The Italian Teacher(22)
This prompts Pinch to push onward. “Nobody who has taste could like this junk. Why would anyone put this on their wall? It’s for idiots.” Noting the glare of Petros, Pinch falters. “It isn’t . . .”
The dealer contemplates this spotty adolescent, as if struggling to discern a feature of minimal worth.
Pinch is desperate to maintain poise yet wracked by his childish outburst, having shown off so stupidly, having insulted this important man, who Pinch has dreamed might someday represent him alongside Dad. Suddenly, Pinch glimpses himself: a little nothing among adults, who see how stupid he looks, a schoolboy in suit and tie.
Petros takes a puckery drag of his cigarette. “When do I get a studio visit, Bear?”
“That’s why you pulled me down here, Vic, to try that on again?”
“I invited you to see our new dwelling, dear man, that I might receive your blessing for the move. But, naturally, I’m ever hopeful that you have fresh work for me. Been a long while! As I say to all my artists, popularity is a tan. It fades when out of the light.”
“What is that supposed to tell me?”
“That you must have pictures at your studio I could discreetly place with a few choice collectors. If only to keep your name among the living. Bear?”
“When I’m ready is when you get something. But if you’re planning to push my paintings to some of your rich know-nothings, you won’t see anything ever.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still insisting on museums. You know how needlessly complicated this makes my life.”
“Vic, if you don’t like my terms, tell me so. Tell me. Play whatever games you want with these twerps you got showing tonight, but I’m a grown man. You don’t bring me all this way into the city for this.”
Petros goes into backstroke, recasting what he just said, lavishing praise on “the unique vision of Bear Bavinsky,” even while gently scolding Dad for not making work like everyone else. It’s the market, he claims, conspiring against us both! Pinch wants to ask, But aren’t you, Victor Petros, part of that market?
An awkward young woman in glasses sidles up, whispering to Petros about his meeting with Alfred and René at MoMA. “So glorious to have shown you our new cathedral,” Petros concludes. “It means the world to have your blessing.” He looks again at Pinch. “Everyone tells me that you are an artist too, and with great promise. Not to mention strong opinions. We’ll get properly acquainted tonight, agreed?”
Pinch nearly leaps. Instead, he nods. “Yes, thank you. Thanks.”
Bear watches, a little chuckle, arm around his kid, leading him away. As they descend for the street, Petros hurries to the top of the stairs, calling down a final thought to Bear. “Red, yellow, and blue! Primary colors make collectors happy! Keep that in mind!” He waves an unlit cigarette and returns to younger clients.
Bear walks fast away with Pinch matching his pace, not sure where they’re headed but ready to sprint there, barely able to suppress his drunken tongue from blabbing about all that transpired. He aches for Dad to speak, to say whether that was triumph or disaster, if Pinch conducted himself acceptably.
They walk in silence, Pinch buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket, armpits damp and itchy. At Washington Square Park, a college kid is playing the banjo, wailing Pete Seeger while Old World retirees hunch over chessboards. The metal railings are laden with paintings for sale: tawdry sunsets and Picasso knockoffs.
“Those people showing at the gallery,” Pinch begins, watching his father, “it’s like they weren’t even doing the same profession as you.”
His father keeps walking up Fifth Avenue, until leading Pinch through a revolving door into a hotel lobby. “You have a room for the young man?” he asks the front desk.
“Get ya fixed right up.”
Pinch goes cold. He’s being left here, and can’t object—he saw Birdie remonstrate with their father, and it never ended well.
“Here’s a buck for the bellboy,” Bear says, slipping his son a dollar, turning back to the revolving door.
“But will Mr. Petros mind if I don’t come back?” Pinch asks, suppressing desperation. “I was supposed to speak with him later, I think.”
“Get anything you want, Charlie boy. Room service, anything. On me, kiddo.” And he’s gone.
Up in his room, Pinch stands in bewilderment, still muzzy from the booze, mouth dry. He punches his thigh, hammering it three times, tears welling up. In confusion, he keeps flashing to before: Dad telling everyone I’m an artist.
Once calmer, Pinch toys with the radio in the headboard, tunes into a ball game—he’s never heard one before. He leans out the window, scanning the concrete far below, seeing his father in every thick-shouldered guy who plods toward the hotel. Drowned out by car horns, Pinch states his name to the smoggy summer air, as if encountering real artists again, telling them about his influences. He replays those interchanges—except that he kisses back when the black artist pecks his lips. Pinch leaps onto the bed, landing on his knees, then darts back to the window, studying the sidewalks. As hours pass, the concrete below turns darker gray until the street lamps pop, coating the asphalt white, passing yellow stripes of taxicabs, red dots from a traffic light down the next block.
Only at breakfast does he see Dad again: there, at the back of the hotel restaurant. Across from Bear is the black woman from yesterday, wearing the same Mondrian dress, a little rumpled this morning. She is caressing Bear’s open palm. He clasps her fingers, brings them to his mouth, a playful bite. Bear notices his son, nods, not calling the boy over.