the snow, the gust, the dip in temperature, she rounded the corner onto UN Plaza, only to witness in front of the I & I yet another scene that might have spun from a dream. There was a murmuring crowd. A hysteria of flashing red lights. A harsh arrival of men costumed for emergency.