Ark (6 page)

Oftentimes, Ben would stop with his work and draw his hand through the air and say, “You see this? These paintings? These sculptures? They are perfectly meaningless things. And yet, in making them, I have felt what it feels like to be a king. And that stimulus to my brain, that knowledge of creation which I have gained…that, Jerome, is what all this making is about.”

Although Jerome hadn't known the first thing about art, Ben had hired him one morning eight years ago right off Canal Street, where he'd been stripping furniture for an antique dealer. Ben had called to him from behind the wheel of his Cadillac.

He'd said, “Hey, kid, you good with your hands?”

Jerome had said he was.

“Will you work for five an hour?”

“Five twenty-five,” Jerome had said.

And Ben had gone, “All right. Come on, you.”

These days, Jerome was making only six-fifty, still well under the minimum wage. But then, the young man had always considered this the most interesting work a poor Puerto Rican kid from the Bronx with no education could have. Anyway, that's what Ben said, and Jerome couldn't help but agree.

Driving back from Jersey that day, Ben told Jerome he wanted him to round up some of his friends, four or five, as many as he could find. He wasn't shouting, he was very calm, in shock, Jerome thought. Ben said he should rent the biggest vacuums he could find, go into the warehouse, suck out that water, and see what they could save.

“You can tell your friends I'll give them the same I give you.”

“Okay.”

Jerome dropped Ben off at the curb in front of the loft. He said, “So should I bring the car back to the lot?”

Ben leaned through the passenger-side window. His round face and wide nose, the jutting lips, the dimple in his chin, the mean blue eyes, the monstrous expression of power—Jerome felt he had to show a lot of courage now just to look straight at him. The artist said, “You idiot, what the fuck did I just say? I said you'll go round up as many friends as you can. You'll rent vacuums. You'll go back to Jersey. You'll…”

“I got it. So, you want me to do that now?”

“Yes, now. What's wrong with you?”

Jerome apologized, and told Ben he could get two friends right away, that they were up in the Bronx, Grand Concourse, which was where he lived, and where, eighty-three years ago, Ben Arkin had been born. He'd have to drive up and get them, then rent vacuums. Did Ben want him to stay all night at the warehouse? Because he'd do it, for him.

And Ben said, “Yes. Do that. Now.”

Jerome rode in the Cadillac to Grand Course. He saw Pedro on a corner and convinced him to help. Next, Jerome called Martin, who suggested Earl. Vic was with Earl, and both needed the money. They rented vacuums from Jose, the vacuum guy, up the street. Ben called when they were in tunnel traffic on their way back to Jersey. The assistant had heard Ben's voice after he'd found out that his eldest daughter was going to sue him, and when Ms. Arkin had nearly died of pneumonia a couple years ago, and then during 9/11 with the towers burning just south of their home. But he sounded worst of all right now. He asked Jerome, “Are you at the warehouse yet?”

Jerome said, “No.”

“Why not?”

“It takes time to find manpower and vacuums. We'll be there soon.”

Ben said, “I called the super and told him to turn the power back on. You'll keep the wires up out of the water, or you'll fry. How many flashlights do you have?”

“None.”

Ben sighed. “How the hell are you going to work in the dark?”

“You said the power will be back on. I'll turn on the overheads.”

Ben said, “All right. Fine,” and he hung up.

Jerome and the crew spent the night vacuuming up the water. It seemed as if they were getting nowhere. Ben called for updates. Jerome tried to be optimistic. He told him the water was coming up—which it was, though very slowly. There was just so much of it. Like draining a pond, he told the artist. They took smoke breaks every hour on the hour. Guys went out to get coffee. At moments, they thought that maybe they were having fun. When the crew began to tire, Jerome reminded them that they were saving the artwork of the great genius, Ben Arkin, and that that was a very big deal.

“Is that true?” they asked.

“Yes,” Jerome told them. “Come over here and look at this.”

Jerome led the group around a hill of soggy cardboard boxes to some metal shelves. Up on top was a painting of Doris and Eliza and Eliza's brother, Gregory. Eliza was painted nude at the middle of the painting, her left hand red. Two brown horses with their heads lowered were coming in at either side of her. Gregory strummed a guitar in space just behind his sister, while in the right corner Ben's youngest child, Doris, about thirteen years old, was lying on her back in the grass, reading a letter. Green and blue paint dominated the color-scape. Jerome found the arrangement of figures eerie and sexually provocative. He told his friends that it was an important painting. And, for almost fifteen seconds, everyone stood in silence. Then Martin asked about whether or not Ben would pay them time-and-a-half.

“If I'm working here all night, I want time-and-a-half.”

“Okay.”

“It's against the law not to pay time-and-a-half,” Martin said.

Jerome promised to ask.

By four in the morning, at least half the water was gone. But what a mess. Ben didn't work small. Most of the Abstract paintings from the '80s and early '90s were done on large fifteen and twenty-foot canvases. They were waterlogged, destroyed. Jerome was distraught over
Deathbed
, a series of sculptures he and Ben had made just six months before using rusted chicken wire, sand, dirt, goat bones, and bed frames. Although the seven bed frames wrapped in chicken wire were intact, the sand, dirt, and goat bones had all been washed away. Ben had had a photography phase in the late '70s. Thousands of those photos were under water, the colors running. It was all garbage now and had to be taken to the dumpster out back behind the building.

Around noon, they returned to Wooster. Jerome went upstairs to speak with Ben, and he mentioned time-and-a-half. The artist shook his head.

“They worked all night for you, Ark. Almost twenty-four hours straight. They pulled so much out of that water. They cleaned up the warehouse.”

“
Yeah!
” Ben shouted. He said, “Six-fifty an hour times twenty-three equals…” He wrote the numbers down on a yellow legal pad using a fat black marker and came up with $149.50. He reached into his pocket and took out his money clip. He peeled off five one hundred dollar bills, and said, “This is what I have right now.”

“You mean you don't have the full amount!”

But Ben walked back inside his studio without answering.

Jerome paid his friends with the money, refusing his own cut, and threw the car in the lot just south of Broome, then came back to say goodbye to Ben. However, Ben told him to go back and get the car. He was irate.

“Whoever said you were supposed to put the Cadillac in the lot! We're driving out to Jersey.” He wanted to assess the damage.

Jerome had been up so long, though. He told Ben, “I need to go home.” He was filthy. He had to shower and sleep.

“Get the fucking car!”

Jerome told him, “Ben, I have to go home.”

“So you're telling me you quit?”

“What?”

“Are you telling me you quit?”

“Ark.”

“Well, are you?”

Minutes later, they were driving back through the Holland Tunnel. Ben ate sunflower seeds, spitting the shells on the floor. Jerome would have to clean them up. In the past, the assistant had tried everything to get the artist to dispose of the seeds in a container. There were paper cups in the glove compartment, a trash basket at his feet. Jerome had begged him to use these, but he couldn't get the artist to listen.

At the warehouse, Ben surveyed the wreckage, his head up and his hands behind his back. Every so often he stopped at a work and looked for a few seconds, then continued on without saying anything. There were more than a hundred pieces stored high above the floor which had been spared. Jerome mentioned these as a way of being positive.

Ben scowled. He said, “You're not an artist.”

“No.”

“That's why you don't know that this is all just meaningless. I've told you before and I'll tell you again…these are just meaningless objects. It's the experience of making the work. That's the thing!”

Ben was violently wiping the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. Jerome put a cigarette between his lips, lit it, shielding his eyes. He wouldn't look at the artist.

“Yes, I was there for the creation,” Ben continued. “That's what it's about, Jerome. The rest…the rest is all a lot of bullshit.”

IV. FILIAL PIETY

 

In January, Oliver Arkin flew from Los Angeles to New York. He'd sold his apartment on East Eightieth Street. He had wanted a million and a quarter for the property and had spent weeks telling his wife how he wouldn't take a penny less. Why, he'd lived there for almost thirty years. He had raised Rebecca in those rooms. She had learned to walk and talk, to count, dress, and read there. What a time they'd had over the years. Selling it for less would be an insult to that past. However, in the end, he'd accepted $910,000. He hadn't received any better offers. And he needed the money.

Oliver wandered the rooms of the apartment. Seeing everything he would have to pack up—the records and books, the pots and pans, glasses and dishware, the clothes, the furniture, the shelves in the living room, the desk, the piano—he felt sick. How would he even begin to look through all the drawers and closets? He had to be out of the place in six days. It wasn't enough time. The money from the sale of the apartment had yet to come through, and he didn't have enough in his accounts to pay for movers. Maybe he would walk his chairs and bookcases and lamps out to the street. The dining set was valuable. The chandeliers were very good. But why hold onto any of the old stuff? He had no use for it.

He sighed, pumping his hands on his waist. Now he called Rebecca. She was at the office. She said she couldn't talk for long.

“Dad, I'm sorry about this. But think of it this way: you don't live in New York anymore. Los Angeles is your home.”

“I know,” he replied. “You're right. You're absolutely right.”

He asked Rebecca if she'd like to come over and take anything. There was so much. Did she want a couch or a bed or a medicine cabinet or a set of window curtains or a folding table? Rebecca said she had already been to the apartment weeks before and had gone through her closets and drawers. She had donated clothes to the Goodwill on Second Avenue, and thrown away plenty.

“It felt good,” she told her father.

And it bolstered him to hear her say so.

Oliver started talking about Sondra then. He said his sister would rot in hell for what she had done to her parents, that God would punish her.

“What is the latest with the case?”

“The latest?”

“Yes.”

But at the next moment Oliver began apologizing to his daughter. He was explaining how he'd been in the process of selling the apartment, his head had been in a million places at one time, he should have told her, he had meant to but he'd forgotten. Yes, all counts brought by Sondra against her parents and siblings and Sheila had been dismissed by the judge. The suit was over. They had won.

At her desk, her body still and heart calm, Rebecca congratulated her father. But she felt neither relief nor excitement. Pushing back in her chair, she tapped the heels of her feet and closed her eyes.

“Did Ben say anything to you about me speaking to his attorneys?”

“No.”

“He called about two months ago and asked if I would talk to them and make sure they weren't overbilling. I meant to do it. It's just, I've had so much work.”

“He's never brought it up, honey.”

“The thing is,” Rebecca continued, “there was nothing I could have done. Just because I'm a lawyer, it doesn't mean I know when another lawyer is ripping off his client.”

“That makes sense.”

“I wish I had done a lot more.”

“We won, didn't we?”

“But the bill to the lawyer is enormous.”

“That's not your problem.”

“No, except—”

“Don't worry about it, please. You have a life.”

“I know, but—”

“These are not your problems, Rebecca.”

“Okay, Dad.”

Over the next four hours, Oliver rode the elevator up and down with his things, walked them outside, and left them on the sidewalk halfway up the block. It was a fact that, in New York City, no discarded furniture ever remained on the sidewalks for more than a minute or two before it was whisked away by a new owner. And indeed, each time Oliver returned with the next items, the last of it was already gone. However, after forty minutes of transferring rugs and televisions, cushions and mirrors, a film projector and a drink trolley through the basement door out onto the sidewalk, Oliver decided he was too old for this kind of work. He asked Larry, the night guy, if he wanted a Cuisinart. How about a shoe rack? Or a microwave?

“You can have it all. Would you want to come by tomorrow and take it?”

Indeed, Larry, the night guy, arrived at 10 a.m. the following day with four friends. They were as good as professionals. The whole apartment was packed up in hours. The final boxes went out toward late afternoon. Oliver went room to room, making sure nothing had been left behind. The place—now completely empty—felt twice as large. Oliver felt big. Well, he was a big person. His six foot three inches and broad shoulders disguised a soft belly, a meaty backside. His hands and feet were considerable. His nose and ears, too.
But this openness
, he thought,
must have been what I first fell in love with when I bought the apartment
.