Dan Wakefield - Going All the Way - A Novel

“I’m Mr. Libby, from Artists Unlimited.” He edged his way into the room and asked, “May I come in?,” after he already had.

Gunner looked confused, but asked the guy to sit down. “Are you a friend of Marty’s or something?”

“Beg pardon?” The man smiled.

“Marty Pilcher. She’s an art student, down at Herron.”

“Oh, no, we’re not connected at all with Herron. Or any other local group.” He made local sound very small-time. “We’re a national organization,” he said.

“Well,” Gunner asked, scratching at the back of his head, “can I get you a beer?”

“Oh my, no, not on the job.”

He pulled a big portfolio onto his lap and cleared his throat. “I’m sure that you are just the sort of person who can benefit from our kind of personal, professional guidance,” he said.

“I don’t get it,” Gunner said. “Who are you?”

“Mr. Libby, from Artists Unlimited. Here, I should have given you my card.”

He handed a little printed white card to Gunner, who looked at it blankly.

“Yeh, I see, but I still don’t get it. I mean, how did you get here? How do you know me or anything?”

“From your talent,” the man beamed. “A small sample, of course. Yet enough for a professional eye to detect the kind of rough talent that can be sharpened and honed into—who knows? A true artist.”

“What sample?” Gunner asked. “What are you talking about?”

“The little challenge in the matchbook cover—the drawing of a woman’s head that you were able to reproduce with enough skill to bring me here today.”

“The matchbox,” Gunner said. “You mean the one that said ‘Draw Me?’”

“I remember!” Sonny volunteered. “Yeh. It said ‘Draw Me,’ and you drew the woman on a napkin, at the Red Key. Remember?”

“I remember drawing it,” Gunner said, “but I sure as hell never sent it in. I’d have had to send it in, for them to give you my name, wouldn’t I?”

“Of course”—Mr. Libby smiled—“of course you sent it in.”

“Goddam it, I didn’t send anything in!”

“Well, someone must have,” Libby said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Gunner turned to Sonny, staring at him suspiciously. “You were there, when I drew the damn thing. Did you send it in?”

“Me? I wouldn’t send anything in for another guy. Besides, you put it in your pocket. I saw you.”

“Well, it’s really academic,” Mr. Libby said. “Perhaps you should simply accept the mystery as a further sign, pointing your way to a career in art. The important thing is, Artists Unlimited can start you up the ladder of that career, with a series of home instructions that you work on and send in to our staff of master artists for a personal, professional critique of each and every lesson you complete.”

Gunner looked dazed. “Who the fuck,” he said almost to himself, “could have sent it in?”

“It’s as if you were sitting at the feet of one of our contemporary masters,” Libby went on, “benefiting from his own genius, the secrets of his art applied to your own work . Within five days after sending in your completed lesson, you receive in the mail—”

The door opened and Nina Casselman walked in, pulling a big white floppy summer hat off her head and shaking her thick bright blond hair out with one hand in a way that Sonny thinks of a woman preparing for bed—but not for sleep.

She put one hand on her hip and asked, with her eyes wide, “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Not at all, I’m sure,” Mr. Libby said, rising.

“Nina, this is Mr. Libby,” Gunner said. “You know Sonny Burns.”

Nina dismissed Sonny with a glance that was suitable for brushing off a gnat and swiveled over to extend her hand to Mr. Libby.

“I’m from Artists Unlimited,” he said.

“Oh, really?” Nina asked with interest.

“There’s been some kind of mistake,” Gunner said nervously.

“On the contrary”—Libby beamed—“this young man, Mr. Casselman, has great talent in the field of art.”

“Of course he has,” Nina said. “He has ever since he was a little boy.”

“Oh—then you’re—his sister?”

“Thank you.” Nina smiled. “He’s my son.”

“Really,” Mr. Libby said, “I’d have never—”

“Few people would,” Nina said and sat down on the couch beside Mr. Libby.

“Nina, I was just explaining to Mr. Libby there’s been a misunderstanding. Somehow this coupon got sent in to his company, with something I drew, and he thinks—”

“I think your son has great potential,” Libby confided to Nina.

“Well, of course.”

“Listen,” Gunner said, “I swear to God, I don’t even know who sent the damn thing in, it was just a thing on the inside of a matchfolder and—”

“The woman’s face?” Nina asked. “The one you were able to draw so beautifully on a rough old napkin?”

Gunner’s mouth opened and he pointed at his mother. “You,” he said accusingly, “ you sent it in.”

“I certainly did.”

“But I didn’t mean to send it in! I never intended to send it in!”

Nina sighed and got out a cigarette. “Of course you didn’t,” she said, “you’re so painfully modest.”

Mr. Libby lit her cigarette, smiling with understanding.

“ Mother! It was a joke!”

“Talent is no joke,” Mr. Libby said reproachfully.

“Indeed it’s not,” Nina agreed. “When I saw that little coupon, and the way he had drawn such an exact reproduction of the woman’s face—in fact, it seemed to me his was a little better than the face they showed—I just had to do something about it.”

“Where did you find it?” Gunner demanded. “How did you get the damn thing?”

“I was going through your pockets.”

“What the hell were you doing in my pockets?” Gunner shouted. “You haven’t got any business in my pockets.”

“I was only getting some things of yours together for the cleaner!” Nina shouted back. “Doing you a favor , seeing you’re taken care of, and what thanks do I get?”

Gunner slapped the palm of his hand at his forehead and was quiet for a moment.

“Your son may not appreciate it now,” Mr. Libby said quietly to Nina, “but I assure you that in a matter of weeks, after he has completed Lesson Number One—”

“Look,” Gunner said very quietly, “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, but the fact is, by coincidence, I already am taking art lessons.”

“What kind of ‘art lessons?’” Mr. Libby asked.

“Private ones,” Gunner said, looking away.

“Well, this is news,” Nina said.

“I just started,” Gunner explained, “recently.”

“From whom, may I ask, are you taking these lessons?” Libby inquired.

“From an art student. She’s an art student at the Herron, studying art.”

“You mean that little Jewish girl you’ve been running around with?” Nina asked indignantly.

“What’s ‘Jewish’ got to do with it, for God sake?”

“Well, she is, isn’t she?”

“The point is,” Mr. Libby said soothingly, “no student, of any kind, is able to give instructions as competently as a professional, accomplished professional artist. That goes without saying. You see, Mrs. Casselman, our course is designed by the leading artists of the land, and the lessons your son completes will be personally criticized by professionals in their field.”

Mr. Libby no longer addressed himself to Gunner at all, but poured his soupy pitch entirely toward Nina.

“That sounds marvelous,” she said.

“Imagine, being able to study under the masters of contemporary art.”