In the Beggarly Style of Imitation

by Jean Marc Ah-Sen

  This was the final straw with Gyk, who had proved himself both in his capacity of Cepecauer’s white-haired boy and defender, not to mention a rather undependable friend, more outstandingly incompetent than usual. A cloud of chalk dust sailed into the air as Cepecauer rubbed his hands together to marshal the attention of the class to the board, where he had written the words voice and you in large letters, connected by a branching double arrow pointing in opposite directions.

  “I have heard your summons class,” Cepecauer boldly intoned. “Willingly do I accept its terms.” He looked into the hard faces of his listeners, but the sad fool could not find his challenger, much less the spark of his galvanized affections.

  Swiddenworld: Selected Correspondence with Tabitha Gotlieb-Ryder

  Goldie’s van Dongen

  To Serge Mayacou, of Hamilton

  Serge,

  I made some serious enquiries on your behalf about whether Goldie would be amenable to selling the Paul Kirchner and Peter van Dongen pieces. Kirchner is a definite no; with van Dongen, although he is rather attached to it, he did assure me somewhat indeterminately that this would not be the case forever. “This is not an ‘anfractuous’ enticement to entertain offers”—(his exact choice of words). I don’t know that he has a firm number in mind; when he says something like that, it’s usually to weigh up whether it’s enough incentive to let it go. If it’s too low, he may not coun­ter-offer, just respond, “I’d rather just keep it” (as he has done before).

  Confidentially speaking, however, I think I can tell you that no one—at least while I have been in his employ—has ever made an offer for it, much less expressed so much as an interest. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I think this bodes well. I know that he has been negotiating for years with a collector in Kalamazoo about an original Roy G. Krenkel. Goldie is under the impression that they are about to agree on a number (seven years onwards), but this wouldn’t be the first time that he’s overestimated finances, or his bargaining power for that matter. Don’t let appearances to the contrary fool you—though the studio is certainly spacious, well-situated (opulent some might even be accustomed to say)—Le Nid de Duc it is not. I have your contact information now, so I can advise you should the time come.

  I enjoyed our conversation about Bruce Pennington and Eschatus. I am not aware of any publisher other than Paper Tiger ever having rights to publication through legitimate means, however. You are always welcome to stop by in the studio if you have any further questions, or simply want to look through what Goldie will be putting up for sale in the future—I would be more than happy to set anything (available) aside for you.

  –T. Gotlieb-Ryder

  To T.G.R., of Toronto

  Tabitha,

  Thank you for your note. I am touched by the gesture of consideration. I enjoyed making your acquaintance as well—if you could reach out should the van Dongen go to market, I would be in your happy debt. I would not hesitate to show my gratitude.

  I looked through my Galaxies and could not believe you were able to reference the artist based on my inadequate methods of description. I can confirm it was Phillipe Caza who did the cover in question.

  –S. Mayacou

  To Serge Mayacou, of Hamilton

  Serge,

  Movement on the Krenkel front imminent. If all goes as planned, the transaction will be finalized within a day or two. Privately, I can confirm Goldie is still taken with the van Dongen (it currently resides over his mantelpiece, next to the portraiture his wife Marlana made in his likeness). He will push lesser pieces on you to generate immediate funds for the Krenkel deal; additionally, he took note of your interest in Virgil Burnett and Howard Sherman (your taste does you credit) and has pieces in his possession to which he no longer bears an attachment. If you push past his resolve for the van Dongen, and make no allusions to possessing an awareness of privileged information, I know for a fact he will capitulate.

  –T. Gotlieb-Ryder

  To T.G.R., of Toronto

  Tabitha,

  The van Dongen is at the framers now. If I am being perfectly honest, I am still shaking with disbelief at my good fortune of having come into contact with you. Not the crown jewel by any stretch, but a very good specimen of the man’s untrammelled control of static movement, and a happy resident in any serious collection. What I find most appealing is how it is an example of his more oppressive and rough line work, uncluttered with the pretenses of Swartean flatness. I hope I am not being too forward in the hope of wanting you to see where it will be eventually situated at my residence. Please allow me to treat you to dinner one night as a show of my appreciation.

  –S.

  To Serge Mayacou, of Hamilton

  Serge,

  That would be lovely. When will you next be in the city? I leave all particulars to you, and can be free most evenings after Goldie has closed the gallery. I thought it would be worth mentioning that he has recently made contact with a reputed former associate of Frank R. Paul who has a small stockpile of his artwork. The provenance is currently being assessed by someone in Teaneck. Interest is expected to be above average/crash-hot on account of renewed interest in his work; knowing Goldie’s pricing, this will thin out the competition considerably. I can bring stats to dinner if you don’t object.

  –Tabby

  The Joy Beaut Lover and the Glitz Cunt

  To T.G.R., of Toronto

  My Little Fuckling,

  You were a right saucy Glitz Cunt last night. Nail on the ready, I could not wait to have you bucking and frisking like a hind in the wind. Your blithesome bunghole and its raucous puckerings hypnotized my mind to the Omega Point—glossolalic pronouncements, keeping perfect time with your intoxicated breathing, the echoing singsong of your colliding juddlies recalling me from the distant heavens of your tantra, the hint of a fetid musk wafting from your armpits. A more debauch ritornello has not been heard this side of midnight when I let my gasps unroll into moans.

  When you began reciting the names of the assured masters—“Rey Feibush, Alex Schomburg, Virgil Finlay, Don Ivan Punchatz”—while engaged in unholy congress, I barely had the sense to blunder out myself into your mouth before it was too late. Even if I wanted to, I could not dispel the image of you soothingly anointing my gonads with my seed. My sweetest Tabby, tell me you will let me have you again, that you are not over-boyed (and with whom I must vie for your attentions). Barring such circumstances, that you will see me again in whatever capacity that allows me access to your naked splendour—cockservant, witness, figger, what have you. Let me be your nightstick, I have no hard limits. Old guard leather need not apply.

  –The Joy Beaut Lover

  To Serge Mayacou, of Hamilton,

  Dearest Whorelet,

  Did you think to have satisfied my ravening desires, O cockless wonder? Did I say you were finished with me? Did I give you permission to finish before I told you to? Your anointment was merely a prelude to your despoiliation. The sequelae of your actions will be tenfold. We will fructify your ten-a-penny cock yet, drudge. The acccidulants in your jissom will smart and stain your body, your mouth, your anus—I can hardly wait to see how much farther I can claw my finger up your gate and have you glimpse the storms in heaven. We will make a swidden out of you yet. Once we have finished laying the groundwork for your vitiation, I will sanctify your cockling with an appropriate and fitting ranking. I dub my quim Apeslayer: violator of all who kneel before my bilious heat. Fie, swoon and tremble before my blessed chalice, sate yourself on the quiniferous piquancy of my urticating clunge.

  Do you know Julius Leblanc Stewarts’ work? Nymphs Hunting? Our pairing brings it to life. Familiarize yourself with its sick-making majesty. I will brook no clanking irons. Does it bring you shame or pride that you fuck for profit? You are a grotty, foul, lob-sided cock-disaster who can’t make up his mind about which hole you want to screw any more than you can decide which gets you hotter, the possibility that I might have an Ohrai or a Mark Harrison in th
e wings, hidden from Goldie’s view. Poor, lamentable art lover, born too late to get in on the ground floor of Guido Crepax’s reputation being pulled out of the rot-funk of the Italian gutter… You need me to derrick the vicissitudes of the art market so that I can maximize the length and breadth of your dollars like I maximize the length and breadth of your meat when I guide you inside me. I own you, therefore I can unmake you. You will need a shuftiscope when I am done with you, worm—skinfuls of foof,

  –Glitz Cunt

  To T.G.R., of Toronto

  Tabby,

  I read your letter with anticipation in the stockroom at work. I was already hard before my fingers found their way around my member. I frigged myself quickly and wiped myself on your letter before licking it dry. Your mention of Crepax occasioned my memory on the pages I had let slip all these years—Sterankos, Bodēs, Morrows. Why must you demean me so? Have I not been a percipient if tolerable servitor? What can I do to prove the fealty I swear unto you and your crimson cathedral of smut, bunt and disease? I could write a vexillology of your red minge and the congregants who advance behind it. The mild fragrance of sweat admixing with the sour sluices of your asshole awaken a dormant pathology inside me, the shit-stink of your soul are like embers that make your twat bawl out “Decretals of Minge!” in farting whimpers.

  My waking reveries of your sour stockinged feet pressed against my nose while I nibble on the flaking skin of your heels prevents me from coordinating the movement of my legs when I am returning from the bar. Just the other night I sat drunk, transfixed on another woman’s legs who reminded me of yours—they had the same bandiness, I swear I could perceive the same sweat stink of your armpits and the same contumelious smirk on your lips. I had a good frig with my thighs and had enough baby batter spilling down my ankles that I lost sense of myself and delighted in pouring my porter over my lap just so the barmaid could pat me down with her dirty dish rag.

  I made my way home in a skronking stupor, vomited in the stairwell, and began to unbutton my shirt and trousers so that I could feel something warm on my chest and groin. I could not manage much more than half my normal size (it looked like a pufterlooner) but I smeared some vomitus up myself all the same and began to see the emblazoned image of your red, inflamed bunghole in my mind’s eye, the raphe extending down your taint like Jacob’s Ladder. When I had recomposed myself, I made my way into my apartment and called you on the telephone. We discussed Hannes Bok and Rowena Morrill briefly, but ended our conversation abruptly because you were feeling poorly. I regained my composure shortly afterwards and fell asleep while Charlie Bubbles was playing on the television.

  –The Welland Canal

  Insufflation Takes Two

  To Serge Mayacou, of Hamilton

  Serge,

  I have not heard from you for several weeks now; a third letter going unanswered is bordering on incivility, but I think I catch your meaning. I could forgive your remissness if I did not suspect an ulterior motive. Did I frighten you? I warned you that my sex was not for the meek and faint-hearted. Did the insufflation of your nethers break you? Did you not like the feeling of being entered and roiled from within? Did the mere sight of blood make the measure of a man burrow up inside you?

  You’ll have no bitter tears from I, worm-feeding cock-spastic. Never set foot in my place of business then; never write me, never phone me. I hope your van Dongen turns out to be a fake—knowing Goldie, the truth isn’t that far off. No one will deign engage you in transactions—your collecting days are finished. You’ll bear the mark of a welch in our circle, which I can assure you, is as broad as my mouth. Good luck ever getting into the pants of anyone else who knows who Bernard Sachs is. I hope you get gonorrhea in your throat and crust scabies in your taint, you hypospadic pup. Your necessaries smell like a leper colony. You were pissed up against a wall and hatched in the sun!

  It’s a cock sweetie, not a crumpled bill you’re trying to squeeze into a vending slot. Fuck off and die you grostulating, rent-a-cock choirboy! The Glitz Cunt is dead!

  To T.G.R., of Toronto

  Tabitha,

  I know full well that I am the last person you expected to hear from again, but I can only hope that if you are still reading these words, a morbid curiosity will give you the inclination to understand what I have to say.

  Let me start by saying that I cannot apologize enough for my determined efforts to ignore you: yes, as I’m sure it will come as no surprise, I admit it freely. I was compelled to sever our relationship, such as I believe it was fast becoming, from outside influences I felt forced to succumb to. I will spare no detail, because I believe that an orderly mind still counts for something in these days of ease.

  A few days after our last telephone conversation, I received a summons to Goldie’s Treffan Court offices. He refused to elaborate on the nature of the visit, save to say that it would concern a matter of “renewable interest.” I was met immediately by Goldie and two individuals approximately in their forties bearing the waxen demeanours of mortuary attendants. I believe you will know them to be Ms. Runthenthorpe and Mr. Freleng, celebrated art-scoundrel muckety-mucks and long-time associates of Goldie. They had a proposition for me, which piqued my interest, knowing their reputation for implacable, purposeful acquisition.

  Runthenthorpe had gathered that I was making moves to acquire several Murphy Anderson pieces as privately as possible and almost always through direct sales. Freleng, similarly, had become aware of the growing Howard Sherman collection I was amassing. This unsettled me to no end as I had taken considerable steps to remain anonymous and to never discuss the pieces publicly unless someone demonstrated the velleity to relinquish a piece. The more publicity these transactions had, the better chance potterers would come hunting for the sake of the muck and unsettle my own motivations of unspoiled, artistic contemplation, as we have discussed in days of yore.

  Goldie and co. asked me in no uncertain terms if I would be willing to place bets at a coming auction they were holding. I professed that I did not quite grasp their meaning. Freleng and Runthenthorpe were in the process of downsizing their respective collections and were feeling anxious that they would not recoup their original expenditure, or that their pieces would not fetch the prices that in their estimation the broader marketplace could secure. It dawned on me that they were asking me to engage in shill bidding. I did not make any moral calculations on this front, but briefly considered the repercussions if caught. Goldie assured me that the only people who knew of the arrangement were present in the room, and that it had been the first time that any of them had attempted anything of the sort. A “chanson des mouches,” Goldie had called it. He opined that though ants and bees were like communists, flies comprehended private enterprise consummately.

  Before I could ask what would motivate me to assume the risk, Freleng and Runthenthorpe produced Anderson and Sherman originals from their respective collections. I was besotted with the Sherman in particular because I had assumed the majority of these pages had been destroyed at the production level long ago. Goldie assured me I could have one artwork on the spot, and the other at the end of the auction. If things went according to plan, they envisioned a time when I could call on them to perform the same service, ensuring a provident future. We shook on the agreement cordially, and then Runthenthorpe and Freleng took their leave of us, placing the Sherman on the escritoire by the entrance door for me to wrap up.

  When we were alone, Goldie took the Sherman in his hands to appraise the detail with the assistance of a magnifying glass before asking me how I knew about the van Dongen. I feigned ignorance as to his meaning, for he still did not suspect the nature under which I acquired it. I don’t need to tell you that van Dongen’s work experienced a significant uptick in the months since Goldie off-loaded the page, essentially tripling in value virtually overnight. Goldie harboured some ill will on this front, but was more impressed than anything by my talents for prognostication. I attempted to disabuse him of this opinion, but he w
as fixated, especially since my artistic interests overlapped with those of Runthenthorpe and Freleng.

  The matter was settled that he wanted me as a junior buyer and assistant. The suggestion was both attractive and dismaying—this was essentially the position you held with him. I balked at the offer as graciously as I could. He would not take “no” for an answer, however. He didn’t care if I had heard of the Kupferstichkabinett or not; merely that I had produced results. He laid out exciting terms for my employment, but insisted that my focus could never attenuate or he would seek a replacement (a credo, as I would learn, he had lived by for years). Goldie found your focus recently to be lacking, and your oversight concerning the van Dongen was uncommonly galling to him. Of course, I am to be held accountable for the so-called lapses in your discernment.

  It was inside the probable that your professional relationship with Goldie was now at an end. My intent was to continue seeing you and to work for Goldie, maximizing my wits and connections to more than make up for what had befallen you by my hand. It was my hope to buy you an original Pennington as a preliminary token of contrition. Your first letter had arrived asking why I had not responded to you, and though I drafted a version of the letter you now hold in your hands, I lost my nerve to send it. Goldie’s disobliging work expectations occupied the best of me for a few days, and by then it was too late, for your last letter had arrived on my doorstep making the decision easy for me. I was soon filled with tremendous sorrow and regret—you seemed perfectly adamant (and within your right) to feel this way, and it did not appear to me becoming to pursue your attentions further. I did not always keep to this resolve, finding myself on more than one occasion on the corner of your street watching outside your window for signs of suitors, or making cursory enquiries with your associates where you landed after Goldie sacked you.