Virgil’s special brew was still on the table. I mixed up a cup and poured in a lot of sugar. It wasn’t too bad. I drank three cups altogether. Soon I began to feel uneasy and lay down on the bed.
Outside the hole in the studio window, climbing up my rose bush, was a morning-glory vine. The blossoms were a very effective blue. On the floor a square of sunlight was making up into a nice arrangement with the rock they’d thrown through the window. As the sun moved across the floor, it occurred to me that the rock was not an ordinary Long Island rock. Long Island rocks look like Long Island potatoes, but this rock was a deep black, a real ivory black, and it had metallic flecks in it. I got off the bed, though it took a great deal of effort, and picked the rock up. It was terribly heavy for its size and roughly conical in shape— altogether, it had a lot of style. I decided I’d give it to Zogstein. He’d been making some very nice things out of iron lately, with a rock in the middle.
There came a loud knock, so I put the rock on the bed and opened the door. On the doorstep was a tall man carrying an open can of beer in one hand and a live lobster in the other. At first I thought he was an artist, because he hadn’t shaved and his shirt was such a tasteful, faded blue. But he didn’t have that troubled look, he had a general air of assurance; I decided he was a native of the place.
“Morning,” he said. “Got any pictures you want to trade?”
I understood the situation immediately. Jackson Pollock had come to Springs in 1947, and very shortly a number of other Abstract Expressionists, who are now famous, had followed him. Things were not so good in those days, so the grocer had occasionally let them exchange paintings for groceries. Lately, the grocer had been written up in Life magazine as a great collector, and had sold his Pollock for a price that had increased at every telling.
“I’m Lester Barnes, from over at Louse Point,” said the man at my door. “I’m putting up a little mess of drawings. They come cheaper than the big stuff, and I figure, I figure—” He seemed confused, and took a gulp of beer. “I figure that, well…”
“You mean that though they’re sort of small they still carry the personality of the artist?”
“Yep!” exclaimed Mr. Barnes enthusiastically. “That’s just what I mean. Now I’ve just been over to Mike Goldfarb’s. He gave me a drawing for seven lobsters. But I figured that after that panning you got in Art News you might let me have one for three.”
I didn’t like this much.
“All right,” I said.
“Here’s one down.” Mr. Barnes handed me the lobster. “I’ll bring the other two later.” He started down the path, hesitated, and came back. “The one I gave you — maybe you won’t eat him right away.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you see—” He took another gulp of beer and looked down at the ground. “You see, we’ve had him for quite a while. You might call him sort of a household pet. He’s even learned to play marbles with the kids.”
I took the lobster inside and put him down in the square of sunlight. He crawled across the room right away and went under the bed. That was all right, because it left the floor clear for me to do a little painting. I was feeling much better and was beginning to have ideas. Art News had said that my work was too busy, too many things in it. I decided I’d try for a very simple statement. Just two strong forms, one geometrical and one amorphous: And just two colors playing against each other, but strong ones.
I placed a forty-eight-by-fifty canvas on the floor, mixed up some vermilion, and painted in a nice round disc up near the top of the canvas. Then I got a can of ivory black and poured some out in a little pool down near the bottom.
I picked up another brush, wondering what shape I would tease this pool into. But then a really weird thing happened. I noticed that as a shape formed in my mind, the same shape would form on the canvas. I mean I didn’t touch the canvas or anything. The black pool of paint just took on what I was thinking. I worked through a series of shapes and finally hit on a very good one. It had a sort of cosmic quality: a nucleus, with five interrelated drips spiraling around it.
I stepped back. The black form was in a very nice place, the tension was practically perfect. I was pleased and was admiring my work, when I began to get the feeling that somebody was watching me. You know that feeling you sometimes get in a bus or a subway and you look up and sure enough you meet the eyes of a character across the aisle. A detective or something. So I looked up.
On the bed where I had put the rock was a girl. At first I thought she was Olivia. She was the same size, small, that is, had the same immature and somewhat nondescript face, and was wearing, as Olivia always did, a black turtle-neck sweater and blue jeans. But the eyes that were watching me were not Olivia’s. Olivia’s eyes were gray, as I’ve said, and sort of dull. These eyes were a burnt-sienna color. And over there on the dark side of the room they were glowing as if someone had lit a couple of little bonfires behind them.
“Good morning,” I said.
She didn’t answer. She sat there watching me, her elbow on her knee, her pointed chin resting on the palm of a somewhat pudgy hand.
“Do you know,” she said finally, “you’re the first man I’ve ever seen. Ever, that is.”
She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it, and looked at me again.
“How did it happen, sister?” I asked. ‘They had you locked up?”
“In a sense,” she said.
I carried my canvas across the room and set it up against the wall.
“It utterly overwhelms me!” she exclaimed. “I can see that one must exercise fantastic control.”
I looked at my picture to see if it was that good, and shrugged my shoulders modestly.
“I wasn’t talking about your picture,” she said. “I was talking about sex. This is the first time I’ve ever experienced it. You know, where I come from we don’t have any sex. We have something entirely different.”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s a really grisly performance. It takes eight of us, and it’s run by the Department of Weights and Measures. It’s quite heavy.” She patted the bed. “Do come and sit beside me.”
I said, somewhat nervously, “Perhaps you’d better come over here and sit on this chair.” Since she didn’t move, I added, “As a matter of fact, I’m afraid you’re sitting on a rock.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, a little coldly. “Besides, it wasn’t a rock. It was a meteorite.” A small, reproachful wrinkle appeared on her forehead. She drew up her knees, and in a slow, weary way put her head down on the pillow. “I’m not happy,” she said. “It’s very evident that you don’t like me.” She began to look as if she were going to cry. “I gave a lot of thought to my appearance before I came. I’ve always heard that artists like you, who’d been through the mill, who’d really had it, wanted something quiet around. Something not too exciting. Something they call a studio mouse.”
I began to feel sorry for her. I crossed the room and put my hand on her shoulder.
“Listen, sister,” I explained, “the trouble is, I’ve just had one of what you describe. And I’m not too anxious to get mixed up with another.”
“Oh,” she said, lightening up considerably. “So that’s all it is. Why, that can be taken care of in no time. Do you like my eyes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like them better this way?” As she spoke her eyes changed from brown to a brilliant blue. The color of the morning-glory in the sun outside.
“Anything else?” she asked.