The Death Artist (21 page)

Willie did not feel like going to an art opening. But his art dealer, Amanda Lowe, had urged him to come, reminding him that with all the exhibitions he had coming up he was obligated to be “out there,” promoting himself and his work.

Before Willie had become an artist he’d thought that was
her
job, that his was solely to make the work. How wrong he had been.

Still, the last couple of days his studio had begun to feel cramped, the smell of turpentine cloying.

The Amanda Lowe Gallery, a former auto dealership recently transformed into the epitome of postmillennial chic complete with green glass front, fifteen-foot white walls, and dull gray poured-concrete floors rough enough to skin your knees while you worship at the feet of the latest art gods, was located at the westerly end of Thirteenth Street. Less than a year before, this particular spot had been favored by African American transvestites, and though a few of these hardworking men in minis and wigs remained, their number had significantly dwindled now that the art mob had invaded the area.

Amanda Lowe’s gallery, Willie’s gallery, was
the
place for up-and-coming Young Turks. Here they rubbed shoulders with a few older art stars whose lights still burned, jostled for breathing space with the new ones just beginning to ignite, and watched their backs around the wanna-be sparklers.

From a block away, Willie spotted the crowd spilling out into the street. He had an urge to pivot on his Doc Martens, run all the way back to the safety of his studio. But no, he was a professional, or learning to be, and he could handle this even if his heart was not in it. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, said a few quick hellos, and then pushed past the outer herd.

Inside, the gallery was packed, humming, clusters of people exchanging bits of artspeak, always with an eye on the crowd, searching for someone more important.

As Willie made his way through the crowd, he picked up snatches of conversation, several people talking about the death artist.

“I tell you,” said one thirtyish woman clad all in black leather with muscled arms tattooed from wrist to elbow as if she were wearing Pucci gloves. “It gives me the fucking creeps. The fucking creeps. I mean, I don’t feel safe in my fucking studio.”

“I know what you mean,” said the fiftyish man with a bar through his nose and a shaved head. “I’m fucking scared, too. I had to take a handful of fucking quaaludes to sleep last night.”

“Willie!” Schuyler Mills cut through the throng, got an arm around his shoulder. “Are we having fun yet?”

“If I remember it was you, Sky, who taught me this stuff was
work
, not fun.”

The Contemporary Museum curator patted Willie on the back. “Good boy. See where my lessons have gotten you? You are, and always will be, my favorite pupil.” He gave Willie’s arm a paternal squeeze, then beamed an electric smile at someone over Willie’s shoulder. “Ah! Queen of the night!”

Amanda Lowe brushed her cheek in Schuyler’s vicinity while kissing air. A painfully thin woman in a high-fashion formfitting black Azzedine Alaïa dress, except there was little form to fit–her hip and shoulder bones threatened to tear the fabric. Unnatural eggplant-colored hair, blunt cut to her earlobes (one of which sported an earring so large it grazed her shoulder), formed a severe helmet around her stark white face. Her eyebrows were black commas, eyes lined with dusky kohl, her mouth a red gash. The total effect was somewhere between a Kabuki mask and a corpse.

She air-kissed Willie, then snagged him with one hand, Schuyler with the other, and led the artist and curator–the crowd parting before them like the Red Sea–for a closer inspection of the current exhibition.

“Death artist, death artist, death artist. It’s all I’m hearing tonight. I’m sick to death of the death artist.”

“Is that a pun?” Willie asked.

Schuyler laughed. “Well, you’ve got to admit this death artist
is
creative. And he’ll certainly be remembered.”

Amanda stared at him blankly, said, “Let’s just forget him and concentrate on the art, shall we?” She offered Willie and Schuyler what might be a smile–the red gash opened and closed like a shark’s mouth. “I think the NEA did Martina a great favor,” she said, referring to the National Endowment for the Arts’s very public revocation of several artists’ grants for reasons of obscenity a few years back. “It set her free, forced her to simplify. Who needs expensive art supplies?” The art dealer gestured at the drawings. “Could these be any more basic?” she asked, indicating the artist’s drawings created with her own menstrual blood on cheap rough newsprint paper.

Schuyler Mills said, “Oh . . . no cow heads, dead sharks, or Madonnas splattered in elephant dung? I’m disappointed.”

Amanda Lowe signaled the artist over.

Martina, in heavy black boots, torn black jeans, and a black biker’s jacket, stomped heavily toward them like a prizefighter entering the ring.

Mills’s eyes flashed mischievously. “Tell me. Do you collect your menstrual blood in a bottle to use later, or”–he swiped at his crotch, then flipped his hand up and waved it like a paintbrush–“work directly from the source?”

“Direct,” said Martina, playing with her nose ring. “It wouldn’t make sense any other way. Look. If you start at one end of the gallery and follow the drawings around, you’ll get it. The drawings replicate my flow. See? At the beginning the drawings are real rich and dense, then they start to fade. By the end they’re almost not there.”

“Ahhh . . .” said Mills. “The trickle-down effect.”

Willie would have laughed except that his attention had been taken up by the appearance of Charlaine Kent, director of the Museum for Otherness, who poked her head between Martina and Schuyler. “What’s absolutely great,” she said as if she’d been part of the conversation all along, “is that the first drawings are so tough and visceral, while the last ones are ephemeral, almost . . . poignant. They walk the line between threat and seduction, don’t you think?” She directed this question to Willie, her long black lashes shading her eyes, her fingers toying with an enormous crucifix resting in the cleavage above her pink tube top.

Willie smiled, taking in the dark fleshy curves of Charlaine’s breasts, her tightly curled cropped hair bleached a striking platinum, the crimson lipstick that accentuated her sensuous lips.

“We’ve met before. Charlaine Kent. But everyone calls me Charlie.” She extended her hand. “I am a great fan of your work.”

The words every artist longs to hear. Willie took her hand, flashed his best smile.

Charlie ran her tongue over those crimson lips.

But the moment was interrupted as Raphael Perez managed to loop his arm over Willie’s shoulder, edging both Schuyler Mills and Charlie Kent out of the way. Charlie looked as if she wanted to dig one of her stiletto heels right through Perez’s delicate alligator loafers.

Willie, not wanting to offend any of these three art world movers, attempted to disengage from Perez as politely as possible, but, stepping back, stumbled into Amy Schwartz, director of the Contemporary.

Schuyler Mills swooped down on his boss, an arm around her plump shoulder, a kiss on her cheek.

Immediately, junior curator Raphael Perez insinuated himself between Schuyler Mills and Amy Schwartz. He whispered conspiratorially, “Amy. I really must speak to you about your resignation, about the possibility–”

“Please, guys. I’m off duty.” Amy’s eyes darted between her two curators, Mills and Perez. “I’ll just leave you two to chat.” She forced a big smile, then regarded Martina’s menstrual drawings, whispered to Willie, “Have you ever tried painting with semen?” She pushed her bushy hair away from her face with her pudgy, multiringed hand.

“I did,” said Willie, “but after collecting it my hand was too tired to hold the paintbrush.”

Amy hooted, took Willie’s arm, led him away from the crowd. “Jesus, those guys, Mills and Perez, are gonna eat me alive. You’d think this damn director’s job paid a million a year.”

“Money’s not the issue for Schuyler,” Willie whispered. “Art is like the most important thing in the world to him. He’s going to get it, isn’t he?”

Amy whispered back, “Look, Willie, I know Sky has been a great supporter of yours, and yeah, he’s a real dedicated guy. Sometimes too dedicated, if you ask me–it gives me the creeps. But I don’t know who is going to get the job. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. It would put you in a terrible position. Just forget it, okay?” Amy looked up. Mills and Perez had moved in, peering at her. “Oh, brother,” she said.

But Charlie Kent moved in, too, looped her arm around Willie’s shoulders. “Are there any new paintings in your studio?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Schuyler, before Willie could open his mouth. “But they are all on reserve for
my
show at the Contemporary.”

“Well, not
all
,” said Perez. “There’s that large civil rights painting that neither of us cared for.”

“Really?” said Charlie, eyeing the curators with derision. “Why is that?”

Perez ran his long fingers through his thick dark hair. “First of all, it’s too big. Second, I found the subject matter a bit . . . dated.”

“Dated?”
Charlie Kent’s eyes burned with indignation. “Might I remind you, Mr. Perez, that for African Americans like Willie and myself the civil rights movement has never ended, is
never
dated.” She clutched Willie’s arm, asked seductively, “Exactly how big is it, Willie?”

“Big,” said Willie, smiling with his eyes. “A major piece. I’ve covered old newspaper images of civil rights marches with ash and wax, then nailed on a bunch of burned wooden crosses.”

“Sounds amazing,” said Charlie. She took Willie by the arm, turned him away from the two curators. “You know,” she said, “if you’ve had enough of
this
”–she gestured at Perez and Mills, the crowd–“I’d love to see that painting–now, if possible.”

Willie led Charlie Kent right out the door.

Some group on MTV were pretty worked up, their loud pattering faux black rap blasting from the television in what Willie considered his bedroom: a wooden platform and mattress bed, a metal coatrack on wheels instead of a closet. Books and periodicals were stacked up, scattered about–books on art and art history, specifically African art, black heritage, culture, and folk art, which created a sporadic trail across the fifteen-hundred-square-foot loft into the studio, where several more stacks stood like small off-kilter Mayan temples among the rolls of canvas, scraps of wood, metal, fabric, and found objects that Willie used to create his work.

Charlie Kent stepped gingerly over the bits of wood and boxes of overturned nails, around small anthills of sawdust and stacks of books. “Wow,” she said, “I just love the way you use everything in your art. It’s pure alchemy.” She dropped her jacket onto a chair, revealed that pink tube top, the soft mound of her breasts, then arranged herself on a stool in front of his large civil rights painting, crossed her legs this way, then that. “God, the painting is even better than I imagined. Pure genius. I’m sure the board members of the Museum for Otherness will be absolutely thrilled to exhibit it–if that’s all right with you.”

“Oh. Absolutely.” Willie’s eyes took in Charlie’s shapely legs, firm thighs. “It’s really cool you feel so strongly about the painting,” he said. “Because, you know, this is one of my most important pieces.”
At least it is at the moment.

“Oh, yes. It
is
important. And not just to African Americans.” She smiled, licked her lips.

An invitation
? Willie returned the smile.
Am I reading the signals right
?

Charlie shifted her weight on the stool–a flash of lace panties.

Oh, yeah. Handwritten.
He made his move. A hand on her thigh, a quick kiss on her full red mouth.

As Willie maneuvered her past the piles of books and rolls of canvas, finally into his bed, Charlie was still thinking about Willie’s painting–how impressed the board would be with her finesse in getting it.

Willie pulled his sweatshirt over his head. For a split second everything went dark, then an image coalesced.
Charlie‘s pretty face, eyes wide open, her neck surrounded by a sea of deep, deep red.
“Oh.”

“Something the matter?”

Willie blinked. Charlie’s mouth, only a few inches from his, was smiling. “No. Nothing.” He pushed her gently back onto the bed.

She wiggled out of her micromini, then the lace panties. “When can we pick it up?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your painting. For the museum.”

“Oh, right.” He rolled halfway off her, reached over for his Palm Pilot. “Let’s see. It’ll be photographed on Thursday, so anytime after that is fine.”

“Excellent,” she said, undoing the top button of his black jeans. “I’ll have the museum’s registrar call you to confirm the pickup.”

Willie silenced her with his tongue in her mouth, then stopped. “Oh, one other thing. The piece has got to be in the front room of the museum–the main one, you know. I mean, because it’s so important–to both of us.” He tugged his jeans off. “And like, nothing else can be shown with it–unless you’d like to frame up some of the sketches for the piece. You know, like, sort of give the public an inside look at how the painting came into being.” He rubbed a hand over her erect nipples.

“Sketches . . . Ohhh . . .” Charlie moaned.

“Feel good?”

“Oh, great, baby, great.” Another low moan. “How many are there? Drawings, I mean.” She arched her back, displaying her breasts to better advantage.

Willie licked one nipple, then the other. “About a dozen. You can choose whatever you like.” He raised his head, smiled at her. “And, ah, choose one for yourself.”

“A painting for my museum and a sketch just for little ol’ me? Oh, Wil . . .” She took his face in her hands, kissed him hard on the mouth. Charlie was getting hotter and hotter. “Willie,” she said, excited to finalize the deal. “Come with me to the Venice Biennale, and I’ll get Otherness to foot the bill.”

Venice
! “Oh, baby!” Willie pushed her back on the bed, worked his cock between her thighs and into her more-than-willing flesh.