"Am I interrupting?"
"It's okay," I said
"We... "Am I interrupting?"
"It's okay," I said
"We missed you this morning
"The contract's a bunny-hugVery little to fuck
withIt says you and the gallery split right down
the middle, but I'm gonna cap thatFifty-fifty
shall not live after gross sales reach a quartermil
Once you pass that point, the split goes to
sixty-forty, your favor
505
"Wireman, I'll never sell a quarter of a million
dollars' worth of paintings!"
"I'm hoping they'll feel exactly the same way,
muchacho, which is why I'm also going to propose
that the split goes to seventy-thirty at half a
million
"Plus a handjob from Miss Florida," I said feeblyThe other thing is this one-hundred-andeighty-
day termination clauseIt ought to be
ninetyI don't foresee a problem there, but I
think it's
gucci hobo interestingThey're afraid some big
New York gallery is going to swoop down and carry
you off
"Anything else about the contract I should know?"
"Nope, and I sense you want to get back to work
I'll get in touch with MrYoshida about these
changes
"Any change in your vision?"
"No, amigoWish I could say there wasBut you
keep painting
I was taking the phone away from my ear when he
said, "Did you happen to see the news this
morning?"
506
"No, never turned it onWhy?"
"County coroner says Candy Brown died of
congestive heart failureJust thought you'd like
to knowIt was a slow go but far from a no go
Wireman swam into existence around the window
where his brain swam on the GulfIt was a younger
Wireman than the one in the photos clipped to the
sides of my easel, but that was okay; I
replica pasha cartier consulted
them less and less, and on the third day I took
them down altogetherI didn't need them anymore
Still, I painted the way I supposed most other
artists painted: as if it were a job instead of
some speed-trip insanity that came and went in
spasmsI did it with the radio on, now always
tuned to The Bone
On the fourth day, Wireman brought me a revised
contract and told me I could signHe said
Nannuzzi wanted to photograph my paintings and
make slides for a lecture at the Selby Library in
Sarasota in mid-March, a month before my show
507
openedThe lecture, Wireman said, would be
attended by sixty or seventy art patrons from the
Tampa-Sarasota areaI told him fine and signed
the contract
Dario came out that afternoonI was impatient for
him to click his pix and be
tiffany heart tag necklace gone so I could go
back to workMostly to make conversation, I asked
him who would be giving the lecture at the Selby
Library
Dario looked at me with one eyebrow cocked, as if
I had made a joke"The one person in the world
who is now conversant with your work," he said"I can't give a lecture! I don't
know anything about art!"
He swept his arm at the paintings, which Jack and
two part-timers from the Scoto were going to crate
and transport to Sarasota the following weekThey
would remain crated, I assumed, in the storage
area at the back of the gallery, until just before
the show opened"These say different, my friend
"Dario, these people know stuff! They've taken
courses! I'll bet most of them were art majors,
508
for Christ's sake! What do you want me to
gucci purses do,
stand up there and say duh?"
"That's pretty much what Jackson Pollock did when
he talked about his workAnd
it made him rich Dario came over to me and took
me by the stumpVery few
people will touch the stump of a limb; it's as if
they believe, down deep, that amputation might be
catching"Listen, my friend, these are important
peopleNot just because they have money, but
because they're interested in new artists and each
one knows three more who feel the sameAfter the
lecture - your lecture - the talk will startThe
kind of talk that almost always turns into that
magical thing called 'buzz'"
He paused, twiddling the strap of his camera and
smiling a little
"All you have to do is talk about how you began,
and how you grew-"
"Dario, I don't know how I grew!"
"Then say
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