Percival Everett - Big Picture - Stories

“Michael, oh, Michael,” Joshua called, leaning out of the doorway of the gallery.

Michael turned and looked at him.

Joshua waved frantically for him to come back. “I need you!” he called.

Michael walked slowly back to him, wondering where Karen was. He last saw her talking and laughing with a woman from the Post. She liked these things more than he did.

When Michael was close, Joshua said softly, excitedly, “I think I’ve sold the big one.”

A pain shot through Michael’s head like a ricocheting bullet as he considered the six-by-eight-foot canvas that he had thought about withholding from the show. He had included it because of the strength of the work, believing that no one would buy it. “People aren’t buying big anymore,” Joshua had complained, hearing about the piece. It was also priced at a whopping thirty thousand dollars, more than twice as much as any of his other canvases in Santa Fe, Los Angeles, or New York.

“The big one?” Michael said.

“Can you believe it?” Joshua pulled him by the arm into the gallery, squeezing his bicep happily, lovingly. He led Michael to the canvas, in front of which stood about fifteen people.

Karen came over, kissed Michael’s cheek, and wrapped herself about his other arm. Michael looked at her illuminated face, and found her way too happy. Karen had been his wife for less than a year; she was so young, innocent, as unblemished as her skin. He knew it was not the money that was exciting her, rather the electricity of everything, the people buzzing like shiny-eyed bees. She was guiltless, after all, but still it was disconcerting, agitating even, to see her as animated as she was, staring at the man in the double-breasted suit who stood so conspicuously before everyone, admiring the painting.

Michael took an instant dislike to the man, seeing his high-flown clothes as symptom, his exaggeratedly relaxed posture as contrivance.

“Douglass Dheaper,” the double-breasted man said, reaching to shake Michael’s hand. Upon taking it, he gave it a gentle, but imperious squeeze. “You are a genius,” he said, turning back to admire the painting. “It’s so daring, so reckless, impertinent even. Wouldn’t you say so, Laura?” he said to the woman beside him who nodded her painted face. “Laura agrees.”

“It’s thirty thousand dollars,” Michael said flatly.

“A steal,” Dheaper said. “It’s worth twice that.” He smiled broadly, “But you’ve already stated a price, so there’s no changing it.” He laughed.

The people standing around laughed with him. Karen laughed too, but a look from Michael silenced her, causing him to feel immediately like a bully.

“It’s not for sale,” Michael said.

Laughter caught in their throats as they gasped.

Douglass Dheaper grinned smartly. “I beg your pardon?”

Joshua stepped in. “No, I beg your pardon,” he said to Michael, pinching him on the arm.

Michael pulled away. “I don’t like this guy. He’s a phony and I don’t want my painting near him.”

Joshua pushed Michael into the office, closing the door, leaving behind Karen and the excitedly muttering mob. “Are you crazy?” he asked.

“Possibly. Definitely, if I let Mister Grease out there walk away with that painting.” Michael rubbed his arm where Joshua had pinched him.

Joshua pointed to the sore spot. “And there’s more where that came from.” He paused to catch his breath. “That man, grease or no grease, was about to spend thirty thousand dollars. That would have been fifteen thousand dollars for you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What have you been doing? Is it the paint fumes?”

“I don’t like him,” Michael said.

“You don’t have to like him.”

“I don’t want to sell the painting.”

“That’s too bad. We have an agreement.”

Michael didn’t say anything, but walked across the room and looked at a Klee print.

There was a knock at the door and when Joshua opened it, there was Dheaper, still smiling, really more of a smirk, looking past the older man for Michael.

“Is he okay?” Dheaper asked.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Joshua said. “You know how artists can be.”

“Oh, I know,” Dheaper said. “And I’m still going to buy the painting. I have to now.”

Michael was staring at the man, confused.

Dheaper chuckled softly. “After that scene, the painting is going to be worth a bundle.”

Joshua nodded, sharing the chuckle.

“And that reporter broad from the Post is out there, too. This is terrific.” Dheaper looked right at Michael. “Good show, chum.” With that, he backed out of the room and began to close the door, saying to Joshua, “This is really outstanding.”

Michael fell into the chair behind the desk. “This is a dream. A nightmare.”

“So, it worked out,” Joshua said. “But that doesn’t change the facts. You’re nuts and childish and apparently don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Michael said and rested his head on his arms on the desk. “Or whatever you people do.”

“Oh, it’s that way, is it?” Joshua said.

“No, it’s not that way, ” Michael said. “I don’t care what you do. All I know is, I don’t want to fuck you. And I don’t want you fucking me, which is what you just did out there.”

Joshua stormed out and was replaced by Karen. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“No,” he said without lifting his head.

“Oh, my sweet sensitive Michael,” she said, coming around the desk to him and stroking his head. The way she was talking, he expected to hear her say, Did the big bad man steal your wittle painting? but instead she said, “I understand. There’s so much of you in that canvas. It must be so hard.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, standing. “Let’s go back to the hotel and go to bed.”

During the cab ride back to the hotel, Michael was staring absently out the window and Karen was still whirring, petting his arm with measured touches, but he could feel her exhilaration.

“You liked all of that, didn’t you?” he asked, turning to look at her in the dark.

“No,” she said.

“You’re still buzzing from it. I didn’t like it. I’m dying inside. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Karen said nothing.

“Listen,” he said, “I spent a lot of time on that canvas. I thought I could get that guy up on the price.”

“You didn’t think that,” she said.

“Yes, I did. Didn’t you hear him say it was worth twice that?”

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Don’t believe me, then. It doesn’t matter.” Michael looked out the window again. “That’s the last time I let that fucking Joshua handle a piece.”

“It’s his job to sell,” Karen said. “He’s not an artist.”

“Neither am I,” Michael snapped. “I’m a fraud, a phony, a pretender. I don’t ever know what the hell I’m doing when I put paint on canvas.”

Karen began to stroke his arm again.

Michael sighed.

In the hotel room, Karen sat at the desk and began to make a journal entry while Michael stripped to his boxers and watched television.

“Do you know why people never put televisions in paintings?” he asked. He didn’t wait for her to say anything. “It’s because no matter how you look at it, it looks stupid. Look at it now.”

Karen did.

Michael tilted his head and flipped through a couple of stations with the remote. “Stupid, stupider, stupidest.” He muted the sound and watched the mouths work harmlessly. “I can’t paint anything that abstract.”

Karen continued writing and Michael stayed with the soundless picture, but he was seething inside, aching; the thought of that man sitting in his greasy, gaudy, probably tidy home with that beautiful painting was killing him. Yes, it was beautiful perhaps, not because of its appearance, its colors, or its texture, but because of what was between the oils and the canvas: the sweat, the insecurities, the bad dreams, and the headaches. There was one spot in the picture, a spot smaller than a postcard, that Michael loved. Although put on wet together, Naples Yellow and Permanent Blue had not fused into green. The two colors remained so painfully separate that Michael wanted to cry each time he saw it.