A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall

by Will Chancellor

  The ramp twisted up another floor into a room that must be Hal’s. Kurt blurred over Hal’s profession, but he had made it clear that Hal was at least one tier below him in the art world. Their respective floors reinforced the hierarchy. The room was clearly a photography studio. There were more traces of work than habitation. Owen counted nine makeshift ashtrays, ten if you included the floor. Loose-leaf tobacco covered every surface. Cotton stuffing wisped out of the futon mattress on the floor.

  A wall-sized print of Kurt smoking in this window lorded over the room. The picture must have been taken before the accident because Kurt’s left leg was bracing him into the narrow window frame with a rock climber’s mastery of tension. Kurt hadn’t specified how long he had been without the use of his legs, but he certainly implied that he was handicapped rather than injured, and had been for some time—a long enough time for this photograph to haunt the room and make the window empty rather than merely vacant. Now four camera bodies and a dozen lenses sat gathering dust where Kurt had once perched.

  Thumbtacked Polaroids of hundreds of models, all wearing white tank tops, jeans, and presumably high heels, tiled a giant corkboard. Owen wanted to say this was the western wall, but he’d been spun around the spiral too many times to claim a sense of direction. It was like processing a palindrome, forward and backward at once:

  IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI. We go into a spiral at night and are consumed by flames.

  He climbed the ramp to the third and final floor.

  When the ramp leveled off, he was met by a scarred farmhouse table surrounded by a mishmash of twenty chairs, scattered at all angles as if a seated crowd had sprinted into the night. Past the dozens of half-finished wine bottles. Past the coffee cup ashtrays. Past dried-out lime wedges, empty bottles of stronger spirits, and fruit-flyed glasses. Past the residue of drugs, the residue of nights. Past it all was the wonder of what could be hidden if this much was left to be found.

  On the opposite side of the room, a Bösendorfer upright stood against the curved wall, two of its corners badly chewed from repeated collisions with the brick. Instead of sheet music, Owen found $40 fashion magazines and a back issue of Artforum with Kurt Wagener in the sidebar. A trail of flannel shirts led to a blue plaid mattress and an oversize down comforter.

  Owen thought of the pictures he’d just seen in Hal’s black portfolio. He could only remember one: a shot from the deep recesses of an oak, captured with a fish-eye lens. The image teetered on the edge of parody, like most of the fish-eye photographs he’d seen. But it took him back to the veers and dives of suburban department stores. He remembered darting through the automatic doors and crawling into a circular rack of blazers or blouses. Not hiding from anyone, just hiding. Hardpan carpet and the acoustic tiles with the patterned dots. It took a while to realize “acoustic tiles” didn’t mean a ceiling of speakers. Inscrutable as OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. A phrase he’d ponder for twenty minutes, inside the ring of clothes. Until his dad grabbed a handful of hangers, screeching the chrome ring with “Where have you been?”—which made no sense, because they both knew that inside a ring of coats was precisely where he had been for the past half hour.

  And now you are too tall to hide.

  And besides, there was no one here to hide from. The tower was empty. Only Owen and the blue tarp were breathing.

  Owen dusted the floor and then curled up under the tufted piano bench for a nap. He read the small paragraph glued on the bench’s underside explaining Kunstfertigkeit, the link between art and craftsmanship. The text looked a little warmer, a bit more red, than normal. One of his eyes saw the world with a slightly red tint, the other slightly blue. He used to toggle back and forth every few months to remind himself which eye had which bias. He thought he remembered the right eye being red, but he wasn’t sure. He knew he hadn’t written it down anywhere. Certain uncertainty. The ghost in the machine.

  A sharp poke in his side. The Gods had been absent since his injury, so Owen had turned to churches. The church nearest his hostel was almost entirely godless. Inaudible reverberations of the deep house music played the night before echoed in the nave while Owen sat in a pew, sketching his thoughts. An inflection point was fast approaching when those crossing the narthex in search of Ecstasy would outpace all those who had come during dark times in search of ecstasy. After a few tourist-climbs to the bell tower, he began to show up early and wander, found stairs to the triforium, and sat on a stone bench opposite an installation of spackled abstract paintings. Just this morning he’d sat on one of those benches, flicking the side of an expired glowstick he’d picked up off the ground. That same glowstick was still in his left breast pocket, poking him in the ribs as he rolled around on the floor of the Wasserturm. He pulled out the husk of plastic, dead liquid ghosting around a single bubble, and set it on the bench over his head. Perhaps he wasn’t so special. Perhaps the glowstick’s bathwater grey was the color of everyone’s religion: spent glow, with only the memory of enlightenment.

  He cracked his neck and fell asleep.

  Owen woke to a voice:

  —Things change when you’re in a museum’s permanent collection.

  Owen fumbled for his eye patch and rose to his feet, knocking the underside of the bench and upsetting whoever was sitting over his head.

  Hal, Kurt, and a girl draped over Kurt’s wheelchair laughed. Owen stood to full height and tucked in his shirt. Hal offered him a cigarette. He refused. The girl offered him red wine in a Solo cup. He accepted. She caught him up:

  —Kurt was explaining that talent is bourgeois.

  —No. Talent is a myth. I was explaining that no one makes it in art without a platform. You have to have a brand before you have skill. First presence, then an audience, then change your skill set if you’re still not selling.

  Hal brought over a bottle of Jack and a cup of hot coffee. Owen put the coffee between his feet and took a shallow slug from the bottle. His stomach pulled. Now juggling, he drank the wine and then took a cigarette at Hal’s second offer.

  It was the first smoke to ever pass the barrier of Owen’s teeth. His forehead beaded with cold sweat. He knew his lung capacity to the mL and his VO2max to three sig-figs, yet he smoked again. No one appeared to notice that he didn’t know how to inhale. He turned away and tried the sharp double-inhale that he knew was required. He coughed violently. Hal patted his back.

  —Captain America!

  Owen’s throat tightened. He undid another button of his shirt.

  The one sitting on Kurt’s lap noticed that this was a new experience for Owen. She was layered in washed leather. Hal wore dark layers of hooded sweatshirt, track jacket, leatherish jacket. Kurt wore flannel. Owen smoothed his white shirt and tucked it into the corduroy pants that were falling off his hips. He would need to punch a new hole in his belt.

  He drank his coffee and spoke halting German:

  —I have been traveling from California to Berlin. I am grateful to have found a house.

  Kurt laughed.

  —Your German is so formal. Stick to English. But yeah, unpack your bag when we get back. I know what you’re thinking, Who goes out on a Friday? but the tourists should have cleared out by now.

  —What is it, four a.m.?

  —Almost six.

  Owen looked at himself in a slept-in suit and everyone else in leather and plaid.

  —Don’t worry, you can get in anywhere we go, even in a suit and penny loafers.

  Hal was still silent, looking at Owen through the viewfinder of a double-grip digital camera. He didn’t take any pictures, just dialed the zoom lens in and out, inspecting Owen at different focal lengths, half-clicking the shutter until the camera confirmed focus with a beep. More voluble now that a camera mediated his view of the world, he asked:

  —Is that eye patch for real? I mean, either way you look great.

  —I was hopped up on painkillers all winter, so everything’s a little foggy. But I’m thinking the ey
e patch is real.

  Kurt laughed and clapped Owen’s leg.

  Hal asked if Owen had any more of the painkillers.

  The girl on Kurt’s lap stood and stabbed out her cigarette:

  —You should come out. Stevie always brings an interesting crowd.

  Owen looked at both Kurt and Hal. Kurt had the final word:

  —Brigitte’s right. But nothing interesting ever happens in a place with a door policy—well, unless Sven is working the door.

  Owen had no idea who these people were, but tried to find an artistic response:

  —I’m down for whatever.

  —I like big fireworks first too, but you’ve got to work up to some of this shit. We’ll go to a bar, then Platte to see Stevie. You’ll like Stevie. She’s smart. But you’ll die if you go straight to Sven’s place.

  Owen said he would just be a minute.

  He walked back down the spiral ramp to his room. He fished the mason jar of sand and oil from his bag and walked up to Hal’s bathroom.

  He turned the hot water tap and waited until the water steamed. He scooped a handful of sand from his jar, brought a cupped hand of water to his face, and kneaded his cheeks. His fascination with grit had started when an older teammate showed him the pregame trick of scraping his palms back and forth over the texturized gutter, or, if they were playing at a generic suburban pool, over the sandstone lip. His fresh skin gripped the ball better. While his competitors struggled to catch with their off hand or thrust the ball cross-face without losing control, Owen rose high with a lariat loop of tan arm and yellow ball, lassoing the entire game and launching it at the nylon net. From age six to twenty-one he scraped his palms clean and greeted the world with a fresh grip.

  His coarse beard buried the grit. Until now he didn’t know he could grow one. Chlorine or bromine, depending on which pool he was practicing in at the time, had kept his body delphine, his hair brittle and bleached. Before, he’d scarcely had eyebrows. Now a proper unibrow bridged eye and eye patch, outsight and insight. Since he’d left California, his hair had grown dark. Monobrow. More and more of his cheek was lost each day to the barbarian beard.

  Brigitte opened the bathroom door. She shut it behind her and held his gaze for a split second. Owen saw her reflection at his side and watched her heft the eye patch hanging from the faucet. She leaned into his hand and whispered into his ear:

  —Don’t watch.

  She took a diagonal step back and out of view. Owen turned to find her unzipping her black jeans slowly, teasing every tooth of the fly with little pops, like air ticked between tongue tip and palate. He pulled clean his eyelashes, put the eye patch back on, and clutched the counter.

  She reached around him and turned on the tap, melting into his knuckles. Looping her arm in his, she dipped her fingertips in the warm water and smiled when she made eye contact in the mirror. She flicked her fingers once to dismiss the water beads.

  He started to speak, but she interrupted on tipped toe with breath tingling the small hairs of his earlobe.

  —You have great lips, but your beard will scratch me.

  She ran her fingers over his cheek and then fastened her jeans and left.

  Owen tugged on his chin and asked his reflection what the fuck that was. He looked up, breathed deeply, and ground a paste of grit between his two hands.

  Owen rejoined the crowd. The first thing he saw was Brigitte. He knocked on the doorframe because he saw Kurt sniffing something off a plate. Owen figured out what he was walking into just as Kurt offered him a nearby set of keys.

  —You said you guys never locked the door.

  Everyone burst into laughter. Owen was confused until Hal dipped a key into a small baggie and offered Owen a channel full of cocaine.

  He was surprised to see the real version of something that had been, until this point, a Hollywood prop. These people were so cavalier, carving lines with credit cards in a room anyone was welcome to stumble into. The only thing he knew about cocaine was that no one, save maybe drug lords, did it out in the open. Hal snorted the mound on the key’s tip. Kurt passed the plate. Owen declined:

  —I’m still on antibiotics for my eye.

  —This’ll make them work faster!

  Kurt laughed and then pulled in with the jolt of a snake handler who’d just dodged a strike. When the bitterness registered on his face, he gritted his teeth and his smile dropped. He passed the plate to Brigitte. No keys for her; she nudged a bump into the recessed filter of her Parliament cigarette, snorted, then patted her nose as if she were putting the finishing touches on her makeup.

  Out of the tower and into the Berlin night, Brigitte braided her arm in Owen’s and pulled down with a steady pressure that lifted her ever so slightly from the ground. Hal pushed Kurt’s wheelchair over worn grass and tried eagerly to fit his monologue into Kurt’s monologue. Pulling even with Owen and Brigitte, he finally got out what he had been trying to say for minutes:

  —I had a thought last night of all these people, or maybe one person, a critic, writing a monograph on me or whatever. But the quote was: “He did nothing in his twenties, everything in his thirties, and everyone in his forties.” It’s a good line, right?

  Kurt looked like he might hit him.

  —You cocksucker. Lorie Nussbaum wrote that about me in the Capo Press monograph. The quote was, “He did nothing for a decade, everyone for a year, then changed art forever in mere minutes.” I have the fucking article in my press kit.

  Hal lit a cigarette.

  —Sorry. That’s right. I must have read that article a thousand times.

  —Actually there is no article. But that’s what I’m talking about. If your balls are big enough, then facts become fiction and fiction becomes fact. All that micro bullshit is for watchmakers and carpenters.

  Owen thought of asking where they were going, but was afraid he would open himself up to a whole continental critique of American banality—“Where are we going?” being a species of the “What do you do?” genus. After a few minutes, Brigitte spoke:

  —How do you know Kurt?

  Kurt wheeled up quickly and answered:

  —Owen and I are collaborating on a project.

  This was the first time Owen had heard it announced.

  —Are you going to make him famous?

  —The critics are going to make him famous; I’m just bringing him to their attention. Did you invite any of your friends tonight? We could set him up with someone.

  —What if I want him for myself?

  Once Brigitte was a few steps ahead, ruffling Hal’s hair, Owen asked Kurt which artists he admired.

  —Admire? If you admire art, you’re buying it. I make shit.

  Owen pressed him for a reference.

  —I don’t know. There are people you rip off or whatever.

  Owen decided to be provocative:

  —I’ve seen photos of your work. Is everything you do art?

  —Absolutely.

  Now Hal turned around, surprised at hearing what sounded like a heartfelt answer. Kurt continued:

  —Art is problem solving. And I’ve got lots of problems.

  Hal laughed. Owen asked Kurt to clarify.

  —Picture a guy. He has this great idea for a sculpture, but he can’t sleep because of a problem: How do I make it look like this guy is thinking and not taking a shit? So he paces the planks of his atelier for a few weeks. He notes how his own muscles contract when he sits. He calls in models. He makes them squat. Asks a few to take a shit for contrast. They think he’s depraved. He sculpts models, all at various angles of exertion. But in the end, he solves the fucking problem. And it’s beautiful. And that man’s name is fucking Rodin. There is no doubt that we are looking at a man thinking. What’s art? That’s art.

  Hal suggested a new work:

  —You should re-enact that story as a performance piece.

  Brigitte asked if the story was true.

  —Art is telling people what to think. If a work i
s open to other interpretations, it means you failed as an artist. There are always problems with how something can be seen. Artists end the discussion. Try getting hundreds of homeless people to wear tuxedos and remove the possibility that you’re making a fashion statement or some Marxist bullshit economics thing. Try filling the Stedelijk with Ping-Pong balls and have critics recognize it’s a comment on flotation and not a birthday party for five-year-olds.

  Owen was a little lost:

  —You filled what with Ping-Pong balls?

  —The Stedelijk. It’s a museum in Amsterdam. Twelve million bright orange Ping-Pong balls. I originally wanted to fill the Reichstag, to float off the Christo shroud, but I wasn’t Reichstag-big until 2002. And besides, the piece fit with the whole boat concept of the renovation they were planning.

  Brigitte had the final word:

  —Genius.

  Just past Mitte, they took an elevator to a bar. Until the ping of the top floor, Kurt told a story about convincing a hospital to collect newborns’ breath in balloons. These balloons were then used by botanists to grow constellations of baby’s breath, Gypsophila, from the baby’s breath. Unfortunately all the flowers died within a week.

  —And that’s when I learned the first rule of being a professional artist: Always have something to sell.

  Owen scanned the elevator to see if anyone else was grimacing. Brigitte and Hal were texting, and the other patrons looked cowed, already forming the story of the one night they hung out with Kurt Wagener.

  The steel doors opened to a riot. The crowd, mostly models jumping up and down to electro and guys with pursed lips fist-pumping, cleared a path for Kurt and his entourage. They passed from the main room to the back bar with the pomp of Dalí in 1920s Paris. Those with their backs turned sloshed drinks and spun in flushes of anger before realizing it was Kurt Wagener who had ridden up their heels. Kurt gathered apologies as if they were roses tossed at a curtain call. Then, at the back bar, a group of suits erupted in cheers when they saw Kurt and Hal.

  I’ve lost the crowd that would applaud my entrance, Owen thought.

  Hal explained Kurt’s celebrity among celebrities: