by Peter Heller
She smelled of perfume, a little loud. I thought how hard it is to play a role, any role. Sometimes it took half our lives to get it half right. I looked at her, I looked at the camera and stretched a grim smile. Probably looked like a hyena. How I felt.
I dug in my coat and took out the foil pack, a lighter, and lit a cheroot. I offered her one. Wave of hand. I smoked. Whoa that felt good. I scratched my chin under my beard. The print reporters gathered tightly around just off screen, held up their little recorders.
“Yes,” I said. She nodded. She hesitated. She smiled. It was not a fake smile, it was real, a little too vulnerable, and I thought, Get out of this business.
“My father used to take me fishing on the Animas when I was little. We used worms.” She wrinkled up her nose.
I stared at her through the smoke. Suddenly I could see it, her and her father—who was heavy but agile and wore an oversize t-shirt that didn’t hide the tribal ink running down his arms—I could see them stepping down the bank with a bucket, throwing out bobbers. The image paralyzed me.
“You look shocked,” she said. “Are you okay?”
I shook myself. How long had I been staring at her with maybe my mouth hanging open? I took a long draw and let out a cloud of smoke to cover for a sec while I got my wits back. I had seen a stark image of this woman as a girl stepping into the water, the covered stones, holding her rod high, following her father. Stark because there was nothing else in the world but the swift dark current and the two of them.
“I—I—”
I was speaking, but no words came. She glanced down at the folded paper. She looked a little bewildered. She said quickly, “You have been through a rough time these last few weeks, these last few years. I know what an escape fishing can be. Painting must be that way, too. Has it been extra stressful?”
I didn’t answer. The camera was on me and she was reading straight off the paper.
“Your work in the last month is extraordinary. Prolific, and disturbing, and in some ways different than anything you have painted before. It seems to be getting some in the art world excited. Can you say that these allegations of murder have inspired you in some way?”
The image of her as a young daughter fishing was gone. She was very thin and tall for a Navajo. She probably wasn’t. Everybody down here was mestizo in one way or another. She was probably Chicana and Ute or something. The Ute were up by the Animas. Suddenly I didn’t feel charitable anymore. Her eyeliner was too heavy. I thought: TV will make you cruel and it will ice the humanity inside you, and you will grow into something your father won’t recognize, and all this will happen because you chose it.
I felt mean.
I dropped the cheroot. I grunted something that came out as a roar, I guess, because all of them flinched back, and I turned and fled through the big hotel door and almost fell inward as the doorman pulled it open and I nearly ran across the smoothly tiled lobby. I had the impression that everyone there was watching me as I went. The rapt focus of fans at a sporting event.
I couldn’t find my card key and I pounded on the door and Sofia let me in. She had paint smudged on her face and in her hair and her arms were open.
The painting she made me was the first one she’d made in three years. She called it Backstroke. She was excited and proud. It was a bearded man swimming lazily on his back in an ocean devoid of women or drama. Sitting on his belly was a family of four otters, all smiling the way otters smile. It was very good. Clean and full of humor and life.
The morning TV magazine story ran three days later, a full fifteen minutes. 9News wanted to be the first, and they put the pedal to the metal. How did they pull this shit off so fast? There was a brief bio, a sort of photo album collage of me surfing as a grom (tyke surfer); Pop’s death in news clippings; me with my buddy Jan looking handsome and disturbed as a junior in the yearbook, unkempt dark hair blowing, blue t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder, the expression far off, like trying to focus on a bird who is moving into a greater distance; running away to sister in Santa Rosa; the San Francisco MOMA where I went one day to stay away from the neighborhood cops after a fight, seeing Winslow Homer and Van Gogh and Matisse for the first time; the fascination then passion, art supplies, enrolling in the SF Art Institute; a photo of the painting that won the jury prize at the spring contest; Taos; me and my truck, me with fishing rod, me and Cristine and Alce, me at easel in studio, everything you’d expect, most of it out of the book Steve had commissioned, then: news flash, famous painter shoots bar patron! TV news now, shots of Santa Fe State, me in orange jumpsuit smiling, my release, growing fame, slew of paintings, their images, what a couple of critics said, the book about me, the exhibits, then: the radio interview in which I crush the interviewer’s hand. Gone viral. An artist who spoke for the working classes, a loose cannon, a big, passionate, physical man. Then: death of famous painter’s daughter, mug shots, TV news now of an ambulance, a gurney, I turned away. Divorce, gambling. Second marriage, Maggie as a pinup with bunny tail, Paonia, a current shot of my house—that made me sit up—they were trespassing clearly, then: news flash: murder on the Sulphur.
And then it slowed down and Cindy De Baca began to narrate the chain of events, the cracking of a poaching ring by the Feds, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the brothers, their dovetailed operation between Colorado and Arizona, documented cases of horse abuse, animal deaths, ASPCA allegations, the fight between me and Dellwood, the little horse. Then: death of Dellwood. The old brawler-artist the local fishermen call Hemingway is a person of interest. A barn burning, an interview with Willy who clearly did not want to talk but wanted to set the record straight. Then: an ambush, shots through the window of Santa Fe society family, my biggest collector, suspect brother Grant, then murder of Grant. Is Jim Stegner the Vigilante Artist? Did he see himself as the Eliminator of Bad Men? That was the question. And: In a twist that could only occur in a volatile art world, Stegner’s recent paintings are in such high demand they are going for double what his work previously commanded. And requests for shows are increasing. In the last week, the Harwood Museum in Taos has … We may ask ourselves: should allegations of murder dramatically increase an artist’s stock? Then Wheezy chiming: There are, as of now, no allegations. De Baca: What? A shot of her shoving her mic into Wheezy’s face And now we ask Detective John Hinchman, Santa Fe PD homicide and lead investigator on the Grant Siminoe murder case: Why isn’t Jim Stegner a suspect? Wheezy finishing a paper cup of coffee just like a screen detective, grinning heartily into the camera: Because, Cindy, he is not a suspect! Tight on her face, her look of moral shock. Okay, now I officially did not like her. Wheezy again: And by the way, Cindy, the death of Grant Siminoe has not been classified as a murder. Forgiving chuckle. De Baca: What! A man is shot in the head and his truck and his body crashed into a gully in the middle of the night? Perfectly pitched incredulity backed by the common sense of all New Mexican viewers. Why? Why?? Wheezy, grinning, patient didact: Well, in this business we call them extenuating circumstances.
Then a survey of my paintings since the first murder. The dates of the killings, and other seminal events like the arson, flashed at the bottom of the screen while the paintings that were finished at about the same time revolved across the top.
I couldn’t stop watching. It was completely compelling. The Albuquerque station was clearly gunning for an Emmy. Sofia sat beside me on the plush couch with her mouth half open, speechless. It struck me how riveting the story, how maudlin: that she was dumbstruck. An event as rare as a full solar eclipse.
The centerpiece of the whole story was the interview just outside the hotel, if you could call it an interview. Given that I’d said two words it was surprisingly impressive. I mean it made an impression. It confirmed everything the story had been building to—a grand insinuation, pretty much case closed, that murder finds a man, especially a rugged artist-vigilante, reticent and mercurial, and lights a great fire under his art, and his art, well, is pretty much genius. BUT—it cannot and
never will justify breaking the law—AND CERTAINLY NOT MURDER! NOT EVER! That seemed to be the takeaway. I found the remote on the floor and flicked off the tube. Sofia turned to me.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, right?”
“We’re gonna have to get you better sunglasses, Jim. Wraparounds. Or maybe just a full burka.”
“Huh.” I was just sort of staring at the black flat screen that mirrored the light from the windows, staring at it as if it were a quiet pool that mirrored the morning and had just revealed the flash of like a three foot trout.
“Maggie was really pretty. So was Cristine. Makes me feel a little insecure, to tell you the truth.”
“Huh.”
“Jim!”
“Wha?”
“Snap out of it! Say something. Jesus. That was crazy.”
“It was crazy.”
I thought: It was. For one, to see your life wrapped up in a quarter of an hour. It was like going to your own funeral. Was that me? Nah. No way. For two, was I such a crazy bastard? Had I been that impulsive and violent my whole life? I felt so gentle most of the time. I really did. I swear.
The room phone rang. It would be Steve. Steve wondering why my cell phone was probably buried under trash in my truck. He had, remarkably, stayed out of the program, except a shot of him in pressed jeans and pink oxford waving like a beauty queen and disappearing into his office, the door closing. I was amazed. Uncharacteristic discipline for him. How could he resist? He’d been smart enough to know that the skyrocketing value of my work did not need his interpretation, that in this case discretion and modesty for once contributed to the mystique. They perpetuated the narrative of the outsider artist suddenly besieged by a fascinated popular culture and resisting it with all his might. Playing hard to get. His dealer, too. The mainstream seemed to love that: something authentic for once! Something that didn’t cave and crave at the first glare of regional television. The public treasured their Joe DiMaggios, their J. D. Salingers. I didn’t answer the phone, I couldn’t do that right now. Steve would be needing to crow. To somebody. My dramatic emergence from the sticks was thrusting him into the spotlight and it might make him a rich man. I mean, I was already a well known artist, but this was different. When Sofia went for the phone I stopped her.
She was in the middle of the big plush carpeted room. She seemed a little stunned herself. She stood there.
“I know,” I said. “Getting drunk is looking pretty good.”
She blinked. Then that impish smile crept across her face. She folded her fingers around the bottom of her shirt and lifted it off. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her wonderful breasts lifted as her arms went over her head, then they fell and buoyed like launching boats finding their float. I laughed. She had a way of cutting not to the quick but to my joy. Maybe it’s the same thing.
“You wanna get distracted you crazy vigilante?”
I shook my head.
“Not in the mood?”
Shook my head.
“Let’s go get some breakfast,” I said. I was shaking all over. “Let’s walk over to the plaza and have café con leche and eat huevos rancheros and pretend.”
“Pretend what?”
“That life is simple. That we can do what we want.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Pantelas were used to throwing big parties, but this took the cake. Cars were parked all the way down the driveway in the pines and out to the gravel road where they lined both sides. Couples in engraved cowboy boots that weren’t meant for walking held each other’s hands and tottled up the hill. We drove with Steve who promised to leave when we did, who slowed his Range Rover and opened his window and waved and made passing comments to everyone as we passed. This was his moment.
The pueblo house was built for autumn. Around the carved front entrance and all along the ledges at the tops of the stick ladders were bundles of Indian corn and strings of crimson chilies and piles of flame colored squash. My hand itched to paint it. Everything except the security guy on the main roof in fatigues, a shooter with an M4 assault rifle. There would be others, no doubt, keeping a perimeter, and probably some in plainclothes inside. That Pim had planned the party at all, so soon after the shooting; that he had let the target—me—anywhere near his kids again. But that was Pim: it was his way of saying: We don’t let the bad guys rain on our parade. We don’t let them win. For a moment, as the three of us were about to step inside, I wondered if he would be furious at me for putting his children in danger, ever, and I realized in the same moment that this was his way of forgiving me.
Leave it to Steve to time our entrance. We were an hour late. We came through the door past two more uniformed security men who checked our invites, and the crowd parted and something like a guffaw of pleasure and fascination billowed out of it, a little like a gust whomping the alders. Or the loud gasp at a hanging. I scared most of them I was sure, and the paintings inspired love, and I was a genius and under investigation for two murders and I was the dark celebrity of the hour, and here was the beautiful young lover-model we have all been reading about and and and. The mixture was high octane. The sea of admirers parted in a crush. Drinks were spilled.
The painting, under a drop cloth, was at the other end of the red carpet that was not red but blue, another Central Asian runner, maybe Kirghiz, woven with geometric green birds. The painting was on one of my easels against the big windows with the big view of the valley and the wooded ridges, and the light was already going graciously to dusk so as not to backlight the canvas.
A tray passed, balanced by a waiter, Knob Creek bourbon and water—my favorite, how did they know?—the bottle on the tray, and I took one without thinking and downed half the glass before I realized that I’d just thrown away almost three years of sobriety, every day hard earned as a day at the mills. I mean if you are into counting days and years. It was a moment of horror. Does that count? One slug? Yes.
Suddenly I felt I was in a nightmare. Did I just do that? Holy shit. The full impact hitting me at the same time as the sweet warm unutterably delicious booze, hitting my gut and then my blood and brain like the all smothering and transporting kiss of an old and favorite lover. Oh Jesus. In a panic I grabbed Sofia by the arm, hard.
“What?” she whispered.
“Don’t let me do that again. I mean it.”
“What?”
“I just tossed back a whiskey, oh fuck.”
I felt something like panic zing through her. We had talked about my fitful dance with booze, how nothing good could happen for me when I drank.
She reached for my hand. “You’re okay, it was a mistake. Reflex. You didn’t even know. Don’t worry.” She squeezed. “Really. Forget it.”
I glanced at her. She was smiling. Okay. I shuddered. Somehow I believed her.
Pim made a toast. He stood by the easel, held out his cut glass tumbler, someone else rapped the crystal of a wineglass with a spoon. He wore an alpaca vest with silver buttons, jeans. Ruddy tan, salt and pepper full hair, boyish, bushy eyebrows, hunter’s clear gray eyes and the lined drawn cheeks of an endurance athlete. Easy in a crowd. Could it be that most of the people who loved him also envied him so much they hated him? I thought probably so. Maybe my biggest collector.
“Some of you have champagne? Good. Good for a toast. I can’t drink it, it makes me giddy and I’m giddy enough already.”
Murmur of laughter.
“Julia, are you—? Ah, here.”
She appeared by his side, raised a glass of white wine to the crowd, smiled—Here I am, you knew I’d be here, I’m always a little late, aren’t I? I love you all and you love me always anyway. What her smile said. It struck me that Pim was running for something, for office. Julia, too. What was it? King and Queen of Santa Fe? Art Mavens of the American Southwest? And my paintings, one after another, my paintings in their aggregate were crucial to their winning. With my sudden fame their accession was a lock. This was a coronation as well as an unveiling. That was suddenly clear
to me. The sense of nightmare was morphing into another kind of dream, something compounded of dread and excitement.
What I mean is: you get this pressure, this internal pressure that builds like a swelling lake and you paint. It’s all you want to do, all you know how to do. And if you focus in the right way, a way you had to learn, you let yourself go. You lose yourself and just about vanish and the painting asserts and fills and flows over the dam and down into the streambed of everything you have ever experienced and thought, and carries you both on a current that takes you into a country that neither of you have ever seen. Where you have never been.
And then what? You go through this journey of losing everything, this vertiginous process and create this somehow magical thing and you wake up and remember your name and dip your small brush and sign it, which is odd when you think about how you got there, and then maybe you have a dealer and a way to make a living doing it again and again, and the dealer sells it to Pim, and he displays it and maybe loves it, but is not at all equivocal about how it fits into the swelling pile of his net worth, nor into the marvelously growing balance of his prestige and status. And then you kill two men. And the rich get richer.
It’s kind of a long train of thought, but it all occurred to me in a flash as I saw the two of them half raise their glasses and as I listened to Pim launch into his toast. This is where the process ends, that’s what came to me with the whole, big, round, comprehensive knowledge of a dream. And spacetime rippled like a big sail losing then catching the wind. The way it does in a dream sometimes.