by Jerry Cole
“Mommy! You said we could see Beauty and the Beast!”
“Baby, did you really leave your wallet in the goddamn car? Tell me you didn’t. Tell me…”
“If Daddy had come with us, this wouldn’t have happened. You know that, right, Mommy? This is all your fault.”
Max’s eye lids closed and opened. He halted in the center of Time’s Square, feeling a wealth of choices at his feet. The subway grumbled beneath him. Families squabbled around him. Every single tight apartment and alleyway and cafe and restaurant, every single square inch of that city was vibrating.
“Sir? Sir, do you have a light?”
The words broke through his reverie. Max blinked at the squat man beside him, seemingly Midwestern, with a bad dye job. Max scratched through his pockets, remembering a time when he’d had at least two or three lighters on him. Now, he had nothing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”
“It’s just this family vacation, man,” the guy sighed. “I gotta smoke. I’m going fucking crazy.”
“I get it,” Max offered, although he would have given anything to be in the man’s shoes. “I’m sure one of these people have a lighter. You’ll get through this.”
The Midwestern man ducked down, hobbling toward another group of people. In his wake, Max stared ahead at a collection of flashing billboards and wild advertisements. Such was the way of Time’s Square. There was a sunglasses’ ad, an ad for a lollipop that was meant to make all “hunger pangs run away.” There were ads for women and men’s fashion, with men in tight underwear and perfectly-cut abs leaning back, slanting toward an ocean behind them.
Just above was a very different sort of ad. It was an advertisement for a nearby exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. The familiar logo flashed up at the bottom, tugging Max’s eyes up. The entire billboard was a painting — a rare thing, indeed, in an area of the city that ordinarily had no real interest in artistic expression—and was far more invested in the candy stores and selling second-rate burgers.
The painting was a man. It was provocatively painted, rough, with sketchy, hard lines. The man’s body was pristine, mostly naked, and his chin rocketed upward. His eyes were penetrating, dark, his skin olive and shimmering. It only took Max a split-second to recognize the man as Mario.
It was a horrific feeling. Throughout the past two months, Max had done everything he could to shove the image of Mario from his mind. So often he dreamed of him, found the image of him lurking within his eyelids. It often made Max push back sleeping, as he felt they were kinds of nightmares. They forced him to relive the most beautiful moments of his life, the truest form of love he’d ever felt, and then they immediately yanked them away. Those were the coldest days at the cabin.
Now, Mario was fifteen, perhaps twenty feet high. He towered over Time’s Square. The painting was colossal, provocative, terrifying. It showed him as the sort of rock star-wannabe, tag-along he’d been throughout his twenties, when he’d been the prime source of art for various rock stars throughout Los Angeles and Europe.
Max reached out, feeling like a man far from shore, trying to swim. His hand laced across the shoulder of the Midwestern man, still on the hunt for a light. He whirled around, huffing. “What is it, man? You found a light?”
Max pointed at the billboard, his eyes cast open, large as windows. “What is that?” he asked. “That top billboard? Have you seen it?”
The man sniffed. He rubbed the hair at his temple, which was flashed with gray. “Man, I don’t know. I went to that fucking museum the other day and stared at that painting. Everyone’s telling me how important it is, including my wife. I just don’t really GET art, you know?”
“So it’s already hanging?” Max demanded. “It’s at the MOMA?”
“I guess that’s where it was,” the man shrugged. “We don’t have anything like that in Indiana, you know? We have this great painting of Lake Michigan above our couch, and it’s gotta be about as far as my art can go…”
“Thank you…” Max said, ducking through the crowd, narrowly missing tossing his shoulder into another tourist, struggling with his wallet. A few dollar bills tumbled out and floated to the ground.
Max’s mind raced. He leaped out of Time’s Square, hailing a cab. He hadn’t a reason to believe that MOMA would be open that day, as it was Christmas. He did know that occasionally, they opened on holidays, for the immense Jewish population in the Upper West and East Side. When the taxi spit him out near the museum, he stuffed several bills into the driver’s hand, muttering a Merry Christmas to him. Max guessed that the man hadn’t ever celebrated Christmas, that he was, in fact, Muslim, and didn’t have a single care for the day. The man just blinked at him and counted the bills, telling him to close the door. He didn’t utter a word of thanks.
MOMA was miraculously open. A few people petered in and out, curving winter hats over their heads as they walked. The snow had grown more bulbous, drawing big droplets on the shoulders of his coat. Max ducked into the museum, watching the television in the corner of the lobby, which mirrored back his motions. He didn’t look anything like the Max he’d always known. It chilled him, watching that bearded lunatic run into the museum, hungry for whatever nonsensical reality this was.
The alarm system remained silent as he walked through. Max spit out some more bills at the counter, in return for a ticket. He had a pass to enter for free, one with his name and image upon it. The image was so different than how he currently looked, that he didn’t want to generate interest or questions. Rather, the Jewish-looking gum-chewing girl at the counter flashed the ticket toward him, shrugging. “Have a good time.”
Max held his ticket in his hand and trudged in through the hallways. His boots squeaked on the marble floor. Every which way, art exhibitions seemed strange and sharp-edged, nothing one wanted to gape at for too long. The result of so many artists, pushing so many boundaries; it felt as though there wasn’t a possible way to deduce what so many of them were saying. The chaos and the noise of it all was far too much.
After ten or so minutes, Max approached a guard, asking him — in what he thought sounded to be his kindest, most “dad” tourist voice, where “that one painting from Time’s Square was.” The guard rolled his eyes and pointed, saying, “Man, it’s at the end of the hall. I swear, the number of people that came in here just to look at that painting…. Not really my thing.” He turned his eyes up and down Max, assessing him. “I wouldn’t have thought it would be your sort of thing, either.”
Max deduced that the man was trying to say he didn’t seem “gay,” or “artsy,” or so many of the things that, in actuality, he was. He flashed a smile. “A man’s gotta be curious about what he sees at Time’s Square, right?”
“Where you from?” the guard asked, seemingly bored. He shifted his weight, laying his thick, black hand across the rod at his waist. Max sensed that the man often moved this way,
“The Midwest,” Max answered.
“Right. Long way from home. Gotta make sure you see everything,” the guard offered, trying to give Max an easy out.
Max didn’t take it. Instead, he shot the rest of the way down the hallway, feeling his heart rattle in his chest. He’d first spotted the painting in Time’s Square perhaps twenty minutes ago, maybe twenty-five, and still, Mario’s painted eyes bounced around in his head. Who on earth had painted such a thing? Had it been Mario himself?
He staggered to a halt when he spotted it. It was in the very center of a completely white and empty room, hanging from the ceiling and casting a shadow behind. If possible, it seemed even larger here, than it had in Time’s Square. Max paused at the doorway, feeling dizzy. He reached out and touched the doorway, holding himself steady. At this, the guard behind called out, “Don’t touch the walls!” He removed his hand, quick, as though it was made of fire.
Max took slow and steady steps toward the painting, wanting to inhale it. Mario’s tattoos, his still-youthful yet still apparent wrinkles, the hair on his chest — i
t was all too clear. It seemed as though whoever had painted it had known Mario intimately.
It seemed almost totally clear that whoever had painted it had had some sort of sexual relationship with Mario. Max’s chest seized with panic. He’d been gone for only two months, or a little more. Mario had abandoned him in the middle of October. And the fire, that had been…
It made no sense to dally with the facts, or with dates. The truth of the matter was that someone had recently painted this portrait, and that the MOMA had found it so terribly important, they’d decided to display it like this, here and now. Max took another slight step forward, imagining the man who’d loved Mario enough to paint such a rapturous portrait. Perhaps he was German, or Italian, or French. He was clearly wild with passion, alive with his motions, sure of stroke.
Above all, there was an arrogance in the painting of it, behind the artist’s stroke. It both enraged and thrilled Max. For who was he, if not a supreme art lover? Who was he if not someone meant to uphold this beautiful artistic achievement, even if it nearly ripped him in two?
He leaned a bit closer, trying to catch the scribble of autograph in the right corner of the painting. It was vague, harried, just like any other signature. He imagined the man signing it and leaning back, dotting a kiss on Mario’s lips. “You’ve been my greatest creation,” the artist would have said. “You’ve given me the world.”
A haughty voice rang out beside him, yanking him from his reverie. Max blinked down at a four-foot-something Jewish-looking, bespectacled woman, trying to edge into his position in front of the painting. Her bones poked out of her sweater. She was every bit the weapon she wanted to be.
In her claw-like hands, she held a leaflet. Max peered at it, noting that the leaflet held the title of the painting. All he could make out were the dramatic letters, “VENICE…RNING,” as her hand was latched in the center. He cleared his throat, taking a slight step toward her.
“I don’t suppose I could borrow that, could I?” he asked, gesturing to the leaflet. “I’m terribly interested in the artist.”
The woman sniffed. When she spoke, it very much seemed that her words spewed out of her nose, getting lodged between little snot pockets.
“You and every other person in this city…” she said.
“Please. You don’t understand,” Max offered. “I’m Max Everett. I’m an architect. You’ve probably walked past a building I designed in the Upper West Side already this week, if not today. I promise. I’m no crazed lunatic.”
The woman arched her perfectly-drawn brow, noting his appearance. It was clear to her, at least, that he was nothing more than a bottom-dweller, a flannel-wearing bearded imbecile. Sensing it was the only way to get him away from her, however, she flashed the pamphlet toward him, asking, “If you’ll give me a moment with the painting alone. Please. I need five feet, at the most.”
It was a bizarre request on this day, this most comforting Christmas evening. Max accepted it, all-but leaping behind her and scouring the pamphlet.
Immediately, he was struck with the title of it. It hit him like a brick, making his ears ring. He held the paper out in front of him, gazing at the words. They seemed like a foreign language.
“VENICE IS BURNING”
“A painting by Christine Everett.”
Max dropped the pamphlet, now. It swirled toward the ground, falling on the wrong side, so that the whiteness of the back reflected the light on the ceiling. He swallowed hard, willing himself to pick it up again. The woman he’d gotten it from also gaped at him, her eyes like slits.
“Are you preparing to have some sort of seizure?” she asked him, sounding doubtful.
“I’m sorry. I just. I dropped it,” he marveled.
“Pick it up,” the woman ordered, before spinning back, drawing her hands behind her back and gripping her right wrist with her left hand.
Max did as he was told. Sweat pooled at the base of his neck. He did, indeed, feel on the brink of a sort of medical emergency, but wanted desperately to talk himself out of it.
He needed more information.
Was it possible that Mario had indeed fallen in love with his daughter? Was it possible that that was the reason Mario had abandoned him, told Christine what was going on? He ached, his stomach cramping. He felt like he’d just ambled away from a rollercoaster, preparing to coat himself with vomit.
Imagining Mario and Christine latched together was nearly impossible. In fact, any moment his brain skirted that direction, he yanked it back. He knew that Mario was gay; he’d translated this to Max in no uncertain terms. He’d almost never struggled with his sexuality. Did Christine know that fact? What on earth had she deduced from this man whom she clearly fancied? What had led her to paint this portrait?
“Are you finished with the pamphlet?” the woman demanded, her nostrils flared.
“Um. No. I’m.” Max fumbled for words. “Just another minute, if that’s okay.”
Just below the title and the “a painting by” was a sort of interview with his daughter, the featured painter At this, of course, Max couldn’t resist having a moment of pride. For wasn’t it he and Amanda who had created her? Wasn’t it he and Amanda who had put her on this earth and pushed her to care about art?.
INTERVIEWER: Christine Everett. Your painting of Mario, your ex-teacher from Venice, has recently sold for two billion dollars. You’re, what? Nineteen years old? What do you have to say for yourself? Aren’t you a little young for this kind of fame?
EVERETT: (laughing) That’s nice of you to say, but really, I feel older than so many people I know. Even my parents (renowned painter, Amanda Everett, and architect, Max Everett) have made such colossal mistakes now, in their middle age, that show what youthfulness they maintain. But not me. When I began to paint this painting — which I called “VENICE IS BURNING” for obvious reasons…
INTERVIEWER: Yes, actually, if you don’t mind. Could you move forward with that topic? The title, I mean. It’s certainly one of the reasons this painting is so famous…
EVERETT: All right. I’ll rehash the story. (Again, laughing.) My father is a renowned architect, that’s true. There’s no use denouncing him, I don’t think. Although I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since the incident.
At this, Max balked. “Hide nor hair” was an expression she always teased him for using, saying that it was antiquated. “Just speak like a normal person…” she’d sighed, time and again.
INTERVIEWER: Right. The incident…
EVERETT: Essentially, my father was commissioned for an architecture project in Venice. The people really fought back on it. Hated what he was doing. And to be fair, the thing was a monstrosity. It didn’t uphold any of Venice’s cultural integrity. Looking at it was like…looking at the sun. You literally couldn’t. Anyway… Something happened with my father. He went a little crazy. I suppose as an artist, it was always going to happen. Especially since he’d only just split up from my mother…
INTERVIEWER: This is a part of the story you haven’t shared, yet. Your parents were in the middle of a divorce?
EVERETT: If you do a single search on the internet, you’ll learn that, too. It’s all over. My mother’s already dating some sculptor guy. I’ve got no interest in learning too much about him…
INTERVIEWER: In fact, his exhibition will be at the MOMA at the same time as yours…
EVERETT: Congratulations to him. But back to my father. He snapped. Something happened. I’ve never seen him look more crazy. He just… set fire to the whole building. People had to run away. It was bad. Like, really bad.
INTERVIEWER: And at what stage of the painting were you, at this point? When you watched your father set fire to Venice?
EVERETT: I was nearly done. I just didn’t have a title. It was… It was all about the way I was feeling about my father, and about the guidance that Mario was giving me as a teacher… It was all wrapped up. I wanted to title it something that meant something so much bigger than myself. That’s where “Ve
nice is Burning” came from.
INTERVIEWER: You’re now living in Paris. Tell me more about that. Why did you go there, and when?
EVERETT: Needless to say, after my father burnt down Venice (laughs again), I didn’t want to stick around long. I gave up my room and took the first flight I could to Paris, where I finished my painting. I knew that quite a few people living in Paris were familiar with Mario, my teacher, from his wild days in the rock n’ roll circuit. They took immediate interest in the painting. Plus, they helped me with the in-between stuff. Like, showing it to the right people so it would get noticed.
INTERVIEWER: Was that the point of all of this fame, Christine? Or was it something else? As a passive onlooker, it seems that whoever painted this was very much in love with the subject…
EVERETT: I’m not even twenty years old yet. (Laughing). To me, yes, it was love. But in a few years? It’ll probably be something else. I don’t know. Take what you want from the painting. I’ll take my two billion dollars. Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: What about your father? He hasn’t been seen since the fire in Venice. Literally no one knows what happened to him. You must have had some sort of contact with him. You were both in Venice at the same time. You must have been close.
EVERETT: We were never close. Ever. I don’t think I know a single truthful thing about my father. That’s kind of the point of the painting. Venice is burning. Everything we’ve ever known, that’s burning, too. It’s a metaphor, built in this beautiful man’s body.
INTERVIEWER: Beautiful, huh?
EVERETT: How could you refute that? Beautiful is the very word to use. However, I wouldn’t call my technique beautiful. It’s far from it. Maybe it’s a false metaphor. Something like that. Regardless, no. I hope I never see my father again. He’s a liar. He lied to me throughout my entire life, and into my adult years. If he ever sees this painting…
INTERVIEWER: How could he not? it’s going to be on display in Time’s Square. It’s going to be all over the world.