The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

by Adele Griffin

  But then, of course, the Whitney came knocking.

  DR. ROLAND JONES: Until those last weeks, the last weeks of her life, Addison was very good about appointments. She’d spent some of them working on a painting of me. A wonderful portrait, if only I could have afforded it, ha! So I got to know her both as a client and an artist. Over that winter into spring, she was busy, industrious, but, no—I didn’t feel that Addison was overwhelmed by any one aspect of her life.

  In particular, she always spoke of Lincoln Reed in an upbeat manner. She called him her “soul mate” and said that she “had never known and been known as well by another person.” She’d mention his healthy habits—how he ran and biked, that he vehemently abstained from drinking, and that he liked to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. So when she informed me that they were moving in together, this seemed—from my professional point of view—a positive thing.

  She also told me that she’d been trying to break a bad habit of slashing her paintings. She confessed she’d often strike a red or black X through a piece if it wasn’t working the way she wanted. Apparently, Lincoln had spoken up numerous times against this act. He called it sabotage, a vandalism against herself. He thought she gave up too easily. He seemed to be sensitive to her self-destructive impulses in general.

  Doc, a painting of Roland Jones, by Addison Stone, courtesy of the Deutsche Bank private collection.

  LUCY LIM: Moving in with Lincoln was a huge mistake. I love Lincoln dearly, but Addy never, ever should have done it. He wanted to rescue her. He wanted to try. She hated to be alone. But no matter how vulnerable Addy felt about the whacked-out games Zach was playing, no matter how insecure she felt about the Coulsen article, no matter how much she said Lincoln Reed made her feel loved and safe … those two artists—too much together, too soon after meeting—equaled Very Bad Idea.

  She begged me to come visit during a face-bitingly cold weekend, right after she moved in with him. She paid for my train ticket on the Acela and then a private town car from Penn Station to downtown, the usual Addison treatment. The Fieldbenders had also asked if I would please report back, and so I knew they were worried, too.

  Lincoln lived on Elizabeth Street, smack in the chic heart of Soho. The freight elevator opened up right into his raw living space—it must have been two thousand square feet. Addy loved all that space and light—she was like a kid, showing me how the door to the bedroom slid sidewise like in a barn. She loved the concrete floor, the industrial cool, and of course those strangely hypnotizing Lincoln Reed canvases propped all along the walls.

  But I think a lot of Addy’s identity got left behind on Court Street. She’d painted her purple walls with such joy. The tub was back there, plus other things people had legit given her—Marie-Claire, for one, had delivered Addy a life-sized stuffed rhinoceros from FAO Schwartz. The Lenox had sent her a tree stump from Colorado, with the bark polished to sable. Those were her own special things, and they were part of her story. But Addy insisted that she didn’t care about any of that, and she didn’t want to take anything but bare essentials to Lincoln’s.

  “I like thinking about The Queen’s Shame looking exactly the same,” she said. “That place is like an art installation of my past. I don’t want to tamper with it.”

  Lincoln didn’t believe in clutter or possessions. Addy wanted to play along. But Addy, a girl who could create some of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, never really owned anything valuable or interesting till New York. Typical Addy, she just walked away from it all. Maybe she had a point. Maybe the only thing of value in an Addy-charged environment was Addy.

  Elizabeth Street was Lincoln’s territory. Starting with his artwork and ending with his artwork, because Lincoln painted in the same place where he lived. His canvases were everywhere. Addy’s workplace was up in Chelsea. So none of her prints or paints or in-progress work were at home. But she didn’t want to bring anything to Lincoln’s space, either.

  “I’d rather get lost in Lincoln’s brain,” she told me once. “I want to come back from my studio and forget about myself for a while. Soak him in.”

  I didn’t ask her if she missed Erickson, but I did. Erickson was a different roomie groove than Lincoln. He’s a laid-back, sweet presence. His and Teddy’s love is a big hug that invites you in and warms you up. Plus Erickson is a natural host. When I’d come visit on Court Street, Erickson would always whip up his Southern specialties, like fried zebra tomatoes with deviled eggs and sweet hibiscus tea.

  Lincoln is the opposite. An absentminded-professor type. That guy can’t even boil water. And from what I could tell, he’s always been a loner.

  “You want to rescue her,” I said to Lincoln when Addy was in the bathroom, and we had a brief moment alone. “I get it. But she’s a full-time job. She was my job, and then she was Erickson’s, and now she’s yours. And you never saw what happened last time, when Zach tried to take over that job.”

  “I won’t fuck it up, Lucy,” he said. “I promise.”

  I looked into his eyes and knew he meant it. But I also knew he couldn’t possibly have understood what he was getting into.

  Lincoln Reed, parking his bike in his studio on Elizabeth Street, courtesy of Lucy Lim.

  ERIKSON MCAVENA: Oh, yeah, I was incredibly depressed when she left. Sure, it was fun to start playing house with Teddy. At this point, we’re like a pair of old socks. We’ve been together so long, almost seven years now. But it had been barely six months I’d lived with Addison. And then she was gone.

  The good news was we’d always meet for brunch at this great breakfast place, Cafeteria, after I was done with my 10 A.M. photography class in Union Square. We’d get johnnycake and cheddar grits and a giant pot of coffee, and we’d catch up.

  One morning she came in looking kinda dazed. Her hair in braids, too, which always meant she was prickly.

  “I’ve been up most of the night,” she told me. “You’ll never guess. I’ve been sent a message in a dream. The message was from Willem de Kooning. We were riding the elevator together, and he said the strangest thing to me. He said, ‘Claim what is valuable. Take back what’s yours.’ ”

  First I thought this was Addison’s ass-backward way of telling me she wanted everything she’d left behind at The Queen’s Shame. Then I thought she was messing with me. So I started making fun.

  “Sugar,” I said, “I didn’t know de Kooning talked like the Oracle in The Matrix.”

  “No no no, I’m serious, Erickson. Don’t you get it?” Those dark bright eyes on me. “De Kooning has given me my first truly epic idea. I’m ready for it, too. I’m blooming, finally.”

  “I think you need a second opinion,” I told her.

  But she wasn’t listening. She’d already decided what this dream meant, and if I didn’t get it, she didn’t care.

  LINCOLN REED: No, I didn’t understand the de Kooning dream at first. When she explained her interpretation of it, I thought she was kidding. Because she had somehow decided, from this one little dream, that de Kooning had appeared to her to tell her to steal her portrait out of the Whitney.

  “I’d be very careful with this concept,” I told her. “It’s one thing to sneak a few fancy dresses out of Bergdorf’s, or even FedEx-deliver yourself a bathtub. But to attempt to illegally remove your own art from a famous museum? Why would you bite the hand that’s feeding you? And why risk being arrested, and having that on your record?”

  “No, no, Linc,” she answered, “I’m replacing the portrait in the Whitney with a video of me stealing me. I’m taking back what’s mine. I’m claiming what is valuable. I’m swapping one art form for another. So everyone will come away happy. Best possible outcome.”

  I said, “Jail is also a possible outcome.”

  ADDISON STONE (from her own recorded notes): I’m moving ahead with this project. De Kooning knew better than anyone how artists need to be in constant metamorphosis. We make something, and we want the world to see it, but then we want to make it al
l over again, with a new skewering. Which reminded me of that Emily Dickinson quote that English teachers love too much: “tell all the truth but tell it slant.” Because your truth, your way, is always slant. And I think I could make my slant amazing. I want to be my own curator, to give with one hand and grab with the other. Now that I’ve been handed this idea, I’ll do everything in my power to execute it.

  DOMINICK LUTZ: Addison was a straight-up adrenaline junkie. She disguised her junkie need by calling it art. But. When she came to me with this objective—to steal her own self-portrait, the only self-portrait she’d ever done, out of the Whitney, and then swap in a video of herself performing this magic trick, I had to say, “Well, fuck yeah. Let me in.” I thought it was so pure, so courageous. It made me think about—What is theft? What’s this act that is defined as “theft” when you’re stealing the property you yourself created? Is it a felony? Is it art?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

  CAMERON LUTZ: Getting on board with Addison’s vision took me a while. Okay, it took me a whole night out with Addison and Lincoln and Paloma and Dom. In the end, I agreed. I was—still am—the cautious brother. I’m also the tech brother. So it was up to me to learn about the security system in the Whitney. We ended up calling the whole job Project #53, because that was Addison’s placement in the show, hers the fifty-third piece of art. That number was how Addison’s work appeared in all the security blueprints and maps. If I live to be a hundred, and I need to bullet the top ten most incredible things that I ever did, Project #53 would be—bam—right at the top of that timeline.

  LUCY LIM: Addison was calling me a lot around then. She didn’t write me emails. She was paranoid that Zach was paying spies and moles at Bing and Yahoo and Google to report all her activity back to him. But she’d call to talk through Project #53. How the Lutz brothers were going to master the technical aspects. Sometimes she spoke about the general risk aspects—she sometimes worried about how they might all get caught, and what the punishment would be.

  Mostly she was on a high from the idea.

  “Finally, Lu!” Practically screaming it into the phone. “Finally, Lu! Finally!” So sincere, I’d never have the heart to pop her balloon. I mean, finally? She’d been in New York for less than a year!

  But for the very first time, my gut told me she wasn’t taking the best care of herself. “Don’t forget, Addy. An apple a day keeps Glencoe away.”

  “Not if it’s Snow White’s apple,” she answered.

  “Ha ha ha. Keep eating right, and take your Z,” I’d always say it jokingly, casually. But I was also creeping around online, reading up on antipsychotic medications, hoping Jones and Tuttenbauer and the Fieldbenders were listening to Addy as hard as I was.

  Lincoln also called me a few times, because he suspected that Addy had been self-weaning onto a lower dosage. Lincoln said that Addison often spoke about wanting to “get clean,” a.k.a. off Z completely. And he told me she was definitely borrowing some of his regime, not skipping meals, getting her sleep, taking Citi Bike. She felt good and strong, and she hated that her personality was being filtered through an anti-psychotic medication. Getting off Z would be the last step to health.

  One thing that can be true of people with Addy’s exact mental health problems is they think if they’re happy and busy and the sun is out and life is smiling on them, then why do they need this little pill? So they think maybe the pill’s got nothing to do with it. Maybe, hallelujah, they’re cured? Then they go off the pill on the DL, and they’re back in the storm with their demons before anyone knew they’d wandered off. The other downside is that once you ease off a medication like Zyprexa, there’s no assurance it stays the right key to lock those demons back up and get you out safe.

  All to say, I wanted Project #53 to be over and done with.

  MAXWELL BERGER: Project #53. Did I know about it? No. Did not. Not until it happened. Not until I read it in the headlines. When I saw Addison, at various galleries and shows, she’d give me her usual earful. She’d never forgiven me for the Mirror Mirror piece, which had come out in February. Although frankly, I’d thought it had been very good for her brand. But she disrespectfully disagreed.

  Addison caught in conversation with Max Berger at the Joaquin Capa exhibit, spring, courtesy of Kate Volkmann.

  MARIE-CLAIRE BROYARD: Well, she wasn’t going out as much—not at night, certainly, but not much by day, either. Over that winter, we used to have these fun “Red Door” afternoons, where I’d scoop Addison off to Elizabeth Arden and pummel her into a manicure and brow wax and facials. General maintenance! Skin gets so dry in winter, dearie.

  But Addison dropped her nightlife and her spa days, too, when she sank into Project #53. Addison had always been a girl you could count on to stay out until the wee hours, every night of the week. And somehow she’d be fresh as a daisy tomorrow.

  So one afternoon, I wanted to see how fresh she was when she didn’t go out all night. I stopped by Lincoln’s place, only to find out that Addison had just about taken it over completely.

  “Check it out, Marie-Claire. My floor plans of the Whitney. I’m using this to recreate the space where my portrait is hanging. This is how we’re choreographing the film—don’t mind the mess!”

  “Mess? That’s an understatement, Addison. You’re living in squalor,” I told her. “And you’re dragging poor Lincoln down with you.”

  “Oh, please. You’re overreacting,” she told me.

  “Marie-Claire’s just reacting,” Lincoln shouted over. Laughing it off.

  But I’m telling you, the place was trashed. Half-eaten takeout in boxes, cans of Red Bull and bottles of vitaminwater, dirty paint smocks and notebooks, stacks of magazines, and heaps of clothing everywhere. That girl had such horrific habits.

  Poor Lincoln was attempting to work. He was painting on the way other side of the loft—but I wondered how he could even concentrate, with so much Addison-osity sucking up the oxygen. And I also remember that Addison, uncharacteristically, didn’t seem to care much about what Lincoln was up to. It was as if something had shifted inside her. She was brimming with her own plans. I was curious about what Lincoln thought of all that disorder in his home—but he seemed quite sweet and good-boyfriend-supportive. So I kept my trap shut.

  LINCOLN REED: She went deep. Really deep. She dropped Cheba for a while, which I appreciated. But she also got that heinous tattoo, which I didn’t appreciate.

  LUCY LIM: There are things I wish I could do over. And telling Addison about Ida is one of them. At the time, right after she’d moved into Lincoln’s, I hadn’t considered how that information would affect her. But now, with the rest of my life to reflect on it, I have to wonder.

  Over that winter break, I’d hunted down Ida. I’d been sleuthing, and finally, I found a name in a census poll, right outside Bristol in Dartmouth. Ida Grimes, 1899 to 1919. Dead by twenty. I didn’t have much else. No photograph, no cause of death. But I’d placed an Ida in Dartmouth, and that seemed worth mentioning to Addy.

  So I did. I thought it would validate something for her, the way it had for me. Like, make her realize maybe it wasn’t all cooked up by mental illness? But why had I just assumed “Ida Grimes” would give Addy peace? Maybe because I’d always hated to think that she’d invented Ida. A poltergeist seemed so harmless, compared with all of those sharpened blades inside Addy’s own head.

  What I didn’t know was that instead of closing Pandora’s box, it broke the lid off. Maybe it would have come off, anyway. But sometime that spring, Addy got someone at Sacred Tattoo to ink Ida’s name and dates to the back of her neck. I didn’t see it till spring break. By then, of course, I totally regretted I’d said anything.

  LINCOLN REED: Lucy came to me with all her Ida guilt around the same time Addison had started Project #53. She’s such a good soul, and always alert to shifts in Addison’s moods. And Lucy was as good a friend to me as she was to Addison. We could text each other jokes, ways to share and shrug off
our fears. When Lucy and I talked through anything Addison—her manic swings, her talent, her stunts, her heists, her random acts of tattoo—I felt straightened out. I could deal with Addison, as long as I had Lucy’s advice ringing in my ears.

  LUCY LIM: Basically, I said to Lincoln, “Act like you’re happy she did it. Tell Addy that you see the Ida Grimes tattoo as a way of her making peace with Ida. Pretend you think this is Addy’s way of accepting that Ida Grimes is a guardian angel or a muse.” That was the baloney I was feeding myself, anyway.

  DR. ROLAND JONES: No. I didn’t know about what she had tattooed onto the back of her neck. She kept that hidden from me. As a matter of fact, beginning with that spring and Project #53, Addison kept quite a lot hidden from me.

  LINCOLN REED: The tattoo wasn’t a stand-alone gesture. Addison’s reach was competing with her grasp to get to Project #53. She got very spiritual and monkish that whole week before the big event, which was March 15, the Ides.

  We decided to prep for it together. Which started out corny—but then turned serious. We created an ashram out of the loft. We decided not to speak out loud. No email, phone or texts, not that Addison had any presence online. She didn’t keep a Facebook account or Twitter or Tumblr. She thought all of those things were distractions, scrapbooks that blocked and disrupted your real life. We meditated, she went cold turkey off the junk food, and we limited our intake to staples like dark greens, nuts and fruits. We listened to Gregorian chants and Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, and we did Bikram yoga by sundown. No light except candles.

  It was extreme, but I loved being in Addison’s skin with her—she was so purposeful and single-minded about #53.

  She had created their Whitney blueprint design on vellum paper in addition to the copy on her hard drive, plus she had memorized the play-by-play she’d made with Cam and Dom. It showed everything that needed to go down once the Whitney’s alarm system was suspended. We studied it every night, the last thing we did before we went to bed.