Michael Cunningham - By Nightfall

VIC, THAT’S GREAT, SEE YOU TOMORROW AT 11, YOU WILL OF COURSE LET ME KNOW IF I CAN HELP IN ANY WAY.

Bobby arrives at noon to cut his hair. “Hello, handsome.” Bobby’s as flirtatious with Peter as Peter is with his middle-aged women clients, and probably for the same reasons. Still, Bobby is good, and he’s willing to make house calls on Mondays, when all the salons are as shuttered as the art galleries.

They go into the bathroom together, and Bobby gets to work. Bobby is a monologist, Peter drifts in and out.

He’s met an Argentinian, a little older than he but drop-dead gorgeous (Bobby has never, it seems, met any man who wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous), he wants to take Bobby to Buenos Aires for a week but Bobby’s not sure, I mean, I’ve been there before, right, Peter? I mean they seem nice enough but then you get to some faraway place with them and they’re paying all the bills and they expect, well, never mind what they expect (it’s a tradition between them that Bobby implies dark sexual acts but never goes into detail), and frankly, well, you know me…

There’s more. There’s always more (how does Bobby do it, how does he never run out of things to say?), and Peter gets drifty (will Groff call him back, has he lost Bette’s respect?). Then:

“Peter, darling, have you thought about getting rid of some of this gray?”

Huh?

“Just a thought. What’re you, forty-five?”

“Forty-four.”

“We’d do it gradually. Week by week. I mean, you wouldn’t show up one day with the gray all gone. People wouldn’t even notice.”

Something like a trapdoor opens in Peter’s belly.

“I guess I’d thought it was sort of… distinguished.”

He doesn’t tell Bobby he’d thought it was sort of… sexy.

“Distinguished is, like, sixty. You’d look ten years younger.”

Peter is taken by a surprising tumble of feeling. Does he really look that old? Is it pathetic to want to look younger? He couldn’t, really, could he, even if he wanted to? People would notice, no matter how gradually it occurred; he would be a man who colored his hair and he would lose his seriousness forever, though maybe Bobby could just get rid of some of the gray, like half, and people really wouldn’t notice, they’d just think he looked more vital and, okay, a little less old.

Fuck you, Bobby. Why did you bring it up?

“I don’t think so,” he says.

“Think about it, okay?”

“Sure.”

Bobby finishes, pockets his cash. Peter walks him to the front door, past Tyler and his crew, who are not, it seems, in any particular hurry to get the Vincents down. Shaved-headed Carl, one of Tyler’s assistants, gives Peter a look—is it possible he thinks Peter is fucking Bobby? Fine, let him think so.

On the sidewalk Bobby kisses the vicinity of Peter’s face, hops onto his pale blue Vespa, and putt-putts off. Bobby is like the girls in forties comedies, pretty and avid and calculating, still young enough to be confident that the big surprises are yet to come, worried only about whether or not to go to Argentina with some lothario. There he goes, pert and unapologetically trivial, off to the next adventure.

Peter walks back in. Back to business.

Another dozen e-mails. Read them later. Right now, reply to Glen Howard.

HEY, GLEN, HOW GREAT ABOUT THE BIENNIAL PEOPLE! HERE’S HOPING THEY HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO TAKE YOU. SORRY TO SAY THE FRONT GALLERY IS COMPLETELY BOOKED FOR THE FALL, BUT I PROMISE WE’LL GIVE YOU A BEAUTIFUL SHOW AND WILL GET A ZILLION PEOPLE TO COME SEE IT. YR OWN, P.

Rupert Groff calls back.

“Hey there, Peter Harris. What’s up?” He sounds shockingly young.

“You know Bette’s retiring, right?”

“Yeah. Big drag.”

“I’m a fan of your work.”

“Thanks.”

“Could I take you to dinner some night soon?”

“Sure.”

“What’s your schedule like?”

“Kind of fucked this week. Maybe, like, week from Wednesday.”

“That’d be fine. But listen. I have a very good client who might buy a piece right now, and she’s having a party for some other people who buy a lot of art. If you’re interested, I could handle it as an adviser. It wouldn’t mean I was your new dealer, there wouldn’t be any obligations, no hard feelings if you go with somebody else. But I’m pretty sure I could get this sale for you, and it might very well lead to others.”

“That sounds good.”

“So here’s what I think. Let’s plan on dinner a week from Wednesday, but why don’t I come out to your studio sooner than that, and we can talk about what might be right for my client.”

“I don’t have a lot of work to show you right now.”

“What have you got?”

“I’ve got a couple of new bronzes. And some terra-cotta stuff I’m messing around with, but it’s not really ready yet.”

“I’d be happy to see a couple of new bronzes.”

“Okay. Want to come by tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure. What time is good?”

“Like, maybe, four?”

“Four is good.”

“I’m in Bushwick.”

He provides the address. Peter writes it down.

“See you tomorrow at four, then.”

“Right.”

Three new e-mails. One from Glen.

PETER, M’LOVE, NO SECRETS BETWEEN MEN OF HONOR, I’VE GOT AN OFFER FROM ANOTHER PLACE WHICH I’D RATHER NOT TAKE CUZ YR MY GUY BUT THESE PEOPLE ARE VERY HOT ABOUT MY STUFF AND NOW THE BIENNIAL AND, YOU KNOW, I FEEL LIKE THINGS ARE STARTING TO HAPPEN FOR ME WHICH I CAN’T QUITE BELIEVE CUZ YOU KNOW, SELF-ESTEEM ISSUES AND ALL 6 ANYWAY I LOVE YOU AND I WONDER IF YOU AND I COULD GRAB LUNCH SOMETIME SOON AND TALK, WHAT DO YOU SAY, MANFRIEND? XXX

Hm. So, Peter is someone to whom a young, semi-obscure artist thinks he can apply pressure.

Don’t panic, not even a little. Glen is a good painter who’s probably attracted the interest (assuming he’s not bluffing) of some storefront in Williamsburg, and really, he’s an unlikely candidate for the Biennial—rumor has it the curators are doing almost nothing but sculpture, installation, and video this time.

HEY, GLEN, I AM IN FACT YOUR MANFRIEND, LET’S ABSOLUTELY HAVE LUNCH AND DISCUSS YOUR BRILLIANT FUTURE. I’M HANGING THE NEW SHOW THIS WEEK, WHAT ABOUT SOMETIME NEXT? YRS., P.

Okay, Glen. Let’s see if a nice lunch and some reassurance about my lifelong devotion will carry the day. If not: go with my blessings.

Or…

If you really do land Groff…

Face it, opening the season with Groff in the front gallery would be big. There’s the piece on him scheduled for the September Art in America , and it’s at least half likely that Newton at MoMA will buy one, Groff is MoMA’s kind of thing—substantial, and dead serious.

Peter can feel it happening—he’s getting psyched about Groff. Yes, right, there are reasons to question the monumentality, the preciousness (in the literal sense); the whole idea of a return to art as treasure, to that which is hammered and encrusted, beautifully made, meant to stand in palaces and cathedrals. The work is, however, genuinely perverse—your aunt Mildred might say, from a certain distance, now that’s a lovely thing, but when she looks closely she’ll see the incised names of every African worker who’s died in a diamond mine (Groff must invent at least some of them, surely accurate records aren’t kept); she’ll see excerpts from the Unabomber’s diary and autopsy reports of prison suicides and perfectly rendered fetish porn, both gay and straight; all neatly ordered as hieroglyphs. Meant by implication to be dug up in ten thousand years.

And besides, aren’t we getting a little tired of all that art made of string and tinfoil, which, by the way, sells for insane sums? Haven’t we drifted into a realm in which trash is treated de facto as treasure?