The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

  We settled at three eighty-five. That kind of money wasn’t going to make any headlines, but bear in mind that not too long ago the drawings had been bound for the landfill. The pleasure I took in watching Hollister sign the check was secondary to the godlike thrill of making something from nothing, cash from trash, creation ex nihilo.

  After the deal was done I detected a change in Hollister’s attitude, a surge of confidence. Now that he owned, he knew how to act. Men like him believe that nothing is beyond their grasp—be that thing a piece of land, a piece of art, a brand of savvy, a person. Once they’ve paid and order is restored, they can go back to being masters of the universe. It’s a metamorphosis I recognized from years of dealing with my father.

  I RETURNED TO THE GALLERY that afternoon elated by the deal but depressed about the prospect of losing my art. Mine, and I didn’t feel ashamed to say so.

  When a show goes well, or I make an unusually handsome sale, I will send my assistants home, close the gallery, and invite the artist over to commune with the object we have created together. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a sentimental ritual. But no one has ever told me he didn’t want to do it. Anyone so jaded that he fails to experience a sense of loss— that person, to me, can neither see art nor experience its transcendency. I don’t want to represent him.

  Without Victor Cracke, I stood alone in the vast white space, watching the pages of the drawings billow gently. I took off my shirt, bundled it behind my head, and laid down on the floor in front of the nearest canvas, feeling like a child confronting the ocean for the first time, overcome by its vastness and its melancholy.

  I LIKE TO ORGANIZE MY LIFE in five-year fragments, give or take. My mother died when I was five. When I turned eleven my father, tired of listening to me, sent me off to boarding school. Then came about five years of getting kicked out of various educational institutions across the globe. Let me see if I can remember the correct order: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Brussels, Florida, Connecticut again, Berlin, Vermont, and Oregon. By the time I got back to New York I knew how to say dime bag and blow-jobin several dialects of American English, as well as Turkish, German, French, and Russian.

  When I turned sixteen, a despairing Tony Wexler—he, rather than my father, had been the one managing my woes—phoned my half-sister, Amelia, and begged her to put me up for a while.

  Amelia and I had never been close. She lives in London, where she has been since her mother and my father divorced in 1957; that also gives you an idea of the generation gap separating us. I saw her once in a very rare while—at my own mother’s funeral, for instance. Certainly I had done little to endear myself to her. I regarded all three of my half-siblings not as peers but shadowy semiparental figures not to be trusted. My half-brothers, who I saw a least a few times a month, are brownnosers extraordinaire, and at the time I had no reason to believe that Amelia would be any different. I set out for London with a hard, hard heart.

  To everyone’s astonishment—not least my own—I thrived. The wetness of English weather aligned with my adolescent sense of impending doom, and the dryness of English humor made more sense to me than the rampant goofiness of American pop culture. At school I managed not to get expelled, and with private tutoring I managed to graduate. I made some of my best friends during those years, friends I still keep in touch with and see whenever I travel abroad for work—which I do more often than I need to, just to catch up. In certain ways I feel like my real life is still over there.

  It was Amelia who first stoked my interest in art. Her husband is a lord, and while he spends his time drafting legislation in defense of fox hunting, she spends his money in support of radical aesthetics. During my time abroad she took me to openings and parties at the Tate; I was the charming younger brother, the tousle-haired, devil-may-care Yank. I loved the pageantry, the snobbery, the love and loathing that infused every conversation. People cared—or seemed to, anyway, which is what mattered to me at that age. After living with my father, legendary for his stoniness, my time in London felt like a beautiful, melodramatic dream.

  Amelia taught me how to see not through my eyes but through the eyes of the artist, how to accept a piece on its own terms, a skill that enabled me both to understand contemporary art and to explain it to others. With her guidance I used my own savings—money that accrued to me from my mother’s bequest when I turned eighteen—to buy my first piece, a Cy Twombly drawing that I took with me when I returned to the United States to attend Harvard, where I lived in a dormitory that had been occupied by my half-brothers and my father and my grandfather and great-uncles before me, and that made people laugh when they learned my name. You live in Muller Hall?

  Without Amelia standing guard, I slipped back into my old ways. My next five-year period consisted of me drinking vodka, breathing cocaine, having sex, taking enforced “time off,” and flunking out.

  You have no idea how difficult it is to flunk out of Harvard. They will do anything to rid themselves of the stink of failure. I finally succeeded by getting into a brawl with one of my professors in the middle of a seminar room, whom I drunkenly—but correctly, mind you—declared a “knownothing yeast infection.” Even then, I had to throw the first punch.

  After retrieving me from Cambridge, Tony Wexler sat me down and told me that unless I got a job I would be cut off.

  It obviously hurt him to have to threaten me, and though we both knew that he wasn’t giving the orders, I despised him for carrying them out. I used my last thousand dollars to get on the next flight to London, where I showed up at Amelia’s door, virtually flammable from the countless Tanqueray-and-tonics I’d ingested on the way over.

  She took me right in. She never asked how long I planned on staying, never asked what had happened. She fed me and let me sleep and never judged me, perhaps knowing that I would come to judge myself harshest of all.

  With nothing to do except sit in the garden and read, I began to understand what a mess I’d made of my life, a realization that left me sad and lonely but most of all angry. I remember sitting on a bench at the end of the arbor, listening to the birds and feeling jittery after two days without a drink or drugs. I got up and went to the cabinet where Amelia’s husband kept his single malts, fully expecting it to be locked. Tony had probably called ahead and told her to clear out the cupboards. I resented her in advance for pretending to like me, for being no better than the rest of them, just another one of my father’s minions.

  The cabinet was open. Burning with shame, I closed it and slunk from the room.

  The breaking point came a few days later, when Amelia asked in passing what had become of my Twombly, the one we’d bought together and that I’d loved.

  Only then did I realize that I’d left it at Harvard. My departure had been so abrupt, so hazy, so filled with lawyers and ultimatums, that I’d forgotten to take it. As far as I knew it was still there.

  I called up a friend from the Fly and asked him to go over my room. The Twombly hung above my bed, where it attracted the immediate attention of everyone who entered. Those in the know—art history concentrators, always, and mostly girls—tended to assume, until corrected, that I had picked it up at the Fogg’s semesterly Print Rental, where even the hardest-up scholarship cases can plunk down thirty bucks to own a Jasper Johns for two semesters. When I told them that no, in fact, the drawing was mine and all mine, they tended, these art-history-concentrating girls, to sleep with me. I loved my chosen major for many reasons.

  At any rate, my friend called back to say that as far as he could tell, the Twombly, like everything else I had abandoned, had been carted away with the trash.

  That killed me. For the first time since losing my mother, I cried. Amelia’s husband, unequipped to deal with such a wanton display of self-pity, avoided me for days. Amelia brought me tea and held my hand, and gradually it dawned on me that the real tragedy was not the loss of my drawing but the fact that I couldn’t muster tears for anything save a piece of paper.

&nb
sp; To this day I have no desire to drink. All the black thoughts and bitterness that fueled my self-destruction have been channeled into two new areas of expertise: art and hatred of my father. Fair or not, we all have our outlets.

  With Amelia’s help I got a job at a gallery in London, and when I decided to go back to the States, she called her friend Leonora Waite, who ran a gallery on the fourth floor of 567 West Twenty-fifth Street.

  Leonora and I hit it off famously. A lusty, chain-smoking lesbian from the Bronx, she leaned toward feminist art, pulp novels, and slasher flicks. She laughed big, threw incredible parties, and hated Marilyn Wooten with a passion, threatening to fire me when Marilyn and I started dating.

  She didn’t. Instead, she sold me her space at a shamefully low price when she retired after September 11. Six months later she died, and I had the sign out front changed to MULLER GALLERY. In her honor, my first show consisted of new works by the Lilit Collective, a self-sustaining artistic community in rural Connecticut whose cofounder, Kristjana Hallbjörnsdottir, would soon become my artist.

  AS I LAY ON THE GALLERY FLOOR, contemplating the long, strange road I had taken, I felt at peace. Victor Cracke represented my first big-boy step as a dealer. With the exception of Kristjana, I inherited my entire client list from Leonora, and in the minds of many, the Muller Gallery had failed to distinguish itself from its predecessor. As much as I appreciated Leonora’s taste, I had long wanted to make my mark felt, to find an artist I loved and make him a star. Victor gave me that chance, and I had not let him down.

  “Thank you,” I said to the drawings.

  They waved like seaweed.

  If I’d known what was about to happen, I would have got up and preemptively disconnected the phone. Or perhaps I would have leapt up to answer. That depends on whether you consider what followed good or bad.

  Either way: the next part of the story begins with a ringing phone. This is a detective novel, remember?

  THE MACHINE PICKED UP. A soft, tired voice, said,

  “Mr. Muller, my name is Lee McGrath. I read the article and I’m interested in learning some more about the artist Victor Cracke. Would you mind please giving me a buzz?” He left a number with a 718 area code.

  That night I went home without returning his call, and when I came in the next morning there was another message.

  “Hi Mr. Muller, Lee McGrath. Sorry to bother you again. Please, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate hearing from you.”

  I dialed his number and introduced myself.

  “Hi,” he said. “Thanks for calling me back.”

  “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “I was reading the paper and I came across the article about this person, Victor Cracke, the artist. Sounds like some story.”

  “It is.”

  “Yes, a really interesting story. Do you mind if I ask how you came across him and the drawings? Because I’d like to learn some more about him.”

  Obviously, McGrath hadn’t read the article too carefully; the reporter had clearly stated that I’d never met Cracke. At the end of the piece they’d printed my phone number and a request for any further information.

  I said as much to McGrath, who said, “Hm.”

  At that point, a lot of people would have made an excuse to get off the phone. Many dealers decide within seconds of meeting you whether you’re worth a conversation. In my experience, though, restraint pays. I once had a dowdy-looking couple (Mervyns print pants, Hush Puppies) walk in, stroll around for ten minutes, ask a couple of benign questions, and walk out. Two weeks later they called me from Lincoln, Nebraska, and bought seven paintings at a hundred twenty thousand dollars apiece, followed by another half million dollars’ worth of sculpture.

  So I try to be patient, even if it means answering redundant questions and waiting for an old man—I’d decided, for no particular reason, that McGrath was old—to formulate his thoughts. If he cared enough to call me about a photo in the paper, he might be the kind of person I could sell to in the future.

  He said, “I understand that there were a lot of those drawings, not just the one they reprinted in the paper.”

  Again, a detail the reporter had noted. “There are lots more.”

  “How did they choose which one to reprint?”

  I explained about the numbering system.

  “Really,” he said. “That’s panel number one?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t say… I’d really like to see that one for myself. Is that possible?”

  “You’re welcome to come down anytime you like. We’re open Tuesday through Saturday, ten to six. Where are you coming from?”

  He chuckled, which turned into a cough. “I can’t drive anymore. I don’t leave the house too much. I was hoping I might be able to convince you to make a house call.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I don’t think that’s possible. I can e-mail you pictures of the work. Although I should let you know that the piece you saw in the paper has been sold.”

  “Well, geez. Too bad for me. If you don’t mind, though, I’d still like to find out about Mr. Cracke. Any chance you would like to come by for a bit, just to chat?”

  I began to tap my fingers against the desk. “I wish I had more to tell you, but—”

  “What about these, eh”—I heard the sound of a newspaper being lifted—“journals. The journals he kept. Are those sold, too?”

  “Not yet. I’ve had several offers.” Not completely true. Some collectors had admired the journals, but nobody had put a price on them yet. People wanted objects readily displayed on a wall, not a dense, tedious text.

  “Do you think I could see them?”

  “If you come to the gallery, I’d be happy to show you,” I said. “Right now I’m afraid I can’t transport them anywhere. They’re falling apart as it is.”

  “This isn’t my lucky day, huh.”

  “I’m truly sorry,” I said. “Please let me know if there’s another way I can accommodate you.” Something about McGrath’s folksiness made me want to be as formal as possible. “Was there something else I could help you with?”

  “Probably not, Mr. Muller. But I have to take a chance and ask you one more time if you’d consider taking a trip out to see me. It’d mean a lot to me. I’m close by.”

  Without realizing what I was doing, I said, “Where.”

  “Breezy Point. You know where that is?”

  I didn’t.

  “Rockaways. You take the Belt. You know how to get to the Belt?”

  “Mr. McGrath. I didn’t agree to come.”

  “Oh. I thought you had.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh. Well, okay then.”

  There was a pause. I started to say, “Thanks for calling” but he said, “Don’t you want to know what this is about?”

  I sighed. “Okay.”

  “It’s about the picture in the paper. The one of the boy.”

  I realized he meant the Cherub in the Times. “What about him.”

  “I know him,” said McGrath. “I know who he is. I recognized him straightaway. His name was Eddie Cardinale. Forty years ago someone strangled him to death, but we never found out who.” He coughed. “Can I give you directions or do you know how to get to the Belt?”

  • 6 •

  Although technically part of Queens, the long, flat Rockaway peninsula juts beneath Brooklyn’s potbelly, like the concealed feet of a perching waterfowl. To get there you drive through Jacob Riis Park, a marshy preserve more Chesapeake Bay than New York City. Turning northeast takes you to JFK and some of the most ghettoized areas in the Five Boroughs, neighborhoods you’d never think of as dangerous, simply because they abut the beach. How can the beach be dangerous? Go to the Rockaways and you’ll get your answer.

  Breezy Point Cooperative sits at the other end of the peninsula, in every sense of the phrase. Nonwhite faces become less common as you head southwest, as does traffic, which thins out as you approach the parking lot. I
pulled up in a cab around three. Just outside the entrance to the community was a pub that had drawn a decent crowd. The driver bobbed his head noncommittally when I asked him to wait, or to come back in an hour. As soon as I paid him, he sped away.

  I entered a warren of low-slung bungalows and Cape Codders and right away felt the eponymous breeze: cool and briny, whipping up grit from the beach a hundred yards away. My loafers filled with sand as I walked the alleyways, past houses done up with nautical themes: lifesavers and signs carved from weather-beaten teak: JIM’S CLIPPER or THE GOOD SHIP HAL-LORAN. Irish tricolors abounded.

  Later I learned that most of the homeowners are summerfolk who flee after Labor Day. But in mid-August they were still out in droves: out on their cramped porches or down by the boardwalk, sweating and crushing cans of Budweiser and watching towheaded skateboarders dive-bomb the pavement. Charcoal smoke turned the air heavy. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, and nobody knew me. Kids playing basketball on a low hoop with a water-filled base stopped their game and gathered to stare at me, like I had a big scarlet letter on my chest. N, perhaps, for Not Local.

  I got lost looking for McGrath’s house, ending up on the beach beside a memorial to local firefighters killed at the World Trade Center. I shook out my shoes.

  “Lost?”

  I turned and saw a girl of about nine in denim shorts over a bathing suit.

  “I’m looking for Lee McGrath.”

  “You mean the professor.”

  I said, “If you say so.”

  She hooked a finger and went back into the maze. I tried to keep track of her turns but gave up and let myself be led to a shack with a well-kept front yard, peonies and pansies and a lawn cut golf-course close, good enough to make the cover of Martha Stewart Living. A hammock with a lumpy pillow hung at the far end of the porch, and behind it an old Coca-Cola sign leaned against the wooden siding. The mailbox out front read MCGRATH; underneath, an NYPD decal. In the front window was a sun-bleached poster of the Twin Towers, an eagle, and an American flag.