“This?” Ray stumped to the wall and removed the photo. “This is one of Denny’s.”
He blew on the surface. A fume of dust rose, and he began coughing. “Ugh—Robert! You’re falling down on the job! For chrissakes.”
He shook his head. “Yeah. Denny’s—this is one of his. I paid a lot of money for this.”
Gryffin laughed. Ray glanced at him irritably and turned the frame over. It was backed with a piece of stained cardboard.
“He needs to work on his presentation,” Ray said. “I told him that. He never listens.”
“Denny’s incapable of listening to anything except the UFO voices in his head,” said Gryffin. “May I?”
Ray handed him the photo. Gryffin stared at it, finally pronounced, “I still think it’s crap.”
“You Philistine,” moaned Ray. “It’s beautiful.”
Gryffin looked at me. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s good,” I said as Ray poured Calvados. “But—what is it?”
Ray handed me a glass. “Who knows? I like it.”
“Yeah, me too.” I sipped my Calvados, still staring at the photo. “Does he do a lot of these?”
Ray leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard. “I’m not sure. Not a lot, I don’t think. She started him on it—Aphrodite.” He pointed at Gryffin. “He doesn’t like to hear this.”
Gryffin stood. “No, I don’t. Excuse me for a minute.”
He left the room. Ray shrugged. “Don’t mind him. Aphrodite, she and Denny were involved, back in the old days. This was before Gryffin was even born, but there was always bad blood between him and Denny. Who fucked everything, I might add. Everything in skirts, anyway.”
He hesitated, his expression pained. “Gryffin’s father, you know, Steve—the love of my life. We were together seventeen years. Steve lived here, Gryffin was always around. I mean, when he wasn’t off at school. Aphrodite was never much of a mother. Actually, Steve was never much of a father either,” he said. “Whereas I love kids—and don’t you look at me like that, I never touched him. Never touched him.”
He sighed, staring across the room to where Robert snored on the sofa. “You know, I never touched those others, either. I did look, though,” he added and laughed again. “But you know what that’s like, right? You photographers. You like to look and not touch. Voyeurs.”
“No,” I said. “Voyeurs need to feel protected. I like to feel threatened.”
“Seems like you’d be able to find a lot of work these days.”
“Hasn’t worked out that way. Denny—how come he didn’t sign his name?”
“Didn’t he?”
“There.” I pointed at the corner of print. “It says ‘Spot.’”
“Oh yeah. That’s him.”
“Spot? What’s that mean? Gryffin said it’s a joke.”
“A joke?” Ray held out his hand, and I gave him back the photo. He looked at it then replaced it on the wall and settled back into his chair. “I guess it’s a joke. Tell you the truth, I don’t really remember. It was something weird, though. Denny, he was into that kind of woo-woo stuff. That commune of his, they got into all kinds of ritual shit. Well, they called it religion. I called it ripping off the Indians. Native Americans, I mean—they were crazy for that kind of stuff. After they finished the Buddhists and the Hindus and the God knows what else. All those off-brand religions. But those kids, none of ‘em was any more Native American than me.”
He sighed. “Denny, he was way into it. He was smart too—he flunked out of Harvard. He was studying comparative religions or some such. Gilgamesh, that was one of his big things. Babylonian stuff. He was a beautiful young man, Denny. You wouldn’t know it now. Let’s face it, living here takes years off your life. That’s why everyone drinks like a fish. It’s the winters. Heating with wine. Look at me! Aged before my time.”
He downed another shot of Calvados. “But that photo—what think you, huh? His stuff is starting to get picked up. Lucien Ryel, he bought some. That one there, I paid a grand for it a year or so ago. It’s probably worth more now.”
“A grand?” I gave him a dubious look. “That’s a lot of money for someone no one’s ever heard of.”
Ray shrugged. “Hey, I’m a collector. You know how it works. Everyone wants to bet on the new kid. Even if he’s an old new kid. The photography market’s crazy these days, you know that. I don’t think Denny gives a rat’s ass about that kind of shit, but Lucien, he’s got an investor’s eye. He turned on his rock star friends—Pete Townshend, he bought some of Denny’s stuff. Townshend goes for outsider art. I guess this qualifies as outsider photography.”
“Pretty good for someone who used to live in a bus.”
“Did Gryffin tell you about that?” Ray gave his braying laugh. “Hey, don’t knock it! This is one of the last places in the country where people can still live between the cracks.”
It didn’t seem to me that Ray would fit between a crack smaller than, say, Chaco Canyon. But I kept my mouth shut as he went on.
“They’re all one-offs, his stuff. Does he do a lot of these? I don’t know. I’ve never seen where he lives. But he obviously spends a lot of time on them. Like Aphrodite used to, you know? Making her own paper and stuff.”
“And emulsion,” I said. “He must prepare his own emulsions too. That’s what it looks like to me. If they’re really one-offs, then he’s producing some kind of monotype. Or monoprint, if he uses the neg more than once. Interesting.”
“That the kind of stuff you did?”
“No. I would’ve been happy to sell lots of copies of my stuff. If anyone wanted to buy them. But—”
I pointed at the photograph. “What it means is, that’s an original work of art. Like if this guy was Robert Mapplethorpe, that picture would be worth a ton of money. Probably you’ve already figured that out.”
“That it’s worth a lot of money?”
“That this guy ain’t Robert Mapplethorpe.” I finished my Calvados. “So, what about her? Aphrodite. How come she stopped taking pictures?”
Ray ran a hand across his scarred cheek. “Hard to say. Those early photos—she never really had a success big as that again. I think part of it was she took so long with each one. And there wasn’t a market back then for photographs, like there is now—she couldn’t make money at it. She refused to do commercial work when they wanted her to, and after a while no one wanted her to. And the drinking—that’s been going on a long time. When she and Steve got involved—well, you know, she really loved him. And he loved her too, in his way. But it was different then; for a long time he couldn’t really admit to himself what he was. That he was gay. Unlike me, who never had a problem.”
He laughed.
“They must’ve gotten along at least once,” I said. Ray looked at me, puzzled. “Gryffin. They had him.”
Ray made a face. “Oh yeah. Gryffin. The miracle child. That was Denny’s idea. Like I said, Aphrodite never really took to it—being a mother and all. But things went bad between her and Denny early on. They got real competitive, he started taking photos, Aphrodite encouraged him—like, here’s this beautiful young guy, she takes him under her wing, you know? But then they got competitive, and then it got weird. He got weird. Aphrodite, she’s accusing him of stealing stuff—”
“Like what? Camera equipment?”
“No. Stealing her soul. Stealing her pictures! Not the photos—stealing what she did. You know, ripping her off. Her ideas. Her ‘vision.’”
He laughed and wiggled his eyebrows. “Totally insane! Like how people used to think you’d steal their soul if you took their picture? That kind of thing.”