Everyone is Watching (11 page)

The artist explains what’s going on.

We’ve made improvements to the interior spaces, she says. We’ve installed plumbing and electrics, redecorated, fixed elevator shafts and air-conditioning units. We’ve
reconstructed doors, rebuilt partition walls, found beds and cleaned them, rewired stoves, sewn bed linen. We’ve used the trash from the street, brought it in from outside, re-formed it.

In the artists she passes, Jane sees newly established buds pushing their way through the hard earth. She sees a city reclaiming itself.

These people are turning New York into a work of art but it is not the kind of art that can be confined to a frame. Art comes from communities where the rent is cheap. If the rent is cheap,
people can afford to live there. Artists have more time to spend on their art. The consequence of this is that their art improves, their art moves on, their art gets someplace. If they raze this
neighbourhood to the ground this community will be destroyed and there will be no more art.

The city is not a work of art, thinks Jane. It is not an object. It is not static and still. It is not something to be admired from a distance – it is a process. It is a place for art to
be created, but the borders of this island are not the borders of a painting.

Jane gathers together a great force that sweeps through neighbourhoods with a petition against the highway proposals. Men, women and children hand out fliers and talk directly
to the public.

She tells reporters that the planners mustn’t be allowed to build this highway. Building another highway isn’t going to reduce congestion. It is senseless to encourage more people to
drive. What we need is better public transportation. Invest in the city’s buses and the subway. Tell people to leave their cars at home. Commissioner Moses belongs to another age. He does not
understand the modern generation. Ask ordinary people what they want, and they’ll tell you. They want a city that’s easy to live in. They want their kids to be able to play safely in
the street.

Robert Moses has built his headquarters beneath the Triborough Bridge on Randall’s Island in the East River. This office is not the Gracie Mansion. This office is not
Shangri-La. It has been built solely for utilitarian reasons. His office sits under the northern section of the bridge. Automobiles run overhead. Further south, Moses has built sports facilities:
baseball diamonds, a soccer field and tennis courts. Pathways have been laid for walking. Even Hell Gate to the east, through which the East River gushes at a pace, seems artificial, like nature is
working in reverse, stripping everything back, the water not wet. One feels compressed by the Triborough Bridge. The bridge exists to move the traffic and the sports fields exist to move the
people.

Robert Moses works in the stadium theatre at Jones Beach too. Here, he shows important guests how things are done in New York. They think, If this man can build this beach then
he can build anything.

He tells them, I used to say to my engineers, I know you can build bridges, but can you build
beautiful
bridges?

They like to listen to his stories. They like to hear about important men.

I said to the President, you might be set to spread this money around the country but you won’t find a better location for it than New York. Roosevelt is a man who knows when he’s
beaten. Oh, these politicians complain about me to the press but I’m the one they call when they want something done.
I always say you can draw any kind of picture you like on a clean slate,
but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat axe.
You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

He shows his guests to their seats. He can tell whether he’s got them by the time the curtains separate. Moses doesn’t stay to watch the performance. He retires to his office where
he continues to work. A newspaper reporter once asked him what he thought of relaxation. Robert Moses said,
You mean, besides a waste of time?

Tilted Arc
is a twelve-feet-high steel wall that stands in the Federal Plaza. Because of its position in the plaza, a public space used by office workers going to and
from work and taking lunch breaks, the arc has caused many problems. People are forced to navigate around it. The tilt of the arc causes a strong effect. It makes the arc seem like it is moving and
this changes the nature of the person’s perception of the surrounding space, not only through the interruption of movement but also because the arc appears to change shape as they move around
it.

Some people say the arc attracts vandalism. It creates opportunities for crime. They say,
I don’t want to walk around the other side of that wall only to see a gang waiting. I
don’t want to be mugged because of your art.

We would just like to get from a to b without having to walk an extra one hundred and twenty feet around a piece of rusting steel.

Others say it is just like this city to give money away for idiotic projects like this, taking up public space with a hunk of filthy metal, when all people want to do is walk from this side of
the plaza to that side without a problem on their lunch break.

But others say that this obstruction is exactly what we all need – that is the point, that is exactly what all good art should do – stop you in your tracks.

Eventually, the arc is removed.

The sudden space, the opening up of the plaza, is overwhelming to those who had grown used to the arc.

Some still walk the long way around, following old pathways. The secretaries who occupy the lower ground floor say they miss it. Yes, they can see out to the street now, but they say they liked
the surprise.

I sense destruction, Bucke thinks. I sense an end coming. I sense that all things must end. I have written many endings. I have taken it upon myself to clarify how things must
end.

Tell me about censorship, Bucke says.

I refused to give in, says Walt. I refused to take one line out. Each was integral to the overall sense. If I removed one I would be removing them all. If I removed one I would be removing
limbs. I would be removing myself. Without the words I have chosen, there is nothing. If you deny me words, I cannot speak. If it is not written down, it did not happen. If a path is not laid,
there is nowhere to go. If you don’t remember, there is nothing to forget. It did not happen anyway. It is not over. You cannot just extract parts. Where the colour is, where the music is,
where the bridge leads to, where the weather goes, what the tide is for, where the tops of buildings reach, where the rain lands, hitting us in the face, salt stains, tears and the ocean.
Everything is connected, Bucke. They banned me in Boston because they said my work was explicit. But this was only because they didn’t understand that all things are connected. Physical love
is the same as the changing seasons. It is the same as the movement of the tide or the evolution of a city. By banning my work, they were dismissing all nature. All things in nature are good.

Bucke writes this down.

They are sitting in the grass a short distance from the train. Other passengers look stiff and awkward in their new surroundings. The flat land around them stretches further than is reasonable.
It stretches one’s insides and pulls at the mind. But here Walt can breathe. He lies down and moves his hands back and forth through the grass.

He remembers standing on the shoreline at Coney Island. The sand continued before him under the ocean. In his pocket he had slipped many pages ripped from books. He ripped the pages from books
so that he wouldn’t have to carry such a heavy weight. He had brought them to the edge of the land. But this was not the edge because the land continued under the water. He wanted to release
the extracted pages and let the wind take them so that they could be freer than him. He plunged his hand into his pocket. He waited for something to happen but it did not. In his memory he waits
there still. He is poised at the edge of the water.

This is like a photograph he has had taken in his Camden home. He sat in a chair beside the window while his friend Thomas Eakins positioned his camera. He told Walt to be still and so Walt
fixed his eyes on a mark on the wall. Sometimes he thinks he is still waiting there, waiting for the picture to come to an end, which of course it never does, for he is always present in it. This
is what he feels as he lies in the grass. The grass grows against him but one day it will grow through him.

The train whistle blows. Bucke stands. Walt does not get up. Bucke walks towards the train. He catches the talk of other passengers as they walk. They are talking about New York. How excited
they are to be going there. Do hurry, the woman behind him is saying. He looks over his shoulder for Walt.

The train is moving at a steady pace through the fields. The other passengers do not seem to notice this. They are settled into their own routines, kept busy on the train with
the printed word, with books and newspapers. Everything is designed to mimic an ordinary day. Lives are performed without concentration. These passengers will continue on to their final
destinations. They will alight and never re-board. This is not so easy for Richard Maurice Bucke. He is in a heightened state of emotion. He is too aware of his surroundings. The fixed points are
Walt’s answers to his questions. When Bucke asks a sensible question he does not always hear a sensible answer. Let me write it, Walt says. I know what you want to say. It is better to allow
Walt to hold the pen.

Walt takes the pen and ink and he takes Bucke’s pages. He hunches over the work and scores sentences out. He turns the page on its side and writes in the margins. He turns the paper over
and writes additional scenes on the reverse. It is better to let him do it. He is Walt Whitman. He knows the story better than anyone. Bucke can only scratch the surface. Bucke knows how the brain
works but the brain is not everything. There is also the heart.

When the time comes, Walt will step down from the train onto the platform in New York. A porter will hand him his trunk and bag. Walt will smile and wave at Bucke. He will walk into the crowd
and be lost. Bucke will lose sight of his friend. Bucke will travel on to Canada alone. Bucke will return to his family from whom he has been separated for too long. At home he will sit in his
study and lay out the pages of Walt’s biography, creased and worn from the journey. He will read back his own words and he will read Walt’s writing in the margins. He will remember his
friend. The book will describe him in part but not as a whole. Some things cannot be accurately described. Love is one of those things.

What happens during sex is a spiritual transformation. There are no outlines, borders, or gaps between subjects. Robert Mapplethorpe looks his lovers directly in the eye when
he has sex. To have many lovers does not mean that he doesn’t love them. The constancy is not with the other person but with himself. The feeling of love comes as quickly as a camera
flash.

Robert’s celebrity portfolio includes: Kathleen Turner, sultry, sexy. Grace Jones, naked, painted, wired. Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, synchronized, elegant. Donald
Sutherland, smart, intense. Iggy Pop, wide-eyed, expectant.
Edmund White Horizontal
. He is passive, angelic, his eyes are wide and his mouth is closed.
Edmund White
,
full-face
close up, screaming
, no date.

Robert used to visit Coney Island with his grandmother. He always ignored the beach and the fairground rides. He ran to the freak show instead. He could hear the bustle of the
fairground outside, in the sun, by the beach, where other people were having fun, the rumble of running footsteps on the boardwalk. But here, body parts were on display, twisted and engorged, extra
limbs, missing limbs, displayed on stage and in glass cabinets, in the dark. The freaks in this show were presented like art.

Laurie Anderson is walking down a Manhattan street, attracting all the attention.

Hey, pretty lady – wanna ride with me?

Get that sweet ass over here.

Come gimme a kiss.

In her hand is a semi-automatic Nikon.

Take a seat on my lap, baby.

She holds up the camera and takes his picture.

What the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck out of my face!

It is as if she has pulled a gun on him.

Some men pose. Some find the photographic act an extension of her evident willingness to have sex – the camera is her organ and they are getting fucked. They hold out their arms, willing
and eager. They flip her the bird, hold up a fist. She holds up her camera, proud and defiant. She is turning their abuse into art.

Say cheese! she says.

The tour guide waits by the gift-store door with a board in her hand that reads ‘Hard Times’. Edmund is standing on the sidewalk.

There are a number of things I must insist on, says the guide. Please don’t touch the historical artefacts. I will be passing items around for you to hold. Do not lean against the walls or
sit down on the furniture. This tenement was built in 1863. Since that date to its closure in the 1930s the building has housed over seven thousand residents. The Hard Times tour you have selected
today focuses specifically on the economic depression of the 1870s. As we explore the house you will learn more about the German immigrants of that period through the story of the Gumpertz family.
Through their eyes, you will gain a better understanding of the conditions many working-class families faced in the Lower East Side in the late nineteenth century.

Stephen Crane would have known the people who lived here, Edmund thinks. They would have been ordinary people. He would have looked into the whites of their eyes and seen the truth there. Crane
would have turned that truth into fiction.