The Genius (3 page)

The real attention to detail, though, was concentrated not in these characters but in the landscape they populated. A living earth, of wobbling dimensions: here flat, there exquisitely deep, inflated geographical features, undulating roads labeled with names twenty letters long. Mountains were buttocks and breasts and chins; rivers became veins spilling purplish liquid nourishing flowers with devil’s heads; trees sprouting from a mulch of words and nonsense words; straightrazor grass. In some places the line was whisper-fine, elsewhere so thick and black that it was a miracle the pen had not torn straight through the page.

The drawing pushed at its edges, leaching into the murky air.

Electrified, unnerved, I stared for six or seven minutes, a long time to look at a sheet of of 8½-by-11 paper; and before I could censor myself, I decided that whoever had drawn this was sick. Because the composition had a psychotic quality, the fever of action taken to warm oneself from the chill of solitude.

I tried to place what I was seeing in the context of other artists. The best references I could muster at the time were Robert Crumb and Jeff Koons; but the drawing had none of their kitsch, none of their irony; it was raw and honest and naïve and violent. For all my efforts to keep the piece orderly—to tame it with rationality, experience, and knowledge—I still felt like it was going to jump out of my hands, to skitter up the walls and spin itself into smoke, ash, oblivion. It lived.

Tony said, “What do you think?”

I set the drawing aside and picked up the next one. It was just as baroque, just as mesmerizing, and I gave it the same amount of attention. Then, realizing that if I did that for every drawing in there, I’d never leave, I picked up a handful of pages and riffled them, causing a sliver near their edges to disintegrate. They were all dazzling, all of them. My chest knotted up. As early as then, I was having trouble coming to grips with the sheer monomania of the project.

I put the stack down and returned to the first two drawings, which I set side-by-side for comparison. My eyes went back and forth between them, like those games you do as a child. There are nine thousand differences, can you find them all? I began to feel light-headed. It might have been the dust.

Tony said, “You see how it works.”

I didn’t, and so he turned one of the pages upside down. The drawings aligned like puzzle pieces: streams flowed on and roads rolled out. Faces half-complete found their counterparts. Then he pointed out that the backs of the drawings were not, in fact, blank. At each edge and in the center, lightly penciled in a tiny, uniform script, were numbers, like so:

The next page was numbered 4379 in the center, and then, clockwise from the top: 2017, 4380, 6741, 4378. The pages connected where the edge of one indicated the center of the other.

“They’re all like this?”

“As far as I can tell.” He looked around. “I haven’t made much of a dent.”

“How many are we talking about?”

“Go on in. See for yourself.”

I squeezed into the room, covering my mouth with my sleeve. I’ve inhaled plenty of unnatural substances in my day, but the sensation of paper in my lungs was entirely new and unpleasant. I had to shove boxes out of the way; dust leopard-printed my slacks. The light from the hallway dwindled, and my own breaths seemed to have no echo. The eight feet between me and the door had effectively erased New York. Living here would be like living ten miles below the earth, like living in a cave. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was supremely disorienting.

From far away, I heard Tony say my name.

I sat on the edge of the bed—six exposed inches of mattress; where did he
sleep
?—and took in a stomachful of dirty, woody air. How many drawings were there? What did the piece look like when assembled? I envisioned an endless patchwork quilt. Surely they could not all fit together. Surely nobody had that much mental power or patience. If Tony turned out to be correct, I was looking at one of the larger works of art ever created by a single person. Certainly it was the largest drawing in the world.

The throb of genius, the stink of madness; gorgeous and mind-boggling and it took my breath away.

Tony shimmied between two boxes and stood next to me, both of us wheezing.

I said, “How many people know about this?”

“You. Me. The super. Maybe some of the other people at the company, but they were just passing on the message. Only a few people have seen it firsthand.”

“Let’s keep it that way.”

He nodded. Then he said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“What was the question.”

“What do you think?”

The artist’s name was Victor Cracke.

ROSARIO QUINTANA, apartment C-1154: “I didn’t see him a lot. He came in and out a couple times a day, but I’m at work, so I didn’t see him unless I was home sick or I had to come back for some reason, to pick up my son when his father drops him off too early. I’m a nurse. Sometimes I passed him in the hall. He left early in the morning. Or, you know what, he might’ve worked at night, because I don’t think I saw him after six o’clock. I think maybe he drove a taxi?”

ROSARIO’S SEVEN-YEAR-OLD SON, Kenny: “He was weird-looking.”

How so?

“His hair.”

What color was it?

“Black.” [rubs nose] “And white.”

Gray?

“Yeah. But not all of it.”

Long or short?

“…yeah.”

Which one. Long?

[nods]

Or short?

[rubs nose]

Both?

[nods, makes gesture indicating spikes in every direction] “Like that, kind of.”

Like he stuck his finger in an electrical socket?

[look of confusion]

JASON CHARLES, apartment C-1158: “He talked to himself. I heard him all the time, like a party goin on.”

How do you know he was alone?

“I know cause I know. He never talked to nobody else. Unfriendly dude.”

So you never really spoke to him.

“Hell naw, man. What we suppose to talk about, the
Nas
-daq?”

What did he say when he talked to himself?

“He had, like. Different voices.”

Voices.

“You know, different kinds of voices.”

Different accents?

“Like. Like a high one. Yiiii yiii yiii. Then low. Like hrmahrmahrmm. Yiii yiii yiii, hrmmhrmmhrmm…”

So you couldn’t understand him.

“No. But he sounded mad.”

Mad about what?

“All I hear’s him screaming at t’top of his mufuckin lungs. Sounds mad to me.”

He was screaming.

“Sometimes, yeah.”

What about a job? Do you know what he did?

[laughs]

Why’s that funny?

"Who’s gonna give him a job? I wouldn’t.”

Why not?

“You want some crazy-ass crazy-lookin dude running around your restaurant scaring the fuck out the customers?”

Someone said he was a cabdriver.

“Shit. All I know, I get in a cab and it’s him, I’m gettin
out
.”

ELIZABETH FORSYTHE, apartment C-1155: “He was lovely, just a lovely, gentle man. Always he said hello to me when I saw him in the hall or the elevator. He used help me carry my groceries. I may be an old woman— don’t shake your head, you don’t think I believe you, now do you? Well aren’t you a flirt.… What was I saying? Oh, yes, well, however old I may be, he was hardly in a position to help me, at his age. He lived in that apartment longer than I can remember. I moved in in 1969, and he was already living here, so that should give you an idea. My husband passed in 84. He wanted to leave because he said the neighborhood wasn’t the same anymore. But I used to teach right around the corner—at the high school? Math. So we stayed put.”

Do you know how old he was?

“My husband? He was—oh, you mean Victor. Well. Around my age.” [sees questioning look] “You’re not supposed to ask a lady that, you should know that.” [smiles] “Now let me see. Well, I remember on V-E Day, going with my sister to meet her boyfriend, who had just come home from the Navy. She left me alone, right there in the middle of the street, so they could go off and neck. Sally was five years older than me, so you can figure it out. But I never knew exactly how old Victor was. He wasn’t too
chatty
, if you get me. It took a while for him to warm up to us. Years, I imagine it was. But once he became familiar with us, we came to see that he was very gentle, not at all the person that he seemed at first.”

How could you tell?

“Oh, well, you should have seen him. You know things about a person the first time you look at them. You just look at their hands. Victor had the smallest hands, like a boy’s. He wasn’t much bigger than a boy, only an inch or two taller than I am. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. And he was very religious, you know.”

Was he?

“Oh yes. He went to church all the time. Three times a day.”

That’s a lot.

“I know. Three times a day, for Mass. Sometimes more! I go to the First African Methodist on Sundays, but before I knew Victor I wasn’t aware you
could
go that often, that they would keep on admitting you. When you buy a ticket for the movies you can only go to one show, after all. My husband and I used to watch the double features, back when they still had them.” [sighs] “Well. What was I saying?”

About church.

“Yes, church. Victor liked to go to church. That’s where he was headed, darn near every time I saw him. ‘Where are you off to, Victor?’ ‘Church.’ ” [laughs] “Our Lady of Hope, I believe that’s where he went. It’s near here. He had that look that Catholics have, you know the look? Like they’re about to be punished.”

Guilty.

“Yes, guilty, but also resigned. And afraid. Like his own shadow might jump up and bite him. I think the world was a bit much for him.”

Does he have a job?

“Well, I’m sure he must have, but I don’t know what it is. Is he all right? Has something happened to him? From the way you were talking before, I thought he might have passed, but now you’re making it sound as though he’s still around. Is he? I haven’t seen him for months.”

It’s not terribly clear.

“Well, you find something out, you let me know. Cause I liked Victor.”

One more question, if you don’t mind.

“Go right on ahead. You can stay as long as you want. But you have to leave at six, that’s when my girls come over. We play Scrabble.”

Did you ever hear him talking to himself?

“
Victor
? Goodness, no. Who told you that?”

Your neighbor across the hall.

[makes face] “He’s one to talk, with the music that he plays. He plays it so loud that I can hear it, and I’m half deaf. It’s true.” [indicates hearing aids] “I complain to the superintendent, but they never show up. You know, my husband was probably right: we probably should have left a long time ago. I keep hoping things might get back to the way they used to be. But. They never do.”

PATRICK SHAUGHNESSY, superintendent: “Quiet. Never complained and I never had a complaint about him. That’s the kind of tenant you like to have, although he was so damn quiet you have to wonder how a person could stand to hold it in for so long. When I saw the state of the place, that’s when I figured it out. I said to myself, ‘Patrick,
that’s
where all his talk is going.’ Sight to behold, I tell you.” [spreads hands three feet apart] “Incredible.”

Yes.

“I said to myself, ‘Patrick, what you’re looking at is art. You can’t g’wan and throw it out like it’s garbage.’ I know it when I see it, am I right? You’re the art dealer, so you tell me: am I right?”

You’re right.

“Right, then. Hey, now: do you think those paintings are worth anything?”

Do you?

“I would think so. I would think so. But you tell me. You’re the expert.” It’s impossible to say just yet.

“I sure hope so.”

Do you know where he went?

[shakes head] “The poor fellah might’ve gone off anywhere. He might be dead. What do you think, he’s dead?”

Well—

“How do you know, you’re not the police, right?”

No.

“Okay, then. That’s who you should be talking to, if you want to find him.”

Would the police know?

“They’d know better than I would. That’s their job, isn’t it?”

Well—

“You want to know what
I
think, I think he decided he didn’t like it here anymore. Can you blame him? Got his money saved up and went to Florida. That’s where I’m going. I’m getting prepared. The nest egg and more coming, I tell you. If that’s what he did, then good for him. More power. I hope he has a good time. He never seemed too happy, I will say that.”

Unhappy in what way. Depressed, or guilty, or—

“Most of the time I remember him looking at the ground. Straight down at the ground, bent-over-like, weight of the world n’so forth. I used to see him and think that he wanted to look up but couldn’t stand what he’d see. Some people might keep quiet but get along fine, cause they don’t have anything to stay. Him, though. He had a lot to say and no way to say it.”