Scumbler Read online

  FIRST IN EARTH, THEN AERATED. WE’RE

  CARELESSLY CREATED TO FIGHT THROUGH

  TIME AND SPACE TO OUR PROPER PLACE,

  TO DIRT.

  It’s time to thicken the medium; build up my darks. I start brushing in cool colors, beginning movements from the light side; pushing colors in under where the impasto’s going to be.

  Look at those stupid eyes; they’re staring back with such intensity, as if it matters. Get that, too, Scum! Work that in! Boar’s whiskers, you really love yourself you broken-down fart; what else, who else. All painters love themselves or they wouldn’t do it; writers too, probably; I think old Camus even said it once.

  I start mucking in the background; moving out there some of what’s happening inside. Now grab that kink around the nose and make it show again up here in the right corner. I’m happy, juggling two, three dimensions simultaneously. It’s enough to make one want to stay alive. It’s all lies, one bigger than the other. OK, make the hard one truer; paint it louder.

  I squeeze gobs of opaque paint on the palette: titanium white, all the cadmiums. STOP! Careful with those cadmiums, Scum; use burnt umber, more raw sienna, yellow ochre, our kind of colors, cheap colors. I’m the earth-color man; Scum of the earth. Let’s not forget!

  CAN WE EVER BE FORGIVEN

  THE MOMENTS OF OUR BLISS:

  THE TINY CRACKS IN LIFE

  THAT AREN’T JUST LIKE THIS?

  Now we’re backing in. Picking out the highest points with light. Fan the white bleeding away into rolls of color and darkness across the forehead and into the penumbra. Make it live! I’m alive now, breathing through my brushes; color like blood, light like oxygen.

  We need to keep my brush in close; laying it in carefully, deeply, with strong tenderness. Yellow next to orange and then together. Make it stand up. Light! Light it!

  Goddamn Scum! Now drift back with the highs fading away. Gently scumble. Scumble, you scum; pearl away, fade back but still keep it close; help those sharp edges move together. Birth the lie into life; squeeze in that missing “f.” Only a word, but first was the word. No, first and last is the void.

  I smell myself: part oil, part sweat, all horseshit. Here I am, laughing at me laughing at myself and crying at the laughing. I wasted valuable years trying to be a serious Dostoevski type, a latter-day van Gogh. Then I buttered myself deep with Middle European suffering, Sturm und Drang; after that, I experimented with nineteenth-century melodrama. Now I’m cried out, dried out. All I ask is something to make some reason—now, before it’s too late. How dumb can you get?

  LISTLESS LISTENING, CRYING. SCREAMING,

  ALL WATER ON WATER. AN ENDLESS FLOWING.

  ANOTHER PROOF OF OUR NOT KNOWING?

  I lean in tighter. Get the stinginess, the meanness, the fear, Scum. It’s in the lips; frothed with hair but it’s there; you know, you live with it.

  Over sixty years with this same face, this same body. I’ve watched it grow bigger, harder, softer, sadder, hairier. Now I even grow tufts like foxtails inside my ears. I’m falling, failing from the effects of gravity, cell deterioration, laughter, weeping and plain boredom. Watch the cracks deepen, the flesh putty out, slowly turning into aged meat. Put that all in, Scum; make it visible. Death’s stalking just around one of these hours. Maybe yesterday.

  I finish off the blue jacket; decide to leave out the hands, after all. Darkness is pushing me down, pinning me. I can’t believe it; here I’ve been painting over four hours; actually painting some of the time, blubbering, yammering the rest. The family will be home soon.

  I lean back and look. It’s not a bad painting; still too much self-pity. I’m like one of those donors jammed into the bottom corner of a medieval painting. Only I’m all alone in the center of this canvas, begging to nobody, everybody; praying for everybody, nobody. Definitely obscene, in the deepest sense, unbearable, not to be seen.

  I clean up; pack away the box. I need new pig’s bristles; the ivory black’s almost gone again, too. I use too much black in my painting. I can’t catch myself doing it, but the paint’s going somewhere; I’m not eating it. I’d better watch that.

  EATING BLACK: CONCENTRATED SEARCH FOR COLOR,

  OR, PERHAPS, THE LACK OF LIGHT IN WHICH TO

  BURY THE NIGHT. BUT NIGHT IS ONLY A LACKEY;

  COLD AS NO HEAT, SLOW MOLECULES. I FACE

  BACK TO BLACK, NO ONE, NOWHERE.

  III

  SLUM LANDLORD

  I work outside today, Saint Valentine’s Day. It’s cold but I’ll take any sunshine I can get. I feel all cramped up painting inside, as if I’m cut off from life. I’m happiest out in streets, fighting crowds, cursing cars, yakking with people; it all gets into the work.

  My painting’s got to be part of life, not just about it anyway. I’m OK inside for a while, sharpening up my personal carving knives, digging into myself, getting close, but then I’ve got to break out and muck around. In some strange way, I have the feeling I’m most alive when I’m painting, as if the other time is a kind of waiting. I don’t know what I’m waiting for but that’s the way it feels.

  I’m working down on the Rue Princesse in the Latin Quarter. I’ve just started on a woodworker’s shop, menuiserie-ébéniste. The owner of the place comes out. We get into some standard everyday talk about “lost-artisanship-craftsmanship, world-going-to-hell,” all that tired jabbering. He asks me to put his name on his sign; it’s weathered off. I think he wants me to climb up over his door and do some actual, honest-to-God painting up there, but he means in the painting; that’s fine with me.

  The painting’s going to be mostly browns and some dark blue-grays, with a light bulb hanging inside, lighting raw wood and sawdust; yellow-ochre hollow spaces. I’m doing the place almost face on, slight angle left. There’s a big old carved doorway on the left I want to finagle in somehow.

  The door’s closed when I do the drawing. Halfway through my underpainting, the concierge comes out, jams this door open.

  She’s an old gal, new face painted on. New face has nothing to do with her real face; hair cut gamine, bright red. She looks terrific, like a clown. There’s still a good body there too; moves easily, holds herself straight; thin freckled legs. Nobody with freckles is ever old. She’s maybe seventy and packing some fifty pounds of libido; comes on and chums me with “Oh-la-la” old-fashioned-girl-style press; hands all over me. I love it.

  I ask if she’ll stand in the doorway so I can paint her into my picture. She runs her fingers through the red straw hair; bony, bent fingers. She leans in the doorway, arm cocked against the wall. She’s wearing a blue-flowered dress. I paint it orange, need an orange accent. I gussy the dress up and make her about forty. Wish I could do that for myself, for everybody. No, there’s a time for each of us.

  EACH TO A TIME A TIME FOR EACH—

  WE WADE THROUGH OUR LIVES, THROUGH

  MINUTES, HOURS, DAYS, MONTHS, YEARS

  TILL WE GASP FOR AIR, DROWN IN TEARS.

  She can’t believe it when I’m finished; a thing like this takes me maybe five minutes. One thing, I really can paint: good, fast, powerful. I might just not have enough aesthetic, or maybe too much—somewhere in there. I can spin around, fall down and begin painting anything in front of me, wouldn’t shift my eyes. I love it all, can paint everything; no damned discrimination. There are fifty paintings within a hundred yards of anywhere I’m standing. I know it. I could spend the rest of my life painting self-portraits, or stone walls; I might just do that.

  Take my milk pots. I’ve painted sixteen milk-pot paintings already this winter. Who the hell wants paintings of milk pots? Thank the Good Lord our weather’s getting better; get me away from those pots. I’m beginning to smell sour milk on my nostril hairs all the time. It’s like when I was painting fish and they kept rotting on me. I get to be manic about these things, find myself falling into them, out of control. It’s unreasonable.

  THE ONLY FINDING OF SELF

  IS LOSING IT SOMEHOW.

&n
bsp; This old gal’s looking at my painting and crying. Her face is beginning to run off into the street, makes me want to take my brush and touch her up. I’m also afraid she’s going to ask the price. I’ve sold more paintings for less than canvas cost because people want them and have no idea what’s involved. Rich people should pay me five thousand dollars apiece for paintings; make up for the ones I sold at ten. Only trouble is rich people don’t usually like my paintings, remind them of a whole bunch of things they want to forget. This gal slips a five-franc coin into the paint box; makes me feel like a real turd.

  LACK OF TRUST

  SPIRITUAL RUST.

  An American’s been standing behind me. He’s watching the whole show, smiling, very catlike, very dignified. He’s young but there’s much dignity there. His clothes are old: worn cuffs, bed-pressed pants, very neat; carries an umbrella on a sunny day.

  The concierge goes away. I start painting seriously again, trying to forget those five francs.

  “That was really nice, man.”

  I knew he was American all the way, even with the umbrella and all the dignity. He has swimmy blue blinking eyes; contact lenses. He tells me he likes my painting; stands in the sunshine watching me paint; not much talk.

  I’m up on the sidewalk leaning against the Hôtel Princesse; painting’s coming along fine; beautiful shadows falling across the wall. I’m painting a GAZ box now; lovely things those GAZ boxes, especially in early, almost spring morning, clear light.

  The American comes up beside my paint box, wants to get something with the five francs. What do I care? Five francs; if he wants them, OK. I nod, smile, trying not to break the magic; I’m deep in the middle of things; I’m lost, floating in light and air, thinking and dreaming at the same time. But I might have to wipe out the old gal after all, too sharp and the top right feels blank. I’ll work on it; try to save her. The American’s disappeared with the francs.

  Then he goes past with flowers, yellow daisies; slinks into the concierge’s doorway; comes back without flowers, very catlike. He’s a cat all right—big one, has all the marks. I like cats, usually; dangerous, but something. Wolves and dogs like me can usually make it with cats. We’re different but we respect each other.

  I SLINK THROUGH MY PRIVATE FOREST,

  SNIFFING TRACES, SEARCHING PLACES

  TO HIDE MY KNOWINGS, LUSTING FEAR.

  Next, the concierge comes gliding out with the flowers in a vase. She perches them on the back of my box, next to the turpentine. She’s probably some kind of small cat, too; clean little feet, sure sign. Here I am, surrounded by cats, trying to paint. Holy God!

  A FEINT AT DEATH:

  LAST BREATH. I PAINT.

  The American invites us both for coffee. What the hell; I hate losing light but it’s OK; this is what my painting’s about, being close with people. We go into a small café next to the hotel.

  The bartender here used to be a bullfighter. Every tiny Spaniard I’ve ever met in Paris is an ex-bullfighter the way all big Americans are ex-football players or boxers. No, that’s not true anymore. Today they’re all black-belt judo or karate or kung fu experts. Times change, stories change, but men’s stupid lies about themselves don’t change much.

  We have coffee, then a cognac. The concierge—her name is Blanche—is turned on. She’s about ready to lock both of us between those skinny thighs of hers. Probably be wonderful. Ben Franklin knew what he was talking about; one of my all-time heroes. He was seventy years old when the Revolutionary War started, and they couldn’t’ve won it without him. But he never fired a shot. I wonder what kind of pictures Ben’d’ve painted if he’d turned his fantastic mind that way.

  LOST BODIES, LOVING SOULS:

  WE SPRING FROM NOW TO WHERE

  BELLS TOLL FOR THE LIVING.

  The painting’s standing out there in the sunshine alone. There’s maybe an hour more before the light shifts. Light’s important when I’m leaning into impasto. This time of year I can’t afford to let any light get away; I’m running out of time no matter how fast I run.

  I go out. My American and the concierge stay in the café and talk; his name is Matthew, calls himself Matt. I get by without telling my name.

  I work madly. I want to paint in the rough impasto, then let it dry a few days. Afterward, I’ll work on glazes, scumbling and accent some lights. Painting has a rhythm of its own; I just follow it. I’m only a man chasing after a magic Pied Piper who’s playing haunting tunes, tunes I can just barely hear.

  A TINGLING, CLANKING OF MULTICOLORED WHITE;

  THE COWBELL RINGING OF MOURNING IN THE NIGHT.

  An hour later I stop. The American’s standing behind me; he could’ve been there all the time; he invites me to lunch. I’m beat but I say OK. I’m beginning to think he’s one of those rich Americans playing hooky in Paris, checking out French language, French cooking, French living, French loving, French potatoes, French dry cleaning.

  We eat in a little friterie around the corner. I’ve never tried this place before. It’s good, cheap. We feast on aubergines, pork, wine and tart for twenty-two francs. I find out he’s not rich; poor, living on less than a hundred and fifty bucks a month. He’s in a fifteen-franc-a-day hotel; does without heat to save a franc; that’s rock bottom. He’s studying at the Sorbonne; doing a master’s about some 1870 Socialist named Jean Jaurès. To live, he teaches English to French businessmen at IBM.

  We begin talking motorcycles. He has a 1950 Ariel; now that’s a truly vintage bike. He takes me up onto the Place Saint-Sulpice to see it. It’s covered with a black tarp. We unwrap and this bike’s beautiful enough to bring on tears. A good well-cared-for thought-out machine like that is a delight. I’d love to paint just one painting as perfect as this machine. We check oil, set magneto and turn her over. Two kicks and a lovely deep sound.

  He bought it from a woman in Versailles for only five hundred francs. It’d been sitting on blocks in a garage for twenty-five years. She’d talked her husband out of driving it thirty years ago because it was too dangerous. He died ten years later of diabetes.

  It’s marked in miles and has a grand total of 6,021. There are saddlebags and two old-style helmets. I guess the old guy even thought he’d get his wife to ride with him sometimes. There’s a high-mounted back seat so a passenger can see over the driver’s head. In those days riding a motorcycle was supposed to be a pleasure.

  He takes me for a nice, slow tour around the Place; I’m sitting up high with a great view, no helmet. Matt says he never goes over thirty; in no hurry at ail. It’s rare to find a young person, especially a man, so smart about those things. If you go fast, you can’t see anything; if you can’t see anything, why go? We park the bike, carefully cover it again and shake hands.

  A RACE THROUGH LIFE, QUICK

  GATHERING OF FOOD, SHELTER,

  WIFE, CHILDREN: ALL THE SPACES

  CLUTTERED: SOME FACES, A BITE OF

  SONG, ONE LONG LAST TRICK.

  I’m late. I pack my paints and drop in at Lotte’s, just around the corner. I need to fix her heater. It’s an electric job, the kind that heats oil in a radiator; gives fine heat but expensive, big electric bills. I always keep a tool kit in my bike. I unpack it, go through the courtyard on Mabillon and into her place.

  Lotte’s not happy. I was supposed to eat lunch with her today and forgot. I could kick myself. She’s an Austrian woman and can really cook. She gets great food from home, like weisswurst and stollen.

  Lotte’s very quiet, wears mostly black; about thirty-five, teaches German at a French lycée. Smart woman, sensitive; loves paintings, one of those people you have in mind when you paint, someone to paint to, like my Kate.

  I met her in the street; she stood behind me the way the American did today. She has quiet eyes, Egyptian eyes, green. She tells me, in French, how she likes my painting. I start playing “mad artist.” There’s something challenging in her old-maid look. She listens. I spread more crapola in my personal, fractured French. I’m romancing
; definitely not seducing. Most people don’t understand the difference. One’s for fun, the other’s serious business, distinctly not for clowns like me. She nods and looks into my eyes.

  “You may speak in English.”

  Not much accent. I’m painting in front of Chardin’s house on the Rue Princesse, just up from where I worked today, nearer Rue Canettes.

  I enjoy feeling the lonely master Chardin peering over my shoulder while I’m painting in that street. He lived at number 13. It sort of kills time, talking to a lovely young woman and having him there too. It sort of kills time not in the meaning of wasting it but really killing it, making the seeming reality of it go away.

  I invite her for a cup of coffee. She says no, leaves. I figure that’s the end of it; just as well, back to work: balancing light, space, the illusion of objects. I’m communing with Jean-Baptiste Chardin, an almost ignored master in his time.

  LEVELING TIME, MY MENTAL SHOVEL

  LABORS TIGHT BETWEEN GOD AND DEVIL.

  I’m just packing up my box, dead tired, when she comes back, invites me for a cup of coffee at her place. I’m out of the painting enough now to catch the great overwhelming black waves of sadness she’s giving off. I follow. Am I being seduced? No, it’s mutual induction like electric current. Probably nobody’s ever really seduced or seduces anybody. Seduces are only excuses.

  Her place is a little attic room on the Rue Buci, two streets away. The room is neat as a pin; clean, more Austrian than French. There are two beds and a small room cut off for a kitchen; john’s in the kitchen, curtained off. Old building, thick walls, sun coming in through a window, flowers in the window.

  We eat some tasty home-baked cakes with coffee. She makes good coffee, not instant: filtered. We talk about Chardin, reincarnation, death, vibrations. This is a serious woman, nothing of sex here at all. I can relax, just enjoy.

  Then we’re talking about something else—I don’t remember what—and she’s crying. Just like that, from talking to crying, no bridges.