Jeff’s heart was pounding out of his chest. Should he go upstairs and introduce himself? He hadn’t yet ventured up there and wasn’t sure he would be welcome. Still, he hoped to see more of Francis than this, more than the man making a beeline from the front door to his office. At the very least, he thought he’d get to see the man in action. Actual action, making decisions, employing his famous eye.
That moment came a few days later, while they were installing a solo show of new work by Alex Post, one of the regular artists on FAFA’s roster. The gallery was a mess. Crates everywhere, work leaning against the walls, rolls of tape, art movers and installers in white gloves scampering around, tinny music playing from a dilapidated boom box, Marcus and Andrea giving orders and perusing checklists. A number of works had come in later than expected.
Post, an oafish middle-aged man in thick black glasses and coveralls, walked from piece to piece, taking in his work, sometimes asking the opinion of whomever was standing nearby, sometimes staring up at the lights as if they would move for him. He took great care in guiding the installers who were hanging the work, pulling out a tape measure at one point and laying down lines of masking tape. He looked more like a foreman than an artist, and Jeff knew who he was only because he’d seen the postcards announcing the opening. In those, Post was clean-shaven and wearing a collarless silk coat, looking five years younger. Jeff had stared at that postcard during one of his interminable days, wondering what it was that made this man an artist, what drove him to create these monumental abstract works. The glasses and silk jacket made him seem like a sagacious aesthete, someone with access to ancient knowledge and higher realms. The man in front of him wouldn’t have looked out of place in the service pit at Jiffy Lube.
Francis appeared at the bottom of the stairs as if he’d floated down them, his leather loafers inaudible under the busy atmosphere of the gallery. Jeff tried to catch his eye, but Francis was already past, heading for Post with arms open. They greeted each other with exaggerated goodwill—hugging and slapping each other on the back. Francis asked if everything was to his liking, and Post said that it was, except the prices. He was concerned that Francis had set the numbers too high. He had heard whispers of a softening in the market, and he didn’t want to end up like D.S. over at Gagosian.
The prices were fine, Francis told him. He’d presold a third of the paintings and had buyers lined up for the rest.
“Speaking of which,” he said, pointing at the painting visitors would see first when they came around the partition, “we’ve got to swap this one with one from the other room.”
The works were hung in a specific order, Post said.
Francis went into the other room, called for two art movers to bring in the painting he wanted.
The art movers brought out the painting, holding it next to the one already hanging in the prime position.
Both works were large abstract geometrical pieces. Arcs and circles against a neutral background, as if drawn with a giant compass. There was nothing freehand or expressive about the work, the shapes seemingly determined by pure physics, as if describing the outlines of soap bubbles in a matrix.
As far as Jeff was concerned, they were indistinguishable in quality, size, even content. Yet Francis favored one over the other. Here was the eye at work.
Post was shaking his head. The piece couldn’t go there. It would be out of order. The show was called The Rake’s Progress—you couldn’t put Marriage before Birth. It didn’t make sense. The more he made his case, the more agitated he became. Francis watched him impassively, then asked if he was finished.
Post cocked his chin at Francis.
“The painting goes here,” Francis said. “Or you and it can go to fucking Gagosian. Not that he’d have you.”
Post stepped closer. He was at least six inches taller than Francis and probably fifty pounds heavier. Francis didn’t budge. Jeff was impressed with this show of strength and with Francis’s commitment to his eye, an eye that could discern what was special in that painting. Predisposed to root for Francis, Jeff wanted to tell Alex Post to give up the fight and have faith in his dealer.
Andrea stepped in to make peace. “One could argue that Marriage is the perfect opener in terms of its being the apotheosis—”
Post put up his hand. He didn’t want to be convinced. He would never be convinced. He would simply give in, because that was what one had to do, he said, when dealing with Francis Arsenault, emphasizing the Arse in the name. He spewed a series of expletives at no one in particular and declared that he wouldn’t be returning for the gallery opening, so everyone else would have to drink the shit wine without him. He walked out.
Francis watched it all with perfect calm. When Post was gone, he clapped his hands together and told everyone to get back to work. Marriage went up on the wall, Francis returned to his office. The eye had won.
Jeff emerged from behind the desk to have a look at the painting himself. He stood before it, trying to figure out what Francis saw in it versus the painting that had hung there, but he couldn’t see anything particularly remarkable about it. He dipped into the back gallery to look at Birth, which was now hanging where Marriage had been. It seemed as good a painting as Marriage, in its palette and arrangement of formal elements and general appearance. Jeff wasn’t a fan of either of these paintings, but still he felt he should have been able to determine what made Marriage exceptional.
Was this what it meant to have the eye? To be able to discern a distinction in quality so subtle as to be invisible to the man on the street? Or was there a secret code, a hidden message visible only to the cognoscenti—a concept Jeff would have understood had he actually majored in art history? It irked him to think that art—he did believe in art—could turn into just another thing to make people feel stupid. Because when he admitted it to himself, that was what the painting did, it made him feel that he was missing something. The fact that others saw it, or claimed to, to the degree that one painting was drastically better or more deserving of exposure than another, only underlined for him the cryptic nature of the world into which he’d ventured.
23
A few days later, Jeff noticed Marcus leaving the gallery with a racquet under his arm. He asked Marcus if he was heading out to play tennis. Marcus grinned, and Jeff knew immediately he’d gotten it wrong.
“Squash,” Marcus said.
Jeff had heard of squash but had never met anyone who actually played it.
“It’s like racquetball, right?”
Marcus was still grinning. “Racquetball is to squash as checkers is to chess. Comprende?”
“Where do you play?”
“Sports Club LA. Francis has a membership.”
“You play with Francis?”
“Getting back into it. He broke a few ribs playing a while back. That was why— Nah, that was before your time.”
“Against you?”
Marcus shook his head. “I’d never hear the end of it. It was some guy from the club.”
Squash. No talk of swimming, or drowning, or CPR, or that brick wall we’re all hurtling toward turning out, this time, to have been made of paper. Why had Francis lied? Was he embarrassed? Worried a near drowning would reveal weakness?
“Opening is next week,” Marcus said on his way out the door. “You might want to go shopping. Don’t skimp on the shoes.”
Jeff spent two weeks’ pay on an all-black ensemble from Banana Republic and a pair of slip-on loafers from Florsheim.
24
The night of the event, Jeff was put in charge of the music—a CD mix of Charlie Parker tunes, volume low enough to be almost subliminal, but high enough to stave off total silence.