Part 24 (1/2)

Stedman wished he could drag himself inside the cottage, close the doors and shutters, and huddle before the fire. He comprehended vaguely that that was where he had been, in fact, for the last thirty-five years.

Now he was being dragged out.

”Sweetheart-” said Cornelia.

”Hm?” said Stedman.

”Aren't you glad?” she said.

”Glad?” said Stedman.

”About how we're having out about who's the real artist?” said Cornelia.

”Glad as can be,” said Stedman. He managed a smile.

”Then why don't you go ahead and paint?” said Cornelia.

”Why not?” said Stedman. He raised his brush, made flicking thrusts at the vermilion worm. In seconds he had created a vermilion clump of birch. A dozen more thoughtless thrusts, and he had erected a small vermilion cottage next to the clump of trees.

”An Indian-do an Indian,” said Sylvia Lazarro, and she laughed because Stedman was always doing Indians. Sylvia put a fresh canvas on Lazarro's easel, sketched on it with her fingertip. ”Make him bright red,” she said, ”and give him a big eagle beak. And put a sunset over a mountain in the background, with a little cottage on the side of the mountain.”

Lazarro's eyes were glazed. ”All in one picture?” he said glumly.

”Sure,” said Sylvia. She was a frisky bride again. ”Put all kinds of stuff in, so people will shut up once and for all about how their kids can draw better than you can.” kinds of stuff in, so people will shut up once and for all about how their kids can draw better than you can.”

Lazarro hunched over, rubbed his eyes. It was absolutely true that he drew like a child. He drew like an astonis.h.i.+ng, wildly imaginative child-but like a child all the same. Some of the things he did now, in fact, were almost indistinguishable from things he had done in childhood.

Lazarro found himself wondering if perhaps his greatest work hadn't been his very first. His first work of any importance had been in stolen colored chalk on a sidewalk in the shadows of a Chicago El. He had been twelve.

He had begun his first big work as a piece of slum-craftiness, part racket, part practical joke. Bigger and bigger the bright chalk picture had grown-and crazier and crazier. Green sheets of rain, laced with black lightning, fell on jumbled pyramids. It was daytime here and nighttime there, with a pale gray moon making daytime, with a hot red sun making night.

And the bigger and crazier the picture had become, the more a growing crowd had loved it. Change had showered on the sidewalk. Strangers had brought the artist more chalk. Police had come. Reporters had come. Photographers had come. The mayor himself had come.

When young Lazarro had arisen at last from his hands and knees, he had made himself, for one summer day at least, the most famous and beloved artist in the Middle West. Now he wasn't a boy anymore. He was a man who made his living painting like a boy, and his wife was asking him to paint an Indian that really looked like an Indian.

”It will be so easy for you,” said Sylvia. ”You won't have to put soul in it or anything.” She scowled and shaded her eyes, pretended to scan the horizon like a Stedman Indian. ”Just do um heap big Injun,” she said. eyes, pretended to scan the horizon like a Stedman Indian. ”Just do um heap big Injun,” she said.

By one in the morning, Durling Stedman had driven himself almost out of his wits. Pounds of paint had been laid on the canvas before him. Pounds had been sc.r.a.ped away. No matter how abstract Stedman made his beginnings, the hackneyed themes of a lifetime came through. He could not restrain a cube from turning into a cottage, a cone from turning into a snow-capped mountain, a sphere from becoming a harvest moon. And Indians popped up everywhere, numerous enough at times for a panorama of Custer's Last Stand.

”You just can't keep your talent from busting right through, can you?” his wife Cornelia said.

Stedman blew up, ordered her to bed.

”It would be a h.e.l.l of a help if you wouldn't watch,” John Lazarro said to his wife peevishly.

”I just want to keep you from working too hard at it,” said Sylvia. She yawned. ”If I leave you alone with it, I'm afraid you'll start putting soul in it and get it all complicated. Just paint an Indian.”

”I am am painting an Indian,” said Lazarro, his nerves tw.a.n.ging. painting an Indian,” said Lazarro, his nerves tw.a.n.ging.

”You-you mind if I ask a question?” said Sylvia.

Lazarro closed his eyes. ”Not at all,” he said.

”Where's the Indian?” she said.

Lazarro gritted his teeth, pointed to the middle of the canvas. ”There's your lousy Indian,” he said.

”A green Indian?” said Sylvia.

”That's the underpainting,” said Lazarro.

Sylvia put her arms around him, babied him. ”Honey,” she said, ”please don't underpaint. Just start right off with an Indian.” She picked up a tube of paint. ”Here-this is a good color for an Indian. Just draw the Indian, then color him with this-like in a Mickey Mouse coloring book.”

Lazarro threw his brush across the room. ”I couldn't even color a picture of Mickey Mouse with somebody looking over my shoulder!” he yelled.

Sylvia backed away. ”Sorry. I'm just trying to tell you how easy it should be,” she said.

”Go to bed!” said Lazarro. ”You'll get your stinking Indian! Just go to bed.”

Stedman heard Lazarro's yell, mistook it for a yell of joy. Stedman thought that the yell could mean one of two things-that Lazarro had finished his painting, or that the painting had jelled and would very soon be done.

He imagined Lazarro's painting-saw it now as a s.h.i.+mmering Tintoretto, now as a shadowy Caravaggio, now as a swirling Rubens.

Doggedly, not caring if he lived or died, Stedman began killing Indians with his palette knife again. His self-contempt was now at its peak.

He stopped working completely when he realized how profound his contempt for himself was. It was so profound that he could decide without shame to go across the street and buy a painting with soul from Lazarro. He would pay a great deal for a Lazarro painting, for the right to sign his own name to it, for Lazarro's keeping quiet about the whole shabby deal.

Having come to this decision, Stedman began to paint again. He painted now in an orgy of being his good old, vulgar, soulless self. again. He painted now in an orgy of being his good old, vulgar, soulless self.

He created a mountain range with a dozen saber strokes. He dragged his brush above the mountains, and his brush trailed clouds behind. He shook his brush at the mountainsides, and Indians tumbled out.

The Indians formed at once for an attack on some poor thing in the valley. Stedman knew what the poor thing was. They were going to attack his precious cottage. He stood to paint the cottage angrily. He painted the front door ajar. He painted himself inside. ”There's the essence of Stedman!” he sneered. He chuckled bitterly. ”There the old fool is.”

Stedman went back to the trailer, made sure Cornelia was sound asleep. He counted the money in his billfold, then stole back through his studio and across the street.