Scumbler - William Wharton

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in his room. There’s a half bottle of wine; the wine’s in the foreground of my painting on the table. That wine can never be drunk completely; it’s there in the painting forever, or at least what passes as short time forever.

      We chip in ten francs each. Sweik goes out to buy. I pack up my box feeling empty. I flop on his bed and listen. The painting’s on the mantel; another day pinned down. I turn it over, can’t look at it; more real than real; can’t get out of it. It’s so easy to get lost, to lose your bearings, not know what’s real anymore.

      Sweik comes back. He has warm baguette, Camembert, some tomatoes. These’re the first good-looking tomatoes of the year, Moroccan. I cut the bread down its length, spread Camembert and hunks of tomato. We slice into the sandwich some sausage that’s hanging over the sink in my painting. Here we are in the waning sunshine eating immortal sausage washed down by immortal wine. Downright immortal.

      THE TEMPORARY ARREST. THE OBJECT

      OR PAPER TO ATTEST TO WHAT IS, OR

      WAS, OR MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

      I sit on the floor; Sweik’s on the bed. Now our sun’s bouncing against that wall across the street not fifteen feet away. The reflected light is warm. I pour wine into a glass, toothbrush glass; Sweik drinks out of the bottle. It’s blanc de blanc, cheap, dry, good with cheese.

      We spend all afternoon shab-rapping. Sweik has no idea what he’s doing. Feels he has no big talents, no strong drives; refuses to live just an automatic life. He likes living around, traveling; likes women, sex, but has a hard time getting anyone up the front hall with the sagging burlap bags and rug strings. He’d like to find some important, serious woman he could live with for a while.

      I tell him about Lotte’s place. I might be able to work out something there. That nest’s too big for only one person; holy heaven, fifty squares. That’s almost as much as I’ve got at home with five people. I’ll divide off a room for Sweik. It’ll be cheaper than the hotel. He can share john, kitchen, maybe bed, with Lotte. It’ll be good for her. A guy like Sweik’d be good for her soul: scrape it up a bit; loosen some of those icebergs left over from the disappearing Frenchman. Sweik’s soul’s so big she can’t put any hooks into it either; big bear soul. Lotte could sure use some careless loving.

      Yes sir, Lotte needs a bumbling bear to muck around with her, smell things up. She’d be happier with Sweik; give some sense to things, put some surprises in her life. Sweik’d have something to fill his empty space, too. It’s a bad habit living only with things you already know.

      AUTOMATIC LIVING, SPIRITUAL, PSYCHIC

      OXYGEN TENTS, IV, CATHETER TUBES PUMPING.

      WE KEEP ALIVE IN A KEEP, LUBRICATING

      OUR PATH TO THE GRAVE, SAVING NOTHING.

      Before leaving. I arrange to come paint some more next day. I go out, hop on my bike and ride over to the Marais. Marais’s the old Jewish quarter of Paris. There are good bakeries with bagels and pumpernickel; delicatessens with pastrami; Yiddish in the streets. You see kids with black hats and schoolbags going to the ‘shul’. Uplifting smells, beautiful small streets, all crooked.

      I sit on my bike and start some sketches. I’m laying out an idea for a whole series: thirty or forty paintings at least. I’ve been working on this idea for a month and I’m almost ready to start.

      The people here are great; ask all kinds of crazy questions. The first one is usually if I’m Jewish. Sometimes I say yes, sometimes no; see if it makes any difference. I can’t notice any.

      CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT, HINDU,

      MUSLIM, ORTHODOX JEW;

      BUT who THE HELL ARE YOU?

      NOT WHAT!

      I always try to paint in series, want to give the whole idea of a quarter. Any single painting is only like a man with a stiff neck: nice view so long as you don’t move. I pick good spots, then turn slowly, painting in all directions, one painting ending about where the other begins.

      I’m sure the future for painting is video-cassette tapes. I’ll tell what I’m thinking about while I’m painting, tour all over my painting with a video camera, show it happening. People can see things the way I see: completely subjective; my Paris, nothing real to get in the way; just glorious, personal lies. Everybody’ll have video-cassette players soon; full-wall color cathode screens. That’s the future for paintings, all right; the only trouble is, I’ll be dead.

      Museums are mummy shows, nobody goes. Private collections are money tombs, cut off from the world. Hell, I’m the people’s painter! I paint the way most people’d like to paint if they could. People in the streets like my paintings, like to watch me paint. They drift along with my mind through my eyes, and the more they know about what I’m painting the better they like my work. For me it’s a good part of what makes the whole thing worthwhile.

      What bugs me is I always have to break up these series, sell them in bits and pieces. I can’t seem to find anybody rich enough to buy a whole set intact.

      I try keeping track of the work, someday maybe put them together again; but it’s hard, probably impossible, definitely improbable.

      OUR EFFORTS, DREAMS, IDEALS, IDEAS

      DISSIPATE, DISPERSE, LEAVING US

      LIKE CHILDREN. COULD BE WORSE.

      I’m coming near the end of my Canettes series. I’ve been into the houses, up and down the streets. I’ve painted portraits, straight-on façades, peeped in windows, painting, sniffing around generally. I’ve got just about all of it. Now I’ll need to cut it up; like slicing salami or cheese.

      My new series will be the Marais. Best way to forget paintings is to start new ones. I’d sure like to try living down there. I even found an apartment for rent; this Jew’s going to Israel for his kids’ sake. But I can’t move into every painting. Kate says she’ll never move again, anywhere; can’t blame her. We’ve really played a lot of gypsy in our lives, and without violin music either. She deserves a regular sit-down nest now for sure. Thank God we overlap some, both like being aliens, living outside; but my restlessness can be too much for her sometimes.

      A HOME OF HER OWN.

      WALLS, HALLS, A TOILET

      AND A BED WITHOUT LUMPS.

      IT CAN’T BE ALL BAD.

      So I’m sitting on the bike, sketching away, creating space with a pencil, when a woman comes up to me. She’s about forty-five or fifty: nice face, hair cut short, bit dikey somehow, in a nice way. She speaks to me in English: reasonable English, French accent. She knows I’m American because I have California license plates; avoid French taxes, French tickets that way.

      Says she’s a painter and looks into my eyes. She has the most amazingly dirty eyes I’ve ever seen. They make me want to reach up and wipe my own. She tilts her head and gets close; little alky smell there, too; bacteria shit, human vomit. She turns her soft, dirty eyes onto my drawing. Then she puts her hand on my hand while I’m trying to draw. She smiles at me; I can’t keep on drawing like that!

      She asks me to join her for a drink. Sure, maybe she’ll go away if I buy her a drink. She takes me to a place around the corner, we sit in back. I’m tired; I don’t really even know how I got here.

      We’ve just sat down when she reaches over and puts her hand in my crotch. Nothing serious, I think; only keeping her hand warm. She orders a marc for each of us. That’s the end of drawing for the day. She starts telling me her life story; some people think artists are priests. Maybe I should have a portable confessional, wear a stole. Maybe I can steal one.

      THE SOFTEST BOULDER IS A

      SHOULDER, BUT BE CAREFUL

      IT DOESN’T BECOME A LANDSLIDE.

      Turns out she’s the daughter of a famous artist. Her father and mother died when she was a baby. I think I can see him in her eyes; maybe only alcohol,

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