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SIC TRANSIT ETC.

One must mourn the passing of the Levinson Gallery. Not that it
’
s closed, understand. The doors, alas,
are
still open. But any pretense toward quality must now solely remain in what remains of the mind of Mistress Levinson.

This fall is by no means sudden. These reflections are merely the result of seeing the latest Levinson offering, entitled
“
The Mazursky Madonnas.
”

Conceivably Mazursky has talent, but so do many graduates of the Art Students League. She may actually understand line and color and if she works very hard for a decade or two. could be deserving of a show. But now it is amateurism run rampant on a field of blue.

The Madonnas, by the way. are basically housewives in various states of despair. It is not our province to discuss what is and is not proper subject matter for artists to undertake. Crane did
The Red Badge of Courage
and never saw battle. But when a New York real estate heiress chooses to throw her lot with the plight of poor wedded women, one has to wonder—they did, after all.
choose
to get married, didn
’
t they?

“
He
’
s a rotten little turd,
”
Sally cried, trying to rip the copy of the
Voice
from Edith
’
s hand. Sally had read the review that morning, had rushed up to Edith
’
s to head off any possibility of Edith seeing the notice, but when she got there,
it
was too late.
Edith
had taken to buying the
Voice
since she
’
d begun painting—no one did a better job of covering the offbeat, at least not to Edith
’
s thinking.

Edith put the paper down.
“
Phillip invested in a play once. I
remember, after the reviews came out, we all got very busy trying to find quotes we could use for an ad in the
Times.
If galleries did that, we could say
‘
deserving
’
—
”

“
—He
’
s been out to get me for years—ever since I told him his boyfriend had bad breath—he
’
s not reviewing you, he
’
s reviewing me. He
’
s an ass and he knows nothing-—Jesus Christ, you sold every goddam painting, doesn
’
t that prove he
’
s a fool?
”

Edith rewarded this outburst with a hug. She held tiny Sally with great gentleness and said,
“
You, my dumpling, are the fool. You poor dear dumb sweet thing, sneaking around, buying those paintings yourself, pretending you weren
’
t.
”

“
Who told—I
’
ll kill
‘
em—
”

“
—Edith was not born yesterday,
”
Edith said.
“
Not where Sally is concerned. And I
’
m not upset, my darling—I never expected to have a show, I had a show. How many thousands of people out there who would die for one. I am not yet El Greco, I am not Van Gogh, and I plan to continue because it gives me such pleasure. And I would like to talk to you now about that. I would like to talk about
‘
The Blues.
’”

“
What, you evil bitch, are
‘
The Blues
’
?
”

Edith moved across the living room and stared out at the East River.
“
I liked it when you gave my show a title—
’
Madonnas
’
focused things for me. I
’
d like to do another series and I want to call it The Blues.
’”

“
Tell me.
”

“
Well you know, Hopper for example, when he paints, it
’
s not that the people are derelicts or broken, but there
’
s often something in the coloring that makes it all so ineffably moving.
”

“
Yes.
”

“
Well, I thought what I wanted to do was paint just people I love dearly—large, bigger-than-life canvases—and I want them to be accurate and flattering and all that—but somehow, if I can color them properly, I want them to be sad. Because really, life is people you love and sadness, and I wanted to try to get that down. I would paint Phillip.
”

And me, Sally thought

“
And my parents—I can do my father from photographs.
”

And me, Sally thought.

“
And of course, the three girls.
”
Edith paused then; a wind feathered the river and she watched it.

Shit, Sally thought.

“
Just the seven of you,
”
Edith said then.

“
I haven
’
t the patience to pose,
”
Sally said quickly;
“
just the family is best.
”

“
Please,
”
Edith said.
“
I really need you to be the seventh and last.
”

“
Oh shit, I hate it when you whine, all right, I
’
ll pose for you, just quit that sheep-dog look, I
’
ve got a weak stomach and it
’
s early in the day.
”

So Edith began to concentrate her thoughts on
“
The Blues.
”
She studied all the great portraitists, and she read and reread Chekhov to see how he did it with words, and she began a series of pencil sketches and it was clear, even from them, that she was on to something, she was working very close to her subconscious, and the emotions showed through. She kept at it and at it, working long after the girls came home now.

Still, when they needed items—leotards, book bags, anything at all—Edith did the doing. Trying to compress these labors into one shopping trip per week. As she did on a Thursday, the first week in February, late on a biting afternoon, when she put aside her sketches, changed, made out a shopping list, brushed her reddish hair, threw on her navy blue coat, and set out on what was to be, astonishingly, her final trip to Bloomingdale
’
s.

—and now the nigger on the right began to fade, shouting
“
can
’
t, can
’
t make it
”
-—but Billy Boy kept up the pace across the yard, increased it even, because nothing tired him, nothing stopped him, even the gunfire that was aimed down at them from the towers. There was less gunfire now than a minute before, as more and more prisoners broke, more and more guards panicked and began looking toward their own safety, and that was good, that was good.

Only the sirens, the sirens were louder, screaming like they were monsters on their own and that was bad, and then one of the niggers on the left caught one in the knee and did a flip, landed hard, tried to crawl, but you don
’
t crawl with a kneecap gone, you don
’
t crawl far, but he tried, because up ahead was the laundry gate and it was open which was good, no, better than good, because it wasn
’
t just open, no, it was open and there wasn
’
t any guard—

Except now there was. Billy Boy led the half-dozen niggers and it all seemed so perfect, the early February evening warm, so you wouldn
’
t freeze if you had to run awhile, and not many stars so it would be really dark when you wanted it that way—except now, as they rounded the last corner and headed toward the gate
from the shadows, now there was the outline of a guard, one hero guard, armed, one hero guard with one mother of a rifle and Billy Boy led the charge toward him and Billy Boy was the farthest ahead and Billy Boy was in the center so the .first shot should have gone dead at Billy Boy but the guard was white, so he went for a nigger and one shot, one hit, then he tried a second nigger but no go, Billy Boy was close enough by then, close enough to make a fist of his
right hand, a club of his arm, and one swing later and the guard was out on the ground and while another of the niggers grabbed the rifle Billy Boy was through the gate and into the street and running, running, it didn
’
t matter which direction, there was the prison wall on one side, small houses on the other, and up the street now a car was coming toward them, but the driver saw what he was in for, and the brakes shrieked, and the car tried making reverse but no go, the motor died, and the driver threw the door open and ran toward the nearest small house while Billy Boy led the niggers into the car and shit, it was one of those foreign bugs, no power, no size, and while the niggers piled in around him, Billy Boy turned the key and the wounded nigger said,
“
start you motherfucker,
”
and you could tell the panic but Billy Boy felt none of it, his hands were made for keys, keys and motors and anything else you wanted, his hands were magic so naturally the car started right up and he spun into a driveway,
vrroomed
off back the way the car had come.

So it was a go, all systems were go like on the way to the moon, except Billy Boy didn
’
t know this part of Illinois, who the hell knew shit about downstate Illinois, unless you were born there and if you were born there you didn
’
t know shit about anything, that
’
s how dumb the hayseeds were, and he turned left at the first corner he came to, just because it was a corner and it led away from the walls, and then the first chance he had for a right, he took that and from the back came a nigger
’
s voice going
“
Hey where the fuck you fuckin
’
goin
’
?
”
and Billy Boy made his voice big, big and deep when he said,
“
You got a problem?
”
and you could hear the nigger shitting in his britches as he quick said,
“
You
’
re doin
’
it, just keep doin
’
it, you
’
re doin
’
it good,
”
and Billy Boy nodded, felt the time coming for another turn, a left, and first chance he grabbed it and this was a straight stretch of road now, houses, sure, but not many people, and he gunned the mother, foot to the floor all out gunned it and all the niggers, you could tell they were really excited now, really up now, the prison was long long goner—

—then Billy Boy stopped the car.

He got out fast and they just looked at him, their questions falling over each other,
“
Whass up?
—
where the fuck you goin
’
? —you crazy—?
”

He didn
’
t answer. No way he could answer. He had an answer,
sure, a great answer, but it wasn
’
t the kind of thing you could say—

—Billy Boy
sensed
things, that was all there was to it. He didn
’
t know how, he didn
’
t know why, he just knew that he sensed things, and he was sensing something now, sensing that it was time to get out, time to keep moving but not in the car, and without a look back he began to run toward a field and when the car roared down the road leaving him in the darkness, he didn
’
t feel alone or bad, no, he felt that things were right, solid, the car was fast but it wasn
’
t solid, not anymore.

He got to the field fast and made his way to the far side and the first thing coming along was a girl, a girl on a bike and she was really barreling and he thought that maybe what he should do was just go out and grab the handlebars and shake her off and ride away and then he thought that maybe he ought to shake her off and then slip it to her, love her up good and fast, no one was in his class when it came to quick loving, they never forgot it after Billy Boy got off them, and what if this one was pretty, what if this one was—

—no. Not now. He
sensed
it was wrong. Not a girl. Not a bike. Not now. Wrong. Wrong. Run. That was the thing now. Just run.

He just ran.

He didn
’
t need a bike. Not now. He didn
’
t need a girl. Not how. He needed a girl, but
not now—
what he needed now was this: a stop sign and a tree. Up ahead he saw a tree. But no stop sign. The next corner was nothing. It was a shit corner, a nothing corner.

He ran on.

The next corner had a stop sign. It was a great fucking stop sign. But no tree.

Shit.

The next corner had them both, a stop sign and a tree—except the tree wasn
’
t a tree, it was like a twig more, nothing you could. use.

More corners.

Then he was there.

Waiting.