‘I think so,’ I said. ‘More importantly, I’ve been taking notes so I can go over your issues again.’
She seemed well satisfied with the therapeutic relationship but I was very tired after the session. I poured myself a large Jack Daniel’s, sighed and returned to the matter of the painting.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’m ready.’
I brought it into my office and stood it on the sofa facing me. I had to look away then and sit down because I lost my balance and almost fell over.
‘Obviously I’m not going at this correctly,’ I said. As I said that I could feel what the correct approach was but I wasn’t ready to commit to the relationship the tiny, tiny dancing giants seemed to want. Not looking directly at the painting I said to it, ‘I’m going to have to think about this, OK? I’ll get back to you.’ I took it into the bedroom again and leant it against the wall as before.
Chapter 63. Blondin Not
In 1859 Blondin crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope. It makes my feet tingle just to think of it and I can hear the roar of the Falls. He had a balance pole, I can feel the weight of it in my hands, with Jim on one end of it and Volatore on the other as I cross my Niagara, not daring to look down and not altogether confident of reaching the other side. Thinking, meanwhile, that I didn’t ask for this. Did I?
Chapter 64. Patience of Volatore
Time is on my side and I can wait. Have I not already waited centuries? Closer and closer, Angelica! Faster and faster runs the sand through the glass!
Careful, Volatore! ‘Chi va piano, va sano.’ Luck is a frail craft, and the Sea of Chance has not only storms to sink the unwary but also windless days to weary the spirit.
Chapter 65. Jimportantly, A Commitment
‘OK,’ I said to the Jack Daniel’s bottle, ‘you know and I know that the only way to get on the other side of this thing is to go through it, right?’
Getting no argument from Jack I fortified myself as required, strode into the bedroom and laid hands on the painting. So far, so good.
I took it into the office, set it on the sofa as before, and sat down without looking at it. Then, after a brief consultation with Dr Daniel I turned the full power of my trepidation on the painting. While I held on to the desk to keep from falling out of my chair I asked myself: Why was I trepidating? I think we know instinctively, all of us, when we are going into something from which there is no way back. So the question arises: Do I want to get to that place from which there is no return? From that question arises a second question: Do I have a choice? And a third question: Why do I have to bother with this painting at all? Angelica has warned me that it’s a lot of bad luck. But my instincts are telling me that it is also the way to make Angelica mine.
Where I am now is like being in a flooded cave and what looks like the only way out is to swim underwater through a narrow tunnel towards a faint glimmer which may or may not be daylight. And you wonder if you can hold your breath long enough.
So how much do I want Angelica and am I a man or a coward? OK, Jack. One for the road and in I go.
Chapter 66. Impatience of Volatore
Something is happening! Something is approaching! Closer, closer, don’t hang back! Closer, closer, closer! Here I am, here is Volatore waiting!
Chapter 67. Jim-Jammed?
OK, guys, this is it, you and me mano a mano. You’re on the sofa, I’m at my desk. Here’s looking at you dim red tinies. Do whatever you’re going to do.
Queasiness, uneasiness. Dimness, redness, cavernous sleep. Dream-dancing the dream of … what? Dancing, dancing. Tinily gigantic, I also redly dim Jim. What Jim? This Jim. What this? Suddenly! an immensity of comprehension, of containing in myself the whole dream of reality which is the world.
Oho! So farther, deeper? No, I don’t, yes, I do but wait. What? What entering? Entering me but I’m not, I haven’t, I don’t but aah, the tiny, tiny dancing jim-jams! But this other. Not tiny, very big. Well, no use locking the barn door after the horse is inside.
Chapter 68. Cautious Optimism of Volatore
Dare I hope? The way has been so long and hard! You old gods, forgotten by the world, hear my humble prayer!
Chapter 69. Jam Today
This was my regular session day so I went. It was two days after the night of Ossie Przewalski’s opening and everything was fine between Jim and me but I was wondering and worrying about how matters stood with Volatore and me. The last thing I wanted was to have to choose between my two lovers and I was afraid of losing both. The ferry ride to Sausalito this morning felt different from ferry rides on other mornings. The day was hard and bright, the sunlight unyielding, the sun points on the water were like dancing shards of glass. The gulls were laughing at me, ‘Haha, haha-ha! Haha!’
‘Stupid garbage-eaters!’ I said. ‘Who the hell are you to haha at me?’
‘Today, today!’ screamed the gulls.
‘Today what?’
‘Um maybe yes, maybe no,’ thrummed the engines. ‘Um maybe maybe maybe.’
‘Nobody asked you,’ I told them.
When the ferry docked there was nothing to do but get off so I did that. All the way to Dos Arbolitos I was talking to myself. Sometimes people stared at me and I realised that I was speaking out loud. Why so freaked out? I asked myself. This is only the rest of my life we’re talking about here.
Then all of a sudden Dos Arbolitos was in front of me. I went in and Jim came to meet me. With, yes, the smell!
‘Volatore!’ I said. ‘Is that you?’
‘Here is Volatore,’ he said.
He took me in his arms and everything became all right.
Since then I’ve had no complaints. Sometimes Jim is plain Jim and sometimes he’s Volatore Jim. Well, really, every good man is a bit of an animal and every animal has something human about it. Reader, I married them.
Chapter 70. Dancing in the Dark
What became of that infamous painting that passed from hand to hand and went swimming in San Francisco Bay? Volatore Two (Joe Fontana) painted it. He had never painted a picture before, and later could not recall doing it. Lenore Goldfarb paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it, then couldn’t stand the sight of it. Volatore Three bought it next. At first it filled him with an immensity of compre-hension, a feeling that he contained in himself the whole dream of reality which is the world. Then it almost made him jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Angelica Greenberg and Olivia Partridge felt woozy viewing it, as did Sergeant Hennessy. When Joe Fontana was taken to the Eidolon Gallery and forced to look at what he had painted he fainted. Alyosha Zhabotinsky picked up random snatches of the idea of it and suffered no ill effects. Jim Long experienced the immensity of comprehension but was occupied by Volatore One before any come down from the immensity.