30 Pieces of a Novel

by Stephen Dixon

  “One story, though, I can tell you firsthand,” Bolling said, a few weeks before he died, when Gould was wheeling him across Central Park to the Met. “It’s a good example of the moronic, worshipful following Graves had attracted to the town and which ruined it for us, to tell you the truth, even if most of them had got there before us. We came for artistic stimulation and intelligent communality (besides cheap living), but these louts just hung around, drinking and soaking up the sun and waiting for some new sign from the great man or duty to do for him, like accompanying him to the local bar. They never produced art or letters the way Graves had and which he was still doing in abundance. I know from the island’s telegrapher that he was sending out reviews and articles once a week, so how demented could he have been? Now it’s too late, but why didn’t I think that then and say something to those loafers and spongers who claimed he was addled? But this neighbor of ours came running into our little cottage, waving a pair of men’s Jockey briefs. You guessed it: ‘They belong to Graves,’ he said. ‘I was walking past his house, peered through his bedroom window, hoping to catch him humping his newest concubine, and saw these lying on his bed. I climbed through the window and swiped them. One day they’ll be worth a bundle. They even have R.R.G. written on the label in laundry marker. You’ll see, a collector will buy this from me and frame it behind glass and hang it on his most visible library wall. Bob had probably taken them off,’ this guy goes on, ‘tossed them on the bed, and put on a fresh pair before he left the house, or maybe he took them off to put on swimming trunks. I’m thinking if I should wash them, since they have a shit stain on them’—toilet paper was a precious commodity on the island, I want you to know—‘or keep them as is,’ he continued, ‘because they’d be more of-the-person and so more valuable that way.’ I told him to get them back to the bedroom without Graves knowing they’d been stolen, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Of course this idiot probably forgot whose underpants they were a week later and either put them on himself without washing them or his wife, after wondering where they had come from, used them to swab the kitchen floor.”

  Fifteen years after Gould was given the painting, he says to his wife, “This thing’s really grown on me since you got it framed. And Bolling had a lot of them, and I’m sure his wife—” and she says, “You want to buy one?” and he says, “If it’s all right with you, since you’ll have to live with it too,” and she says, “I like the idea, so long as it doesn’t cost a fortune.” “No chance. They were very fair and modest-living and ungreedy people. It’s even possible she’ll want me to have it for nothing because of what I did for them then, but which I won’t let her do. Anyway, good, settled, I’m about to purchase a painting for the first time in my life; before, they were always given to me by the artist, and that lobsterman drawing from you,” and she says, “Won’t it be odd, though, phoning her after so many years, but to buy something rather than to ask about her and her son and maybe even, after so long, to invite her out for lunch?” and he says, “How do you think I know she’s still in the city in her old apartment? When I’ve gone up to see my mother—same neighborhood—so I bumped into her on the street a number of times.” “You never told me,” and he says, “I’m sure I have. Or else I forgot by the time I got back or didn’t think it worth mentioning, since you never met her,” and she says, “Of course I have. In a restaurant once, when we were with your mother, or right outside it on the street, and then at the memorial for Bolling a year after he died,” and he says, “Six months,” and she says, “Six months, not that she’d remember me from that, she was so distraught,” and he says, “Funny, but I can’t remember her as ever being even a little emotionally upset,” and she says, “Crying her eyes out. Just crying them out. Though you were pretty shaken up too,” and he says, “That I think I recall, which I guess is why I don’t remember how she was at that particular event.”

  He calls and says, “Grace, hi, it’s Gould Bookbinder, how you doing?” and she says, “Hello, Gould Bookbinder,” and they talk about her and her son and his family and mother and then he says, “Listen, another reason I’m calling is because of Bolling’s paintings. I have one, you might remember, and I’d like to get another, but to buy it this time,” and she says, “I’d be delighted. But what was the arrangement before—he gave it to you?” and he says, “And inscribed it. It’s almost as if you both did, since you held his writing hand.” “Your memory’s too good,” and he says, “I’m sorry,” and she says, “No, no, but I haven’t sold one since he died and I’ve tried like the dickens, believe me, and I could use the extra money. How’s the one you have doing?” and he says, “I got it framed. Looks great. People are always marveling at it. It’s above our upright piano at the far end of this long living room, the perfect place for it, as you can see it from about twenty feet away when you enter the connecting dining room.” “Which one did you get again?” and he says, “It’s hard to describe. If it has a title, I don’t know it,” and she says, “All of them did,” and he says, “Then if you told me, I either forgot it or never heard it. But it’s kind of small, first of all—one of the smallest of the I-don’t-know-how-many you spread out for me there—maybe three feet by two, but three feet across. It’s of the mountains—you know, the Spanish island—and lots of dramatic sky and sea, very bright colors—the blues and yellows, anyway—and I think a waterfall in it,” and she says, “Couldn’t be. None on the island, and I don’t think Bolling ever saw one in his life. He lived there, and here in different boroughs, and two years in the army on an ice cap, and before that at an army base in New Jersey not far from here.” “He must have traveled around Europe or just Spain before he got to the island,” and she says, “Both times he went it was by ship from New York to a large Spanish port and from there a ferry or small craft of some kind to the island, and the same when he returned to the States. That island was everything to him—in imagery, inspiration, ties to a particular spot on earth, you name it—which he knew before he got there, and he didn’t want any other setting interfering in his memory of it. He used to say—actually, he said he thought along these lines way before he went to the island. It was a movie theater travelogue of the island when he was a young man that first prompted him to think this and eventually bore him to the island—that he only needed this one landscape and he’d paint it and dream of it and be reminded of and recharged by it for the rest of his life.” “Then I don’t know. Because how do you explain this plunging blue-and-white thing and what looks like raging water foam at the bottom of it?” and she says, “More crashing sea, probably, or a stormy sky. You sure you hung the painting right side up?” and he says, “Yeah, the mountains. It wouldn’t look like anything recognizable upside down, and I never thought of him as a pure abstractionist.” “Now the painting’s coming back to me. Does it have two large pointy mounds that are unmistakably mountains as you said but could also be mistaken for a woman’s enormous breasts?” and he says, “Right, two, of equal size just about, but I never saw them as anything but mountains,” and she says, “That’s what they are, but breastlike mountains, and what he called the painting, in a way: New Peaks. He was fascinated with the idea of taking old mountains and turning them into young breasts. He loved breasts more than any other part of the woman’s body, just as he loved mountains more than any other part of the land, so it all fits, and naturally the younger the developed breasts the better,” and he says, “By the way, what was the name of that Spanish island town where he did all those paintings?” and she gives it, and he says, “And the name of the group of islands it was part of?” and she says, “What group? It was just an island, Majorca, and near it were a couple of smaller islands, but no big group and certainly not a chain,” and he says, “That’s what I meant, and I actually knew but just wanted to make sure. But the town I always forget the name of, though knew it started with a D, and I bet I forget it again next time someone asks what place the painting’s of or where the painter lived on Majorca and so on. My mind … I do
n’t know: drink, age, something scarier? But I once wanted to—let me see: thirty-five, almost forty years ago?—wanted to live there too when I fashioned myself a would-be painter and writer. I heard it was dirt cheap, lots of wonderful free-thinking and -living women of various European nationalities, and it just seemed like the best thing to do for a while right out of college … sun, beaches, jug wine, all of which I stay away from today,” and she says, “You should have gone. That was the time. Now the island’s expensive, overcrowded, with rich tourists, grand hotels, and topless beaches—though I hear Deja hasn’t been touched as much—so the natives probably aren’t as hospitable and pleasant to you in a genuine way as they were then, but imagine what Bolling would have done in his work with the nudie scene. He was there with his first wife around the time you said you wanted to be, and it was such a small English-speaking community you almost certainly would have known them and become fast friends. She was supposed to be very nice.” “Wait a second. I thought you were the wife he was with there,” and she says, “I only went for a month about ten years after, a sort of rekindling-the-memory trip for him. But I can remember Bolling telling you of his years there with her and even, I think, you saying how you had once wanted to go there to paint or write, and he saying how you then would have met him and Sally there,” and he says, “Sally? That’s my wife’s name,” and she says, “I know. In fact you came over for coffee with her once—this was another time, much later—and Bolling pointed out the coincidence of the names. He also said he hoped that your Sally—you were talking of getting married and I’m not sure if he said this more for my benefit than yours, since he had eight good years with her before he deserted her when he somehow got hooked on me—anyhow, that your Sally would be your first and only wife. He really liked her and it had nothing to do with her large breasts, since by that time, with all the painkillers and pain and the tumor behind his eyes fouling up his vision, none of that meant anything to him.” “I don’t remember taking Sally to your place. On the street, yes, you and she met, but after Bolling’s death, and she also came to the memorial, though which of those was the first time you saw her I don’t know.” “Gould, believe me, I can even remember where we all sat: you two on the love seat, I was in the rocker across from it, at an angle, and Bolling was directly across from you in his wheelchair, to my left. You ended up switching from coffee to wine and Sally stuck with her herb tea, and after a while I not only had cookies out but crackers and cheese. But I’ll tell you, if you had gone to Deja it’s possible you would have written or painted something but more likely have become a terrific young wino, café habitué, and wife swapper—or girlfriend swapper, in your case—as that’s what almost all of them did. Bolling said that most of them were big fools, or became ones there, when before they had been responsible family men and executives or staff writers or chief graphic artists on magazines like Time and Business Week or some oil company newsletter, et cetera. There to paint the great Mediterranean painting or the literary equivalent with the three-act domestic drama or thousand-page novel or epic poem. But in a year or two, once their funds had run out, they were back in their old high-rolling jobs and cushy living. Bolling was the anomaly, eschewing most of the fun and games to get some real work in while he had the chance and which he had depleted his savings for, and only sleeping with his wife. Did he tell you the story of Robert Graves’s underwear?” and he says, “That someone stole a pair and he told this guy to put it back?” “One person stealing one pair? Please, it became the principal recreation of the expatriate community there; even friends visiting for a week tried to land a pair. For years people were sneaking into Graves’s home for one or ripping one off his washline or out of the maid’s laundry washtub while she was siesta-ing, and one jerk even got a week of dirty underwear out of his bathroom hamper. Word was that Graves was unamused by all this but had boxer shorts shipped in by the dozens to keep the thieves supplied so they wouldn’t steal more valuable things like letters and manuscripts and books and works in progress.” “It’s funny but I never took the story quite seriously, and I also had heard it was a pair of Jockey briefs that were stolen,” and she says, “Boxer shorts. Bolling was there and he told me. And in all his time on the island he never found the activity anything but deplorable, and anonymously he returned by mail a pair to Graves that had been given to him as a birthday gift.”

  He tells her he’ll be in the city in a month to see his mother and if it’s all right he’d like to come by to choose a painting. She says to call her a week before so they can make a definite appointment. “I don’t want to pretend I’m a busy person or that dealers are batting my door down to get his works, but occasionally I do see a friend for lunch.” Three months later she calls him. “I got your number from the woman taking care of your mother. She said you were in New York last month. If you were, it’s possible you called and I missed you,” and he says, “I’ve actually been there twice since I spoke to you, but only for a day—in and out, by train. I’m sorry, I forgot. But we’re all coming in for two weeks in June. I’ll call before we drive in, or just get me at this number in New York,” and gives it and the day they’ll be there. She says, “Incidentally, you never said what you were interested in of Bolling’s: the drawings, pastels, satirical pen and inks—they’re of Lyndon Johnson and his cronies; I don’t think he was ever better, satirically, than with those—or his Majorca watercolors: the sunrise series, the sleeping cat sequence, another one of just beach stones—there were these enormous boulders along the shore, some like the Easter Island ones, though not carved—and of course the oils.” “The oil paintings. Something like what he gave me, since the last time we spoke you said you hadn’t sold any for a long time,” and she says, “What I said then was ‘never.’ Not one. Not in his lifetime or mine. Not even a single drawing. Whatever he did that’s not here has either been given away or donated to a school’s art sale, but I think even those came back.” “So,” he says, “one of those, the oils. I hate to sound dumb about it—because, you know, I really admire most of them—but one to sort of complement, for another wall in the same room, the one I already have of the sun and sky and such of that island and town … I can never remember the damn name. I know it starts with a D—the island, of course, is Majorca—but the town. I know I also said the same thing one of the last times we spoke—that it starts with a D and I can never remember its name. But my mind can’t be that bad off if I’m able to remember almost verbatim, and maybe even verbatim, what I said about not remembering the town’s name and that business about the initial that last time, some—well, I don’t know how many months ago, but several,” and she says, “Deja, De-ja, D-E-J-A, though the Spanish spelling of it is different and not just with a little diacritic,” and he says, “Don’t tell me it; one’s enough, and I wouldn’t want to confuse things even more. I should write it down, but I know I’ll lose the paper I write it down on. That has less to do with memory loss than absentmindedness. In my address book, under your name and number, I’ll put it, and then I’ll just hope I remember it’s there when I want to recall the name, if I don’t from now on recall it automatically. As for the address book, somehow it just turns up whenever I look for it. Anyway, I’ll call you the day after we get in.”

  She calls him in New York. “Damn, how’d I forget?” he says. “I won’t even say I was going to call you. I mean, I intended to but we’ve been so busy: my mother, whom I see every day, and taking the kids around—movies, museums, shopping sprees, you name it. When they’re out of school and too old for day camp—they think—it’s ‘What’re we gonna do today, Daddy?’” and his older daughter, who’s beside him, says, “I don’t talk that way, Daddy. And you don’t let us shop.” “If you’re no longer interested in buying one of Bolling’s paintings,” Grace says, “that’s all right too, Gould. People are allowed to—” and he says, “No, I want one, very much so,” and to his daughter, with his hand over the mouthpiece: “Only kidding, sweetie. Just making talk…. When sh
all we meet? Tomorrow at one, maybe? I think I can be free then,” and she says, “No good. I’m a dog walker now—a professional one; I have no animals of my own—and I’ve four dogs to walk between one and three.” After that, she’s busy too. “Thursday?” and she says, “I’ve dog-walking jobs from eight to twelve, and the last one, for an hour, is five at a time, so would two o’clock be okay? I need some rest, and also a shower, after a long spate of walks—picking up all that doodie, and they can slobber over you when they get playful. And it’s hard sweaty work, getting pulled forward, holding them back, really straining at the reins when some outside dog barks or jumps at them. But I’ve got to make money somehow; I’m really short.” “Two, then,” and gets her building number—the street he knows, since he had once lived around the block from them and it was how he’d met them more than twenty years ago: in the stationery store at their corner on Columbus where Bolling bought most of his art supplies and he bought things like typewriter ribbon and reams of paper, and he said, when they were on line to pay, “You must be an artist,” and Bolling said, “And you? It’s obvious what you do too, unless you have an unusually extensive correspondence going and you mail all your letters in those manila envelopes,” or something like that.