by Erica Heller
By the next evening, I finally arrived in Zurich and continued on to Basel. During my week at the art fairs I saw an immense amount of work, master works: new, old, obscure, iconic. These included quite a few Basquiat paintings and drawings. Viewing them made me think about how and why Jean-Michel had aspired to be included among the masters and earn a permanent place in history.
Meanwhile, I was looking vigilantly for that unforgettable palette of color I’d seen on Jean-Michel’s Air Force trench coat in an unlikely Reykjavik airport restaurant.
Al Díaz’s career spans five decades. At fifteen he was the recognized subway graffiti artist known as BOMB-ONE. His friendship and collaboration with schoolmate Jean-Michel Basquiat on SAMO© . . . (an avant-garde graffiti project) and the iconic hip-hop record Beat Bop are noted in contemporary art history. A sought-after expert of New York City counterculture art, he appears in publications and films and speaks at universities and museums. His mixed-media work is shown and collected internationally. In 2018, Díaz authored SAMO© . . . SINCE 1978, an illustrated history of his street art legacy.
— 5 —
“I was always so busy with Mother, the house, and the cats. I didn’t have time to do anything. It took me five years just to find time to buy a girdle.”
MUFFIE MEYER (FRIEND, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER) AND LITTLE EDIE BEALE
It is a bitter, wintry day in Montreal. I’ve never been to the Snowdon Deli before, but Edie suggested the place. It’s near where she used to live. On the outside, the restaurant is nondescript, in a modernish, four-story building. But inside is a charming Jewish deli, serving traditional Jewish deli fare: smoked meat (what I call pastrami), latkes, coleslaw, matzoh ball soup, overstuffed sandwiches, etc. Even blindfolded, you’d know what kind of restaurant it is by the aromas, that soothing mix of freshly sliced rye bread, pickles, chicken soup, and smoked fish. It is bright without being garish, with rows of booths upholstered in tan leatherette, and Formica tables. I arrive first, install myself at a booth as far from the drafty front door as possible, and peel off several layers of winter clothing. I am early. As I wait for Edie, I order some pickles (a free bowl of pickles is not a Canadian Jewish deli tradition) and muse about Grey Gardens and both Edies. I am a filmmaker and was one of the directors and editors of the documentary Grey Gardens, which is about a mother and grown daughter, both named Edith Beale—Big Edie and Little Edie—who lived together (with innumerable cats) in a ramshackle mansion in East Hampton, a summer playground for the fabulously wealthy. The Edies were part of the American aristocracy, and it is something of a mystery as to why Little Edie, a debutante and one of the most beautiful and eligible young women of her generation, never married, choosing instead to spend most of her life living with her mother.
Little Edie and I became friends, seeing each other occasionally, writing letters, and talking on the phone from time to time. Usually it was Little Edie in high spirits, calling to announce that it was time to make another film. When I got married, Little Edie came to my wedding and, with a tiny bit of urging from me, sang a couple of love songs for me, Ron (my husband), and the assembled guests.
I help myself to a pickle. I notice that I am both excited and a little bit nervous. What are we going to talk about? One of the great unanswered questions I have about Edie is: What was the relationship Edie had with the many men she obsessed about? Some were suitors, with some she professed to love. Were these love interests fantasies or real? Had she had affairs with any of them? She could be pretty evasive when she wanted to be, and on this topic, she’d always wanted to be.
I’m wondering about how I can bring this up with her, when I glance toward the door and there she is. She spots me immediately and, with a big smile, makes her way to my booth. “Muffie, darling!” “Edie, it’s so great to see you!”. I jump up to help her off with her coat, the same mink that she wore in the Grey Gardens movie poster.
She is carefully made up, with delicately penciled eyebrows, a bit of eyeliner, and vividly red lipstick. She is also wearing perfume, a scent that I can’t identify but can remember from the old days. She is wearing one of her fantastic Little Edie outfits: a piece of brown wool, unidentifiable clothing (is it a shirt?) wrapped around and serving as a skirt, a tan cardigan sweater over an aqua pullover, a bright blue patterned silk scarf wrapped artfully around her head and neck and pinned in place by a gold broach, stockings, and navy heels. Heads swivel; people are staring. This particular Montreal neighborhood is rather conservative, and the deli’s clientele is staid and mostly elderly. Edie doesn’t seem to notice and apologizes for her tardiness; she simply did not know where her red wool scarf had gone, even though she had “looked and looked and looked.” I say, “Edie, you look fabulous!” And I really mean it. All things considered, she looks sensational. “I’m so happy to see you again.” Even though we have not seen each other in more than twenty-five years, we do not embrace. I’ve always had the sense that Edie did not like to touch.
We sit, and I compliment her on her choice of restaurant, mostly as a way of easing into conversation, “What a perfect place. The food looks delicious, and it’s not too noisy.” Edie is her usual ebullient self. “Muffie, darling. You’re Jewish. How could I go wrong? I knew you’d like the menu. Are you still dieting?” It is so wonderful to hear her slightly upper-class, slightly New York accent once again. She picks up the menu and studies it. I assure her that I am off my diet for the day. We both agree that when you are traveling, calories don’t count. I say that I am indulging and having the pastrami on rye, with a side of slaw. Edie seems to be having trouble deciding, so I try to be helpful: “The chopped liver looks really good. Is pâté still one of your favorites?” “You remember! I can’t believe it. Yes, liver . . . I’m mad about liver pâté.”
Of course I remember. I tell Edie that I have a great memory when it comes to food and that I suspect she still remembers all the ice cream and pâté that she and Big Edie favored in the old days. We both laugh. “Memories . . . ,” Edie says softly. “I think about the past. You know, it’s difficult to keep the line between the past and the present . . . awfully difficult.” Edie has been gone since 2002. I cannot possibly imagine her “present.”
I signal the waiter, who looks as if he’s been around since biblical times. He shuffles over and takes our order, with a thick Yiddish accent. What would we like to drink? Edie seems perplexed and searches the menu, so I sing the praises of Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry Soda. Problem solved. We both order it.
I tell her that I’m surprised that she moved to Montreal. “I thought you’d always move somewhere warm after you sold the house.” Edie replies, “You remember, I did move to Florida for a while. I moved around a lot. I’m so glad you found me. I’ve always had a myriad of problems with communications. I remember that I had the phone company turn off incoming calls to our phone because I simply couldn’t hear the bell! I kept saying that I absolutely had to get a phone that rang. I was always so busy with Mother, the house, and the cats. I didn’t have time to do anything. It took me five years just to find time to buy a girdle.”
I had forgotten how much I loved Edie’s enthusiastic soliloquies, replete with wild transitions and whiplash non sequiturs.
Our food arrives, and there is a brief silence as we tuck into our meals with gusto. The pastrami is warm, peppery, and delicious. Edie is clearly happy with her chopped chicken liver pâté. I am relieved that she says she absolutely adores the Black Cherry Soda and wonders how she could ever have gone through life without it.
After a few bites, Edie continues with her monologue: “You have been on my mind lately, and now I know why. I had forgotten that your husband is Canadian. I lived in Montreal almost two years. I never got to England, but I did get to Canada! I speak very little French. I thought Canadians were British people. But actually they are half French–half British. I think Canada is wonderful, but I think the winter is perfectly ghastly. I like hot weather.”
I interject, trying to
establish a timeline for Edie’s peripatetic existence after her mother died and she sold the house: “So after Montreal you eventually moved back to Florida?” That sent Edie into another of her free associations: “I am still a staunch Democrat. I will never forget that election in Florida—when was it? Well, a number of years ago. It gave everyone a nervous breakdown! Al Gore got confused with Pat Buchanan, who lives in Palm Beach County. The butterfly ballots had to be discarded because of the mix-up! George W. was a brave, resilient little guy! He made his own money in Texas. He’s in the New York Social Register, you know, Andover and Yale. The Bush family came from Northern England. They were very close to the Bouvier family. I never knew the Bush boys because I was older. Al Gore and Bill Clinton are advanced thinkers. We have lost brilliant minds in government. Will Al Gore run again? I don’t know. He makes movies now. When I told my mother that I was going to Tennessee to marry Al, my mother put her foot down. I never met him. It’s tragic.” She daintily dabs a bit of chopped liver from the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin she handles like French silk.
I seize the opportunity and—trying to be delicate—ask, “Of all the men you knew, whom would you have most liked to marry?”
Edie laughs and exclaims, her voice rising in a kind of mock frustration, “I could never choose.” Adopting a more matter-of-fact tone, she continues: “Jacqueline [Kennedy Onassis, Edie’s first cousin] was married on the twelfth of September 1953. I think it was a Saturday. In Newport. I had many suitors. How could I choose? And then the war came along. Some of my friends became, well, became nurses. But I had to stay home and take care of Mother. I did the best I could with extremely difficult problems. How is your little girl? Emma, is that correct?” Edie leans forward and in a near-whisper confides, “Strict religious training is the only answer to today’s ghastly world. Our time is limited.”
I remind her of the many times she and her mother had argued over her relationship with a married man, a secretary of the interior under Truman and later a businessman. They’d called him Cap Krug. I ask if she was romantically involved with him. Edie does one of her classic arabesques. “I was always mad about Cap. . . . He was darling. But the movie, the movie! I was trying to remember the other day, please tell me again how Grey Gardens ever got started? Of course, our film was twenty years ahead of its time. Too much for people to take in, except for advanced study. Well, things have caught up. It’s in the right age now: the advanced study of how to stay alive in the apocalypse.”
The waiter trudges by, carrying some creamy-looking cheesecake. I have polished off my sandwich. Edie is still eating, but I propose dessert: Do you like cheesecake? Edie responds, “I’m still mad about ice cream.” Of course, silly me. “Ice cream it is! With hot fudge?” Edie declares she is also “mad about hot fudge!” Being highly suggestible, I order hot fudge sundaes for both of us. When they arrive, I have no regrets about the cheesecake. A moment of silence descends as we both give our entire attention over to the thick, actually hot fudge, over velvety, rich ice cream.
Edie breaks our little ice-cream reverie to continue her musings. She begins somewhat wistfully. “I always loved weddings, just adored them.” And then abruptly switches to her matter-of-fact, practical voice: “You know me, I’m an old-fashioned girl. I’m not modern. Nobody could understand. I was in New York for six years. It was complete, absolute heaven. I loved every single living minute. And then my mother needed me to come home and I never got away again. Regret is terrible. But I couldn’t have done otherwise. Muffie, darling, life is nothing but choices. You have to choose; it’s either/or.”
Edie asks me for the time. She apologizes for not having a watch. It is just past 3:00. The restaurant has more or less emptied out. “Oh, Muffie, I have to get back.” She rises to go, and suddenly I realize how much I have missed her and that I do not want her to leave. The world is so much less interesting without her.
I try one more question, to hold her with me just a bit longer. “Edie, do you still have things you wish you could do? If you could do anything you wanted, if you could be alive again, what would you do?” Edie starts to put on her fur coat and then pauses to think for a moment. “I do like the warm weather and the beaches. I’d go back to Florida. Back to the fabulous, tragic USA, of which I still consider myself a patriotic citizen.” As she made her way toward the exit, she called out to me, “Thank goodness we’ll never again have another president as bad as that dreadful crook Richard Nixon.”
She flew through the door, ushering in a strong glacial gust of Montreal winter that blew right through me.
Muffie Meyer is one of the filmmakers of the documentary Grey Gardens (along with the Maysles brothers, Ellen Hovde, and Susan Froemke), for which she is credited as Director and Editor. In addition, she has directed and/or produced more than thirty major documentaries and series. Her films have won Emmys, a Peabody, and many other awards. She is married to Ronald Blumer, and they have a daughter, Emma.
— 6 —
“Don’t shit me just to spare my feelings, Daniel. I’m dead.”
DANIEL BELLOW (SON) AND SAUL BELLOW
I was walking my dogs in the tame little woods at the top of Castle Hill like I do every day here in the middle of life’s journey. It was November, and the dusk was coming down fast. I came to a fork in the trail, and nothing looked familiar. Ahead, I thought I saw the shadow of a giant wolf on the trail, an inky patch in the darkness. A shiver ran all over me, and my dogs bolted for home. I was about to go after them when I saw the old man hastening toward me through the trees.
“Mercy,” I said, for I was sore afraid.
“It is another path that you must take,” he said, “if you would leave this savage wilderness.”
I would have known that voice anywhere. “Pop?”
“Hello, kid.” He gave me that gap-toothed grin. He was dressed for a walk in the country with his mosquito shirt and his old train engineer’s cap and red bandanna and his favorite walking stick I picked for him off a beaver dam in the Adirondacks. I threw my arms around his neck. He felt solid enough.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead. Am I dead? I’m wearing shoes. . . .”
In reply, he grabbed my ass and squeezed it hard until I hollered, like he used to do when I was little. There was no way I could have slept through that, and they say the dead lack sensation, but it still felt like a dream, one I had to keep a lid on before it got out of control.
“I have to find my dogs,” I said, trying to cling to what I knew was real.
“They ran off home. Sensible creatures. You always had nice dogs.”
“What about your dog?” I pointed up the hill toward the shadow.
“Oh, she’s not mine. She comes from Hell, was sent above by Envy.”
“Oh. I read about her in a book. You’re not going to let her bite me?”
“I think and judge it best for you to follow me.”
“How come you’re speaking in iambic pentameter?”
“I’ve got Virgil’s old job. Not too shabby, eh?”
“Have you come to take me through the seven circles of Hell?”
“I’m here to take you out to lunch.”
“It’s dinnertime.”
“You took a writing assignment, lunch with your dead famous father.”
“I did. I was procrastinating.”
“So I’m a little late. Are you coming with me, or what?”
Obviously, I had to go. He took me by the hand, and like a little boy I followed, down the trail in the dark, but instead of the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill we came out on the east side of Amsterdam Avenue at Eighty-Sixth Street.
To judge by the state of the buildings, the style of the taxis, the rich bouquet of garbage, the exhaust, and the disco beat from an upstairs window, I’d say it was about 1979. Pop was suddenly wearing that double-breasted suit with the psychedelic lining he used to like, and a loud tie. I was still in jeans and a T-shirt and my black leathe
r jacket, so I felt comfortable. We walked into Barney Greengrass.
The waiter, tall and stooped, bald with a greasy comb-over and a nose like a toucan, pointed us to a table in the corner. In the court of the Sturgeon King, it could have been anywhere between 1958 and last week, the deli case with its piles of smoked fish, the mysterious wallpaper with scenes of old New Orleans.
“Pop, where are we?” I asked in a low voice, leaning into his ear.
“Barney Greengrass. Don’t you recognize it?”
“Yeah, but how come it’s 1979 outside?”
“We’re in Hell. Take a good look at the waiter.”
The waiter came. “We’ve got some specials today.” He pointed at the spots on the tablecloth. “We’ve got brisket, and tzimmes, and a stuffed pepper.”
“I’ve heard this joke but I’ve never been in it before,” I said. They both ignored me.
“Have the salami sandwich,” Pop said. “They get the good stuff. Best’s Kosher from Chicago. Bring us some of those Strub’s pickles.”
“I’ll have a Cel-Ray, please,” I said. “With ice.” It was a special occasion.
The waiter went away. “Holy shit, it’s Philip Roth.”
“Yes, this is his job,” Pop answered.
“Someone’s got a wicked sense of humor.”
“He’s also married to your mother. She got promoted to Fury last year.”
“So if I went home, three blocks away . . .”