It's Not About Sex

by David Kalergis

  It took a half hour, but I persuaded everyone to remain calm until Mr. Bell checked in. With the business situation safely on hold, I left the cottage to catch up with Ray and Lennie.

  As I was walking past the Buttons, I saw Tamara Skye sitting on the porch. I knew Tamara didn’t like me—after our first conversation, in which I’d been at my most charming, Nora told me later that Tamara had said I was “a typical white, middle-class male.” The judgment in the characterization irritated me, as did Tamara herself. I was especially put off by her lack of humor.

  I waved and she called to me. “Bradley, how are you?”

  “Fine, Tamara. Good morning.”

  “Come have some tea.”

  The invitation was a surprise. She obviously wanted something.

  “I’d love to.”

  The smell of burning incense drifted through the open front door as I climbed the porch steps. While I sat on a wooden chair beside the small porch table, Tamara, sitting in the chair opposite, twisted her hair into a knot and wrapped it, turban-style, in a white towel. She removed the towel, patted her hair briefly, and wrapped it again.

  Tamara was very pretty. She had a pert body, covered this morning by a black leotard, and a lovely heart-shaped face with regular features and a perfect complexion. Her shiny blond hair was still wet from the shower and fell loosely past her shoulders. When I was near her, though, I couldn’t help thinking of what Lennie had once said, that “the alarm on her biological clock is going off so loudly, everyone in the Circle can hear it.”

  I tried gallantry.

  “Your hair is always so shiny.”

  “I use a placental conditioner.”

  She poured me a cup of tea, then picked up a newspaper.

  “Have you read the article in the New York Times?” she asked.

  “Is it about Ray? I haven’t seen the paper this morning. Is it favorable?”

  The appearance of the New York Times article was exciting news. I was eager to read it, but Tamara didn’t offer me the newspaper.

  “What’s he like?” she asked.

  “Well . . . except for a bad case of prison pallor, he’s tall, dark, and handsome.”

  “That’s not at all what I mean.” I’d never been able to draw any reaction from Tamara other than barely suppressed scorn. “I’ve seen him out walking,” she said. “He and Lennie passed by this morning. I want to know what he’s like spiritually. Has the struggle against a corrupt system polished his soul?”

  Could this woman possibly be serious?

  “The only remotely spiritual thing he’s said is that he lived for years like a monk in a cell.”

  “Did he say that?”

  A telephone rang inside the cabin and she excused herself. Over the tinkling of the wind chimes suspended above my head, I heard her talk about a project she was organizing. When she got funding, her planned foundation would buy paintings from artists who needed money but were unable to sell their work because no one else was willing to buy it—although I doubt that’s the way Tamara would have described the program. That morning’s telephone discussion involved the pending submission of a Federal grant proposal.

  I reached for the newspaper. Kenton’s article about Ray was the lead story in the Arts section, and I scanned it hurriedly.

  America’s prisons are scattered across the continent hundreds of miles from each other. They form, however, a single system and the population they impound is a sort of demonic community. This is the world of maximum security, an archipelago of the damned. Raymond LeRoy Martin ought to know. He has lived there for the last fifteen years. He has been a convict for so long that no longer being behind bars is, to him, identical to a free man’s dreams of heaven.

  Tamara was still talking on the phone, her voice now urgent as she pressed a point regarding “affirmative equal access to the markets” on her listener.

  Between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, he has lived free for a total of only two and a half years. Ray Martin is a state-raised convict, one who was reared by the government after having first been taken from what the state calls a “broken home.” And he’s learned that people in society can do anything to him and not be punished by the law. Martin is not blameless, nor does he claim to be. But neither will he admit, despite vicious pressure to sway him, that he is his own victim or that his guilt is equal to the cruel treatment he has experienced.

  Ray’s life before Schoolcross took on dimension for me, and I regarded him with new respect as I wondered how I’d stand up to prison life.

  Tamara’s voice continued to drone from within the Buttons. Apparently she’d forgotten I was waiting. I skipped over the passages describing AFTAR’s battle to bring the redemptive power of art to the prison population, as well as Ray’s role as a test case. I wanted to get to the review’s substance.

  The critique first focused on the motif of emaciated torsos with distorted faces pressed against invisible barriers, looking onto scenes of everyday tranquility. The obvious biographical connections, based on Ray’s incarceration for most of his adult life, were noted and dissected. The article went on to give a glowing review and critical descriptions of many of the individual paintings, including Picnic, Birthday, Mother Brushing Son’s Hair, and Fourth of July Parade. It concluded with a quote from Lennie.

  Martin himself declines all interviews, but the night before the opening of the exhibit “Faces against Glass” (Edison’s Electric, 187 Prince Street, September 8 through October 27), his advocate and strongest supporter, Leonard Hirsh, said, “We may yet have a new painter of the largest stature among us.”

  I was in discussions with a handful of interested collectors, including Platz, Blanford, and Mr. Bell, and this positive press would be a tremendous help. So far, each had been reluctant to make the first move, despite the de facto endorsement by Lennie. Lennie is powerful, but no one person, especially another painter, can single-handedly make a market for a new artist. But after we’d sold the first few paintings, I believed we would see price increases in the secondary market, followed by demand for new work by Ray.

  I scanned the article again, noting that there was no mention of the Lennie/Tingley incident. Kenton hadn’t attended the opening, but he certainly would have heard about it. I considered and discarded the possibility that the omission was Lennie’s influence at work and perhaps the cause for the review’s delayed appearance. I wouldn’t have minded if it had been reported. Such incidents become the stuff of legend, adding to an artist’s critical “image” and “brand,” although I would never use those words with anyone but Linda. I’d considered contacting SuzieQ anonymously and pitching the story, but my better judgment prevailed. She’d no doubt already heard about it anyway, although she’d moved to the West Coast shortly after pushing Lennie through the window at Le Grenouille.

  I expected Tamara to return and apologize, but she remained inside, closing the door to ensure privacy during her phone call. I’d only wait three more minutes, I decided, checking my watch. When she didn’t return in the allotted time, I realized that in our brief conversation Tamara must have gotten what she’d wanted from me. Still holding the newspaper, I stood up and, after disentangling myself from a web of wind chimes, left to find someone more congenial with whom to share the news of Ray’s dramatic critical success.

  CHAPTER V

  ◊

  On the following morning, the last Saturday in September, I rang up my apartment in the city before Ray and I were to meet Lennie for our walk. To my surprise it was Linda who answered the phone.

  “Good morning, Bradley. Mary’s still in bed. She stayed up late last night, and I want to let her sleep in.”

  I was encouraged to hear her voice and hoped that she’d intentionally let Mary sleep late so she could talk to me.

  “How is she doing? Is she studying for her ERBs? And how are you doing?” I asked.

  Mary would begin kindergarten next year. This was a rite of passage fraught with anxiety for Upper Eas
t Side parents. Attending the right kindergarten in Manhattan is a precursor to success over one’s entire lifetime, or at least so we imagined. I thought she’d fit right in at the Brearley School on East Eighty-Third Street, or Spence on East Ninety-First. She was going through the application process now. I knew she’d be taking her required ERBs—Educational Records Bureau tests—any day now, and it upset me that I wasn’t there for her.

  She ignored my questions about Mary’s test but told me some interesting news. “I’m considering going back to work. I talked with Megan. She’s at Towe’s now. She thinks she could get me in there.”

  Towe’s was a smaller competitor of Weatherby’s. Linda had left her job at Weatherby’s four years ago after Mary got sick, and never returned. I knew that Linda loved being a full-time mother, but she also missed her work desperately. With Mary now spending half days at the pre-school (actually, “enriched” day care) on nearby East Seventy-Fifth Street, and Luzia available the rest of the time, I’d encouraged her to go back. She’d wavered, sometimes getting peeved when I’d bring it up. Now, several aspects of her news took me by surprise.

  “Towe’s?” I replied. “A bit of a step down, wouldn’t you say? And Megan used to work for you. You trained her.”

  “Bradley, if you’re going to start talking like your father, I’m going to hang up right now.”

  This hurt because I knew she was right. I hated my father’s perpetual negativity about everything.

  “Yes, sorry. It’s great you’re thinking about going back to work. Towe’s is fine, and Megan has always been a dear.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Bradley.”

  “I said I’m sorry, and I mean it.”

  “Anyway, let’s talk about something else. Mary’s been asking to see you, and I think we should make some kind of arrangement.”

  “Okay. When do I move back in?”

  “Don’t start. I’m talking about a visit. I could send her down to meet you in the lobby with Luzia. Carlos could ring up when you arrive. Take her to the park to the horses.”

  Carlos was the doorman. At the sound of his name, I realized that I missed him, and Luzia too. This whole separation thing was getting out of hand, but I’d already made too many missteps in the conversation to push for concessions. I still wanted to find out about Mary’s ERBs but decided it would be better to accept what had been offered. A visit with her would be wonderful and might lead to more contact in the future.

  “You two could start doing something like that regularly,” Linda added.

  Before hanging up, we set the first visit for Monday at three. This was perfect because I needed to be in the city on business in the late morning anyway. After I put down the telephone, I felt more optimistic than I had in weeks.

  When Ray and I arrived behind the Big House to meet Lennie for our walk that morning we found him with a newcomer, a rather slight but sturdy-looking Japanese gentleman with close-cropped gray hair and protruding ears. Both he and Lennie were barefoot and wore indigo-blue cotton jackets with matching pleated skirts that nearly reached the ground. The Japanese man, who was perhaps seventy, appeared comfortable in this costume, which he wore with an alert, military air. Lennie was excited and self-conscious, his jacket a bit too small and straining slightly across his middle.

  “Ray! Bradley!” he called as we approached. “I want you to meet Noboro Tanaka.”

  Noboro gave a brisk bow, took my hand, and said in heavily accented English, “Happy to make your acquaintance, Bradley-san.” He gave Ray a similar bow. “And yours, Ray-san.”

  “Noboro-san is a renowned calligrapher,” said Lennie, getting into the swing of things. “He’s on the AFTAR advisory board with me. When I found out he’s also a master of kendo—samurai sword fighting—I asked him to give me fencing lessons. And both of you, too, if you want,” he said, opening his hand toward Ray and me. “He’s staying upstairs in the Big House guest suite.”

  So this was the “sword fellow from California” Will had mentioned. Lennie looked at us expectantly. The situation was classic Schoolcross. We’d come to take a simple walk and instead would be thrust into combat with a sword master.

  “I’ve never heard of Japanese fencing,” said Ray.

  “Is kendo like karate?” I asked.

  “If you study the kendo, you don’t talk about it,” said Noboro. “If I tell you, you will only know. And knowing is not enough. For the kendo, you must do.”

  Pointing at a canvas sheath on the lawn, he said, “The lesson has already begun. If you want to participate . . .” His pronunciation of “participate” was sibilant and precise. “. . . take off shoes and get shinai.”

  Ray and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “We’re going to do Japanese sword fencing in the backyard?” I asked, but Ray had already slipped off his shoes and was opening the long canvas bag. Noboro ignored my question as Ray removed two wooden “swords” and handed one to me.

  It was made of four matching four-foot strips of split bamboo, ingeniously bound together by knotted blue cord, with a covering of thin white leather delineating the fifteen-inch handle and three inches of the tip. Imitating Lennie, I grasped this cleverly made mock sword with both hands and swung it in circles over my head. It felt strong but flexible, and made a vibrant whistling as it sliced the air.

  “I thought Japanese swords had curved blades, Mr. Tanaka,” I said.

  “This is not a sword. It is a shinai. To learn with. After the lesson I am called Mr. Tanaka or Noboro. Now I am Sensei, which means ‘teacher.’ Remember, don’t ask questions during class. I will show you everything. This is the Japanese way.”

  “Take your shoes off,” Ray said. “This could be interesting.”

  Our first lesson was to hold the bamboo sword in what Noboro called basic fighting position, or chudan, and to strike while moving forward. He guided my stance with his hands, adjusted my grip, and, satisfied for the moment, held up his own bamboo sword horizontally, at eye level, as my target.

  “This is the head of your opponent,” he said. “The head is called men in Japanese. You must hit men so that the sword splits the skull. And when you hit, you must make your battle cry. Later I will teach you to slash the wrist or the chest, and to jab the throat, under your opponent’s helmet. This jab is called tsuki and is the most dangerous of the kendo attacks.”

  He had lowered his sword momentarily as he spoke but lifted it again, holding it horizontally in front of me.

  “Now move forward one step and hit my shinai.”

  I raised my bamboo sword over my head and, stepping forward, brought it down with a satisfying crash. Noboro took a step back, his sword still outstretched.

  “And again,” he said, “step forward and hit shinai. This time when you hit, shout with your kiai, your battle cry. Your kiai must cause even a samurai to shake with fright.” He looked at us, raised his eyebrows, and said, “Like this . . . Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

  All the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  “Now, Bradley-san, it is your turn.”

  My trip into New York the next day began in triumph. First I met with Marvin Platz shortly after noon at his impressive corporate headquarters in the Media International Building. It was Columbus Day, the office was on half-staff, and Marvin was dressed casually.

  “Give me a play-by-play of the Lennie/Tingley episode,” he said as soon as we were alone together in his corner office. “I could see them but was too far away to hear what they said before the drinks started flying.”

  I told him a few carefully filtered exchanges, which he found hilarious. Marvin was clearly pleased to have witnessed it personally—his presence confirmed his status as an art-world insider. When he asked if I knew precisely what Tingley had said to provoke Lennie’s rage, I demurred, and was able to shift the conversation to a discussion of Ray’s paintings.

  Marvin knew how to talk the talk. “I’m particularly impressed with how perfectl
y Martin triangulates the frozen moment so the underlying narrative can emerge,” he said.

  Recalling the scrap of conversation I had overhead between him and Lennie at the opening, I fed his own line back to him. “Yes . . . allowing you to be a witness to the passion of pain and torment in every inch of flesh.”

  He was close to making a decision but still ambivalent, simultaneously thrilled that he might be the first to buy a Ray Martin but worried he would overpay. Ray had not yet sold a painting, so no true market value had been established. Still, the recent New York Times review had been very favorable, and the potential for appreciation was real. Just as importantly, Marvin liked the work, as did I.

  I didn’t suggest for a moment that the amount of money at issue—twenty thousand dollars for each of the paintings—was pocket change to a man of his means. I know my billionaires. Nothing will sour a deal more quickly than suggesting that money is less valuable to them than to anyone else. They, of course, are free to make this observation on their own, however and whenever they feel like it. Depending on their individual natures, this may range from never to frequently. Platz tended toward the former, especially when negotiating. My instincts told me his real issue was the possibility of looking foolish—that he would pay forty thousand dollars for two paintings, and we would then sell others for less to a rival collector.

  He and I had done business together in the past, and I believed he found me trustworthy. I considered what it would take to advance this sale and decided to take a risk. First I told him, correctly, that there was serious interest from several other potential buyers (whom, of course, I couldn’t name, but he could guess), including interest in the particular two paintings that Platz fancied. Looking him squarely in the eye, I told him that, with the exception of two smaller paintings already priced at eighteen thousand each, I’d guarantee that no work from the exhibit would be sold to anyone for less than he paid.