Walking the Dog (11 page)

After the military hospital, I think I was transferred to another government-run rehabilitation center for vets who couldn't afford medical care. I still wasn't popular but I was less openly despised.

Eventually my vocabulary increased, and I tried to do crossword puzzles to build my brain muscles. But that was not my world. Different guys gave me comic books. Sometimes I could make out the words, but more importantly, I noticed that the colors of the graphics were getting brighter. I especially
liked the Japanese manga stuff. Those guys made art out of their trash. And the
Bazapps!
and
Kazangs!
and
Blangs!
and
Kapows!
took on animation, bright hues. I could hear the words like drums.

The rehabilitation center stank. It was raw. And it grew freezing when they tried to use cold air to blow out the stink. They also posted a guard near me to make sure I didn't mess with everyone's machines or try to turn the ward against the doctors. I was a terrorist after all, even if I couldn't move. I could be faking at any time. My guards were always the tiny or skinny types and they deeply resented being assigned to me. It was considered a punishment.

Two or three months later the doctors said I could function well enough to be transferred to the hospital at the Clayton Correctional Institution for Women in upstate New York. I would be hospitalized and guarded, but I didn't know if I was going there for my stiff and stitched body or to begin a conventional lifetime in prison.

MY CRIMES

I often took Pookie, the manic black poodle, on the path along the Hudson from Twenty-Third to Battery Park. There were several wide-open spaces of grass beside the concrete where, when I let her off the leash, she could zip into her circus leaps and runs. It was illegal but Pookie needed it. Pookie was a certified maniac. Her favorite act was to run in circles until she wore herself out or seemed to realize that there was no purpose in her running beyond receiving a treat.

It was a fall day and I'd been out eight or ten months. I think. (My memory will never get seasons or events in order. Especially when it comes to dates.) But I remember this autumn because it was the first time I'd received a full day and dinner pass, and I especially remember the day because I'd decided to write Pony's list down for her. I hadn't done it right away. My reluctance was legitimate. An account of my crimes on paper was tantamount to many more confessions than I'd already given. And, with my luck, there was no telling what someone would do if they got their hands on it. Elisheva had visited me a couple more times and was quite convincing about Pony's solitary nature and the precocious spiritual way in which she perceived the events of her life. But, then again, Elisheva also worked for Leonard, and he could get to me through this
unique, subtle spy. More evidence to keep me from ever getting to know Pony. He was obviously still angry enough. I couldn't figure out why he desperately needed me to disappear. He'd always been the gentle, forgiving type, with a Jewish Afro and steamed-up glasses.

There was an old boat called the
Queen Mary
by the pier on the way toward Battery Park, and I used to camp out there after Pookie's runs. I could hike in the shadows by what was once a wood bar, sit on a stool, and close my eyes to the different rhythms of the Hudson. I was insanely paranoid about jeopardizing my parole, but at the same time I hadn't tempted the fates since I'd left prison, and minor dangers like loitering were like miniscule hits of cocaine. Every now and then I just had to do something wrong. I was a crook by nature.

The interior of the old fishing boat was made of metal and wood. The benches had cracks in them, but the boat smelled as if it was still used. Maybe for tourists or an occasional fishing trip. I didn't want to get caught by the parks department, but I didn't want to take this enormous step of writing to Pony in my room or even on a park bench. Life was only theater to me. No deeper. When I was not dizzy or blank I made my own sets wherever I went. Space. Background. Color. Sound. I even had special routes that I felt were appropriate for each of my dogs.

My list of crimes. I spent a long time diddling back and forth between whether I should use numbers for the list or A-B-C. But I figured if I went beyond twenty-six I'd have to get into the AA-, BB-type category, and I knew I'd start making mistakes because it was tiny details like those that were hampered by my brain damage. Numbers weren't so hot either, but I'd just have to keep checking back to see if I'd repeated or skipped some digit. I was stalling. Where to begin. Pony wanted a complete list of my crimes. But I couldn't just lay them out for her without
context. On the other hand, if I constructed what might seem like a short bio, I wasn't following orders. I thought this might displease my obsessive eleven-year-old or cause difficulties for her translator.

MY CRIMES LIST FOR PONY

A super-secret document for Batya Shulamit by Carleen Kepper, once known as Ester Rosenthal.

  
1. At ten years old I was discovered as a prodigy painter and sculptor. By eleven I had a painting in the Biennial at the Guggenheim and was part of a group show at MoMA. At the Guggenheim reception I stole a key chain from the gift shop. No one found out.

  
2. I was taken out of school and taught by tutors up to six hours every day. My painting master was Luciano Brodeney. He tried to be very harsh with me but was a great teacher. He never used art school language. He just gave me tools and toys. He started with basic brushes with boring names and shapes like angular, bright, fan, filbert, flat, hake, high liner, mop, one stroke, oval wash, quill, round, sash, script, and square wash. He told me that some were used for precise strokes, lines, and curves; some for short strokes and thick and heavy color; some for smoothing and blending; and on and on. I didn't like the new brushes, and I didn't care what they were used for. I switched back to my teacher's old out-of-shape brushes from his palettes and bottles of turpentine. He found this very amusing and thanked me. After that we didn't talk much. We painted. Once or twice he got in front of me and stroked a huge
X
across my painting. This made me laugh, and I painted around the huge X and wrote
all over it in different categories. I never did the same to him because I knew there were boundaries even I couldn't cross.

  
3. One day he asked me if I liked animals, and I said I'd never thought about it. He told me that the best brushes were made from animal hair and maybe we'd get some guns and go hunting and make brushes out of our victims. He told me that brushes were made from badger hair, camel hair, hog bristle, mongoose hair, ox hair, pony hair, squirrel hair, hair from animals we didn't know the names of, and synthetic hair like on Barbie dolls or wigs. We never did go hunting, but my parents gave him the money to go to a taxidermist where we picked up most of the animals and I got to make my own brushes. I stole a very stiff frog and a garter snake, but the taxidermist didn't mention it because we'd bought so much.

I probably shouldn't go on about this art teacher because he has nothing to do with my crime, but he did come up with an ingenious method for teaching me the color wheel. My color wheel was far more complex than the standard blue, red, green, yellow, etc. My teacher included rings within rings of combinations like naphthol red light, quinacridone magenta, phthalo blue, vat orange 1, peppermint green. He included in the wheel earth tones like burnt sienna, red oxide, and raw umber. Of course there was zinc white, but also titanium white and yellow ocher. I'd seen, heard, and tested hundreds of colors my whole life, but he gave them names. He transformed his giant color wheel into a dartboard. If I wanted to combine colors, first I had to hit their names on the dartboard
and then I had to mix together the corresponding paint on a palette.

Through imaginative games and tricks Luciano Brodeney managed to instill a solid technique into my raw talents. We also painted the side of a small barn together because he could tell I would need more than just the crafts and techniques of the artist. I learned how to use a wire brush, putty knife, glazing compound, spackling paste, long hand brush, scrub brush, sandpaper and blocks, a caulking gun, tubes of caulk, masking tape, roller trays and grit, drop cloths, and much more. This work really enhanced my sculpting, and I did enjoy visiting hardware stores and, particularly, stealing keys that had not yet been cut into the shapes for peoples' locks. Once I got caught by a humorless, college-age clerk and he threatened to call the police. I told him to go ahead because I was curious to see what would happen. I remained cool and passive while he called me a bitch. But I walked out of the store with ten brass keys, and he did nothing.

After a year, Luciano Brodeney told my parents he'd taught me all he could and that I was as knowledgeable as any thirty-year-old. He also said he really didn't like children and had had enough. He needed to get rid of me before I destroyed his creativity. What a truly great man. We never said goodbye. I didn't admire his artwork particularly, but a clay wall shifts inside me when I see his face in my head. Sometimes when I touch a certain brush I hear his low voice and light accent in the bristles.

  
4. The
New York Times
did a magazine cover story on me
when I was twelve. My paintings were being sold for over a hundred thousand dollars. I met Andy Warhol. He was an empty-headed, sadistic, exploitative freak. (What's that in Hebrew? Elisheva, sorry, I don't know if you can translate that. You might just have to improvise!) When I visited the Factory I stole a bar of soap from the bathroom. Because it was Andy Warhol, the soap was part of an exhibit of wrapped Ivory soaps from floor to ceiling. I toppled the towers. He invited me back and told me I could destroy any of his art that I wanted, but once it was allowed it lost its wonder.

  
5. Anything I stole I stuck in my paintings because very early on I liked using collage technique. I visited many antique boutiques with my mother and her friends, and lifted a couple brooches, earrings, and simple bracelets.

  
6. My mother “needed her own space” and thought that art for art's sake was “elitist and egotistical.” All the “artsy people” didn't mix with her political and charitable volunteers. But it was essential that she appeared to be a deep, self-sacrificing mother, so she hired me a dealer with a large gallery to get the paintings and crowds out of our house. I barely talked to anyone but Rico da Silva, the very rich Rico da Silva whose accent I thought was phony. Supposedly, his gallery was the most la-di-da gallery for famous living painters and sculptors. I don't know who the dealer was for dead painters. I would've preferred that. Just to confuse buyers. A man who was an Oliver Sacks–type guy said to let me be and watch how I developed. No one knew I was practicing pickpocketing at parties and setting
business cards on fire in my room. My mother once tried to talk to me, saying, “There's a world out there. You were named for a queen who saved her people. You should at least teach poor children how to paint.” I rocked back on my heels and replied, “Mother, I would be a judgmental teacher. I don't like children.” She waited for more, but that's all I said. She really didn't like me.

  
7. My father, all in favor of my idiosyncrasies, still thought I should have whiffs of a normal childhood. Therefore he sent me on one of those cross-country packaged teen trips. I was a rich artsy celebrity, but I had no friends my age. I could barely converse or even make eye contact. I didn't mind. I took a suitcase of sketchbooks. I made sketches and pastels of the countryside, mountains, and canyons that seemed to transform me far more than the stories of what movies had been shot next to what red mountains. The best part for me was discovering that I could shoplift from every souvenir shop from Jamestown to Disneyland. It was in my blood. My collection was eclectic, and I experienced a kind of physical rush whenever I laid out my loot on a hotel bed. I stole five-dollar Mickey Mouse key chains and $300 arrowheads from the Four Corners. No one told on me because I was so slick, no kids could really see what I was doing. The few sharp ones who suspected me I either bribed or intimidated. Or I taught them how. I also touched each of the ancient Indian relics behind the ropes in national parks. I wanted to feel in my fingers the work
of ancient iron tools and clay from the old Indian red earth. This wasn't criminal. I wouldn't allow a scratch to hurt those primitive masterpieces, but I did get caught once or twice and got kicked out at almost every exhibit.

  
8. My private works, inspired by my booty of cross-country art, were abstract spirit lands: capes with stolen beads, feathers, buffalo and deer hide drowned and dried out, lizards from early floods. The collection was bought by a Chinese toy company that manufactured baby dolls that wet themselves. Made in China. I liked that. I made a million dollars or so. The Chinese donated my original sketches to various appropriate museums, but I wouldn't let them take certain treasures out of New York for more than three months at a time. I treasured my collection of key chains, feathers, miniatures, and bracelets. I must've stolen over two hundred souvenirs and stuck them in my paintings. When the paintings went on exhibit at Luciano's gallery in New York I went every day for two months to play with the hidden souvenirs, which was unusual for me, but I've always liked “things.”

  
9. At sixteen I stopped painting. I just stopped. The art world speculated that my “prodigious output” (over two hundred paintings and twenty-five sculptures) had burned me out. Art magazines speculated that perhaps I was an “idiot savant,” I had Asperger's, I was a dilettante, or, like Mozart, I was “burned out” or “dying.” But after three months I went to college and started painting again. This was the uneven rhythm
of my brain. No explanation. Much speculation. No change. More paintings. More sculptures.

10. I was compared a great deal to Mozart. I read many books on him and listened to his music. I found him too frilly and without syncopation. I got sleepy every time his music was played for me. And every time an adult sociologist compared us I let out as weird of a laugh as possible. I never made a conscious effort to alienate adult sociologists. I didn't care enough. But like with shoplifting, any action that put me on the edge gave me a spark and filled the white squares in my brain.

11. By sixteen I really had become a burden. My parents were relieved that I chose to skip the last year of high school and move on. I think they were very tired of me, and I wasn't exactly titillating to have around. I was incommunicative to the point of comatose. But any college would have me: Harvard. RISD. Caltech School of Visual Arts. I was good for PR, boards of directors, alumni, but I adamantly chose a tiny liberal arts college in New Hampshire with a good art faculty but no visual arts major.

12. I rode horses and learned to ski my freshman year. I also met a handsome townie named Miko, who was my first friend and boyfriend. He was over six feet five, and lean. I think he was part Polynesian because his skin was dark and smooth and his eyes weren't slits but had an oval, heavy-lidded look (maybe because he was stoned). As an artist I saw him as a perfectly created human specimen. (I will not mention sex because you
are eleven and Elisheva says you are not interested. But, except in certain circumstances, it is not something to disapprove or be afraid of.) Miko knew nothing about art, barely read papers, and didn't know who I was. He taught me to ride motorcycles very fast, and, more importantly, how to polish, screw, weld, hammer, and fit every bit of every kind of screw, bolt, and wire together to make an engine. Miko was blown away by the fact that in a week I'd memorized terms like ignition switch, rear brake pedal, and reservoir tank. His townie friends made fun of his “baby girlfriend,” but they shut up when I could slam together an engine faster than any of the guys. I relished the shapes of the tiny parts and the feel of the metals in my fingers and fists. Some parts needed welding or the use of heavy wrenches, but I grew strong. Although not original, each engine was a work of art, and I developed a deep respect for mechanics and engineers. More so than I had for most sculptors. I was convinced I loved him, and I did everything he promised would be an adventure for us. In the past I'd never wanted a thing from the money I made. Not clothing. Not houses. Not even traveling. All I wanted to do was paint. After I met Miko though, I bought a BMW 650, a Norton 75, and a Harley Davidson that I destroyed and rebuilt so it could have the fastest zero-to-sixty revs of any motorcycle on or off the market.