The Italian Teacher(21)

“Lovely lady, if I had something on these walls, nobody would look at anything else,” Bear tells her, charm turned up. Dad loathes these occasions, Pinch knows, yet he masters a room so effortlessly. He’s not even friendly to people, but they seem to like that. “Which is you?” he asks her.

She points to the speech-bubble artwork. “Plus a few more to come—I’m waiting on a delivery man.”

“You’re not the ketchup lover, I take it?”

“That’s my friend René. You don’t dig that?”

“If I was in the market for a hamburger, I don’t doubt your friend René would have all kinds of useful advice. Till then, I suggest he quits pretending to do anything more than drivel.”

“He’s right there. You can tell him yourself.”

“More than happy to.” Bear lifts a bottle of beer from her hand and places it into his son’s. “Now, this young man,” he informs her, clutching Pinch’s shoulder. “This is an actual, proper painter. Right here. He’s the one you should know. Not this hooey on the walls.”

She cocks her head at Pinch, noticing him for the first time. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Charles,” he replies faintly and offers his sweaty hand to shake. Instead, she takes back her beer, sips it, then returns the bottle, her eyes sparkling. “You gonna be famous, big guy?”

Smiling, he glances at Dad.

“You don’t know his work?” Bear responds, slinging an arm protectively around young Pinch. “Ain’t heard of Charlie Bavinsky? And you call yourself an artist?”

“Wait one minute. You saying this is the Charlie Bavinsky? In the flesh?”

Pinch laughs, blushing.

She takes her beer full-time now, summoning her friends and elaborating on the prodigy in their midst. One of the men touches Pinch’s head for benediction, saying, “You are the future.” As more people turn up for the hanging, each is introduced to “Charlie Bavinsky, artist of tomorrow.” With every introduction, the fanfare grows, each new entrant hearing another layer of grandiosity: “The world-famous genius, Charlie!” and “Charlie B, master of all forms, spiritual and sexual!” and “Charlie Bavinsky, visionary!”

Pinch—casting wild-eyed looks at his father—is pulled from one side to another, these artists pawing at him, sharing beers with him, asking kooky questions for the others to overhear. “Everyone knows,” the black woman says, “that age is just a number.” She plants a kiss on Pinch’s lips, causing his legs to shake and everyone else to buckle with laughter. Pinch stands there, knowing—for the first time in his life, knowing—that this is his setting, and these are his people.

Gradually, conversations bubble elsewhere. The mob disperses. Pinch spins about, seeking someone else to question him.

The black woman is against a wall, prodding at the chest of Bear, who mock-falls back a step. “I know you,” she says, waggling a finger at him. “You’re one of those guys still got paint stains on his sneakers. I didn’t think they made your kind no more.”

“Nah, what they make, sweetie, is shit. Which is everything in this gallery today.”

Everyone laughs. They think he’s joking.

“See?” the woman teases. “This is why you folks in such a bad mood. You used to be in charge.”

“I’m out of date, you’re saying?”

“Baby, you’re old! But don’t take my word for it. Let’s find you a mirror.”

The sharper their exchange, the more Bear chortles—until everyone turns at the arrival of a portly man around sixty, Victor Petros, owner of this gallery, who is gasping from one flight of stairs, cigarette scissored between hairy middle finger and brass signet ring, sandalwood cologne emitting from large pores. He sloughs off his overcoat, allowing it to slump onto the floor, and he greets a few young artists, caressing an arm of each. He reaches Bear finally, taking both of the painter’s hands, leading him away for a private chat.

Pinch—tipsy from beer, overheated, unsure of what to feel or where to stand—follows after his dad.

“You approve, fine sir?” Petros is asking Bear, wiping his mouth from side to side, nostrils twitching. “Departing our home on Fifty-Seventh Street was not without bitterness. But walls must be had, my dear Bear: meaty walls for meaty masterpieces such as yours—those lunatic Bavinsky glories, hanging above the chasm of disaster, only to pull back at the last!”

In a spurt of tipsy irritation, Pinch almost denounces this stupid description.

Petros continues: “I know, Bear, I know. It’s not your style tonight. Nor mine perhaps. But that’s the market, alas. I trust you’ll be in attendance for the big splash later? There’ll be scribes and sausage rolls and sensational dames.”

“I got the youngster in tow.”

Pinch stands higher, presenting himself to the famed dealer for appraisal, a trifle defiantly—then hastily dabbing sweat from his upper lip.

“What do you think of it all?” Petros asks. “You’re young—can you see any value in these works?”

“I think it’s drivel,” Pinch declares, glancing at his father, then back at Petros, the boy’s neck flushing.

“Youth speaks!” Bear says, chuckling.