Page 17 of A Long Con

I pondered this. “Is it signed?”

“No. Because it’s a study. It’s Number Four.”

“Which was the famous one?”

“Number Two. Duchamp forged himself to create Number Three. It’s nearly identical, but the outlines of the figure are darker. The gradient from the upper left to the lower right becomes more transparent. You can maybe see the steps better.” I had no idea what this meant. I hadn’t studied art that heavily. “And he titled it the same. Nu Descendant un Escalier in block letters in the bottom left.”

“Where is it?” I repeated.

He became quieter. “In my loft in Queens. I can ask my roommate to FedEx it if you think you can sell it.”

If it was real, I could sell it. Hell, if it was a fake I could sell it. Most of my connections didn’t care too much. They just wanted the impression they knew what they were doing and had an “original” on their wall. “I don’t know about five million. Have to find out what the original Number Two is worth. But yeah, brah, send for it.”

I clapped him on the shoulder, and we sealed the deal with a bro hug. He was so wiry, so lithe, those few seconds in my arms. My face close to his, I said almost lovingly, “And I’d still like some of your original artwork. I know I could sell that.”

Such a lush smile. Such satiny hair. Everything about him was obsidian, hematite, black pearl. “I can get some from my roommate.”

To linger in his embrace, I added, “And paint some new ones! You can’t be a workhorse all day long, cleaning that dump.”

He shrugged his way out of my arms. “I can do that as soon as I get the City off my back.”

“OK dude, let’s go,” said Pothole obliviously.

I was left to stand with my tank top and my erection. What a moke I could be. Berkeley was eventually going back to New York, and I wasn’t even gay.

So why did it seem like I was always left alone with a hard-on?

The house was starting to take shape.

With Pothole’s help—he took the rental truck to the dump while I organized more shit to be jettisoned—we were able to clean out the kitchen and living room. The kitchen, of course, was the most gruesome, but Pothole didn’t seem grossed out about much of anything. He appeared to be a practical kid who talked little, grunted a lot, and worked hard. With no facial expression, he took a couple new two-dimensional cats and flung them in a garbage can like he was lobbing paper towels at flood victims. He seemed like a good man, at the time.

Standing on a stepladder, I had to clean out the cupboards. The shelf paper was from 1990 when Elaine and Pete had moved in, filled with happy expectations of the future. I was able to get most of the grime and bugs from the shelves and clean the original Eichler plywood sliding doors. I even washed some dishes and returned them to the cupboards. Royal had never given me back the Depression glass, but he’d paid me for it.

The cleaning revealed large areas that needed expensive attention. Some floor tile was unsalvageable, having warped and rotted under the weight of uneaten food and various animal shit. Black mold would need an expert to remove. The dishwasher didn’t work for crap. And there were portions of the ceiling that would require a roofer.

I tried not to think about why I was lavishing such attention on the kitchen. I mean, my dead sister was still in the freezer. But everything else was gone, the fridge and oven were spanking clean, and I sure was acting like someone who was planning on living in the house.

Was I? Planning on living there? Where the fuck else was I going to live? It was obvious I could never go back to New York, and more and more this neighborhood of Rough and Ready was growing on me, again. I mean, downtown had everything you could possibly want except a Home Depot and a movie theater. I had my painting classes with The Bent Zealots for which they paid me handsomely. Turk and Hobie were turning out to have some talent. I’d even set up an easel in my old bedroom and had spontaneously made a few paintings in record time. Letting the dopamine flow did wonders for my outlook. I was even, dare I say it, a little bit happy.

I often fucking thought of Royal’s full sleeve tattoo. It was a tribute to his spiritual family god, aumakua, he’d told me. It ran in ever-tighter concentric swirls, culminating in a whirlpool around his nipple. I tweaked that nipple. I was dying to get on my knees and suck it. This submissive tendency worried me. I’d always been a Dom, although maybe not the most domineering one. For some reason, being close to Royal made me weak in the legs. You know how kids in the playground kick you in the back of the knees and make you collapse? That’s how I felt around him. Or maybe I just wanted to suck that burnished copper Hawaiian dick. I had rarely done that, if ever.

He’d told me the tattoo was supposed to take the darkness out of his heart and bring the light in. He didn’t like representing something from his father’s culture, for some reason, but he liked the repeating pattern that were shark’s teeth. “The shark died and came back to protect our family.” Maybe he was thinking of his German mother, whom he seemed to like. It was funny to hear him practicing German with his phone. Das ist dein Problem, he would say. Erzähl mir nichts davon.

Back in New York, Ash was reluctant to send me the Nude Descending a Staircase canvas. He called me and whined, “Sterling! You know you’re taking a big risk if you try to sell this!”

“Ash, calm the fuck down. I’m sure his buyer is some small-time wannabe with new money.”

“But the New York Times piece—”

“Never mind the Times piece. Who the hell on the West coast reads the Times? Besides, how else do you expect me to make money? I can barely paint new ones when I’m stuck in this dump cleaning night and day.”

And then he started saying stuff like, “I know you can’t come home, babe. I just want you to know I miss you. I fucking miss your body next to me in bed, your smile and your messed-up hair in the morning, and—”

“Enough, Ash. You know I can’t come back.”

It was just awful, these conversations, and almost not worth it to have the painting sent! Of course I missed Ash too, but what was the point of discussing it when circumstances meant we’d never live together again?

Then FedEx notified me my package would arrive. I was partially excited because it meant I’d have Royal in my house again, under my roof, hopefully without Pothole moaning and pissing in the next room. Since the mind-blowing hummer two weeks ago, I hadn’t talked much to Royal. I’d see him in The Happy Hour getting coffee when I taught my art class to the club. I was torn between talking to him and avoiding him. I knew that the secret to well-being lay in having wide interests. Apples are neither good nor bad. The man who likes them thinks they are good. The man who doesn’t thinks they are bad. But the man who likes them has a fresh joy. I liked dick and most men did not, so I had a pleasure they missed out on. But if I became shackled to the same dick every day, disaster would loom. I wouldn’t be well-rounded anymore.