Peter Heller - The Painter

“Your work in the last month is extraordinary. Prolific, and disturbing, and in some ways different than anything you have painted before. It seems to be getting some in the art world excited. Can you say that these allegations of murder have inspired you in some way?”

The image of her as a young daughter fishing was gone. She was very thin and tall for a Navajo. She probably wasn’t. Everybody down here was mestizo in one way or another. She was probably Chicana and Ute or something. The Ute were up by the Animas. Suddenly I didn’t feel charitable anymore. Her eyeliner was too heavy. I thought: TV will make you cruel and it will ice the humanity inside you, and you will grow into something your father won’t recognize, and all this will happen because you chose it.

I felt mean.

I dropped the cheroot. I grunted something that came out as a roar, I guess, because all of them flinched back, and I turned and fled through the big hotel door and almost fell inward as the doorman pulled it open and I nearly ran across the smoothly tiled lobby. I had the impression that everyone there was watching me as I went. The rapt focus of fans at a sporting event.

I couldn’t find my card key and I pounded on the door and Sofia let me in. She had paint smudged on her face and in her hair and her arms were open.

The painting she made me was the first one she’d made in three years. She called it Backstroke . She was excited and proud. It was a bearded man swimming lazily on his back in an ocean devoid of women or drama. Sitting on his belly was a family of four otters, all smiling the way otters smile. It was very good. Clean and full of humor and life.

The morning TV magazine story ran three days later, a full fifteen minutes. 9News wanted to be the first, and they put the pedal to the metal. How did they pull this shit off so fast? There was a brief bio, a sort of photo album collage of me surfing as a grom (tyke surfer); Pop’s death in news clippings; me with my buddy Jan looking handsome and disturbed as a junior in the yearbook, unkempt dark hair blowing, blue t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder, the expression far off, like trying to focus on a bird who is moving into a greater distance; running away to sister in Santa Rosa; the San Francisco MOMA where I went one day to stay away from the neighborhood cops after a fight, seeing Winslow Homer and Van Gogh and Matisse for the first time; the fascination then passion, art supplies, enrolling in the SF Art Institute; a photo of the painting that won the jury prize at the spring contest; Taos; me and my truck, me with fishing rod, me and Cristine and Alce, me at easel in studio, everything you’d expect, most of it out of the book Steve had commissioned, then: news flash, famous painter shoots bar patron! TV news now, shots of Santa Fe State, me in orange jumpsuit smiling, my release, growing fame, slew of paintings, their images, what a couple of critics said, the book about me, the exhibits, then: the radio interview in which I crush the interviewer’s hand. Gone viral. An artist who spoke for the working classes, a loose cannon, a big, passionate, physical man. Then: death of famous painter’s daughter, mug shots, TV news now of an ambulance, a gurney, I turned away. Divorce, gambling. Second marriage, Maggie as a pinup with bunny tail, Paonia, a current shot of my house—that made me sit up—they were trespassing clearly, then: news flash: murder on the Sulphur.

And then it slowed down and Cindy De Baca began to narrate the chain of events, the cracking of a poaching ring by the Feds, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the brothers, their dovetailed operation between Colorado and Arizona, documented cases of horse abuse, animal deaths, ASPCA allegations, the fight between me and Dellwood, the little horse. Then: death of Dellwood. The old brawler-artist the local fishermen call Hemingway is a person of interest. A barn burning, an interview with Willy who clearly did not want to talk but wanted to set the record straight. Then: an ambush, shots through the window of Santa Fe society family, my biggest collector, suspect brother Grant, then murder of Grant. Is Jim Stegner the Vigilante Artist? Did he see himself as the Eliminator of Bad Men? That was the question. And: In a twist that could only occur in a volatile art world, Stegner’s recent paintings are in such high demand they are going for double what his work previously commanded. And requests for shows are increasing. In the last week, the Harwood Museum in Taos has… We may ask ourselves: should allegations of murder dramatically increase an artist’s stock? Then Wheezy chiming: There are, as of now, no allegations . De Baca: What? A shot of her shoving her mic into Wheezy’s face And now we ask Detective John Hinchman, Santa Fe PD homicide and lead investigator on the Grant Siminoe murder case: Why isn’t Jim Stegner a suspect? Wheezy finishing a paper cup of coffee just like a screen detective, grinning heartily into the camera: Because, Cindy, he is not a suspect! Tight on her face, her look of moral shock. Okay, now I officially did not like her. Wheezy again: And by the way, Cindy, the death of Grant Siminoe has not been classified as a murder . Forgiving chuckle. De Baca: What! A man is shot in the head and his truck and his body crashed into a gully in the middle of the night? Perfectly pitched incredulity backed by the common sense of all New Mexican viewers. Why? Why?? Wheezy, grinning, patient didact: Well, in this business we call them extenuating circumstances .

Then a survey of my paintings since the first murder. The dates of the killings, and other seminal events like the arson, flashed at the bottom of the screen while the paintings that were finished at about the same time revolved across the top.

I couldn’t stop watching. It was completely compelling. The Albuquerque station was clearly gunning for an Emmy. Sofia sat beside me on the plush couch with her mouth half open, speechless. It struck me how riveting the story, how maudlin: that she was dumbstruck. An event as rare as a full solar eclipse.

The centerpiece of the whole story was the interview just outside the hotel, if you could call it an interview. Given that I’d said two words it was surprisingly impressive. I mean it made an impression. It confirmed everything the story had been building to—a grand insinuation, pretty much case closed, that murder finds a man, especially a rugged artist-vigilante, reticent and mercurial, and lights a great fire under his art, and his art, well, is pretty much genius. BUT —it cannot and never will justify breaking the law— AND CERTAINLY NOT MURDER! NOT EVER! That seemed to be the takeaway. I found the remote on the floor and flicked off the tube. Sofia turned to me.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, right?”

“We’re gonna have to get you better sunglasses, Jim. Wraparounds. Or maybe just a full burka.”

“Huh.” I was just sort of staring at the black flat screen that mirrored the light from the windows, staring at it as if it were a quiet pool that mirrored the morning and had just revealed the flash of like a three foot trout.

“Maggie was really pretty. So was Cristine. Makes me feel a little insecure, to tell you the truth.”

“Huh.”

“Jim!”

“Wha?”

“Snap out of it! Say something. Jesus. That was crazy.”

“It was crazy.”

I thought: It was. For one, to see your life wrapped up in a quarter of an hour. It was like going to your own funeral. Was that me? Nah. No way. For two, was I such a crazy bastard? Had I been that impulsive and violent my whole life? I felt so gentle most of the time. I really did. I swear.