The Burnt Orange Heresy

by Charles Ray Willeford

  I looked in the kitchen for string and wrapping paper, but there was neither. There was newspaper, but it would have been awkward to wrap a canvas in newspaper when there was no string to tie the bundle. There were several large brown paper grocery sacks under the sink, and I took one of these back to the studio to hold the art materials I would need. I took a clean sheet from the hall linen closet and wrapped one of the new canvases from the plastic rack in it. I then filled the brown sack with several camel's-hair brushes, a can of turpentine, one of linseed oil, and a halfdozen tubes of oil paint. With cadmium red, chrome yellow, Prussian blue, and zinc white I can mix almost any shade or tint of color I desire (this much I had learned in my first oil painting course because the tyrannical teacher had made us learn how to mix primary colors if he taught us nothing else). I added tubes of burnt sienna and lampblack to the others because they were useful for skin tones (there were no compositional ideas in mind at the time, just nebulous multicolored swirls floating loosely about in my head) if some figures became involved in the composition. The palette knife was also useful and I dropped it into the sack, but I didn't take the expensive palette. It was too expensive and could be traced, and I wouldn't want to be caught with it in my possession.

  These art materials could be purchased anywhere, of course, as could the prepared 30" x 24" canvas, but I needed Debierue's materials in the event the authenticity of the painting was ever questioned. Mr. Cassidy, who had purchased everything for Debierue, would have a bill from the art store listing these materials, their brands, and so would Rex Art. My mind was racing, but I was clearheaded enough to realize how close a scrutiny the painting would receive when and if it were ever painted and exhibited.

  I put the wrapped canvas, the sackful of supplies, and the hammer and tire iron into the trunk of the car, and returned to the studio.

  I ran into trouble with the fire. Turpentine is flammable, highly flammable, but I had difficulty in getting it lighted and in keeping it burning once it was lit. I finally had to take the remains of the Miami Herald, crumple each separate page into a ball, and partially soak each sheet with turpentine before I could get a roaring fire started beneath the Early American Harvest table.

  Once it got started, however, the fire burned beautifully. I poured most of the last can on the studio door, and dribbled the rest to the blaze beneath the table. I then tossed the new canvases into the fire, and backed out of the room. Because the fire would need a draft, I left the studio door and the front door standing open. Whether the house burned down or not was unimportant. The important thing was a charred and well-gutted studio. I wanted no evidence of any paintings left behind, and the crackling prepared canvases, sized with white lead, burned rapidly.

  Satisfied, I turned out the living room and kitchen lights and got into the car. When I reached the highway and stopped, Berenice was gone. I shouted her name twice and panicked momentarily. Had she hitchhiked a ride back to Palm Beach?' If she stuck out her thumb, any truck driver who saw it would stop and pick her up. But I calmed down by puffing myself in her place, turned toward the drive-in theater instead of turning left for Palm Beach, and found her waiting for me in the gravel road of the driveway, standing near the well-lighted marquee.

  "What took you so long?" Her voice wasn't angry. She was too relieved to see me, happy to be in the car again. "I thought you were never coming back."

  "I'm sorry. It took longer than I expected."

  "Did you stea- take a picture?"

  "Yeah."

  "What were they like?' The pictures?"

  "I'll turn over here U.S. One. There're too many trucks on Seven."

  "How long do you think it'll be, before he misses the picture?"

  "I've got to go back to New York, Berenice. Tonight. So as soon as we get back to the apartment I'll pack- you're still packed, practically- and then I can drop you off at the airport. Or, if you'd rather, you can stay on for a few more days. The rent's paid till the end of the month, so. ."

  "If you're going to New York, so am I!"

  "But what's the point?' You've got your school year contract, and you have to go back to work, don't you?' Besides, I'm going to be busy. I won't have any time for you at all. First, there's the Debierue article to write, and the deadline is tighter than hell now. I'll have to find a place to crash. The man in my pad has still got another month on the sublease, you see. I'm almost broke, and I'll have to borrow some money, and-"

  "Money isn't a problem, James. I've got almost five hundred dollars in traveler's checks, and more than five thousand in savings in the credit union. I'm going to New York with you.

  "Okay," I said bitterly, "but you'll have to help me drive."

  "Watch out!" she shrilled. "That car's only got one headlight!"

  "I don't mean that way. I mean to spell me at the wheel on the way up, so we can make better time."

  "I know what you meant, but you might have thought it was a motorcycle. We can trade off every two hours."

  "No. When I get tired, we'll trade."

  "All right. How're you going to get your twenty dollars back?"

  "What twenty dollars?"

  "The deposit at the electric company. If we leave tonight, you won't be able to have them cut off the electricity or get your deposit back."

  "Jesus, I don't know. I can let the landlady handle it and send me the money later. They'll subtract what I owe anyway. Please, Berenice, I'm trying to think. I've got so much on my mind I don't want to hear any more domestic crap, and those damned non sequiturs of yours drive me up the goddamned tree."

  "I'm sorry."

  "So am I. We're both sorry, but just be quiet."

  "I will. I won't say anything else."

  "Nothing else! Please!"

  Berenice gulped, closed her generous mouth, and puckered her lips into a prim pout. She looked straight ahead through the windshield and twisted her gloves, which she had removed, in her lap. I had shouted at her, but in my agitation, somehow, had consented to take her with me to New York. This was the last thing I wanted to do. It would take two days, perhaps three, to write the article on Debierue-and I had to do something about the painting for Mr. Cassidy. It wasn't a task I could have done for me, although I knew a dozen painters in New York who could have produced anything on canvas I asked them to put there, and the product would have been a professional job.

  But no one could be trusted. It was something I had to do myself, to fit Debierue's "American Period"-at that moment I coined the title for my article: "Debierue: The American Harvest Period." It was a major improvement over my previous title, and "American Harvest"-the idea must have come to me from the worktable in his studio- would provide me with a springboard for generating associative ideas.

  But there was still Berenice, and the problem of what to do with her-but wasn't it better to have her with me than to simply turn her loose where she could learn about the fire by reading about it in a newspaper, or by hearing a newscast?' How soon would the report go out?' Would Debierue telephone Mr. Cassidy and tell him about it?' That depended upon the extent of the fire, probably, but Cassidy would be the only person Debierue knew to contact, and I could certainly trust Cassidy to make the correct decision. He might inform the news media, and again he might not. Before doing anything, he would want to know whether I got a picture for him before the fire started. And although Cassidy might suspect me of setting the fire, he wouldn't know for sure, and he wouldn't give a damn about the other "paintings" destroyed in the fire so long as he got his.

  I still had about three hours, or perhaps closer to four, to contact Cassidy before Debierue learned about the fire and managed to telephone him.

  And Berenice?' It would be best to keep her with me. At least for now. Once we reached New York, I could settle her in a hotel for a few days until I finished doing the things I had to do, and then we could work out a compromise of some kind. The best compromise, and I could work out the details later, would be for her to return to Duluth and te
ach until the summer vacation. In this way, "we could reflect upon how we really felt about each other-at a sane distance, without passion interfering-and, if we both felt as if we still loved each other, in truth, and our affair was not just a physical thing, well, we could then work out some kind of life arrangement together when we met in New York-or somewhere-during her two-month summer vacation."

  This was an idea I could sell, I decided, but until I had time for it, she could stay with me for the ride. It would take hours of argument to get rid of her now, and I simply couldn't spare the time on polemics when I had to concentrate every faculty I possessed on Debierue, his "American Harvest" period, his painting, and what I was going to write.

  I took the Lake Worth bridge to pick up A1A, to enter Palm Beach from the southern end of the island, and Berenice shifted suddenly in her seat.

  "Do you know that we've driven for more than forty-five minutes, and you haven't said a single word?"

  "Crack your wind-wing a little, Honey," I said, "and we'll get some more air."

  "Oh!" She cracked the window. "You're the most exasperating man I've ever met in my life, and if I didn't love you so much I'd tell you so!"

  By leaving the food in the refrigerator, and the canned food and staples on the shelves, it didn't take us long to pack. I put my clean clothes in my small suitcase, and the dirty clothes, which made up the bulk of my belongings, all went into the big valopack with my suits, slacks, and jackets. While Berenice looked around to see if we had forgotten anything, I took my bags and typewriter to the car and tossed them into the back seat.

  On my way back for Berenice's luggage I stopped at the landlady's apartment, gave her the receipt for the power company's twenty-dollar deposit, and told her to take the money that remained to pay someone to clean the apartment. When she began to protest that this small sum wouldn't be enough to pay a cleaning woman, I told her to add the balance of the rent money I had paid her in advance instead of returning it to me and she said: "I hope you have a pleasant trip back to New York, Mr. Figueras, and perhaps you'll drop me a card some time from Spanish Harlem."

  She was a real bitch, but I shrugged off her parting remark and returned to the apartment for Berenice and her things.

  I stopped at the Western Union office in Riviera Beach and sent two telegrams. The first one, to my managing editor in New York, was easy:

  HOLD MY SPACE 5000 WORDS PERSONAL ARTICLE ON DEBIERUE

  DRIVING WITH IT NOW TO NY FIGUERAS

  This telegram would put Tom Russell into a frenzy, but he would hold the space, or rip out something else already set for a piece on Debierue. But he would be so astonished about my having an article written on Debierue he wouldn't know whether to believe me or not. And yet, he would be afraid not to believe me. I gave the operator his home address on Long Island, and the New York magazine address as well, with instructions to telephone the message to him before delivering it. The girl assured me that he would have it before midnight, which assured me that Tom would have a sleepless night. Well, so would I.

  The wire to Joseph Cassidy at the Royal Palni Towers, only a twenty-minute drive from Riviera Beach at this time of evening, was more difficult to compose. I threw away the first three drafts, and then sent the following as a night letter, with instructions not to deliver it until at least eight AM:

  EMERGENCY STOP URGENT I REPORT TO NY MAGAZINE OFFICE

  STOP WILL WRITE AND SEND PICTURE FROM THERE FIGUERAS

  There was ambiguity in the wording, but I wanted it to read that way. He would not be able to ascertain from the way the wire was worded whether I would write and fill him in on the "emergency," or whether I would be sending Debierue's "picture" from New York. If nothing else, the wire would make him cautious about what he would say to the press about Debierue and the fire, although I knew he would have to release something. Knowing that he didn't set the fire, and without knowing for sure that I had set it, Debierue would most certainly contact Cassidy. If he suspected that the fire had been set by vandals, Debierue would probably be afraid to stay at the isolated location even though the rest of the house was only slightly damaged.

  Berenice, happy to have her way about going to New York, sat in the car while I sent the telegrams, and, except for humming or singing snatches of Rodgers & Hart songs, confined her conversation to reminding me occasionally to dim my lights or to kick them to bright again. Brooding about what to write, and how to write it, especially after we got onto the straight, mind-dulling Sunshine Parkway, I needed frequent reminders about the headlights.

  The rest-stop islands, with filling stations at each end, and Dobbs House concession restaurants sandwiched between the gas stations, are staggered at uneven distances along the Parkway. Because they are unevenly spaced, it wasn't possible to stop at every other one (sometimes it was only twenty-eight miles to a rest stop, whereas the next one would be sixty miles away), and a decision, usually to halt, had to be made every time. Berenice always went to the can twice, once upon debarking, and again after we had a cup of coffee. I said nothing about the delay (as a man I could have stopped anywhere along the highway, but I would have been insane to make such a suggestion to a middle-western schoolteacher), and besides, the rest stops soon became useful. Sitting at the counter over coffee with my notebook, I organized my vagrant thoughts about Debierue's "American Harvest" Florida paintings, and by writing down my ideas at each stop, I retained the good ones, eliminated the poor ones, and gradually developed a complicated, but pyramiding, gestalt for the article.

  I allowed Berenice to drive between the Fort Pierce and Yeehaw Junction rest stops, but, finding that I thought better at the wheel, persuaded her to put her head on my shoulder and go to sleep with the promise that she could drive all the next morning while I slept. Toward morning the air became nippy, but by nine AM., with Berenice driving, as we entered the long wide thoroughfare leading into downtown Valdosta, I knew that we had to stop.

  If I didn't write the piece on Debierue now, while my ideas were still fresh, the article would suffer a hundred metamorphoses in my mind during the long haul to New York. I would be bone tired by then, confused, and unable to write anything. There were some references, dates, names, and so on, I would have to check in New York, but I could write the piece now and leave those spaces blank. Besides, Tom Russell would want to read the piece the moment I got into the city. I also had to paint a picture before I wrote the article. By looking at it (whatever it turned out to be), it would be a simple matter to describe the painting with it sitting in front of me, and I could tie the other paintings to it somehow.

  "Berenice," I said, "we're going to stop here in Valdosta, not in a motel, but in the hotel downtown, if they have one. In a hotel we can get room service, and two rooms, one for you and-"

  "Why two rooms?' Why can't I-"

  "I know you mean well, sweetheart, and you're awfully quiet when I'm working, but you also know how it bugs me to have you tiptoeing around while l'm trying to write. I won't have time to talk to you while I'm working, and I won't stop, once I start, until I've got at least a good rough draft on paper. Take a long nap, a good tub bath-motels only have showers, you know-and then go to a movie this afternoon. And tonight, if I'm fairly well along with it, we can have dinner together."

  "Shouldn't you sleep for a few hours first?' I had some catnaps, but you haven't closed your eyes."

  "I'll take a couple of bennies. I'm afraid if I go to sleep I'll lose my ideas."

  Being reasonable with Berenice worked for once. Downtown, we stopped at the tattered-awninged entrance of a six-story brick hotel, The Valdosta Arms. I asked the ancient black doorman if the hotel had a parking garage.

  "Yes, sir," he said. "If you checking in, drive right aroun' the corner there and under the buildin'. I'll have a bellman waitin' there for your bags."

  I reached across Berenice and handed the old man two quarters.

  "If you want out here, I'll carry your car aroun' myself," he offered.

 
"No," I shook my head. "I like to know where my car is parked."

  He was limping for the house phone beside the revolving glass doors before Berenice got the car into gear.

  I wanted to know where the car was parked because I intended to return for the canvas and art materials after getting Berenice settled in. The bellman had a luggage truck waiting, and we followed him into the service elevator and up to the lobby.

  "Two singles, please," I said to the desk clerk. A bored middle-aged man, his eyes didn't even light up when he looked at Berenice.

  "Do you have a reservation, sir?"

  "No."

  "All right. I can give you connecting rooms on three, if you like."

  "Fine," Berenice said.

  "No." I smiled and shook my head. "You'd better separate them. I have to do some typing, and we've been driving all night and it might disturb her sleep."

  "Five-ten, and Five-oh-five." He shifted his weary deadpan to address Berenice. "You'll be dreckly across the hail from him, Miss."

  I signed a register card, and while Berenice was signing hers, crossed to the newsstand and looked for her favorite magazine on the rack. Unable to find it, I asked the woman behind the glass display case if she had sold out her Cosmopolitans. Setting her lips in a prim line, she reached beneath the counter and silently placed a copy on the glass top. I handed her a dollar and she rang it up (a man who buys "under the counter" magazines has to pay a little more). I joined Berenice and the bellman at the elevators and we went up to our rooms.

  The first thing I did after tipping the bellman and closing the door was to change out of my jumpsuit. From the guarded but indignant looks I had received in the lobby from the newsstand woman, the bellman, and two bluesuited men with narrow ties (the desk clerk's face wouldn't have registered surprise if I had worn jockey shorts), gentlemen were not expected to wear jumpsuits in downtown Valdosta. And I didn't want people to stare at me when I went down to the basement garage for my art materials. I put on a pair of gray slacks, a white silk shirt, with a whiteon-white brocade tie, and a lime sports jacket, the only unrumpled clothes I had.