Fire Year

by Jason K. Friedman

  “Just give me your notes and I’ll rewrite my essay.” Jon reached up and grabbed hold of a few pages.

  “And here’s something else.” Adger wouldn’t let go of the pages, no matter how hard Jon tugged. “This part about the Ginevra de’ Benci? Let’s replace that with the Mona Lisa. Everyone knows the Mona Lisa.”

  “Uh, okay, but the Mona Lisa comes after the Ginevra. The Mona Lisa can’t be a forerunner to Angelo because it’s contemporary with his early stuff.”

  “Well, there’s a great connection between two great painters!”

  Jon smiled. His hand dropped. “Sure, Adger, I’ll work in the Mona Lisa somehow.”

  Again and again light flooded the foyer of the Harrington, and when it was all over, several images of Adger Boatwright in the center of a kick line of Amazonian drag queens had presumably been captured for posterity. A photographer from Time had been dispatched to the opening of Drag Kings: Angelo Veneto and the Mystery of Gender to illustrate an upcoming cover story that was certain to incense much of its readership and make the Harrington Collection nationally famous.

  Jon stood watching over the photographer’s shoulder. He had stared into the paintings and when he looked up he saw this—a museum full of drag queens. It seemed, alarmingly, like cause and effect. Of course the opening was all Adger’s doing. The supposed countercultural phenomenon of drag kings may even have been his invention; drag queens were easy to mobilize but the drag kings he had managed to produce, three clear-skinned young women, had slicked-back hair and shoe-polish sideburns and minimal interest in sustaining a male persona, much less the illusion of being men. Jon was innocent of kings and queens, and the only time he ever glanced at a national newsmagazine was at his shrink’s office. He was responsible only for the show’s scholarship. In the end he’d omitted Madonna from the catalog essay, left out Calvin Klein, and Adger didn’t seem to notice or care, but still, why deny it, none of this would be happening if Jon hadn’t made his bold claim.

  Adger had arrived on the arm of one of the Ladies, and it didn’t matter that since then she had busied herself elsewhere in the museum, advising wannabes with checkbooks on how to become Ladies. To watch Adger making like a Rockette with towering transvestites was to see a man convinced of the inviolability of his closet. He seemed unaware that when the photograph appeared in Time, the pale chunky blond in the center would be universally assumed to be homosexual. He had become as secure as his old tormentors from Claxton High. This was a great event, and no one could possibly think anything funny was going on.

  Jon had one of those moments of wistful affection for his boss that punctuated his general exasperation with him. Ever since Adger had given the thumbs-up on the transvestite angle, these moments had become more frequent, starting to seem less like punctuation than like the relationship itself—dashes got longer, periods piled up and turned into ellipses, great gaps in which Jon felt Adger was actually a pretty decent guy. Once, Adger invited him into his office, something he’d never done, and the two of them sat together at Adger’s desk—a pecanwood door, supported by sawhorses, that had been rescued from the silkworm plantation and was believably charred at one end. Jon’s arm had rubbed against Adger’s, and Jon felt a rush of hot blood.

  Jon snapped out of it when the photographer asked everyone to form a conga line. Jon went to find Ali, who had gone to get drinks. The bar was on the other side of the crowded main gallery and Jon plunged in. Connoisseurs and critics turned away from the paintings and toward one another, pretending not to notice two CNN anchors, a man and a woman, who had shown up together—a double surprise, for nobody knew they were a couple, and they were dressed in black, a color they were contractually prohibited from wearing on air. Jon pressed through. Several drag queens had gone for a severe bohemian look and these had not been asked to pose for Time. They stood there exchanging furious barbs and didn’t notice Jon as he maneuvered past them. He ran into the museum director, who did not mar his perfect record of silence toward Jon but did nod at him, an acknowledgment of his existence and, Jon believed, his achievement.

  When Jon was near the bar one of the three Ladies standing in front of the Portrait of a Very Young Gentleman caught his eye and waved. He pointed to the bar but she gestured for him to come to her. The Ladies were dressed in taffeta ballgowns, in wraps and pearls and diamond tiaras. Wonderfully, the one who beckoned with a tan bony finger was wearing a crimson cape, a duplicate of the one worn by the catalog cover model, the gentleman in the red cape.

  “I told my husband, I said, ‘Honey, we’ve been duped!’” she was saying as Jon approached. She grabbed his arm and held him there. Kisses flew but the conversation continued.

  “And what’d he say?” another asked.

  “He said, if it’d make his hourly rate go up, he’d go drag too!”

  “I’d enjoy seeing your husband in a dress,” the third remarked.

  The second one seemed scandalized but the first, wife of the husband in question, did not. “Funny you should say that,” she said, “because I declare, I think he liked the idea of a woman dressed as a man.”

  “Honestly,” the second one said, “there’s nothing radical about a woman wearing pants. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

  “You mean in the paintings?” the third one asked.

  “It’s not the clothes per se,” the first lady explained, “it’s just that gals didn’t dress that way back then.”

  “These ones here could very well have been common whores,” the third one said.

  The second lady raised an eyebrow but the first chose to ignore this remark. “Do y’all know what I think about sometimes? There was no reason on God’s green earth why someone like Leonardo da Vinci couldn’t have painted two colored rectangles on canvas the way Mark Rothko did.”

  “He had the talent,” the second one confirmed.

  “Well, exactly,” the first one said. “But there was just something keeping him from doing that. Or what about painting a canvas black? Could Leonardo da Vinci have physically picked up his brush and painted a canvas solid black? I’m fascinated by that.”

  The third, taking her revenge on the first for letting the subject of whores drop, said, “For goodness’ sake, why don’t we ask Jon. I mean, he did go to Yale.” She turned to him. “What do you think, dear?”

  “Jonathan Weitz,” the first lady, undaunted, said, “you haven’t said a word to us all evening.”

  He smiled apologetically, then said, “I think I know what you mean—that whole narrative of quote-unquote progress in the history of painting is just so overdetermined.”

  The Ladies stared at him.

  “With what you figured out,” the second one finally said, “you should be the belle of the ball tonight.”

  “Actually,” Jon said, pointing toward the bar, “my boyfriend should be.”

  The Ladies turned.

  “He was the one who noticed these were paintings of women,” Jon said.

  The third lady put on her glasses. “I recognize that boy. He sold me the cutest top. It had a sequined Stars and Bars on it. It was a hot top.”

  Jon grinned and the second lady turned back to him. “Well, I had no idea.”

  The first lady glared at her, then politely asked, “How long have y’all been friends?”

  “Not long enough,” Jon replied, and the Ladies smiled an uncomfortable smile.

  Ali had reached the front of the line at the bar. He was wearing a black suit with white frills coming out of the arms and neck. The barman, a pretty Filipino in a green bellman’s outfit, said something to Ali, whose shy embarrassed smile stretched from ear to ear, his face full of light as he turned away and stared at the floor. That smile seemed to buoy him over the crowd, above the catty queens and rivalrous Ladies, the posers and pretenders.

  “Hey, baby,” Jon said, kissing him on the ear.

  “Hey!” Ali said, as if he were surprised to see him here.

  They took their drinks
and stood flanking the Portrait of a Youth in Green Velvet. “This party is fabulous,” Ali said. “I just saw Chad Rockman a minute ago.”

  “He was standing in front of the Milan portrait,” Jon said, “with Estelle Dulaney.”

  “I know, I can’t believe it. I wonder when they see each other—they’re in totally different timeslots.”

  Jon stuck his nose against the back of Ali’s neck and inhaled his citrusy cologne. Ali, a good sport, tolerated it for a while. “Wait till we get home,” he finally said.

  “Are you ready?” Jon asked.

  Adger appeared with a wild look in his eye and a gin and tonic in his hand. “Hey,” he said, sticking out the other hand in Ali’s direction. “There’s the man with the eye.”

  “Oh, please.” Ali held his drink up in the direction of the hand. “I think I have an eye for fashion, but that’s about it.”

  “You were working at a boutique in Buckhead when I met you at the Christmas party,” Adger said.

  “Yeah, and I was telling Jon”—Ali gestured with his drink to the painting—“we were selling a vest like that just last season.”

  Jon turned in Adger’s direction and smiled apologetically—a reflex.

  Adger’s sensibilities, however, did not seem offended. “I’ll have to come visit.”

  “I had no idea you were into ladies clothing,” Ali said.

  “What, didn’t you see me up there with those drag queens? Your friend did.” He turned to Jon. “Because I could see you standing there smirking when they were taking a picture of me.”

  Interesting—Adger had posed with drag queens for what he believed to be a portrait of himself.

  “I know that look,” Ali said.

  “I wasn’t smirking,” said Jon, feeling very ganged up on. “I was smiling. That’s going to be a cute picture.”

  “Jon disapproves of all this,” Adger informed Ali. “Well, I say what’s wrong with getting people into the museum? Get the drag queens in here, bring them on! Angelo would have loved this party.”

  “I don’t disapprove,” Jon said. Were we, he wondered, always found out?

  “It’s all right, you’re a big shot now,” Adger said. “You can get any job you want in academia, you’re cut out for that.”

  “I can?” Jon asked. “I am?”

  “Here’s something they don’t teach you in the academy,” Adger declared. “If there ain’t no money for the gold leaf, there ain’t gonna be no halo round the Virgin’s head!” He broke into song: “Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world—”

  “Jon hates retail,” Ali put in.

  “That’s ironic,” Adger let slip.

  “We were just leaving,” Jon said.

  But not quite yet. A tall thin creature in crocodile pumps and belted black minidress strode toward them, her hair a medusa’s black coils, her face a carved mask of fury. Classical, but in Prada.

  The blood rushed out of Adger’s flushed face but he soon recovered. “Gloria!” he cried. His arms shot out, as if he were doing calisthenics or pointing out emergency exits. He kissed her on one cheek and was heading toward the other when she pushed him away. Regaining his footing, he said, “What an unexpected honor you’ve graced us with!”

  “Why unexpected? I have the invitation.” She reached into her enormous black purse and held it up for Adger’s inspection, then let it drop. It was printed on good stock and fell straight to the floor. “For what you invited me I do not know.”

  “Why we invited you! You, Gloria Scipi, the number one scholar of Angelo Veneto in the world! You are the guest of honor. I just wished you’d called us and let us handle your arrangements.” He wagged a finger. “I don’t want to be hearing now that you’re staying at the No-Tell Motel.”

  “I make my own arrangements. I was not going to come. I decided finally to come for one reason.”

  “And we’re so fortunate and honored you did,” Adger said. “Isn’t this marvelous?” he added, gesturing to the walls.

  “Menzogne,” Gloria Scipi spat. “Perfidia. Tradimento.”

  “Prego!” Adger cried.

  “Who is Jonathan Weitz?” she demanded, pronouncing it Vites.

  “Allow me to introduce him,” Adger said with delight. Apparently, Jon’s job description included taking heat. “Signora Scipi, this is my assistant, Jonathan Weitz. I think he did such marvelous work with the catalog, don’t you? And this is his friend, Ali.”

  “You look fabulous,” Ali said, but Gloria Scipi made no sign of hearing.

  She and Jon sized each other up. She started at his shoes (scuffed, from Macy’s) and worked her way up. He kept his gaze fixed on her fierce face; he was frightened but had enough presence of mind not to be the first to look away. He’d never met her; they hadn’t exchanged email or spoken by phone. Adger had said he’d “handle” Gloria’s essay, by salvaging the biographical sketch of Angelo and the survey of the scholarship, and Jon happily turned it over. When Jon finished his own essay, it was Adger who sent it to Gloria, presumably with “Ciao Bella!” and some florid pidgin Italian equivalent of “FYI” scribbled across the front page. Weeks passed, and Adger and Jon had both been relieved when they heard nothing back.

  “I want that you understand what you have done,” she said.

  Jon’s heart leapt into his throat but he managed to say, “It’s an honor to meet you, Professor Scipi.”

  He didn’t realize he had extended a hand until she took it and began leading him away. Her hand was hot. He glanced over his shoulder at Ali, who was saying something to Adger.

  Gloria Scipi and Jon stopped in front of the Portrait of a Gentleman in a Red Cape. She smelled of hyacinth powder and new leather and a recent cigarette. Their arms were so close, he could feel them straining toward each other. They shared the same space before the painting, their essays were side by side in the catalog. Couldn’t their critical positions be reconciled? He had opened a door wide enough for the juggernaut Gloria Scipi to charge through. He would gladly let her! But Gloria Scipi wasn’t going through that door. She stared at the Angelo, her eyes filled with tears.

  “This,” she said, “is a man. A real man.”

  The subject of the painting looked like such a ponce in his red velvet cape that Jon was tempted to make a joke. Real men don’t wear red capes! Instead he said, “Yes, I know that’s the canonical interpretation and—”

  “This is not an interpretation!” she cried.

  Jon wished it could be their two essays having this conversation. In writing he was articulate and sometimes elegant; in person, neither, never.

  Like Milton’s Satan, like Jon’s mother, Gloria Scipi could see the chink in the armor and wasn’t afraid to needle it. “Say it,” she said. “Look at this painting and tell me your thesis, say it so that I can hear it, so that we can all hear it, a voce alta!”

  “Professor Scipi,” Jon pleaded, “this is just my interpretation and—”

  “Do you go to the psychiatrist?” she asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you?”

  He didn’t see what this had to do with anything, but what could he do but, miserably, answer? “I do, I go to a psychiatrist.”

  “And do you tell him your interpretations of your symptoms?”

  “It’s a she, and as a matter of fact I do.”

  “And how does she respond?”

  For the first time since Gloria Scipi appeared Jon felt like laughing, though under these circumstances he couldn’t even smile. “She’s never impressed, no matter how clever I think they are. But I keep trying.”

  “Do not bother. You will never impress this woman of intelligence and you will never be cured. And do you know why?”

  “— —”

  “She is not interested in your clever theories, because interpretation is not the point.”

  “Maybe not in therapy,” Jon conceded, “but—”

  “Not in anything! Interpretation kills!” Gloria
Scipi turned back to the painting and said, sadly, “You killed this painting. You killed Angelo.”

  Upstairs, Jon sat at his desk in the dark. His hands out of habit came to rest on his keyboard, but they were trembling.

  His instinct was to try to pass the blame back to Adger, who had so gleefully passed it on to him. Had he been seduced by Adger’s tabloid vision of the museum, his shameless appeal to the public’s baser instincts as a way of drawing them in? Had it all been a temporary aberration, the product of which Jon could disown, as if this were just a way to make money that anyone would understand and excuse, one of those degrading jobs that you take as a young person and that confer an odd dignity on you when you recount them in your memoirs, like pole-dancing in Reno or writing for the National Enquirer?

  No, his catalog essay was passionate, and he believed every word. The world had only the paintings as evidence. Gloria Scipi looked at them and saw men; Jon looked and saw women. So sue him!

  I want that you understand what you have done.

  Jon had turned the five Angelo portraits into a show. This was what he had done. He had allowed himself neither the time nor the luxury to dream about the rewards of his work before Gloria Scipi materialized in Atlanta to demonstrate the costs. She publicly attacked him and would no doubt lead the assault against him in print; she had the power to destroy him in various arenas, he supposed. But these costs were small change compared to what he had had to do to the art to get the show to cohere. Jon hadn’t killed Angelo, he hadn’t even killed the paintings, as la profesora, that drama queen, had charged. Jon hadn’t even explained them away. But with his revelation he had opened the door to more scholars with more explanations. The paintings would survive this crush or they would not. He hoped they would.

  Jon needed to go home, but the only way out was through the gallery. From up here the white noise of the party was almost soothing, the way the ocean at night can sound if you aren’t in it. But the only person who could lead him safely between Scylla and Charybdis—Adger Boatwright and Gloria Scipi—was Ali. Where was he? Ali would console him. He would take him away from all this.