Fire in the Belly - Act 8: Wherein the Author is Humbled, and Offers Several Mea Culpas
When I finally got home I fell down on my bed and slept. I didn’t sleep long, and even though I wasn’t physically ill I was incapable of even passing out. The answering machine was blinking an insistent staccato. Every light in the apartment was on; what’s up with that? I sat down next to the answering machine and put my ear to the speaker. The volume knob had been acting up, or the recording tape was just too old, or something else was wrong, but the volume had been almost too low to understand lately.
The voice that nearly broke my eardrum belonged to our landlord. I’d never heard him even raise his voice before. The speaker distorted. Seymour sounded like he was piloting a bomber, and they’d taken heavy enemy fire over hostile territory. I crushed the answering machine and went back to bed, figuring to just lay there until slept washed over me.
Amazing but true, he gave us a second chance. We agreed to pay for the damaged doors upstairs. We promised to clean up all the bottles on the roof (“WHAT WERE YOU DOING ON THE ROOF?!”), we promised to stay off the roof for good, and we promised to never, ever have another party.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Really and truly I’m sorry Seymour.”
“Okay, Okay. I’m not a young man! Take it easy on us seniors.”
“You’ll outlive us all, Seymour.”
Our Halloween party had gotten me thinking about how badly I wanted a space of my own. I wasn’t quite ready to exact revenge from Roger, but I was getting there. Part of the problem was that I was having trouble figuring out just what I wanted from him. At first my anger took the form of simple, primal urges. I fantasized about launching him off the roof. I considered clobbering him senseless with a ball peen hammer. All of these nightmarish ideations gave way to reason, and the understanding that I didn’t actually mean him any real harm.
It wasn’t his success that bothered me. It wasn’t the fact that, in the end, he got closer to Mel than I had ever been. It wasn’t his encroachment, or the fact that he was always late with rent. And it wasn’t the stupidity of his philosophical cloud readings, or the fact that he no longer told me that I was a great artist, and I should make tons of money. It wasn’t any of that. I began to plot my revenge the day Roger Murray met my Mother.
She adored him, and he milked it for every drop. She thought that Urban Baroque was the “cat’s pj’s.” It was the “bees knees.” It was the “real thing.” She said these things. These were phrases once used to describe my work. Now he had co-opted them, and he didn’t even know what it was worth. Who was he to her? He wasn’t of her! How in the world could she lavish such praise upon a complete stranger? What of my Minimalist symphonies? What of my detailed and cogent angles on the primacy of sculpture? What of all that? What about Urban Archaelogy? Roger Murray was focused on one transient style in a long history of art. I was investigating an entire scientific discipline! The Baroque is trivial when compared to the Archaelogical.
“Oh, honey, you’re so serious sometimes.”
“I’m what?”
“I must say, sometimes you worry me. I think you got that quality from your Father.”
“Why would you want to go and bring him into it?.”
“Joey, he’s still your Dad.”
“Joey? Phyllis did you say Joey?”
“Oh no. Here we go...”
“Where did Bucky come from?”
“I haven’t the vaguest.”
“Mom, please...”
Roger popped me one on the shoulder “Hey, lighten up, Buck ... er Joey.”
“Thank you very much.”
She smiled and changed the subject. “I would just love to take you boys to lunch before I head downtown to shop.”
I groaned. I seethed. The room starting to spin a little. Roger, of course, was enthusiastic about the idea. We drove down to Mitchell’s. Mom ordered a salad and Roger followed suit. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger. And as I placed my order it happened - she gave me the look. I’d seen her give the look to others, but never me. My father had been the victim of that look, and I can only imagine how it must have contributed to his leaving us. It’s not a hostile look, really, but it’s cold. It’s empty. It sent a shiver up my spine.
“What?”
She sighed and looked at her nails. “Roger, tell me more about Urban Baroque.”
I groaned again, and again, I got the look. I opened the current edition of New City, trying to adjust to my brave new world.
“Well,” he began, “it’s really impossible to draw a clear distinction between the urban landscape and the people who populate it, y’know? My theory is that’s it’s just all one big organism...”
He kept going, but then he always just kept going. Mother was rapt. I felt like Papillon. By the time we got back to the studio Mom and Roger were deep into discussions of individual pieces.
“You know,” she said, “this one would be lovely in my dining room”
“Where?” I wondered aloud. “The only wall in your dining room has my senior year independant study final hanging on the wall.”
“Now, now, Joseph. I’ve got dozens of your pieces hanging in my house.”
“Uh, I made that piece specifically with you in mind, Mom.”
“I’ll find another place for it, sweety.” She was digging in her purse for her checkbook. “Roger, don’t you dare give me a deal. How much for this one?”
And that, as they say, was that. The enemy had invaded my home. Much more than art and money had been transacted. If it was the only thing I ever succeeded at, no matter what, I was getting even.
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