Yellow Mesquite (8 page)

Harley dropped his own sack of tubes in the remaining box, took it up and followed.
 

At the door, Sidney turned and drew himself up, smiling broadly at Flagg. “It has been another memorable occasion, Flagg. And indeed, I look forward to our next encounter with relish.”
 

“Bring money.”

“Ah, the man has the soul of a poet.”

Harley followed Sidney around the corner to an old ’49 Ford parked in a no-parking zone near a fire hydrant. “What do you mean, ‘art is art’?”
 

“That's it. Art is art.” Sidney opened the rear door and put the boxes in the footwell. “Anything other than art simply isn't art.”

Harley slid his box in next to Sidney's and took his own bag of paints out. “What's so all-fired brilliant about that?”
 

Sidney stretched, rubbing the small of his back with both hands. “The truth of it. The mere simplicity, that’s what’s brilliant about—” He bent forward suddenly, his gaze fixed on the pavement near the fire hydrant. “Fan
tastic
!”
he breathed.

Harley stepped back, looking, but he saw nothing other than a big slab of black asphalt patched into the graveled surface. Two asphalt ribbons ran out to a smaller patch.

“Marvelous,” Sidney said with something like reverence. “Just marvelous.”

“What is?” Harley looked from Sidney to the asphalt and back.

 
“My friend,
that
is art!”

“You mean that tar patch?”

“Reminiscent of Dubuffet. Are you familiar with the work of Jean Dubuffet?”

In the year Harley had been in Dallas, he’d spent his evenings studying the art magazines, and his weekends browsing the art section of the public libraries. But he wasn’t familiar with this Jean Dubuffet.
 

“Sorry. I don’t know his work.”
 

“Too bad, my friend.”

“You really think that's art?”
 

Sidney took a piece of chalk from his pocket; then, scrabbling around on hands and knees, he drew a loose rectangle around the patch. “Look at that, my friend. Look. at.
that
!”
He took a small notebook from his pocket; made a quick pencil copy, and scribbled in the margin.

Harley knelt beside him. “I don't get it.”

“My friend. First, art is awareness.”

“How so?”

“Look at the shapes, the unity, the harmony, the structure and texture.”
 

Harley looked at the patch. “That might be interesting, but it's just accidental. There must be about ten thousand of these in the next ten blocks.”
 

“Ah, yes. That's why I take notes. I have all the locations noted. I intend to dig them all out when I get the proper equipment.”

Harley stared. “Say what?”

“A jackhammer, my friend. A jackhammer with a flathead chisel. I've seen city workers cutting up sections like that. I'm going to disguise myself as a worker and lift these right out—zing-o!”

“You mean…you're gonna dig up the streets…for these patches? And keep them?”

“Keep them?” Sidney rolled his eyes. “Of course I'm not going to keep them! I'm going to sell them!”

Harley studied him, then looked again at the chalked-off rectangle. “You really think that's art, huh?”

“I could live with it.”

“It is kind of interesting.”

Sidney stood up, smiling happily. “You afoot?”

“The bus,” he said.

“Where do you live?”

“Over on Gaston. Why?”

“Hop in. I'll give you a lift.”

“Uh, that's okay. Thanks anyway.”
 

“Consider it repayment of the loan.”

“Yeah? I can take the bus for fifteen cents.”

“But look at the invaluable company. Priceless.”

Harley gave Sidney another look, then climbed into the front passenger seat with a touch of trepidation. Sidney started the car and pulled out.
 

Sidney said, “So, you dabble in art?”

“Dabble?”

Sidney smiled. “Precious little pieces, I'll bet.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Those dinky little tubes you bought.”

“Dinky? Those are one-pound tubes.”

“I get more than that under my fingernails.”

“Yeah? I'd like to see some of your work.”

“Delighted, my friend. Delighted.”

“When?”

Sidney shrugged. “Now. How about now?”

Harley hesitated only briefly. “Sure. Why not.”

Sidney slowed and turned at the next intersection. He drove streets in residential sections Harley had never seen from the bus, all the time, ranting on about art; about pathetic weekend painters, their briar pipes, their Harris Tweed jackets with the leather-patched elbows, their
bourgeois
crank-up easels…

He drove into an alley and turned through an open gate in a chain-link fence. He brought the car to a stop before a triple-car garage apartment. All three bays were jam-packed with junk—bed frames, broken chairs, tables, bicycles, washing machines… The stuff poured out of the open garages and pushed out across the yard.
 

Harley got out. “What do you do with all this stuff?”
 

“Buy and sell,” Sidney said, taking two boxes from the rear footwells.

“Yeah? Who buys this stuff?”

“Ah! After the revolution, my friend, these things will be worth more than gold. Grab that other box, will you?”

“What revolution?”

“The revolution that's going to sweep this country. That revolution.”
 

Carrying one of the boxes, Harley followed Sidney up the outside staircase.
 

“Money will be useless,” Sidney said over his shoulder. “The barter system will prevail. And that, my friend, is when Sidney Siegelman will be sitting pretty.”

“So you think we're gonna have a revolution, huh?”
 

“Of course we are.” Sidney set one of boxes on the porch railing, unlocked the door, and motioned him inside. “Set that box right over there on that table.”

Harley stepped into the room and stopped in astonishment. It looked as if odds and ends of things in the yard had raced up the steps, jumped through a rainbow of color, and stuck themselves on the walls—and in the oddest configurations. They weren’t exactly paintings, or exactly sculptures, but they were certainly no longer just junk, either. An odd thrill shivered through him.

“I'm going to buy a little plot of ground in the country,” Sidney was saying, “grow my own food. Food, that's what will be of real value.”
 

Harley wasn't listening. His gaze danced over the room.

“People are going to be pouring out of the cities like rats. They won't have heat or fuel or food.

Harley walked around a work constructed on a low oak base: a half dozen oblong wooden pieces arranged in a circle on a piece of dark fur. The rounded ends of the wooden pieces all pointed toward an elliptical slit cut in the fur. A steel animal trap was tightly fitted into the slit. It was painted a sloppy red and it was set, though Harley was relieved to see that the trigger mechanism had a small weld so it wouldn’t spring shut. The rounded ends of the smooth wooden shafts were painted different colors: red, yellow, green, blue, all with a slash of black on the end like a watermelon seed. With a jolt, Harley realized they were penises…and the slit in the fur with the trap was a vagina.

“That piece is called
Beaver Trap
,” Sidney said.

Harley grinned and felt himself flushing.

“That's real beaver fur.”
 

Harley nodded.

“And the little pee-pees, they're what the trappers use to stretch beaver skins over.”

“That's, uh, interesting.”
 

“Yes, indeed,” Sidney said. “I like the duality of it.” Sidney paused in a moment of introspection. “Listen, my young friend. Women fall within two polarities, the mercenaries and the sapiosexuals. There are shades between, of course, but usually women tend toward one or the other.”

“Sapio-what?”

“Sapiosexual. Women who are attracted to men for their intellectual gifts, their creativity. Then there are the mercenaries, materialistic women. They’re attracted to power, to money. Look at all the beautiful women married to ugly little runts with fat pockets. They won’t teach you this at Harvard, but as a young man just stepping out into the world, be aware.”

“That’s not true with men, too?”

Sidney threw his hands up in a hopeless gesture. “Men? Ha! We have two heads, the big one and the little one. When it comes to women, the little one renders the big one totally useless.”
 

“I know a lot of good women, married to ordinary men,” Harley said.

“Some, I suppose,” Sidney said with a dismissive shrug. “But everyone, both men and women, have one ear cocked toward the whisper of opportunity—a fatter wallet, a finer ass.”

Harley looked at
Beaver Trap
again. Though there wasn’t the least resemblance, he was reminded of de Kooning’s
Woman
series, the little animal teeth and big buglike eyes. It was the same view of women as predatory. It was a view he found unsettling.

He gazed around the room. There were rectangles of black roofing paper zigzagged with chalk and iridescent cartographer’s tape, and repetitious Xerox copies colored with crayons and dyes. In a baby’s coffin, a convoluted piece of filigreed driftwood had been painted black and lay half-buried in white plaster edged in old lace. There were shallow boxes with an assortment of unrelated objects placed in strange juxtaposition, each in its own cotton-padded cubicle under glass. And drawings—piles of drawings on shelves and tables and on the walls, finished drawings and drawings in progress and drawings cut up and taped together.
 

“This is…” He trailed off, finding no words. He knew instinctively that while the guy might be a kook, he was also truly inventive.

“Ah, yes,” Sidney said reverently. “This is art.”

“You can draw better than anybody I ever seen. It's just so…so…”
 

Sidney cocked his head to one side. “Yes? Just so…so what?”

“So
different
.”

“From what?”

“From anything I've ever seen…or what I thought art was…” He realized he was babbling like an idiot.

Sidney watched him, amused. “The question of what art is seems to occupy a lot of your thinking.”

Harley gave Sidney a long, searching look. “If I'm going to be good,
really
good, I have to first determine just what art is. I know there's more to it than what I know. And things seem to be changing so fast. I want to learn everything I can, the sooner the better.”

Sidney peaked his eyebrows. “Ah? So you're going to be good, eh?”

“Well, yes. Yes, I am.”

“Good! Good! Good! And what makes you think so?”

“I like to draw. And I'm good at it.”

Sidney hunched his shoulders and made a face. “Hoo! He likes to draw and he's good at it. So? What else?”

“What do you mean, ‘what else’?”

“I mean what else? You know, what else?”

“I have a feeling for the way things are.”

“Hoo,” Sidney cooed again. “My friend, there are bums in the gutters who can draw better than either of us. There are little old grandmothers and dishwashers in flophouses who know more about ‘the way things are’ than you and I both together.” Sidney tapped his temple with his finger. “The difference is, most people who can draw can't
think
.” He leaned forward, squinting. “They can't
see
.” He let his face go slack. “They haven't an intellectual point of view. No opinions, no all-encompassing world vision.” Sidney's face lit up. His eyes gleamed. “Ideas! Point of view! Concept! Now,
that's
where we can begin to talk about art!”

“You've got to teach me,” Harley said, hearing his own voice, desperate.

Sidney arched his neck, drew his shoulders up. “Oh, I do now, do I?”

“I'll do whatever you say, help out around here, clean up, sweep out, whatever you say. I want to study with you. I've
got
to.”

Sidney did a quick-footed shuffle around the table. “You think you can just waltz in here? Take up my time? Pick my brains? And I'll be happy as a pig in slop to go along with it? You’re a pushy bastard!”

“I'll stay out of your way.”

“You like my work that much, eh?”

“Yes— Well, I don't know yet. But you know things, things I need to know.”

Sidney looked pleased. “Hmm. I say we have a little splash of Beaujolais.”

“A what?”

“A little vino.”

“Vino?”

“Ye gads! Wine, m’boy. Wine!”

“Oh. I'm not much of a drinker, but I'll try it.”
 

Sidney took a bottle and two jelly glasses from a cabinet.

“First lesson, my young friend, is never, never,
never
tell anyone that you’re an artist, and that you don't drink in the same breath.
Never
.”

Harley took the glass. He rested one hand on the back of a chair and stared again at the objects about him.
 

“Don't touch that,” Sidney cried, rushing to the chair.
 

Harley jerked his hand back. “What?”

“That's a piece I'm working on. See? One of the front legs is missing? There, it's on the floor to your side.” Sidney squatted by the chair. “This piece is called
Alienation
. See how I've done the chair monochromatic? Each rung, each part, all harmonious except that missing leg? Now, look at the leg itself, a jarring orange. Ah, the art is not only in the tension of the colors, but in the placement as well. I think I have placed it exactly for the maximum amount of tension. Does it go with the chair? Or does it not? Have you read
The Dehumanization of Art
by Ortega?”

“Never heard of it.”

Sidney stuck his chin out and scratched his beard. “Um. I don't know…”

A recollection of Whitehead’s advice regarding Robert Rauschenberg flashed in Harley’s mind. “I'm not leaving here,” he said. “Call the police and have me thrown out, but I'll be back. I’m not leaving till you agree to let me work with you.”