Chuck gave me a wink. "Raised a couple of pigs, too, before the neighbors got on my case. Those pork chops, Marley, were not to be believed. Each two inches thick, I stuffed them with bread crumbs. Swimming in cream. Mmm mmm mmm. I've had to give up eating pork, though, you'll notice I only had a taste of my homemade sausage. Trouble with the digestion, it's a shame how the body starts to conk out on a person. How were the sausages, by the way?"
"Delicious."
"You think so? Let me wrap up a couple for you, a little snack later on. Anyway, what was I telling you? I have an attention span that is shorter than a goddamn dog's. Let me tell you, since I got on this art collecting kick, I've come to realize that in my youth in Paris I could have picked up quite a few paintings for a song that would have gotten me more than a million today. Well, I saw how you put away that food—you did all right, boy, though let me tell you that in my heyday I could have eaten you under the table. Take the dog out for a walk, son, and then I'll drive you back home and speak to Ginger about that painting of yours. It's a pretty enough picture, 'Geoffrey Chaucer's First Date,' though I think Ginger could do a little better on the price."
I should have been content with what I already had; but I was like the fisherman with his magic fish, I couldn't help but ask for more. "What about funding for my project?" I said. "You'd be like the Medicis with their own chapel—"
"Marley, at this minute I have a man who calls himself an environmental artist moving heaps of mud from one part of Montana to another. I have a man attempting to get permission to cover the Golden Gate Bridge in Band-Aids. I have a gal handcuffed to a Korean and a Dalmation making a videotape of every moment of their year chained together. All this is costing me, but that's the price I'm willing to pay for my interest in the art world. I tell you what, though: I'm going to buy your painting."
"Well, would you consider my project? Just consider it before making up your mind? I'll send you the complete prospectus, and slides of the altarpiece that's already finished."
"I tell you what: I'll do that."
So I was pleased. For I knew that even though Ginger would let Chuck talk her down some on the price, I would still see enough on the deal to pay my rent for the next couple of months—and still have something left over to eat with besides, if I ever felt like eating again. And in the meantime I would figure out a way to make Chuck come around to my point of view, even if it meant holding Ginger hostage or doing away with the woman making the videotape while handcuffed to the Korean and the dog.
Just as I was about to snap the leash onto the dog's collar to take her out, Chuck called, "Maybe you'll walk off a bit of that food. Come back and have another cup of coffee and we'll start on lunch. Or you'll have a piece of goddamn apple pie. Baked it myself from the finest apple trees in New England. Let me tell you, some people call me an artist, an artist who works in food."
"Where do you want me to take the dog?" I said.
"Let me show you something, Marley," Chuck said, coming over to the door. He lowered his voice from a bellow to a whisper. "Sit, Princess," he said. The dog looked at him but didn't move. "She's a fighting dog, Marley, so be careful out there with her. See, a dog has got better hearing than a human being."
"So will she attack or something?"
"Could happen. When you get out there with her, don't raise your voice or you'll be in trouble. There's no need to shout at her. Just take her around the block."
I was prepared for the worst; but on the street I realized that the dog was so fat all she wanted to do was snuffle up a few droplets on the pavement and go back home to sleep.
Maybe the old guy really had gotten the best of me. All I knew was that if I went back into that kitchen to eat some more, I was going to die.
I crept into the living room to find Ginger, sitting knitting on the pigskin sofa. The place was done up like a hunting lodge, circa 1910: all that dark wood, everything manly and antique, except for the big pictures studding the wall, work by Sol LeWitt, Alfred Jensen, Neil Jenney, a curious jumble of stuff, some junk, some not so bad. I wouldn't have minded looking around; it was the sitting down to eat I couldn't take.
"Ginger, I have to get out of here," I said.
Ginger nodded. "I'll tell him you had to meet some friends for lunch," she said. "See that moose head?" She pointed to a big animal above the fireplace, with one antler askew. "I keep that up there as a reminder to Chuck of what he was like before he gave up drinking—he got mad at me one night and threw a pewter mug at me, but he missed and hit the moose. Since he stopped drinking he took up collecting art. Marley, you didn't try and tell him about your chapel, did you?"
"I tried to," I said. "I don't know if he was listening."
"Because he's been seriously thinking of converting to Catholicism. His daughter's Catholic, he's very close to her."
"Well then, he'd like my chapel."
"I don't think so—many people may be offended. I'm just telling you this so that your hopes aren't dashed."
"I don't buy that," I said. "I didn't realize that Chuck was the guy you were going out with, by the way." It occurred to me I had never bothered asking Ginger anything much about her life before; I was more concerned with the job she was doing in looking after me. Well, this just went to prove I was getting to be a better human being.
"I really do love Chuck," Ginger said. "For years I've stayed with him several nights a week. He always brings me breakfast in bed, but he can't make any kind of commitment to me ...I think partly because of his daughter. She doesn't approve. Besides that, he's been having an affair with the woman next door for years now, so on the nights he's not with me, he's with her. And she's trying to convince him that I'm not a good adviser to him. She says I'm just using him to buy work from the artists I handle ..."
"Marley!" Chuck bellowed from the kitchen. "You back with that dog yet? How about having a drink and coming on in here for some of that pie I was telling you about?"
"Quick, you better go," Ginger said. "I'll try and explain to him why you had to leave."
"But maybe he won't buy my painting then," I said.
"Marley, go!"
So I snuck off fast, to walk downtown. This would give my skinniness a chance to rest, and thus I could cultivate my thoughts at their ease. For I was certain that Chuck had indeed taken a liking to me, and soon I would have his financial endorsement to buy a site in Rome, where I would live happily, building my chapel. I don't know why, but I have always counted on my intuitive knowledge. I was so certain of all of this it occurred to me I should have asked Ginger for a little advance money; it probably would have been possible to have gotten a substantial check from Chuck that very morning, had I pressed the point.
A great sense of joy rose up in me. To my surprise I was getting hungry: to me this was what joy had always been. With the last buck in my pocket I darted across the street to a pizza joint; stuffing the cold slab in my mouth, I began to tell the guy flipping the dough about all of my plans.
Physics
After I got my hair cut at High Style 2000 on Lexington Avenue, I was hit by a car. It wasn't even a very nice vehicle, just a blue-and-white Chrysler. I was trying to cross the street in the middle of the block, and the car backed up and hit me in the legs at knee level. I didn't realize that I'd been struck by a car; it felt more as if someone came along and punched me in the legs. Then it pulled forward. I was stunned. I kept staring at the license plate: it said 867-UHH. I tried to memorize it. The car wasn't going anywhere—I guess the driver was waiting to see if I was seriously damaged. I was angry, even if it was my fault. I glared at the car and tried to give the driver the evil eye. He leaned out the window and yelled at me, "You stupid, or what? Did you see how many feet from you I was?"