He sat down next to me at the table. The dog was sleeping right next to my feet and let out a big snore that made me jump. "The old dog is asleep," he bellowed, tossing six hot biscuits on my plate. "We better keep our voices down. She's a fighting dog. Oatmeal to start with?"
"No, just the grapefruit," I said. Chuck let out a little snort. "I'll have the oatmeal after I finish this," I added, trying to size up what that snort meant. I poured a little honey onto the grapefruit; he must have imported it from Texas, it was about the size of a basketball, and the meat was pink and juicy. There was nothing I hated more than oatmeal first thing in the morning; grapefruit followed a close second.
"Well now, I have to tell you," he said, getting up and bringing a saucepan of baked beans to the table, and then returning to divide up the eggs and sausage he had placed on a platter. "And, by the way, get started on all this before it gets cold, I have it in mind to make us some fine blueberry pancakes— wild Maine blueberries—when we've finished this. I have to tell you—I'm thinking of buying one of your goddamn paintings."
"Mm," I said, though my mouth was full of food.
"Eat, Marley, don't talk. I don't know what the hell is wrong with you. If you can't eat, how the hell do you expect to paint? I don't have much faith in a man unless he's one of your true Renaissance men. Now take me for example—" And so on and so forth. Greedily I devoured a biscuit, lathered with benign butter.
Chuck watched me cunningly. "Now, I think your work is a pretty thing—that picture in your show at Ginger's, not that big ugly thing, what do you call that big one, by the way?"
"It's called 'The Party of Beauty,' " I said. "It's a big get-together of all the beautiful people, the Venus of Milo, Aphrodite, Hebe, the Graces, Peri, Houri, Cupid, Apollo, Hyperion, Antinous, Narcissus—"
"Didn't think much of it. But that small one she's got in her office, the one representing 'Geoffrey Chaucer's First Date.' Now what did you paint that with?"
"Gouache," I muttered, and skewered a sausage. The big painting was the finest thing I had done to date. I had to put three of the little stuffed mushrooms—bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese—down my gullet in rapid succession in order to keep from arguing with him, as if it meant nothing to me. In fact I was already feeling quite full. Maybe my stomach had shriveled from living for months on nothing but canned Chef Boy-ar-dee once a day.
"Gouache, you say. Well, that painting is as fine a representation of a pair of lady's breasts as I have ever seen. Use a live model?"
"Dirty magazines," I said.
"Keep your voice down, Mr. Marley, we don't want Princess to take offense at our talk." He tossed a sausage to the sleeping dog below, who roused herself long enough to wolf down the meat before instantly plunging back into what seemed like permanent narcolepsy. "Whoops, don't tell Ginger I'm feeding the dog under the table. She don't approve, she says it leads to bad habits whenever she tries to throw a dinner party. See that little camera up there in the corner of the room?"
I glanced over my shoulder and kept my hands busy by letting a biscuit accidentally drop to the floor.
"Got electronic surveillance all over the place," Chuck said. "Art collection here is worth close to three million, if you count the stuff in the basement. Ran out of wall space. Ginger insisted I put in the electronic system. She does boss me to death. With my wife, Lady, before she died, things were different. Of course, times were different then. I managed to make my wife's life a misery for twenty-odd years. In Paris, back in the late thirties, I sent her home to look after the turkey farm while I had an affair with a White Russian countess. Never cared much for the countess, don't know why I did it. Tall women always went for me. I'm only five-seven, you know. Don't look it, but I am."
"I like Paris," I said. "But my true love is Italy, Rome in particular."
"I did love my wife, Lady, dearly, she was a tiny little thing, the runt of the litter, came from one of those fine old New England families that never took to me. Anyway, the only way I could get rid of that countess woman was to take up driving an ambulance. I never did intend to break Lady's heart, but that's what I did, I guess. Can't say she wasn't made of strong stuff, though. She left me in Paris with that White Russian and came back and supplied the U.S. Army with turkeys weighing up to fifty pounds, the whole time I was gone."
I broke open the runny egg yolks with the tine of my fork and studied the goo as it ran out over the plate. Egg yolks. I couldn't help but think of those frescoes in the basement of the San Marco monastery in Florence. I would definitely do some frescoes in wet plaster in my chapel. ... "I guess I didn't really realize you were Ginger's boyfriend," I said. "I mean, she told me about you, but you know how it is. I'm the kind of person who's wrapped up in my work."
"Oh, well, Ginger," Chuck said. "Now she's sitting there upstairs someplace worrying that I'm convincing you to make me a new painting, for less money."
"Oh, is that what's bugging her?" I said. "Listen, my paintings are cheap at the price Ginger's charging for them. Believe me, any work of mine you buy now is a great investment."
"I'm not going to argue with you, Marley," Chuck said. "But there's a lot of young artists out there, I don't take risks unless they're guaranteed."
"With the project I've got in mind, you'd make a fortune. It's going to be bigger than Disney World. Even Ginger says—"
"Oh, Ginger. What she's got is a tough facade, but underneath that, what I have is a little girl who calls me up at three in the morning on those nights when we're apart, crying to me that she's never going to get to whatever place it is she thinks she's going. She gave up painting to become an art dealer— her and fifty other gals all have the same idea in mind. It's a tough world out there, Marley, you need more than a facade."
"I have more than a facade," I said. "Listen, I have the blueprints all drawn up. I could have been a great architect if I wanted—the inside is going to be made from marble, rubber, and glass. In the center I've got plans for a giant bathtub, a kind of fountain filled with sulfuric acid—"
"I told Ginger, in a couple of years, maybe, if we're still together and I've built up her ego sufficient, I'll let her have a kid. For the time being, I've taught her to knit. See, I like to knit, I have some creative talents myself. Don't ever let them tell you that things like cooking or knitting aren't artistic in their own way. Take a look at this sweater I have on."
I looked him up and down. He had on something Argyle, of bishop's purple and garter blue, which would have been normal if not for the neckline, wrinkled like the wattles of some big bird. It disturbed me to hear so much about Ginger that I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know; after all, I had come to depend on her to take care of me. I mean, an artistic genius can't be expected to do more than create his works. "I guess old Ginger would like to get married," Chuck said. "I'm sixty-seven years old, I'm leaving my money to my daughter."
"Ginger doesn't need any kids," I said. "She's got me, you know."
But Chuck looked nervous; he changed the subject. "Let me bring out something I think you'll like to try," he said, noting that my eating had slowed somewhat. From a drawer in the pantry he took out several tiny green cans labeled pineapple JAM, CRATIONS, U.S. ARMY.