CHAPTER 24
I’ve been fooled. Taken for a fool and gladly played the role. Or have I only fooled myself into thinking this? I can find answers from each perspective (right or wrong), and the feeling is similar: a psychological terrorism.
Retrospect is an easy window through which to criticize thoughts and actions. Our desire to see things better than they are, however, confuses us. Truth is distorted by one’s point of view, always; and if you’re too careful, truth gets smothered by opinion. It’s only human nature. Offense and defense. The roots of instinct. Later, the stories we tell ourselves — the ones we need to believe in; because we don’t want to step over the edge and into free fall — these stories have deceptive narratives. If you have doubts about this, think of all the times you’ve questioned the motives, the love, the trust, and even the rationality (“Are they crazy?” “What were they thinking about?”) of the people you otherwise know, love, trust, and believe in (“I should have listened to her!”). Our world is filled with incongruity: good verses bad; yes or no; rich and poor; heaven or hell; ugly vs. beautiful; alive but dead.
One day, recently, I saw a kid get schooled in that classic sidewalk con game, Three Card Monty. He was Asian, Chinese I think, no more than sixteen years old, a vacationer stuck with his mom and dad in New York City, out for an evening walk/shop along Canal Street to peek into the knock-off stores along Chinatown’s busiest market, looking for a deal on knock-off brands. In the middle of a block, at curbside, a lone black guy, east African — owning to the typical skinny arms and legs of his tribe, knobby knees, sharp elbows, and blue-black skin — he had a wooden tray balanced atop two milk crates. Here he juggled three red, lattice-print playing cards with dizzying quickness in the center of the board. He barked to the crowd as he worked the cards. The audience stood two and three deep in a half circle around him. Four stooges were on hand in the teeming crowd: one watched the street for cops, one watched the crowd for thieves; another marked potential suckers; the last played the game as the loser-cum-winner to draw another pigeon. Near the epicenter of this con story stood the Asian teen, his eyeballs dancing to the rhythm of the cards. The shark was fast, enticingly precise, although easy to follow if you watched the red lady whenever he showed her face beneath that latticed hat. The boy watched; he could see her. He tagged her three times when the shark stopped his shuffle, pumping his fist at his side when the stooge chose wrong to his own right choice. Finally the stooge won, picked up his winnings, held the bills high (the shark tossed him an affable grin) and stepped aside to make space for the next player. The boy took the bait and stepped into the vacated spot, his chin hanging above that makeshift table. He pulled a crinkled twenty-dollar bill from his front pocket and laid it down. His eyes jumped just once, noticing the shark call out the new player – him! Then his eyes focused on, and never left, the three cards. The crowd jockeyed and murmured. Everything began to get very loud. The street stooge watched the street. The crowd stooge watched the hands near the tray, where the money sat. The shark nibbled at his prey with easy hand speed and that deft movement, the wrist flip, to show off the queen, to tease his prey. More noise came up with each sighting of the red lady; movement and jostling; catcalls. The shark made a final flourish before laying the three grimy cards out on the table. The kid took no time at all to choose; he knew where the queen had hidden herself. With a big grin, he flipped over the center card and found the ace of spades mocking that stupid grin. Fooled. The crowd grumbled its disappointment. The shark snatched the money up from the table, under the kid’s nose, and put it in his front pocket. Without even looking at the poor sap of a teen, he barked out for the next player. Suddenly an arm reached through the crowd, laid claim to the T-shirt on the boy (and the boy), and yanked him from the clutches of New York’s less subtle means of commerce. This was the kid’s father, who gave him a good what for! once they’d come away from the shark and his stooges. His humility was on display for all to watch. The kid hung his head. Mom got in on the act, yelling louder than the old man. The boy stood thoroughly chastened. On up the street they went, then, teenager with hands shoved deep into his empty pockets, marshaled between dad’s flapping pants’ legs and mom’s swishing dress.
This boy. He’ll grow up, get married, earn a living, raise children, and see them off into their own lives. Later, he’ll retire to Florida, Arizona, or San Diego — one of America’s golf Meccas. Life will slowly recede over his shoulder as he nears the void. This ending isn’t something he fears. It’s the cycle humans enjoy, and endure, along with all the small miseries, to make their lives happy. Inside this man lies the image of himself as a kid, standing on that NYC street, thinking that he can follow that card through all the weaving, the change of direction, misdirection, people with their elbows poking him and voices calling out, hands pointing and shrill whistles. When the cards stop, he knows where the red queen sits. This game is easy, he thinks. Afterward, as he’s hustled away, minus his twenty dollars, you cannot tell him, then or seventy years later, that that red queen wasn’t even on the table when he touched the card he knew was the queen. She’d been palmed a moment before the shark dropped the cards. But I saw her, he says to himself. She was there. She stopped in the middle. I blinked, that’s all. When he says this, you know that he’s never told anyone about that sweltering night on Canal Street.
Better than all the stories of buried treasure and shipwrecked sailors.
Zeppo and Vendulka appear together at my honeycomb entrance. I’ve pulled back my tent flap; there’s nothing to hide anymore. Vendy scratches on the side of the canvas because there’s no proper way to knock, the Slavic custom before entering a room. The scratching is creaturely, a dog or cat’s message. I give them a short wave. Boxes crowd the floor and clutter the table, some closed and taped, marked with a felt-tipped pen.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“They’re interviewing your replacement,” Zeppo says. Vendy waves me toward her, guileless now with temperance, “Come see.” My hands release the books I’ve been looking at, into the bottom of a box.
Beyond the powwow table (We haven’t heard the call, “Powwow! Powwow!” since days before my show. My anger yet smolders, though now it’s like a peat fire.) Binny, Alfred, and Bert stand with a stout woman whose long, curly red hair has been tied up and over with two colored bandanas, letting the mess fall around her head like the remnants from a hurricane. The four of them are elbow to elbow, talking energetically, although if this knot is meant to convey secrecy, the volume of their voices will sink ships. Not that I care. Queen & Consort received my registered letter of release from comb and hive two weeks ago. I hadn’t done this in haste, and used my studio and the hive’s space to complete my Mythos cycle. Barely a word was spoken between us in that time — I hadn’t seen the point. Now it’s time for me to go.
The three of us watch them from this safe distance. They’re so chummy that I think I’ve missed something. But in sideways whispers Zeppo tells me she’s never been here before, and he doesn’t think she’s family. She’s from down south, and the gallery names or solo shows she’s dropped into her spiel are almost as annoying as her voice. Laughter erupts in their huddle and Bert nudges the woman. She winks at him and touches his arm with chubby fingers that show off shiny rings as thick as pipe fittings. Her hand stays on his arm, making dents in the muscle. This lasts a few moments too long for Vendy’s comfort. She bristles. I hear her teeth gnash when the woman’s voice — a foghorn on the bay — says, “You’re so funny, Bert.” Vendy breathes fire and whispers to me, “She’ll get the funny, is what I can say. He’s dead beef.”
Zeppo glances at me over the top of Vendy’s head.
Not once has this newly formed clique turned our way, even though we are obvious spies. Seeing them like this, for the last time, wearies my patience; memories of their tedious dramas and foolish authority. I step back behind the flap and into my soon-vacated sanctuary. Vendy pushes a box with her foot, and after a few seconds slides
it back to its original place. Zeppo chews gum, a horse munching hay, the face and teeth and lips to match. I’m bored with packing, but also bored with their moping. For artists, they don’t seem to accept my concept of ‘new,’ of ‘change,’ of stepping outside yourself and finding different colored grass to tamp down into your own smooth path. I don’t want to invite them along for this journey, not even to the end of the road, where they’ll want to shake hands and wave and expect me to turn around at least twice before I enter the woods, within which they see only darkness and danger. But I’m being ungracious to them; this, too, shall pass.
“I’ll see you both at the show in a couple weeks,” I say, wanting this time to finish packing the boxes. “The invitations say eight, but come at seven-thirty for a champagne toast. I’m going to need some lubrication. Belinda expects me to speak.”
Vendy steps over the boxes and wraps her long arms around me, where those big Slavic hands pat my back. She kisses me on both cheeks. Zeppo nods, but he’s distracted by the space inside this honeycomb. He measures it with his eyes, and I think he’s wondering if he can make the move over to this side of the hive.