Douglas Kennedy - Five Days

And then.

Just two days ago.

This entire extraordinary business underscored something I had not considered before: if allowed, life can also sidestep all its attendant mundanities and demonstrate its capacity to astonish; to remind you that you still have a capacity for the passionate. The thing is, you have to permit yourself to embrace such potential wonderment. If you have submerged your ability to marvel — to forget that you are truly worthy of love, and the benevolence it brings to you amidst all the middling concerns that crowd all our existences — fall after fall arrives with a metronomic regularity. You live a life of silent, ever-increasing longing for a bedazzlement that always seems tantalizingly close, yet so acutely out of reach.

I headed up the Fenway, leaving behind Newbury Street’s atmosphere of elegant consumerism and moving into something a little more gritty, a lot less connected with shopping as a leisure activity. Norm’s Art House was a nondescript shop on a nondescript corner of the Fenway. It was a small storefront, with one display window (in need of a cleaning), within which was a haphazard presentation of brushes, easels, tubes of paint. There was also a sign, in oversized stenciled letters, reading: ‘WE DO ART ’.

This no-nonsense approach continued inside the shop. It was a cramped space, brimming with oils and acrylics and watercolors and every conceivable size of brush, and rolls of canvas waiting to be stretched, and wooden slats for frames.

‘So you must be Benjamin the Brilliant’s mother.’

The voice came from behind a series of overstocked, rather rusted metal shelves behind the sales counter.

‘Are you Norm?’

‘So he’s briefed you. And you’re here for the Tetron Azure Blue — the most lazuline of all modern blues.’

‘Lazuline,’ I said, trying the word out. ‘Not bad,’ I finally said.

‘You have a better synonym, perhaps?’

‘Cerulean?’

Silence. Then Norm emerged from the shadows of his shop’s corroded shelves.

‘Well, I’m impressed. And as it turns out, you’re also beautiful.’

I tried hard not to blush. I failed. Norm was not what I expected. From his name to the way Ben hinted that he was crotchety, I had expected someone out of a Saul Bellow novel: an old-world merchant, avuncular, fussy, but with a knowledge of paints and artists that was as encyclopedic as it was passionate. But the real Norm was a tall stringbean of a man, around my age, with oversized, very hip black glasses and an equally hip goatee. You could easily imagine him lecturing on Abstract Expressionism at one of the colleges nearby — and being regarded by his students as benchmark cool.

‘And you are the Norm?’ I asked.

‘I am indeed “the Norm”. But not, I hope, the norm. ’

A small smile crossed his thin lips. Oh God, he’s flirting with me. Three days ago I would have been flattered. Today.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have much time,’ I said, ‘and I know you close at four.’

‘And Benjamin the Brilliant probably told you that I only mix paint when paid.’

‘Why do you call my son that?’

‘You mean, Benjamin the Brilliant?’

‘Yes, that.’

‘Because he is that — brilliant.’

‘Really?’

‘Did my tone suggest irony?’

‘Well, actually, it did.’

‘A bad habit of mine, as my ex-wife never stopped telling me.’

And thank you for that little snippet of personal information.

‘But how do you know that my son is so. ’

‘You can say the word. Brilliant. How do I know that? He’s been buying paints from me for around a year — and he’s been dropping down here every five or six weeks, so we’ve started hanging out a bit. Quite an amazing cognizance of art, your son. Quite a lot of self-doubt in the mix as well. When he told me about getting that large-scale collage accepted at the Maine Artists show last year, I made a point of driving up to Portland for an afternoon and checking it out. And I have to tell you, Benjamin is brilliant.’

I felt a great frisson of maternal pride — and also immediately sensed that, like his tutor Trevor, this Norm character had assumed a mentor role in my son’s life; the understanding, supportive paternal figure he’d never had.

‘I couldn’t agree more with you,’ I said, ‘but hearing you say it — someone who undoubtedly knows a lot of artists. ’

‘Your son’s got it. And I was really pleased and, quite honestly, relieved to hear him on the phone yesterday, wanting to order paint, and talking about the big new canvas he’s almost finished. I’d heard from one of his professors about his breakdown. I hope you don’t mind me calling it that. ’

‘Why should I mind when it’s entirely accurate?’

‘Anyway, I had something similar when I was at the Rhode Island School of Art and Design, and I ended up drifting away from the ceramic stuff that was my specialty back then. Fell into this and that — teaching, art design at ad agencies, eventually this little shop which is, at least, my own. But I never got back to what I wanted to do. and I’m monologing, another of my bad habits. Anyway, it’s great that Benjamin has found a way back to his work. And his need for my Tetron Azure Blue — that is, as they say in the San Fernando Valley, way cool. Because Tetron Azure Blue is, as you can gather, a highly rarefied color. Subtly, but significantly, different from other sky blues. But here I am, continuing to monolog as usual — too much time alone mixing paint — when you’ve obviously got better things to do.’

‘You said you needed payment first before you mixed the color.’

‘I’m afraid it’s a strict rule of mine, having once been the sort of artist who stiffed many an art supply dealer, and having been far too indulgent when I started this business about offering credit. So I’m afraid I need one hundred and twenty-seven dollars from you before I work my alchemy in the backroom. which should take no more than thirty minutes.’

I tried not to blanch at the price. Norm could see my shock.

‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Mucho dinero. But if you want my Tetron Azure Blue, you pay a high price. But it’s a price worth paying — as it has the most exceptional depth of coloration.’

I handed over my credit card. As Norm swiped it in the terminal attached to his cash register he said:

‘I’ve got an espresso maker and a reasonably comfortable old Chesterfield chair in the back. So I’m happy to make you a good coffee and offer you more scintillating conversation while I mix the paint.’

I signed the credit card receipt.

‘Since it’s such a beautiful day. ’ I said.

‘I hear you,’ he said, trying to mask his disappointment. ‘The river’s two blocks over to your left. I will have all this ready to go by three-forty-five.’

I thanked him. Following his advice I walked the two blocks over to the Charles. It was the stretch of the river that ran, on this side, in front of the Boston University campus and gave you a perspective on Harvard imposing itself on the opposing Cambridge side. Two academic worlds — one ultra-elite, one several notches down the prestige food chain — staring out at each other. And separated by this river, along which a nascent colony was once constructed. From that early settlement emerged this city, this nation — and with it, so many hundreds of millions of stories of everyone who, in one way or another, did time here. Stories which largely vanished with those who lived them. An individual life is insignificant when considered against the metaphysics of an ever-flowing urban waterway. But one’s own life should truly be lived otherwise. Because there is never anything insignificant about any of our stories — even if we ourselves consider the tale to be mundane. Every life is its own novel. And we dictate so much more about the way the story can progress and change — or remain middling — than we ever care to admit.