It's Not About Sex

by David Kalergis

  It’s Not About

  Sex

  By David Kalergis

  ATELERIX PRESS

  New York

  ATELERIX PRESS

  288 Park Avenue South

  New York, NY 10003

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ATELERIX and design are trademarks of Atelerix Press, the publisher of this work.

  For information about special purchases, please contact Atelerix Press Special Sales at contact@atelerix.com

  Text font is Garamond

  ISBN-13: 978-0989926300 (Atelerix)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Mary

  CHAPTER I

  ◊

  “Bradley! We’re over here . . . Over here, Bradley!”

  It took me a moment to spot Lennie as he was swept forward by the other arriving passengers streaming from LaGuardia’s C Concourse toward baggage claim.

  I was standing just outside the security barrier with a garment bag draped over my arm when a man standing near me said, “Hey, that’s Leonard Hirsh!” Lennie had been on the cover of Time magazine earlier this year under a headline asking “World’s Best Paid Artist?” There was a minor but genuine buzz as he moved through the crowd. His profile—massive head, prominent features, and full stand of silvering, wavy (never kinky) hair, brushed straight back—was recognized by culture aficionados everywhere.

  No one tried to stop him or talk to him, of course. He wasn’t a film star, professional athlete, or rock musician, merely a famous painter, and his admirers are too sophisticated to ask for autographs. This was fortunate. His flight from Washington DC had arrived an hour late. It was already 6:20 p.m., and I feared his famous impatience might explode at further delays.

  Lennie’s new protégé, a slender man about my own age—thirty-five—walked beside him carrying a military-style duffel bag. When they reached me, the newcomer slipped the strap from his shoulder and the bag hit the floor; I saw Martin, Raymond L. stenciled on the green canvas.

  Lennie gave me a quick embrace. “Good to see you, Bradley. Say hello to Raymond.”

  Raymond Martin’s face was powdery white, which contrasted with the blackness of his hair and two-day growth of dark beard. Beneath the stubble he had regular, almost handsome, features. At about six foot two, he was slightly taller than me and considerably taller than Lennie. Sinewy cords of muscle were visible under the pale skin of his neck and arms.

  There was an unmistakable threatening affect emanating from the man, some of which was no doubt due to his “welcome to freedom” clothing. His cheap, black shiny shoes, too-long polyester pants (also black and shiny), and very white short-sleeve shirt of indeterminate fabric, must have all been provided to him that morning courtesy of the Washington DC penal system. The overall effect was ominous. Alongside Lennie, who was dressed casually but expensively in his brown Belgian Shoe loafers, white linen trousers, pale blue polo shirt, and white straw Panama hat, the younger man looked totally out of place, tired, but not at all self-conscious.

  As Ray and I shook hands, I snuck another glance at his arm, looking for tattoos. When I raised my eyes he was staring squarely into them, as if he knew what I’d been doing. His gray-green glance held the focused watchfulness that so often characterizes an artist, and something in that brief connection reminded me of Lennie, although any physical resemblance was remote. The moment passed and, after eyeing my bow tie, he gazed over my shoulder. The limpness of his grip seemed arrogant, as if he couldn’t be bothered to squeeze, until I remembered his background. But even after allowances for his lack of exposure to social niceties, my internal warning systems were still on high alert.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” I said. “I admire your work very much.”

  This statement was true. Whatever else might be said about Ray Martin, there was no doubt, at least in my mind, that Lennie had made a significant discovery. Ray’s response to my compliment was a barely visible nod, followed by awkward silence.

  “Any checked baggage?” I asked Lennie.

  “No, nothing.”

  Leonard Hirsh didn’t easily tolerate delay under any circumstances, and now, because of the flight’s late arrival, we had only thirty minutes to get to Soho, which, given the distance and rush-hour traffic, would be impossible.

  “Is that for Ray?” Lennie asked, pointing at the garment bag I was carrying. After seeing what Ray had been wearing that morning when he’d picked him up at the Lorton Correctional Facility, south of Washington DC, Lennie had immediately found a phone somewhere and placed a rush order with the Paul Stuart store on Madison Avenue. Then he called me at the Edison’s Electric gallery and, at his insistence, I’d dropped what I was doing to go uptown, pick up the new clothes, and catch a cab to meet him and Ray at LaGuardia.

  “Yes. And everything’s ready at the gallery,” I said.

  “The caterer? Wine?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  Fortunately he didn’t ask about ice, which I hadn’t remembered to check on until I was in the cab heading for the airport. I hoped the caterer or someone at the gallery would remember. The exhibit, which had been mounted on short notice, was set to open in minutes and, perhaps because Lennie was in charge, chaos had surrounded the arrangements.

  “A car is supposed to be meeting us,” Lennie said to me. “You check the claim area for the driver. We’ll find someplace where Ray can change and catch up with you in a minute.”

  One level down, near the exit from the baggage concourse, the driver was waiting, holding a cardboard sign that read, “Mr. Hirsh.” After identifying myself and noting the name tag pinned to his black suit jacket, I told him we didn’t have any baggage and asked him to bring the car around—that three of us would be out in a moment. He nodded his understanding and headed for the street, as throngs of travelers surged down the escalator and stairway.

  At 6:35 p.m. I spotted them coming down the stairs, Ray in the lead, looking energized by his new clothes. Either Lennie had bought him a toilet kit at the sundries shop or he’d had one in his duffel, because he was freshly shaved and his black hair was neatly brushed straight back. The clothes fit better than I’d expected. He had put on a pair of thin, wire-rimmed spectacles, and in his new gray slacks, white polo shirt, and well-cut blue blazer, Ray looked less like an ex-convict and much safer, more normal. The transformation was breathtaking. Lennie followed him down the stairs, looking older now and slightly stooped from the fatigue of the trip.

  “Nice fit,” I said, scanning his new jacket, but Ray ignored my friendly remark.

  I should have known better and resolved to reciprocate by maintaining a cool distance from the newcomer. Whether or not he realized it, I had willingly donated time on his behalf and didn’t appreciate being treated as an errand boy.

  “The driver should have the car out front by now,” I said.

  We stepped into the stream of travelers and let the flow carry us out the door, then popped from the current like corks when we reached the black stretch Cadillac idling at the curb under the overhang. First Ray and then Lennie scooted themselves onto the bench seat and I followed, maneuvering myself into one of the jump seats facing them. When we were sealed inside, the decibel level dropped and the chaos of the airport on a humid, rainy fall evening—it was September 8, the first Friday after Labor Day, 1995—was no longer our problem; it was Mr. Muhammad’s, for that was the driver’s name. He low
ered the electric window divider between the passengers and front seat.

  “Hello, Mr. Hirsh. Good to see you again. Flight okay?” he asked.

  Lennie often used this limo service. He smiled thinly before giving the address of the Edison’s Electric gallery in Soho.

  “We’re in a hurry,” he added.

  “I’ll do my best, but this could take time,” said Mr. Muhammad, indicating the rain and traffic outside with a sweeping gesture. “Please, help yourselves to drinks,” he said, before raising the window between the compartments.

  I was closest to the mini bar, my passenger’s-side jump seat facing the rear bench, where Lennie now sat in front of me, with Ray to his left looking out the driver’s-side window. As I twisted awkwardly to inspect the beverages, the car moved forward slowly and was immediately tied up in traffic.

  “Lennie? Ray?”

  Lennie hesitated for a moment before deciding. “Scotch and soda, on the rocks.”

  “Ray?” I asked again.

  “Any beer?”

  He accepted a bottle of Michelob, cradling it in both hands while Lennie drank his Scotch and soda and I sipped a ginger ale. When the car finally broke free and began to make progress toward the city, I fixed Lennie another drink at his request.

  “Ice!” he said, jolting forward. “Did you remind them about the ice?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Relax, Lennie,” said Ray, still staring out the window. “You’re going to give yourself a fucking heart attack.”

  His voice had a low timbre, and I noted that, despite the profanity, his diction was surprisingly good, his accent slightly “southern,” but a well-bred southern.

  Lennie settled back in his seat as we drove through the rainy evening, clearly not convinced that, in his absence, arrangements at the gallery could possibly be under control. Ray continued to gaze out the window. When the Cadillac slowed again to ease past a stalled car in heavy traffic, Lennie’s impatience steamed up the glass in the passengers’ compartment as he gestured at the hapless stranded driver to pull further over. After tapping on the electric window divider, he asked Mr. Muhammad to adjust the air conditioner. Traffic finally thinned and we again moved rapidly toward the city. The opening reception in the Edison’s Electric loft space was scheduled from seven to nine p.m. We’d make it there by eight, arriving in time to make an entrance.

  In response to Lennie’s proffered glass, I fixed him yet another Scotch. The alcohol didn’t relax him. He had cause to be edgy—this evening was not without risk to his reputation.

  I saw heavy clouds overhead. The evening sky was darkening early. Traffic slowed us again at the Queens-Brooklyn border, near the edge of a cemetery where elaborate granite markers stood side by side in a dark foreground against the skyscrapers of Manhattan in the distance.

  Turning from the rain-streaked window, Ray spoke for the first time since telling Lennie to calm down.

  “Look how the gravestones mirror the skyline of the city.”

  The entrance to Edison’s Electric was mobbed as we fought our way in from the street and inched up the two flights of steep metal stairs toward the high-ceilinged loft space above. Fortunately, people moved aside to let us pass as soon as they saw Lennie.

  His choice of galleries for this first-ever public viewing of Ray’s paintings made great sense. Unlike the prestigious Crockett Gallery three blocks away, which represented Lennie, Edison’s Electric was a cooperative space where the work of new artists could be displayed with a minimum of commercial consideration, despite the ferocious politics of the art world. It had been made available on short notice when Lennie had learned seven short weeks ago that Ray would be freed from Lorton and that his paintings had already been cleared for transport. The Edison’s Electric gallery was run by the radical Artist’s Expressions Foundation, which was known for its embrace of the controversial. Still, despite the worthiness of the Ray Martin exhibit, it hadn’t hurt that Lennie was on close terms with two of Artist’s Expressions’ main patrons, the prominent collector Jack Blanford and his wife Maggie. Since January Lennie and Jack had been serving together on the prestigious advisory board of yet another arts foundation—Art For The At Risk, known as AFTAR.

  We had both, of course, seen all of Ray Martin’s twenty-three paintings many times in recent weeks, but not under these circumstances. The canvases, ranging in size from less than four to over sixteen square feet, were actually drop cloths stretched on plywood, all scrounged from within the prison where Ray had spent the last fourteen years. These paintings, now masterfully lit by expert stylists, dominated the space with the power of their content, despite the distractions of the crowd.

  “The paintings looks great,” I said into Lennie’s ear, trying to make myself heard over the din. “The scrim lighting is perfect.”

  Ray worked in an oil-based style quite his own, a motif of playful, realistic figures experiencing life in vivid color—a family picnic on a blanket near a stream, a birthday party for a grandmother, a woman brushing her young son’s hair in front of a mirror, a young couple in a passionate embrace on a park bench—while being observed, and sometimes imitated, by a grotesque black and white form with an emaciated body, its oversized head and face distorted by pressure against some invisible barrier separating it from the inhabitants of the scene. The juxtaposition of colorful, everyday life with the skillfully integrated black and white form was as original as it was compelling.

  I tried to see Ray’s face to get his reaction to finding his work, which he had last seen in a prison cell, displayed under these dramatic and glamorous circumstances. But he was in front of me, making his entrance into the crowded gallery with Lennie, and both of them were instantly thronged by well-wishers and admirers.

  I’d spent a great deal of time these last six weeks helping Lennie as he personally directed the paintings’ placement, agonizing over nuance. The exhibit catalog, too, had required endless hours on short notice. So it was satisfying to see how the show was now being devoured, along with the liquor and hors d’oeuvres, by an assemblage of about two hundred collectors, curators, artists and patrons, all appropriately costumed in attire ranging from paint-spattered blue jeans to custom suits from Dunhill Tailors or dresses from Givenchy. Given the gallery’s controversial standing in the art-world hierarchy, some of the more distinguished luminaries were unlikely attendees, but Lennie’s association with the event had provoked their appearance. Stoked by the provocative and disturbing images on the walls, the tangible frisson among the paint-splattered and the coutured added to the crackling undercurrents of tension and glamor, like oxygen bellowed toward a flame.

  All my work for the exhibit up to now had been pro bono. For someone in my profession—an independent dealer in contemporary art—the opportunity to spend time with an artist of Leonard Hirsh’s stature was as valuable as a commission. If I was useful to him in this pet project, who could say what future opportunities might arise? Besides, I already owed Lennie big time. For the past six weeks, he’d been letting me live in a cottage on his estate, rent free, while I sorted out my current marital difficulties. So perhaps my work wasn’t, in the strictest sense, completely pro bono.

  Yesterday evening I had sat in at the gallery while Jon Kenton, art critic for the New York Times, had viewed the exhibit and interviewed Lennie. Kenton’s contemptuous dismissal of the work of women and ethnic artists often raised hackles, but his endorsements had preceded the meteoric rise and dominating influence of several of the era’s most influential white male artists, including Lennie. The interview was particularly important, because Kenton never attended openings.

  The interview had, of course, covered the inside story of Art For The At Risk’s gifted new artist, but whatever review Kenton was going to write hadn’t yet appeared. In January, Lennie had agreed to serve on AFTAR’s advisory board, which consisted largely of prominent art-world figures. If the guests at tonight’s opening were at all cynical about an important new painter being d
iscovered in a penitentiary, they were keeping their skepticism to themselves, at least for now.

  The volume of conversation and the intensity of the crowd increased as we made our way deeper into the center of the space. When we had reached the power spot, Lennie was immediately assailed by Marvin Platz, the influential collector and chairman of Media International Corporation, who was there with his wife Patty, a slim, attractive younger woman with blond-streaked hair. In the past four years I had represented the sellers in three transactions in which Marvin was the buyer, and I considered him a valuable connection.

  Standing on my toes and looking over the mob, I saw Lennie’s wife, Nora, making her way toward us. She was as beautiful and almost as serene as ever, with only a slight, uncharacteristic scanning of the crowd betraying her excitement. When she reached us, I gave her a kiss on both cheeks. In flat-heeled shoes she was still taller than Lennie, and nearly as tall as me. Tonight she was wearing her dark curly hair pulled back in a casually sophisticated style that went perfectly with her simple black dress. Highlighting her clear, pale complexion was a light dusting of freckles and a minimum of makeup. At the age of thirty-two, Nora made the other women in the room, who were all more elaborately coifed and painted, look common by comparison.

  “Lennie’s been difficult enough,” she said to me loudly enough to be heard over the din. “Now he’ll be impossible.”

  She was either impressed or angry with her husband—maybe both—and I wondered again about their life together. Marriage and its intricacies had been my constant preoccupation since my wife had kicked me out of our apartment six weeks ago.

  I overheard Marvin expounding to Lennie—something about, “The passion of pain and torment in every inch of flesh . . .” and tried to listen in. But I noticed that Marvin’s archetypal trophy wife Patty was in deep water with Ray, floundering in her attempts to make chitchat with the stone-faced ex-convict.