Page 90 of Bright Lights, Big Christmas
“Murphy is here. He brought you a, um, surprise. Do you feel well enough to walk into the living room to see what it is?”
“Not another guest, I hope,” Heinz said, slowly standing and tightening the belt of his bathrobe. “This isn’t Bethlehem. The inn is full and I don’t have a stable.”
He took one wobbly step and Kerry hurried to his side. “Put your arm around my shoulder and lean on me,” she instructed. “Let’s take it nice and slow.”
By the time they reached the living room, Murphy had managed to prop the Christmas tree up by wedging it between stacks of thick, leather-bound books. He was standing back, admiring his handiwork.
“Good God, man,” Heinz exclaimed, sinking down onto an armchair. “Those are extremely rare first editions you’re using as ballast.”
“They work good, don’t they?” Murphy asked. “A lot classier looking than your run-of-the-mill stand.”
“I suppose.” Queenie jumped onto Heinz’s lap and wagged her tail appreciatively. He buried his nose in the fur of her head. “Do you know? This dog smells like Christmas trees.”
“She oughtta. That’s what pays for her room and board and vet bills,” Murphy said, heading for the door. “I better get going, but thanks again, Heinz, for letting my girl stay here with you.”
“Which girl is that?” Heinz asked, with a hint of a smile. “Kerry, or Queenie?”
“Both,” Murphy said. “As far as I know, they’re both house-trained.”
Heinz leaned back in his chair and gazed around the living room. “It’s been so long,” he said haltingly, “since I sat in this room. So many memories…”
“Good ones, I hope?” Kerry said.
“Mainly. George was an extrovert and enjoyed entertaining. We would have parties after an exhibit opening. Champagne, caviar. Jelly beans. George loved jelly beans. He loved having people around. Me? Not so much. I suppose I was a lone wolf until we met.”
“And how did you meet?”
“Art school. I was just out of the navy, just back from Vietnam, coming to terms with who I was and what I wanted from life. I signed up for a life-drawing class at Pratt. He was our model one night. A group was going out for drinks afterward. The others dragged me along.”
“And you clicked?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Heinz said, his chuckle devolving into a cough. “We argued. That night and every other time we were together. About politics, art, the war, everything. But he was so passionate. And funny.” His eyes strayed to the portrait on the wall. “And beautiful. George had a beautiful soul.”
“That really comes through in your painting,” Kerry said.
“We fought about that portrait, of course. George hated it. He kept trying to sell it. Every time I’d come back from an out-of-town trip, he’d have it turned facing the wall, or draped in a dirty T-shirt. One time I found it in our basement storage area.”
“How did he come to be your art dealer?” Kerry asked.
“Nobody else wanted to represent me,” Heinz said. “George was always more interested in commerce than art. He knew about a storefront in the Meatpacking District. The place was a disaster. But he could afford the rent. His family had money, unlike mine, and also unlike mine, they didn’t care that he was gay. He sweet-talked me and some of our friends into being part of a group show. That space became his gallery, and I was the first artist he signed.”
“And then Della Lowell discovered you?”
“She showed up at the gallery out of the blue. She’d seen a flyer somewhere about the show, and that nude caught her eye. She paid three thousand seven hundred dollars for it, as I recall, and at the time, I told George he was out of his mind to put that high a price tag on a work by an unknown artist. It was more money than I’d ever dreamt of.”
Kerry walked slowly around the room, surveying the canvases hanging on the walls and stacked on the floor. She sat down again, in the chair opposite Heinz’s.
“Can I ask? Why did you stop painting? Why did you walk away from this apartment, from your career, everything?”
“George. One minute he was here, in that chair you’re sitting in now, making outrageous jokes about something, then the next minute, he said he had a crushing headache and a minute after that he was gone. A cerebral hemorrhage. He was forty-two.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” Kerry said.
“I didn’t know who I was without George. Without him goadingme, bullying me, encouraging me. I couldn’t paint. Couldn’t stand to be here… without him. I was lost. I asked the building superintendent to clean out that space where I live now, and I locked this door. Today was the first time in… I don’t know how many years since I was here last.”
“I wish I had known that,” Kerry said. “I had no idea being in this apartment would be so painful for you. But you were so sick, are still so sick… I was afraid you’d die down there, alone in that freezing cubbyhole, and I just couldn’t let that happen.”
“Are you in the habit of saving people’s lives, even if they don’t want them saved?” he asked.
