Vito's Big Score

Sometimes they’re called Beards, sometimes Fronts, sometimes Covers. On ‘The Sopranos’ one was called ‘The Lightning Rod’.

 

They are all representations of something they are not.

 

They represent various different things. That’s the point, in a way, that one is representing or pretending to be another ‘hidden’ something. The thing being represented and the thing being hidden are by necessity two different things. Sometimes the thing being represented is nothing at all. That happens. In politics and advertising. Happens.

 

Vito Do (pronounced dough) was well aware of the above. He was made aware suddenly, like two chemicals flashing in a sudden fusing after two separate and otherwise unrelated incidents at the S.P.Q.R. Little Italy restaurant where he labored nights as a busboy. A humbling job.

 

Vito witnessed the Capo being killed. Well, he thought it was the Capo. Everyone thought it was the Capo. The Capo thought he was the Capo. And, in a way, he was the Capo, which is precisely why he was visible and precisely why he was, inevitable if you follow the history of these things, killed. Shot down while dining with wife, children and relatives in a public place. The slap of all slaps, the insult of all insults, to be gunned down in the presence of your supposed loved ones, blood, family.

 

Within a day or two there was a new Capo. Complete with limo, blond hanging on arm, silk suit, all the usuals. His days were numbered. The Mafia lived on and would live on. And somewhere in a humble apartment in Little Italy or a modest home in Newark or Bensenhurst or Crown Heights or god-knows-where ‘cause we’re not supposed to know where someone very smart with a very tiny ego pulls a hell of a lot of strings and packs away a hell of a lot of dough, delegates out a hell of a lot of dirty work and enjoys his family, his pasta, his wine, and his small stakes poker games.

 

Francis Ford had it right when he made the happiest moment in the Don’s life those few last moments in the tomato garden. (Those moments were real and all the rest of the Don’s life had been theater. For several minutes prior to departing the Don had accepted his being as it was, without imposing his will, a living breathing relatively unimportant and temporary body in an ongoing mystery. But in those moments truly in those moments, just as almost any simple contadino walking into his fields in the dawn’s light to his daily chores experiences that moment, truly that moment, that fleeting moment as all moments flee which is why all contadini are sad.)

 

Now the image of a Capo getting his in a public place is a cliché . . . but it happens and happened and is important to the story. Not because he got it, but because he was not who he thought he was. But Vito didn’t know that. Not yet.

 

Later that same week a large party booked a table for twenty; lots of beautiful young ones having a grand feast hosted by a Charley Dingle. Everyone dressed in the latest outrageous fashions but Charley was the most outrageous of all. Silk purple suit, dyed purple hair, purple nail polish... you get the picture.

 

‘Hey Frankie, who’s the purple guy?’ Vito asked the table waiter.

 

‘I dunno, I never heard of him. Never saw him before.’

 

‘Gottabe somebody Frankie, gottabe.’

 

‘Yeah maybe...maybe he’s somebody...you might have it there Vito. He’s somebody, but somebody we never heard of, yeah, I think you got it.’

 

‘Gottabe somebody, gottabe.’

 

‘Somebody, that’s for sure.’

 

‘Gottabe.’

                        

The party went on and Vito watched every chance he had. The guy was a star of some kind. You could see it. Everyone played to him, everyone wanted his approval, everyone watched him for his actions and reactions and he, Charley, whoever he was, seemed to be having the most fun of all.

 

It went late into the evening until the purple guy ends up at the bar. Why? Who knows, maybe trying to pick up a chick that was there...maybe just to get away for a moment and Vito, kind of shy, but really curious, edges up to him slowly and let’s it go, point blank, before he loses his nerve or something.

 

‘Who are you?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘I‘m just curious, who are you?’

 

‘Charley, Charley Dingle.’ The guy’s amused, he likes attention, even from a busboy.

 

‘Yeah...the Charley Dingle part I know’, goes Vito, ‘but who are you, a rock musician maybe, an actor, something like that?’

 

 ‘Nah, nothing like that. I’m  just a guy, a guy. Wall street.’  Sort of embarrassed now.

 

Vito’s confused and maybe a little offended, like he’s been cheated. He actually starts getting angry.

 

‘Whadda-ya-mean just a guy? You can’t be just a guy!’

 

The guy picks up his drink and walks to his table where he is welcomed back with a big roar of approval.

 

Vito just stands and stares, open mouthed.

 

What-da-fuck’s-going-on-here? he wonders. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

He walks slowly towards the far end of the table, pretends to clean out an ash tray, stoops over and whispers to a guy sitting there.

 

 ’scuse me but who is that guy?’

 

 ‘He’s a friend.’

 

 ‘Yeah, I know, a friend, but what’s he do?’

 

‘ He doesn’t do anything much. He’s a broker and he likes attention, and so he makes sure he gets it, anyway that he can.‘

 

‘He just likes attention?’

 

‘Yeah, he just likes attention.’

 

Vito walks away, mumbling to himself, he just likes attention.

 

Now Vito has images in his head. They are almost exactly alike in substance. An image of a Capo entering the restaurant with his family and entourage, an image of the purple guy entering the restaurant with an entourage. Vito begins to see a connection. But he hasn’t worked it out. He’s not sure of what’s there exactly.

 

Vito spends his nights, after returning home from work, painting In a small basement apartment, his free for superintending the building. It is just below ground level with small windows high up facing out to the sidewalk and street. Small loft bed, high up, small cooking corner, small refrigerator, small table for eating, two small chairs, lots of paintings & reproductions of paintings stapled, taped and glued to the walls, and rolls & rolls of finished paintings piled  in every available corner  of the room. In the center of the room is a large painting table, piled high with brushes and cans and tubes and jars of mostly black and white paints, Vito’s colors of choice. Each wall of the room has a door...one entrance door, one toilet/shower door, one door to a second room used as a studio, and one door that when opened exposed a long dark tunnel running under Mulberry street, a leftover from the moonshining twenties when it, then more hidden, had been used to make fast escapes from nosey cops and feds.

 

He gave up long ago trying to exhibit his work. By now he did it because he did it. He remembered painfully those moments, almost repetitions of each other, when he tried to drop sheets of his slides off at various galleries only to be rebuffed and rejected by smart young just out of graduate school barely twenty snobbish young ones with a silent return after a quick non-responsive glance. He got everything from ‘not our cup of tea’ to ‘Come back in six months’ to, yeah believe it, some people still say it, ’Don’t quit your day job.’

 

Vito was a slob. He never gave being the slob he was a second thought. Part of what he liked about being an artist was transcending class and transcending fashion obligations. He was still in the past, of course, when those things, for a time, went hand in hand with being an artist. Paris early in the century, New York in the fifties. Days now long past.

 

He would slob his way into gallery after gallery never realizing that he had already been rejected on two counts before he even pulled out and showed his work. First, because he was the slob that he was and, second, because he was too old. No gallery was interested in an unknown artist over thirty.

 

The attitude was ‘Where you been?’

 

Vito was learning. Slowly, but learning. It was dawning on him, after those two glorious entrances by two different persons from two different walks of life,  that it wasn’t who you were that mattered; it was who people thought you were that mattered. For Vito, this was a revelation.        

                                                                                   

Across from Vito, same level exactly opposite, lived the other end of his moonshine door, in a basement room that was the mirror image of his own, there on Mulberry Street just down the street a few blocks from S.P.Q.R., a kid that he had taken a liking to precisely because he seemed rather hopeless. Vito had been trying to teach him chess but was almost resigned to accepting that this poor kid would be nothing but what he now was his entire life, like Vito, a free rent super busing tables in local restaurants. Vito had, at the least, his art, this poor kid had nothing. Well, he had a cute occasional girl friend, but that seemed to be about it. He didn’t even read books for-Christ’s sake. Movies, he liked. And some strange kinds of music. Post-punk?, Post-rock? Something. And television. Like he liked ‘The Sopranos’, ‘Friends’, ‘Sex and the City’, one or two others. And he was trying to learn Italian by watching anything in Italian when it came up on HBO or channel 25 and seeing every Italian film available be it in a movie house or from Netflix.  He was still practically at the ‘Çome sta?’ level but Vito was humoring him, trying to encourage him. Vito’s Italian was excellent, but with a Neapolitan dialect, which, to his credit, he I could lose most of when he tried real hard. But it slowed him up just enough that everyone truly Italian could spot that he was ‘Un’Americano’. Not that he cared. Italian Italians were rarely to be encountered in Little Italy except at just a few expensive (S.P.Q.R.) or the notoriously famous  (Umberto’s Clam House)) restaurants. They preferred the upper west side ‘northern’ Italian restaurants. Better food, northern. Even Vito had to concede to that. Still:

 

                          that occasional bowl of pasta

                          w/tomato sauce, oregano, garlic

                          & most especially with

                          a glass

                          of clear dry deep red wine

                          almost satisfied

                          what was left

                          of his southern Italian soul.

                                                   

                                                                          2

 

‘So what I’m going to do is make you a star.’ Vito is saying to Guido, ‘How would you like that?’

 

‘How you gonna do that?’ responds Guido.

 

‘Well, you’re going to be me, my front, so to speak. I’m going to make you over a little, and show you around a bit, teach you a few things, and then were going to get you an exhibit of my paintings, OK?’

 

‘I guess, I dunno, what do I get out of it?’

 

‘Well, um, maybe attention, maybe, mind you. And maybe adoration, fame, money and, probably, girls.’

 

‘Girls?’

 

‘Girls.’

 

‘Hey. let’s try it.’

 

‘Whoooo!......I got to think....give me a minute here...I mean...you got to work with me on this...to trust me...let me think...first we got to work out a few things....I think...you got to go all the way with this with me if it’s going to work.......we got to find you a look...a new look and we need a new name.....I think....something catchy...I’ve got to think...to think.’

 

‘Hey, what’s wrong with my name?’

 

‘Nothing, nothing...it’s a fine name...like Vito Do is fine...but we need a name that’s not ours but will belong to both of us...you know what I mean?...it will be you as a personality and it will be me for my paintings...so let’s think about some names here .....and let’s work on ........our new look.’ 

                                                                             

                                                                         3      

                                                                                                                                                                        

Vito and Guido spent a lot of time walking up & down the uptown & downtown shopping streets looking in store windows and browsing through the stores themselves, then to the village public library on 6th Avenue going through fashion, music, gossip and other magazines just looking at photographs of stars from all walks of life, checking out their clothing.

 

Slowly ideas cropped up and they played with them, getting the idea that the more edgy, the more outrageous, the more diverse, the better.

 

Vito knew that he wanted Guido to look, at the least, androgynous. So that meant clean shaven and long hair, or maybe a Neapolitan street urchin kind of hair-do, the long curly thick unruly locks of something from a Caravaggio painting, but not black or brown, blondish maybe. Pink?

 

Old Levis. Levis were good, they gave a street or cowboy or biker look to a person, the rebel.

 

And biker boots. Well broken in biker boots. A biker lower half with something other for the top half, what would it be?

 

Um, maybe a silk shirt, worn open and outside the pants. Something wild and colorful to match or contrast the blond or pinkish hair, a simple T-shirt underneath. or, in the summer, nothing.

 

‘How about I wear white gloves?’ Guido asks Vito

 

‘No...no white gloves...whata-ya-wanna-be a traffic cop, Michael Jackson, Al Jolson?’

 

‘Who’s Al Jolson?’

 

‘Never mind.’

 

‘How about sun glasses?’

 

‘No sun glasses...sun glasses make it look like you got something to hide. We don’t want anyone to think you got something to hide, OK?’

 

‘But shades are cool man.’

 

‘Use to be, use to be. Now they’re a cliché. Make you look like you THINK you’re somebody, THINK you’re cool, like pretending you’re a junkie or somebody important.’

 

‘Well, maybe the boots could like match my hair.’

 

‘That’s good, that’s good. .Now you’re thinking. Sort of a contradiction. I mean, who ever heard of pink or yellow bike boots? And they’ll frame you off top to bottom. Yeah, I like that. Hey, that’s OK.  Guido, you know that?’

 

‘I dunno, I never heard of a painter looking like a rock star Vito. Don’t they always look like someone who’s out of work? Broke, starving?

 

‘Don’t worry about it. It’s all the same thing today. Movie stars, rock stars, entertainers. They gotta dress different to make themselves noticed, special. The Popes have been doing it for centuries for Christ’s sake!. Mark my words, someday the politicians will do it too..  It’s coming, it’s coming.’ 

 

‘So what comes next?’

 

‘I’m working on it, I’m working on it.’    

                                

                                                                         4

 

Guido is all dressed up in his new outfit.

 

‘Here’s a list of galleries, OK? Now they’re all having openings and so they’ll be crowded. I just want you to walk through each one slowly looking at the work as if you’re really interested, but don’t talk to anyone, even if they try to talk to you.  Just pretend that you’re deaf or don’t hear them or something. I mean you look great and I’m sure some chick or guy’s gonna put the make on you. Just don’t respond, OK? Don’t worry they won’t push it. If there’s food and drinks have a bite but no alcohol, OK? I’ll be following a ways behind you to see how they react, or if they react. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than an hour or so. I’ll park here, you go ahead and I’ll be behind somewhere and we’ll meet up again back at the car.’

 

So Guido does the galleries and indeed there are reactions to him and Vito is overjoyed and begins to get some confidence, begins to know that this may work. And every time there are groups of galleries having openings the routine is repeated.

 

‘I’ve picked out a few galleries that I favor, don’t ask me why, it’s just a feeling, from the work and from the look of the people at the openings and these are big galleries mind you; big in the sense that they get attention from the media, the collectors, and other artists. So what I want to do is send you to them during the week when they are just doing their normal business hours. No openings or anything. And I’ll prime you on what to say if anyone should approach you. OK?’

 

This is Guido’s first time out alone into the galleries. Alone in the sense that he no longer can use the protection of the usual crowds to get lost in.  He’s more exposed somehow, more vulnerable. He does three galleries but nothing happens. He’s ignored. The receptionists sort of glance up quickly and then back down. Sometimes there are other, older, more influential looking persons hovering around behind the various desks and counters. Vito tells him they are most probably directors, collectors or owners.      

                                                                                                            

                                                                          5

 

‘Hi’ (Very beautiful and strong looking about thirty-five woman has edged silently up)

 

‘Oh, hi.’

 

‘’You like the show?’

 

‘Yeah...I’ve always liked Brice Marden, since I was a kid and he was doing his hard edged formalistic paintings.’

 

‘I noticed you in here at the opening, right?

 

‘Yeah. It was too crowded, couldn’t see anything, the work ya know. Had to come back.’

 

‘So what is it that you like about his work?’

 

‘Well I like how Marden manages to do what no other painter I can think of ever managed and that is to pick up the brush dropped by Pollack. What I mean is, for real, he picked up Pollack’s, ah, language I guess.  And he like made it his own, carried it forward ya know? Good, powerful, energy loaded works with all the traces of his involvement from start to finish still in evidence ya know? Like the barely visible wiped out parts there. Yeah I like that, nobody else working that way kindda thing, kno-what-I-mean? Lotza energy, lotza energy.’

 

‘Hey OK! So, you’ve got to be a painter, right?’

 

‘Yeah. I paint a little but I don’t show. One of these days maybe, maybe, when I feel good about it, maybe, I dunno.’

 

‘Bring in some slides, you never know.’ 

                                                                                                  

‘Nah, maybe later sometime, later, maybe. Not really all that interested in showing. But hey, thanks for asking.’

 

‘Well, just drop off a few. I’m curious, come on, it can’t hurt.’

 

‘Nah‘                    

                                                             

‘Come on, what the hell, you know?’

 

 ‘OK, but only for you. Only if you’re not, like, the owner  or something’ OK.? I’ll show them to you and you just hand them back and don’t comment. OK? I mean I don’t want you to say something nice just because you feel you have to. So, no comments. OK? And I’m not sure when. Next time I’m around here I guess, maybe.’

 

‘Fair enough. So, what do I call you?

 

‘Um, later, OK? Gotta go now (putting on the shy embarrassed act)  I mean thanks, .um, really, thanks. Sorry, um, really, gotta go, gotta go now. See ya.‘                        

 

                                                                           6

 

‘So what do we call me?

 

‘Dunno.’

 

‘How about Johnny Velvet?’

 

‘You’re kidding me, right?’

 

‘Yeah.’

 

‘I always liked Mimo.’

 

‘You mean like for a name or for a first name?

 

‘For a first name.’

 

‘So like Mimo something?’

 

‘Yeah, Mimo something.’

 

‘Mimo di Mimo’

 

‘Ummmmm.’

 

‘Mimo di Mulberry’ Laughs.

 

‘Come on, be serious.’

 

‘Mimo D’Italiani.’

 

‘Um, no.’

 

‘Mimo Giovanni.’

 

‘Ok, OK, so you’ve been studying Italian.’

 

‘That’s what’s his name there, right?‘  

                                                                                                

‘Wha..?‘    

                                                                                

‘The poster there; the woman with the long neck. Modigli something.‘  

                                                                       

‘So?’

 

‘They made a film about him. Saw it on channel 21. It was called Modi. A nickname, I guess, for Modigli whatever.’

 

‘So?’

 

‘So, ah, how about (hesitates), Mimo di Modi?’

 

‘Hey, that’s good. You got it!’

 

‘Really man?’

 

‘Really.‘              

                                                                         

‘So, what happens now that I got a new name?’

 

‘You go back to the Marc Shuman Gallery, that’s where the woman approached you. You act shy. You very reluctantly give her the slides and quickly leave. OK?’

 

‘I guess. And then?’

 

‘Then we redo your basement digs. If you want the rewards you’ve to make the sacrifices. So everything goes except the bare essentials for living and maybe a cheap stereo system. The rest of the space is totally dedicated to your work, my paintings. We make your place look like a real working studio. OK?’

 

‘Then what?’

 

‘Then, ‘cause the slides will not have a name or address on them, we wait a few weeks. That should make them even more interested in you and your work. Then you go back, um, one afternoon right before they’re closing up. Can you ride a bike?‘                 

 

‘Yeah, sure, who can’t ride a bicycle?’

 

‘Not a bicycle, a bike is a motorcycle, doncha know that?’

 

‘Nah, I dint know that. And I can’t ride one.’

 

‘You’re going to learn. There’s a school out in Flushing where they’ll have you on a bike and safely riding in three days. They supply the bike, but only for the lessons. Then we buy you a used Harley. It should be reasonable enough  and it’ll look like you’ve been riding for a long time.’

 

‘ Cool.’

 

‘You got a girl friend?’

 

‘Well, ah, not right now, no.’

 

‘You know any good looking girls?’

 

‘Yeah, sure, sort of.’

 

‘The best looking one you know is on the bike behind you when you pull up to the gallery. We’ll drill a small hole in the muffler so the bike’s even noisier that usual. That should get their attention when you pull up. You get off the bike, she stays and waits and you run into the gallery like you’re in a hurry and ask for your slides.’

 

‘And then?’

 

‘I dunno. If we’ve done everything right they should insist on getting your name from you and a phone number. You scribble your name and tell them you don’t have a phone.’

 

‘But I’ve got a phone.’

 

‘Not for long you don’t.‘    

                                                                                              

‘Whadayamean?’

 

‘Look, you’re different. You’re an outsider. You ride a bike. You paint. You’re reclusive and shy. You’re very individualistic, a loner. You live and work in a basement. You’re not really interested in showing your work, in fact you like your life the way it is. You’ve worked things out for yourself so that you’re free, sort of, if that’s possible these days. A telephone would indicate that you’re not totally free. Got it?’

 

‘I think so, yeah. I kindda like it. Free. Wow, and a chick on the bike behind me.’

 

 ‘And when you ride up you and the girl are NOT wearing helmets. We stop around the block from the gallery and I take the helmets. She wears nothing on her head and you wear my old Harley bike cap. Pick a girl with long hair that blows in the wind. Ah, blond hair.‘                   

                                                                                 

‘I know a chick like that. Rena. She’ll do it, I think.’

 

 ‘You’ll be wearing old faded tight Levi’s. And if you don’t have the equipment you stick a rolled up sock down there.’

 

‘Ouch man.’

 

‘Sorry. That’s the way it has to be. We take advantage of every opportunity for success, OK?’

 

‘Vito how come you know all this stuff and you dint do it yourself when you had a chance to?’

 

‘It was different then, totally different rules. And we were innocent then also, most of us. We truly believed that if the work was good they would break the doors down to get to us. We had no concept then of marketing ourselves, and I’m not sure that I like it now, that concept. I’m taking this one last shot only to get my work seen. You’re the guy who’ll get all the perks. Besides. I, ah, don’t, never, looked like an artist. No, never really looked the part. Look at me, for Christ’s sake.’

 

‘Listen Vito It sounds good, really good, like it could work ya know? I’m in this all the way OK? I won’t let you down man.’

 

                                                                           7

 

Guido, now Mimo, pulls up on a noisy Harley with Rena behind him on the double seat. It is just before six when he goes into the gallery and asks the woman, Ms. Shuman, for his slides. Rena waits on the bike.

 

‘We’d like to come to your studio and see your work.’

 

‘Ah, I dunno.’

 

‘Well, leave your name and number then.’

 

‘I, I don’t have a number.’

 

‘Well, give me your name and address.’

 

Mimo looks over his shoulder at the entrance like he’s trying to escape or something.

 

‘Ah, could I have my slides please there’s another guy wants to see them.’

 

‘WHAT? What other guy?’

 

‘I was at a party and this guy who said he has a gallery said he heard about me and wants to see some stuff you know.’

 

‘What gallery?’

 

‘Ah, I can’t tell you. Do you mind? Like it’s like sort of snitching on someone you know? He was so excited I dint want to disappoint him so I said OK but I really don’t think I want to show with him or anyone. I’m kindda sorry I dropped them off here, you know? All this fuss over paintings. I sorry I got into this. It’s so , so, well, committal and I hate commitments. They, ah, like tie me up, ya know?’

 

‘Look, just tell me your name OK? No commitments, I promise.‘  

                                                                                   

‘Mimo, My name’s Mimo. Can I have my slides now miss?’ (Vito had warned Mimo. Never say sir to any man over thirty five. Never say anything but miss to a woman no matter how old she seemed.)

 

It worked. Ms. Shuman blushed, actually blushed. And with the blush became even more determined to nail this guy.

 

‘Mimo. What a nice name. And what’s your last name Mimo?’

 

‘Di Modi.’

 

‘Perfect! It fits you perfectly. Mimo di Modi.‘           

                                                                                       

‘Yeah, Mimo di Modi. Mimo’s what they called me as a kid and I guess I never had a chance to shake it off.’

 

‘’Mimo, if I give you your slides will you give me your address? No commitments. But please, please, don’t show them to anyone just now. Please.’

 

Ms. Shuman was turning on all her charms, had even inhaled a bit and pulled back her shoulders making her breasts look slightly more prominent.

 

Mimo glanced down ever so briefly at the breasts and blushed a genuine blush.

 

‘Ok. It’s 88 Mott Street, basement apartment, OK? Can I have the slides now someone’s waiting for me outside.’

 

‘Can I ask who’s waiting Mimo?’

 

‘Itsa girl, you know.’

 

‘Here are the slides Mimo.’

 

Mimo took the sheet of slides but she held on to them looking at him.                                                                   

                              

‘When are you there?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘At home, when are you at home?‘

                                 

‘Ah, I dunno, Ah Saturday OK?, but after twelve. I sleep late. I gotta go.’

 

Mimo took the slides and almost ran for the entranceway. Ms. Shuman walked over to the large windows facing the street to see him off. And off he roared almost a blur with blond hair streaming behind. The image stuck and with it a bit of envy.

 

                                                                        8

 

‘She’s coming Saturday.’

 

‘Alone?’

 

‘I dunno.’

 

‘Doesn’t matter, we’ve got a lot to do. First thing is we have to clean out your space.’

 

‘There’s nothing there Vito. Just a bed, the TV, a stereo, stove and frig’.

 

“You sure?’

 

‘Well, there’s a couch and table and some chairs, and a bed, natch.’

 

‘And?’

 

“Well, there’s my wardrobe, not much there.’

 

‘Books?’

 

‘Books? No, no books, who reads books? Some mags.’

 

‘OK. We clean out a lot of stuff in the morning. Call some friends. Loan it to them for awhile in case this whole thing fails. If it’s not really worth anything we just put it out on the sidewalk for sanitation to pick up.’

 

                                                                        9

 

Vito did just that the next morning. As it turned out there was nothing of any real value so it all ended up on the sidewalk with the exception of the TV. That some friend got. When he was finished it was a bare bones basement apartment. A frig in one corner. A small apartment type efficiency stove and a small table against a wall. In the second room was a bed and the stereo. In the closet a bare handful of clothes, clothes that would have to be changed in time for other, more appropriate, clothes.

 

Vito had Guido now Mimo build a bookshelf out of boards and cinder blocks against  the wall. He would decide later which books would be on it.

Then he brought into the kitchen-studio space a couple of containers, gallon size, of paint. One black and one white. The idea, he said to Mimo, was:

 

‘To get this place smeared up good. We want paint on the floors, mostly near that painting wall. And some on the wall around it. And some on the other walls, and footprints of paint going to the stove, the bedroom, the toilet. We want this place to look like a paint orgy happened here. Then we’re going to fill this space with paintings, stacked against all the walls. There’s hardly going to be room left for you to move around or to work on the one painting leaning against the wall. It’s going to look like you’re squeezing yourself out of your space by the accumulation of your paintings. When she gets here she’s going to feel the pressure of your work all around her, and if she’s not alone so much the better. And there’s more, there’s more.

 

                                                                      10

 

That Saturday around one or so a snow white limo pulls up to 88 Mott Street. It’s not a stretch, only a Mercedes, but a limo nevertheless. The driver gets out and holds open the back door facing the sidewalk and Ms. Shuman and a man get out. Ms. Shuman is wearing a white silk dress and the man is wearing a white suit. They look over the street, then to 88, then to the basement entrance on the sidewalk. It is she, not he, that leads the way down the steps to the below sidewalk level entrance door and knocks.

 

Guido now Mimo answers. He looks tired, worn out. He is wearing red coveralls covered with black and white paint spots and smears. The space behind him is filled with paintings, only a narrow passageway through them to the kitchen area and a low table with some boxes for seats. There are empty Stella Artois bottles scattered around and on the table a bottle of half empty Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey. Also on the table  is an open, empty sardine tin, half a loaf of Italian bread and cans of various sizes containing water, turpentine, brushes, black and white paint, and some rags.

 

Guido,  Mimo, looks surprised, caught off guard. He manages to mumble:

 

‘Ah..you came, ah, Miss...’

 

‘Sheila, Mimo, just call me Sheila for now. And this is my brother and partner Matthew.’

 

‘I thought there was a Marc there somewhere.’

 

‘Our father. He retired after teaching us the business and left us the gallery.’

 

 ‘Oh. Ah, come in, I guess. It’s a little crowded and messy. Doya think you could work your way to that table? I have some drinks, I think.’

 

They squiggle there way through the paintings and to the table where there are several upturned milk crates. On the way Sheila notices the bookshelf and scans the books.

 

Dante’s Inferno and Purgatory. No Paradise

Dylan Thomas: The Complete Poems

The Complete Short Stories of Robert Lewis Stevenson

Jan Hulster: The New Complete  Van Gogh

Navaho Sand Painting and Ritual Images.

Don Marquis: The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel

Georgio De Chirico: Hebdomerus

Ben Katchor: The Jew of New York

James Joyce: Ulysses

Krazy Kat: George Harriman

Irmgard Schloegl: The Zen Teaching of Rinzai

Machiavelli: The Prince

James Frazer: The Golden Bough

Jorge Luis Borges: The Complete Fictions/The Complete Non-Fictions

 

‘That’s quite an eclectic collection of books’ commented Sheila.

 

Not knowing the meaning of eclectic Mimo remained silent.

 

‘You’ve read all of them?’

 

‘Pretty much, pretty much. You read them?’

 

‘Ah, no, I haven’t.’ Confessed Sheila

 

Mimo, relieved, ’You should, you should, they’re pretty good. Ya wanna borrow a couple?’

 

Vito, listening from behind the tunnel door, makes a face. He doesn’t want anyone, ANYONE, borrowing any of his books.

 

‘Ah, no, I’ll pass on that for now, thanks.’

 

Vito, relieved.

 

‘Hey, come on, sit down.’

 

Sheila and Matthew sat looking very squeezed, very uncomfortable.

 

‘Ah, could I offer you a drink or something?’ said Mimo, making an attempt to clean off the messy table, ’I’ve got whiskey and there’s some beer I think and I’ve a bottle of home made red wine.’

 

“Nothing for us Mimo,’ she said, speaking for the two of them, ’we’d just like see some paintings and then maybe talk.’

 

 ‘Well, I’d like a drink if you don’t mind.’

 

‘Why yes, of course, have a drink by all means.’

 

Just then the door to the bedroom opens and Rena comes out, naked.

 

‘Oh, you’ve got guests. I’m sorry.’ She stood there.

 

Matthew stared.

 

‘This is Rena. She’s been posing for me.’

 

‘Oh?’ said Sheila.

 

‘Yeah, I like to keep at the discipline thing you know; it helps when I don’t need it if you know what I mean.’

 

‘Oh?’ said Sheila.

 

‘Hey Rena come and join us I’ll get some more milk crates.’

 

‘Oh goody, a party.’ says Rena.

 

Mimo comes up with two more milk crates and Rena sits, still nude, smiling at everyone.

 

Matthew, trying hard not to look, looks.   

                         

‘Whatcha drinkin’ Rena?’ says Mimo from the sink where he’s trying to wash up some glasses not a matched set.

 

‘I’ll have wine if you have it beer if you don’t’,says Rena, ‘and if you have neither then I’ll have the whiskey here.’

 

‘I got the red from Patsi, that OK?’

 

‘Oh yes, I love his wine.’ says Rena

 

‘You guys sure you don’t want somethin’?’

 

‘Nothing for us.’  Sheila, speaking again for the two of them.

 

Mimo gets a jug full of wine from a shelf and brings it and the glasses to the table. He pours a glassful for Rena and half a glass of whiskey for himself. They both take heavy gulps while Sheila and Matthew stare.

 

 ‘You guys sure you don’t want anything?’ Mimo burps.

 

‘Could I, ah, see some of your drawings of Rena?’ says Sheila.

 

‘Sure, I’ll get some.’ He goes into the bedroom and returns with two or three sheets of light brown paper.

 

‘Here you are for what they’re worth.’ says Mimo

 

They are excellent studies from the model just a bit risqué and provocative but enough to make Sheila and her brother blush slightly.

 

‘What kind of paper is this?’ Sheila.

 

‘Um, butcher’s paper. The store down the street gives me some whenever I need it.’

 

‘But it’s not good paper. It won’t last.’

 

‘They’re just studies, nothing serious.’

 

‘But they’re  very good, very sellable.’ says Sheila.

 

‘They’re not for sale, they’re only exercises.’ says Mimo.   

 

‘Oh, but they’re good.’ Sheila.

 

‘Not for sale. You sure you don’t want something to drink?’

 

Mimo takes the drawing and throws them into the corner. Sheila looks shocked and upset by this.

 

‘Oh, but you shouldn’t . . .’

 

‘Exercises, just exercises, nothing important. You gonna drink?’

 

‘Maybe I’ll try the red. Matthew?’

 

‘Ah, I’ll have the whiskey, but just a bit you know.’

 

‘You really shouldn’t Matthew, you know that.’

 

‘Hey, let the guy have a drink.’ says Mimo.

 

‘Just a bit, really Sheila, no more.’

 

‘Well, I suppose.’

 

Mimo pours out some red for Sheila and whiskey for Matthew who pleads with his eyes for more in the glass please, please, more.

 

‘Listen, I want to be a good host and all that but I’m tired. So you guys enjoy yourselves I’m taking a nap. Been up all night.’

 

‘No, wait please.’ says Sheila.                 

                                                                                  

‘No really. Stay as long as you like. Look at the work if you want to. But I’m knocked out. And I don’t think I want to show yet. There’s some salami and cheese in the frig, good day, whatever.’

 

Mimo takes the whiskey bottle from the table.  

                                                                                       

‘There’s more whiskey in the pantry I think.’ he says and disappears into the bedroom.

 

‘He’s a real party pooper that one.’ says Rena angrily getting up and slowly getting dressed, her clothes on a bench behind her. Didn’t take much to dress, just a pair of Levis and a black t-shirt, sandals, and she was, ‘Nice meeting you guys’, out the door.

 

And Matthew and Sheila are left alone sitting cramped up against the paintings and wall, whiskey and wine glasses in hand, mouths agape.

 

Behind the door to the tunnel Vito breaks into a slow wide smile, eyes heaven bound.

 

‘Matthew, did you ever?’

 

‘Amazing. Quite amazing. No, never. Good whiskey though.’

 

‘Matthew! We’re here for a reason, now put that glass down you’ve had enough and let’s at least take a look at these paintings.’

 

They lug and pull and manage to see three or four paintings, Large black on white images, vaguely familiar, but imprecise, indefinite. In the process they discover that they have both gotten paint smears on their clothes, his Armani suit and her Dior day dress. About ten thousand dollars down the drain. He looks defeated. She is furious.

 

‘I’ve had quite enough, quite enough. haven’t you Matthew? Haven’t you had enough of this also? No more nonsense, no more! Why, it’s positively insulting.’

 

‘But Sheila you forced yourself on him. He never invited us you know.’

 

‘Stop it! Stop that nonsense now. I won’t take it. I won’t, do you hear?’

 

She goes over to the bedroom door and knocks loudly.   

                                                                                     

‘Young man you come out this instant, do you hear, this instant!’

 

No response.

 

She knocks louder, banging away at the door then tries the knob. It’s locked.

 

‘Come out, do you hear, come out now.’

 

The door opens and Mimo is standing there in jockey shorts, whiskey bottle in hand. It’s not clear whether or not he has stuffed a sock down into the crotch, but it seems so.

 

But only he knows for sure.

 

Sheila is shaken and speechless, but just for a moment.

 

‘Young man, you are rude, very very rude. You’re positively insulting, and I’ve had enough of it and won’t take more.  Now you’re having a show with us, like it or not, in the fall. You’ve more than enough work here. I’ll send the forms and you can read them over or take them to a lawyer, whatever. But you will sign them, do you hear me? Do you understand? DO YOU?’

 

‘Yes mam, I do. I understand mam.’ said Mimo, head hanging slightly like a small boy who’s been told what’s good for him by a stern teacher. He had decided just that moment to use the mam because she had placed herself in the dominant role and he wanted her to know that he was being submissive. He was learning fast, fast.

 

‘Well then, that’s settled then.‘             

                                      

‘Yes mam. I’m sorry mam, if I was rude. I am very tired mam, I really am.’

 

‘Of course, of course. Well, get some sleep then.’

 

‘Yes mam, I will. Stay as long as you like mam, And there’s

some turps if you want to try to clean your nice dress mam, sorry about that.‘                                                     

                                    

Mimo closes the bedroom door quietly, leans against it and smiles.

                                   

                                                                        11

 

Sheila and Matthew leave, Sheila with an air of having just completed successfully some impossible but necessary task. Absolutely triumphant. But not before Matthew has emptied his whiskey glass while Sheila was occupied.

The door to the tunnel opens and Vito comes dancing into the room arms held high, spinning slowly, dipping, bowing, snapping his fingers and smiling, smiling, smiling, he spins his way to the table humming some tune or other as Mimo comes out of the bedroom dancing also, imitating Vito, to the table they dance as they pour out two healthy glasses of Tullamore Dew and continue to dance as they click glasses and pause and drink.

 

And what an opening it was. Packed. Packed because this gallery’s openings are always packed. Why not? Good snacks from trays as servers came by every few minutes with now this, now that, the entire food chain it seemed from caviar to little fillet mignons on toothpicks, champagne, and the three wines, red, white and rose, under nine labels, three each.

 

Packed, not only with the usual ‘other artists and friends’ but at least half of the crowd was potential buyers and a good handful of critics.

 

And Danny was there eating up the compliments as he eavesdropped the crowd. This was really his moment, and he felt good, real good, that only he, Mimo and, well, Rena, knew it.

 

Rena was trapped in a corner where Matthew had successfully maneuvered her. She didn’t seem to mind too much. She was giggling; sipping and giggling.

 

Sheila had a possessive grip on Mimo’s arm and was leading him from person to person introducing him proudly as her new find. The cameras were flashing their quartz lights from time to time. Mimo was  behaving perfectly, thought Vito. A little shy, not at all talkative. Mute, in fact,  

                                                                                  

just a manly smile from time to time that would quickly disappear. A bit bored even. And a bit impatient, like he wanted this to be over and soon, but he would brave it out, brave it out, to the end. 

 

                                                                        12

 

 ‘Sold out, it’s all sold out. She just called.’ Guido now Mimo said.

 

‘Sold out?’ Vito said.

 

‘Yeah man, all sold out.’

 

They had just read the review in the Times. There would be more soon in the magazines.

 

‘She wants to give me another show in the spring.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘Yep. And she wants to bring buyers here. She sent over a cell phone so she can set up appointments.’

 

‘Can you keep up the act?’

 

“Yeah, sure man, no problem there, I’m digging it, really getting into it.’

 

‘Keep cool like I told you OK?  You’re the silent type. You don’t haftta answer any questions or express any opinions. Got it?’

 

‘Got it man, got it. Jesus!.’ Slightly irritated.

 

‘Guido, don’t get uppity on me. We got a good thing going here. We both get something out of this. I’m just going to remind you from time to time a few things to keep you from blowing it.’

 

‘Sorry man. You’re right man.’

 

‘So like, anybody calls and wants to interview you, you don’t give interviews, OK?’

 

‘Wow man, for sure. I’d blow it. No way man. No interviews.’

 

‘She give you a check yet?‘    

                                                                                                                                                    

‘She said the money comes in slowly, that it would take a couple of weeks at the least, just to start, if it starts. Mumbled something about that’s how it worked, everyone takes their own good time about paying. She asked me if I needed money and I said yes ‘cause I got to play the part, right? I mean, it’s not like I’m supposed to be rich or anything.’

 

‘How much did she give you Guido?’

 

‘Five hundred. She said she’d deduct it from the sales.’

 

‘So, ah, where’s it at?’

 

‘I spent it Vito. I have bills, you know ‘

 

“OK Guido, we’ll just deduct it from your share when you get the check.’

 

‘Like, ah . . . what is my share man?’

 

‘I’m gonna be generous Guido, you’re going to get 20 percent.’

 

‘So like from the five hundred I just spent, what would I owe you?’

 

‘You owe me 400.’

 

‘I dunno man. Sounds to me like I should get more.’

 

‘Look Guido, I do the work; you get the perks, the adoration, the chicks. If the gallery sells let’s say a ten thousand dollar painting, they keep half. So I get five and out of my five you get one. Sounds more than fair to because I’m only left with thirty percent of the sale price. You’re getting twenty of my thirty. Sounds more than fair to me.‘           

                                                                              

‘I guess so, fair ‘nough sure. What-ta-ya-think we’ll get for the show selling out?’

 

‘Fifteen paintings at ten each is 150 thou. That’s seventy-five for us. Your share will be ten-five.‘      

                                                                                  

‘Oh wow man cool.’

 

‘So, who was the girl you left the opening with?’

 

 ‘Just a girl man. Like real sweet. I forgot her name, Laura, I think. She kindda picked me up you know.’

 

 ‘So, what did you talk about?’

 

‘We dint talk man she just was eager to get to my place, you know.’

 

‘And than?’

 

‘Ah, we messed around.‘

 

‘That’s it?’

 

‘That’s it man; hey, I have a life too you know.’ irritated again.

 

‘You do Guido and I won’t interfere with it. I’m only interested in where it overlaps into what we’re doing here together.’

 

‘Natch man, natch, You’re right man.’

 

‘Did you know that right after you left some guy left with Rena?’

 

‘No, I dint know that, but that would probably be Matthew.’

 

’Who’s Matthew?’

 

‘Sheila’s brother. They own the gallery.’

 

‘Can we trust Rena, Guido, to keep our secret?’

 

‘She’s cool man. We can trust her. But I’ll have a talk with her just to be sure.’

 

‘Yeah, talk to her Guido, be nice to her, take her to dinner, keep her close to you.‘    

                                                                                   

‘I’ll try man, I’ll try. She’s cute. I’m just not sure she digs me you know?’

 

‘Try Guido, try.’

 

                                                                     13

 

Vito is alone at his small table in his basement apartment. He’s sitting with a glass of red wine thinking, then he starts talking out loud even thought there is no one in the room with him.

 

‘I got some problems here. I’m a big success but no one knows it. Guido could be a problem down the road. Rena could be a problem ‘cause she might want something out of all of this. But hey, maybe I don’t have any problems. So what if Guido blows it, they’re still my paintings. Who loses? Guido loses. What’s the gallery gonna do? Drop me? Maybe. But someone else will pick me up. There’s a good review here and more coming, and a sold out first exhibit. That carries weight.’

 

‘I’m in. Ha. I’m in whatever happens. I’ll drink to that.’

 

He drinks.

 

                                                                        14

 

‘Come with me man I want to show you something.’

 

Guido is walking down the tunnel, Vito following. They get to Guido’s basement apartment.

 

‘Look man.’

 

‘Jesus Christ!’

 

The apartment is empty of all the paintings.

 

‘Yep, all gone, all sold. Empty man, it’s empty. Not one fuckin’ painting left. Ah, you got more?’

 

‘What’s going on here Guido?’

 

‘This morning man. She came by with her Mercedes and a truck. She wrote me a check for everything. Told me she wanted to buy them all. Five thou each right? That’s what she said my, ah, your, share is. Here’s the check man. Seventy five thousand. Ah, I figure my share as fifteen thou that right Vito?’

 

‘Jesus Guido you should have asked me first for Christ’s sake, do you know what this means?

 

‘It means we’re rich man. Ha.’

 

‘She screwed us.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘She screwed us. She bought the paintings outright. Now she can sell them for any price she wants to out of her back room or warehouse and they don’t get exhibited. I wanted those paintings to be exhibited, dammit!’

 

‘Jesus Vito I don’t know nothing about business.’

 

‘My fault, I should have warned you. Meantime I got to paint an exhibit? I don’t like that, painting an exhibit.‘        

                                                                                 

‘Whattaya mean Vito?’

 

‘I like showing the work when it’s there, accumulated. I can’t paint with a fuckin’ exhibit in mind. You tell her that OK? ‘

 

‘Tell her what man?’

 

‘That you can’t paint a show with an exhibit in mind.  You don’t like quotas and you don’t like deadlines. Got that?, that she has to sell the paintings on condition. OK?’

 

‘What condition?’

 

‘That they will be loaned back for the exhibit in the spring if wanted by the gallery. See, that frees me to paint.’

 

The check is still lying on the table-top.

 

‘What about the check Vito?’

 

‘You deposit it. Start an account under Mimo di Modi. You’re allowed to have a professional name.’

 

‘Can I, ah, have my share when it clears?’

 

‘You get your share minus 25 percent, that’s for taxes later. Everything that’s not yours we put into a separate account, that’s for me and taxes.’

 

‘Jesus man that leaves me only a little over eleven thou.’

 

‘Where’d you learn math so fast?’

 

‘It comes man, it comes when you need it.‘        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

‘Eleven thousand is a lot of money Guido and more coming from the exhibit. That’ll be another forty, I think. When’d you ever make fifty one thou plus so easily?’

 

‘I’m working hard at this man. I made you famous.‘     

                                                                             

‘I’m not famous, Mimo’s famous and you’re Mimo. Wake up Guido.’

 

‘Yeah but...’

 

 ‘But what?’

 

 ‘I dunno, something missing Vito.’

 

‘Me also Guido, there’s something missing for me also.’

 

“I feel like I’m cheating and at the same time like I’m being cheated you know?’

 

‘That’s funny Guido, I feel almost exactly the same.’

 

‘Some pickle huh?’

 

‘Well the work is being seen and you’re getting a free ride. Let it go at that. You having fun?’

 

‘Yeah, sort of, I mean like I never had so many chicks chasing me, you know.’

 

‘You unhappy with that?’

 

‘No man, it’s back to that other thing, you know. Like they only want me ‘cause they think I’m somebody else. Like they don’t want the real me; they want Mimo di Modi and you know what else?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘I been thinkin’ you, know like pretending that I really am Mimo di Modi and ya know what?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘I’m still unhappy man, ‘cause they still want me for the wrong reason.‘                               

                                                

‘You mean they want the icon and not the living real person.’

 

‘What’s an icon man?’

 

 ‘It used to be a symbol or representation of a religious figure. Now it’s anything,  or even any idea,  given an idealized and permanent form. Well that’s close if not totally accurate.’

 

‘Can you give me an example man?’

 

‘Well, like Elvis towards the end maybe.’

 

‘Like kindda too much flash or something?’

 

‘Not just flash, artificial maybe, like Michael Jackson, no longer a real and believable thing. Like I got a theory. I think that today the artist is in danger of going from being an artist to being an entertainer. Then the entertainer, if successful commercially, becomes a personality, and then the personality, if successful commercially, becomes an icon. The artist is pretty much finished when the artist hits the personality stage, whether or not he or she goes on to become an icon.’

 

 ‘I don’t like it Vito.’

 

‘Why not?’

 

‘It like, I dunno, I feel kindda like a cardboard cutout, a shell, empty you know? Somethin’ like that.’

 

“I know, I know what you mean.‘         

                                                                                         

‘Can’t have it both ways I guess.’

 

‘Jesus Christ Guido where’d you get that?’

 

Vito is looking at a colorful silk jacket hanging casually from a hook on the wall.

 

‘I bought it man. I liked it so I bought it.’

 

‘Ah, it’s nice, really nice. It, ah, looks expensive.’

 

‘Yeah man, a little.‘      

                                                     

‘How much?’

 

‘Come on man, that’s my business ain’t it?’

 

‘How much Guido?’

 

‘Couple thou.’

 

‘Why?’

 

‘I like it man, I like it for Christ’s sake. And there’s this dinner I’m invited to. I gotta look nice don’t I? I’m gonna wear it with my velvet pants, cool huh?’

 

‘Christ, back to velvet. Where’re you going?’

 

‘Don’t know. Dinner with Sheila, Matthew and Rena, and a couple others, I think.’

 

‘What others?’

 

‘Don’t know man.’

 

‘When?’

 

‘Tonight man.’

 

‘Cool. Be cool. Silent type remember?’

 

‘Yeah sure I remember man. Don’t volunteer anything right? And I don’t gotta answer questions, right man?’

 

‘Right Guido.’

                                                     

                                                                            15

 

That night at S.P.Q.R. while folding napkins towards the rear of the larger restaurant room, who does Vito see come in but Sheila, Matthew, Rena, Guido, and two men. Damn, he thinks to himself. Oh well, this should be interesting, at the least.

 

Still, he does his best to avoid the table but finally he has to service it. The first course has ended and it’s his job to take away the used plates and utensils. He starts in acting as casual as he possibly can, avoiding the eyes of Guido and Rena.

 

‘Hey Vito, is that you?’ Rena has noticed him.

 

‘Oh, hi Rena.’

 

 “You work here Vito?’

 

‘Um, yeah. I work here. I’ve got to earn a living you know.’

 

‘Gee, did you know Vito works here Mimo?’

 

‘Uh, yeah, yeah, I knew that.’

 

‘My goodness, what’s all this fuss over a bus boy?’ Sheila.

 

‘No fuss mam, they just happen to know me. If you like I’ll have another bus boy service your table.’

 

‘Oh my goodness no boy that won’t be necessary, please continue.’

 

‘Yes mam, just finishing up mam.’ Vito puts on just a bit of an old time black minstrel edge to his voice. It goes right over Sheila’s head.

 

So Vito piles up stuff on a tray near the table and when he has finished just stands back sort of innocently out of the way. He’s just behind Matthew and Rena and notices them playing kneesie with each other under the table.

 

 ‘Boy..‘   

                                                                           

Vito doesn’t hear.

 

‘BOY’

 

‘Yes sir.’ says Vito, snapping to attention just a bit.

 

‘Could you just disappear do you think? We’ve things to discuss here.’

 

‘Oh yes sir, I’ll disappear sir’ says Vito, backing away from the area.

 

‘Boy.’

 

‘Sir?’

 

‘Send the wine steward over right away.’

 

‘I’ll tell him sir.’

 

Vito is right behind the wine steward when he comes and he stands there.

 

The guy rattles off a selection.

 

The wine steward looks indifferent, aloof. Vito is kind of surprised. The guy’s having a fish dish in lemon sauce and has ordered an expensive white wine; a waste of good money. He wonders if he should say something, decides against it. It’s none of his business and it’s not his money.

 

‘Boy.’

 

‘Sir?’

 

‘It seems to me you disagree with my choice of wine.’

 

 ‘No sir, whatever pleases you sir.‘         

                                                            

‘So, you do disagree?’

 

‘No sir. I know very little about wine sir. I’m in no position to disagree sir. The customer is always right sir.’

 

‘I see, hummm, well  tell me, what would you have ordered?’

 

‘Sir?’

 

 ‘What would you have ordered?’

 

‘I’d rather not say sir.’

 

‘What would you have ordered?’ insistent now.

 

 ‘Water, sir.’

 

‘Water?’

 

‘Yes sir, no offense sir. I would have had a glass of water, plain water, not sparkling, room temperature sir. You asked me sir.’

 

‘My goodness Claude what’s all this about?’

 

‘The busboy here thinks he knows something about wine Sheila.’

 

‘Oh no mam, I never said that, not at all. I know nothing about wine at all. I only know that I drink dry red with everything, even fish, which is a big no-no in lots of places, and that the taste of all wines are distorted when combined with citrus mam.’

 

‘Is that true Claude?’

 

‘Yes, dammit. Would you tell that busboy to have the waiter cancel the wine and get lost while he’s at it, good and lost.’

 

‘Why don’t you tell him Claude?, he’s right there next to you.’ This from the other man.

 

‘It’s alright sir, I’m getting lost.’

 

‘Boy.’ This from Guido to Vito’s surprise.

 

‘Yes sir.’ says Vito, almost choking on his own words.     

 

‘Fill my water glass.’

 

‘Why certainly sir.’ says Vito.

 

‘That’s very rude of you Mimo, to call your friend Vito boy.’ Rena.

 

‘’Well, Imma customer, aint I? And he’s a bus boy. So?’

 

‘Mimo!, why this isn’t like you at all.’

 

‘This seems to be the busboy’s evening.’ says Sheila.

 

‘I’m just trying to do my job mam.’

 

‘Well do it then for god’s sake.’ Sheila, pissed off.

 

‘Yes mam, just filling his glass mam and I’ll get lost.’

 

‘Your nails.’

 

‘Mam?’

 

‘Your nails, they’re filthy.’

 

‘Oh no mam, that’s just . . .’  Vito hesitates.

 

 ‘Just what?’

 

‘It’s paint mam. Good clean paint, can’t seem to get it all out.’

 

‘House paint?’

 

‘Ah, yes mam, house paint.‘

                                                                                                                                                                                           

‘Black house paint?’

 

‘Yes mam, black house paint mam.‘      

 

‘That’s very strange, don’t you agree Maurice? I mean, can you imagine where anyone would use black paint in a house?’

 

‘Well, not off hand, but surely there must be a use for it, can’t imagine where though. Still, it is sold, isn’t it? Black house paint.’

 

‘Well?’ Sheila.

 

‘Ah, I lied mam, I paint mam.’

 

‘You paint?’

 

‘Yes mam. I paint, there, you got it out of me. Yes mam, I’m a painter.’

 

‘Pictures you mean?’

 

‘Well, not pictures, paintings mam.’

 

‘Oh’ insulted, embarrassed.

 

‘Sorry mam, I make a distinction mam, between pictures and paintings.’

 

‘Well that’s nice, very nice. I do hope that you have fun, painting.’

 

‘Mam?’

 

 ‘I hope you have fun.’

 

‘Ah, you’re Ms. Shuman, right mam?’

 

‘How’d you know that?’

 

‘Well, I just assumed, seeing you here with Mimo.’

 

‘Well, yes, I am.’

 

‘Well, l,  mam, no offense mam, but I’d like to show you my work sometime.’

 

Sheila whitened. ‘I beg your pardon?  

                                                                                    

‘Sorry mam, out of line, I know. It won’t happen again. I forgot my place there, totally uncalled for, that. Sorry mam. I’ll go now mam.’

 

‘Well I hope.’

 

Vito looks over at Mimo. Mimo looks scared like Vito’s going to blow his front. Vito smiles. Mimo fakes a smile back.

 

‘I saw your exhibition Mimo, you’re good, really good.’

 

‘Um, ah, thanks Vito.’

 

‘No, I thank you Mimo. It’s your work that pleases me after all. It’s a real treat to see really good paintings.’

 

‘Could we all finish with this nonsense and enjoy our meal do you think?’ Claude.

 

‘I’m just leaving now sir.’ Vito.

 

‘My good man, you’ve been leaving for the past ten minutes.’

 

‘Yes sir, right now sir. Enjoy. Buon appetito and all that.’

 

‘And don’t forget to tell the wine steward to cancel the wine for now.’ irritated.

 

And with that Vito exits the area, backing away like a serf in the royal chambers.                                

                  

                                                                        16

 

Later in the evening he notices that Mimo is getting loose. Too much wine probably. So he works his way towards the table trying to catch Mimo’s eye. No luck. So he grabs a water pitcher and goes over to fill the glasses on the table.

 

‘My God not you again.’ Claude.

 

‘Just filling your glasses sir.’

 

‘Yes do, then please, please, go.’

 

‘Yes sir, just filling Mimo’s glass here and I’m done sir.’ Vito manages to keep the pitcher tilted when the glass is filled and lets it make a pass over Mimo’s lap dampening his velvet pants with a large dark spot. Mimo jumps up knocking over his chair.

 

‘You idiot!’

 

‘Oh, I’m sorry Mimo.’ says Vito.

 

‘Look what you’ve done you idiot. I’m all wet.’

 

Vito has grabbed a napkin and is trying to help Mimo get dried off all the while speaking.

 

‘I do believe you knocked my arm there Mimo at the end you talk too much and the pitcher was out of my control keep you mouth shut and so you’ve wet yourself I think sober up man you’ll be dry here in just a moment remember the silent type here then we’re almost done.’

 

‘What? What?’ Mimo.

 

‘You’re reputation Mimo, down here in Little Italy. Don’t you remember? You’re the silent type.’

 

‘Oh yeah, yeah Vito, I remember.’

 

‘Silent?’ Rena laughing.

 

‘Yeah, around here at least. His reputation. Everyone comments on it.‘    

                                                                               

‘Guido?’ Rena.

 

Guido and Vito are caught off guard by this. They stand there frozen, staring at Rena. Everyone else is staring also. Shit, what to do?

 

‘No not Guido, Mimo.’ says Vito

 

‘Oh. I thought you were talking about Guido.’ says Rena cleverly.

 

‘Who’s Guido?’ Sheila to Rena.

 

‘Guido’s my old boy friend. i just seem to blurt out his name once in awhile. Can’t seem to get him out of my mind.’

 

‘I saw Guido just today,’ says Vito quickly, ‘he asked about you Rena.’

 

‘Oh, he did? He really did? Oh goody.’

 

‘Yeah, seemed kind of down in the face.’

 

‘Oh really? Really?’

 

‘Yep. I think he’s having second thoughts, I really do.’

 

‘Oh goody. Oh. I’m so happy.’

 

‘Who is this Guido then?’ Matthew.

 

‘Oh, it’s over Matthew. I just want to see him suffer, that’s all.’

 

‘There are people in this world who are really called Guido?’ Claude.

 

‘Oh yes and there are Vinnys also.’ Vito

.                                                                                                                                          

‘And Tonys.’ Rena.

 

‘And Patsys.’ Guido, getting into it.

                                                                                     

‘And Dino’s.’  Rena laughing, knowing she’s just worked her way out of a jam.

 

Maurice has a look, a look of ‘Oh really now.’

 

Claude feels about the same, saying: ‘Haven’t we all had enough of this?’

 

‘Yes, sir, I’m leaving now sir.’ Vito,

 

‘Please.’ Maurice.

 

‘Are you deaf? Leave for God’s sake.’ Sheila.

 

‘Well, he is our friend Sheila.’ Guido.

 

‘Well, maybe it’s time you move up the social ladder Mimo.’ Sheila.

 

‘I kindda like it where I am Sheila.’

 

‘Oh, let’s talk about that later Mimo, We’re all here to enjoy ourselves tonight, well mostly. Thank you, ah  Vito is it?, we won’t be needing you any more.‘                      

                                                                                                        

                                                                             17

 

‘So what was it all about, that dinner?’

 

‘Claude and Maurice are gallery guys Vito.’

 

‘And?’

 

‘And like she’s, ah, franchising, she said, my work out to them. Claude’s gotta gallery in Los Angeles and Maurice has one in Houston, or was it the other way around maybe.’

 

‘So why’d she need you to do that?’

 

‘She said I gotta up my productivity. She said I should be able to do a painting a day, five a week. She said that would be about two hundred fifty paintings a year and everyone will be happy.’

 

 ‘Listen Guido, I’m only going to say this only once more. Listen very carefully, this is important and you haven’t gotten it yet.  I don’t paint deadlines and I don’t paint quotas. Got it. Now you tell her you can’t work that way. That there will be times you’re productive and there’ll be times when you’re not.’

 

‘I figured it out man. At our current rates that’d be like our share man over a mil a year.’

 

 ‘Guido, I’m the guy who does the paintings remember? We’re not in business here, got it? I do it my way not your way or Sheila’s way or Claude’s way or Maurice’s way. You’ll be fine. Chicks, adoration and probably a seventy-five thou or so a year should keep you happy. You unhappy?

 

‘No man, it’s fine man, fine. Ah, she’s looking for a loft for me in Tribeca.’

 

“No, you’re not moving. Tell her that. Our cover’s blown once  I have to have the paintings delivered to some loft in Tribeca.‘

    

 “But I’m always giving her nothing but refusals man.‘    

                                                     

‘Right. Don’t let her take over Guido. You’re independent remember? You can insist on doing things your way ‘cause you don’t give a shit, got it? You’re attitude has to be that if she won’t go along with you, with what you are, then just tear up the contract and forget the whole thing. Got it Guido? You got to stay on top of this, don’t let it get out of your hands.’

 

‘Got it man, got it. No problem man, really.’ 

                                                                                                                        

                                                                       18

    

Guido is walking up Mulberry street when a Harley comes roaring down and pulls over to a screaching  stop at the curb. It’s Guido with a young woman behind, her arms hugging his body.

 

‘Hey Vito.‘

 

‘Hiya Mimo. New Bike?’

 

‘Like it man? Top of the line.’

 

‘Nice, nice. Mustta set you back a bit.’

 

‘22K but what the fuck, what’s money for but spending.’

 

 ‘You think it’s wise, wearing your expensive jacket while driving a bike?’

 

‘So what man, gotta look good right. Like you said, I’m different.’

 

‘Listen Mimo, gotta go, I’m late now.’

 

‘Going to work man?’

 

‘Yeah, going to work Mimo.’

 

‘Well, have fun man. See ya later.’

 

And with that Guido roars off, rear tire burning a black streak onto the street as he leaves, the smell of rubber and smoke behind him.

 

Vito just stands there watching him go. Just a bit sad looking, very sad looking, actually.

 

                                                                   19

 

It’s the middle of the night. Vito was returning to his basement apartment when he heard a commotion from across the street. Lots of screaming and cussing from Guido, and sobbing from a girl.

 

‘Why’d you do that? It’s not right.’

 

‘Get lost. Doya hear me? Get fuckin’ lost.’

 

‘It’s not right, throwing me out alone like this.’ Crying openly now.

 

‘Outta my life, outta my life, outta my face, outta my life, fuckin’ nigger broad.’

 

‘It’s not fair’, crying, ‘it’s not fair deceiving me like that, leading me on.’ She sits on the curb, crying and sobbing, holding her head, shoulders shaking, painful to watch, that.

 

‘Hey bitch, ya wanna sit in the gutter? Hey, you’re home, ya know that? You found your place. Enjoy.’

 

She rolls over into the gutter itself sobbing, muttering, ’This can’t be true. It can’t. This can’t be happening to me. Oh God.’

 

But Guido has disappeared back into his basement.

 

Vito walks over and stoops down.

 

“Common miss, let me help you up. He’s no good that guy, you’re better off without him, you really are. Come on. You live near here?‘

 

‘No. Oh God. No. No. I, I live in Harlem. He threw me out, I’m so ashamed, I shouldn’t be, but I am.’

 

You’re better off, trust me, I know. You’ll get over it. Couple weeks, you’ll be OK. I’ve seen it before. Common, let’s find a cab for you.’

 

 ‘Why should you be so nice to me? I don’t understand.’

 

‘Well, a nice young lady like you, all alone in the middle of the night, crying. I feel kind of responsible for you, like I owe it to you to help you.’

 

‘But why? Why? Why should you?’

 

‘I, ah, I have a daughter’, Vito lied, ‘away at school. If she got into trouble I’d like someone to help her. So you’re my surrogate daughter for now.’

 

 ‘What’s surrogate?’

 

‘Acting in place of, I think.’

 

‘You’re a nice man’, still crying, ‘Oh, why couldn’t Mimo be a nice man like you?’

 

‘Common, let’s find a cab. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it if you don’t have the money and you can pay me back someday. OK? I mean like I give the driver a twenty, that should be more than enough including tip, and you give me a twenty someday, no interest, OK?

 

‘Thank you. You’re very sweet, oh dammit, why can’t all guys be as sweet as you are?’

 

‘Well, I’m not always sweet and nice, sorry to admit.’

 

They are walking towards Canal Street to find a cab.

 

‘Jesus, I can’t go home in a cab.’

 

‘Why not.‘                             

                                                                   

‘It’s where I live. Like if they see me getting out of a cab they’ll assume I got money and I’ll get robbed every time I go out specially after dark. Are we near a subway?’

                                                                                         

‘There’s the Lexington nearby. You going be OK? In the subway I mean. I’ll come down with you and see you on the train, OK?’

 

‘That’ll be good. I’ll be OK once I’m in Harlem, the stop’s near my house and there’ll be people on the stoops and stuff. What’s your name?’

 

‘Vito, and you?’

 

‘Pammy. God, what a name. Awful, isn’t it? It’s, it’s a kids name. I don’t want to be a kid anymore, I want to grow up.’

 

‘You just did...Pam.’

 

‘What do you mean, I just did?’

 

‘As soon as you wanted it, you got it. Happened to me like that. Tomorrow morning you’re going to wake up a new person Pam.’

 

‘Honest?’

 

‘Guaranteed.’

 

“That would be nice. That would be real nice. Pam huh? That’s better. Pam’s better. He came to the school you know to answer questions and stuff like that. There’s an exhibit of his work in the gallery that opened tonight and afterwards there was wine and snacks and stuff and all of a sudden he was standing next to me and talking to me, like street talk you know? Not black street talk but white street talk and I kindda liked that, that he was a street person like me. So then he says real nice like would I like to come and see his recent stuff in his studio and then when we got there he, he just went for me and tried to pull me into his bedroom I guess and then he got real angry when I asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop and I thought he would rape me so I, I kindda kneed him where it hurts and when he recovered he threw me out.’

 

 ‘You kneed him?’

 

 ‘Stops them every time.’ Laughs.  

                                   

Vito laughs with her.

 

‘Which school Pam?’

 

‘Hunter. Hunter College.’

 

‘Good school, stick with it.’

 

                                                                       20

 

Vito’s pounding at Guido’s tunnel door and Guido finally answers.

 

‘Why’d you lock the door Guido?’

 

‘Ah, just wanted some privacy man.’

 

‘You’re turning into a real prick, you know that?’

 

‘Whattayamean man?’

 

‘The way you treated Pammy Guido, last night, throwing her out into the street in the middle of the night.’

 

 ‘Who da hell’s Pammy?’

 

‘Nice young girl. Student at Hunter. You invited her down.’

 

‘Oh, HER. Da black chick? Don’t worry about it man. That was between her and me. Justta black chick man know-what-I-mean? A nigger man.’

 

‘You’re all rotten inside, you know that Guido?’

 

‘What-ta-ya-mean man?’

 

‘Rotten. You smell.’

 

‘Hey man what’s come over you all of a sudden?’

 

‘Fuckin’ racist prick.’

 

‘I can take you man, watch your fuckin’ mouth.’

 

‘Sicilian parents, right?’

 

‘Yeah man, my parents are from Palermo, so fuckin’ what?’

 

‘You got Black blood asshole, I’d be proud of it if I was you.’

 

‘What-ta-ya-talkin’ about man?‘  

                                           

‘Black Guido...You’re part Black, you’re part Greek, you’re part French, you’re probably part German and Jewish too, we all are, don’t you know that? There’s no such thing as an Italian, a blood Italian and you know what? I like it. I want to be part Jewish, part Black. I don’t want to be no fucking highfaluting white strutting exploitive elitist racist prick who thinks his fucking blood is blue or special and can’t see beyond the tip of his own fucking nose like you want to be asshole.’

 

‘You, you really mean that Vito? You’re telling me I’m Black and Jewish too?’

 

‘That’s right. Better get used to it and start living with it.’

 

Guido sits down confused, muttering, ‘Black. I’m Black...and Jewish?’

 

‘Yeah, how do you feel now about the way you treated Pammy?’

 

‘I dunno..I gotta think about this man...lemme think, lemme think. Jesus. I’m all confused. You’re bullshitting me, right?’

 

‘’Ain’t no bullshit boy.’

 

‘WHAT..did you call me BOY?’

 

‘Hurts huh?‘                    

                                                                                                                           

 ‘What are you tryin’ to prove here Vito?‘ 

                          

‘That you’re a hypocritical prick who doesn’t even know who he is.’

 

‘I ain’t Black. Do-ya-hear-me? And I ain’t Jewish either. I ain’t. i ain’t.’

 

‘Ok. You’re Italian. Be Italian. Be stupid.’

 

‘You’re Italian.’

 

‘But I have a pretty good idea of who I am and what I am. You don’t. You’re...ignorant.’

 

‘It’s too much for me man. I can’t absorb it. And I don’t believe it anyway. You’re bullshitting me. I gotta think. Come back later, leave me alone. I gotta think.’

 

‘Ok. You think Guido and I’ll just grab a book I need from your bookshelf and go.’

 

“Which one man, I’ll get it for you.’

 

‘Nah, no problem, I can get it Guido.’

 

Vito starts for the bookshelf, Guido is blocks his way.

 

‘Hey Guido what’s the problem here? Just a book for Christ’s sake.’

 

‘I’ll get it, I’ll get it man.’

 

 ‘What’s that?’

 

 ‘What’s what man?’

 

 ‘That painting.’

 

 ‘Oh that. That’s nothin’ man.’ overly casual.

 

 ‘You painting?‘          

                                                                        

‘I’m trying it man, like I’m suppose to be a painter, right?’

 

‘What’s going on Guido?’

 

 ‘Nothing man, just want to try my hand at it that’s all. Curious, ya know.’

 

 ‘What’s going on Guido?’

 

‘They want me to try painting, man.’

 

‘They want you to try painting?’

 

‘Like they know man.’

 

‘They know?’

 

‘It was Rena man. She’s gotten all involved with Matthew and told him and everything, just like that man, beyond my control man.’

 

‘Shit!, why’d she do that?’

 

‘She’s like got ambitions man. Like she’s after the guy, trying to get him to marry her. Like money and position and all that ya know?’

 

‘They know I’m the painter?’

 

‘ Yeah they know. Sheila wants you out of the picture.’

 

 ‘Oh yeah? How do you feel about this?‘       

                                                                                            

‘What can I do man. I’m inna awkward position here ya know what I mean. Like if I refuse it’s all over anyhow, right? I’m trying to protect myself man. I don’t have many choices.’ Guido pours a shot of Tullamore Dew and gulps it down.

 

‘Kinda early for booze ain’t it?’

 

‘I’m inna fuckin’ situation here fer Christ’s sake Vito and then you tell me I’m black on top of it all.’

 

‘They seen your shitty painting yet?‘    

                           

 ‘Thanks man, thanks. Nice man, really nice. Shitty huh? Well, they’re coming today man any minute man, that’s why I locked the door man, I dint want you to run into them it wouldda been messy man and I dint want you to see what I was doing man, I’m sorry man. Shitty painting huh? Nice man. Really nice. Thanks’

 

Knock at door.

 

‘Shit man it’s them ya gotta go man.’

 

‘Nah, I think I’ll stick around and see what they think of your shitty painting.’

 

‘Hey come on man leave, ya gotta leave.’

 

‘Answer the door Guido.’

 

‘Ok man you asked for it, you fuckin’ asked for it.’

 

Sheila: ‘Oh dear, look who’s here.’

 

Vito: ‘Hi Sheila, Matthew, Rena’

 

Rena (cold): ‘Oh, hi Vito.’

 

Matthew: ‘Oh dear.’

 

Guido: ‘He saw the painting and wouldn’t leave..’

 

Vito: ‘The shitty painting’

 

Sheila: ‘So you told him?’

 

Guido: ’Yeah. he’s my friend sort of. I hadda tell him sooner or later’ To Vito: ‘Shitty huh?’

 

Vito nods an affirmation.  

                                                                                       

Sheila: ‘Well maybe it’s for the best. You’re right, you would have had to tell him eventually.’

 

Vito: ‘Interesting situation huh?

’

Sheila: ‘ There is no situation.’

 

Vito: ‘Sure there is. I could make a phone call and we’ll all be in the newspapers tomorrow morning or the day after. Doesn’t matter, we’ll be there sooner or later.’

 

Sheila: ‘Yes, you could. we’d deny it, of course, and things would get ugly and expensive. You got what you wanted, your work’s out there. That’s all you wanted. Anyhow you would never do as the artist. You’re too short, too fat, and, well you don’t look like an artist. Meanwhile look at what you’ve done to poor Mimo here. You’re going to ruin a good life he’s made for himself.’

 

Vito: ‘Guido, his name’s Guido. Guido Grossone. Put that on his shitty painting.’

 

‘His names Mimo. Mimo di Modi. He had it legally changed last week.’

 

‘Great. That’s great. Thanks Guido.’

 

‘I’m sorry man, I really am. But ya shouldn’t call my painting shitty man.’

 

Sheila: ‘Furthermore, now that’s his name’s legally Mimo di Modi ,the money in the di Modi account is legally his. How do you like that Vito?’

 

Vito: ‘Jesus Christ Guido, what kindda shit is this. You told her about the account. Nice, nice. So you’re into all this. You going to keep my money Guido?’

 

Guido: ‘Mimo, my names Mimo, Vito. And my painting’s not shitty.’

 

Vito: ‘OK Mr. Shitty painting man, you’re name’s Mimo. You gonna keep my money MEEEEEEEEEEMO SHITTYPAINTER?’

 

Mimo: ‘Thanks man. Nice man, really nice. I worked for you man, I really tried you know to save something for you. We talked it over, ya know. And like I give you your share, ah, like five thou a month, see. And if I, ah Sheila and Matthew, ah, can’t move my work then you gotta pick it up again ya know like you paint for us and we split but 50-50. And, ah,  no lawyers, no suing and no calling my paintings shitty either.’

 

Vito: ‘No deal, but I’ll tell you what. You give me my money, all of it, tomorrow, or I call the editor of the arts page New York Times, then I see a lawyer and get that Di Modi account frozen pending a court decision. I can prove you didn’t paint those paintings. All the judge has to do is ask you to do a painting in the courtroom and you’re sunk. No more Mimo di Modi and I get my fair share of the account. It’ll make a terrific story doncha think? The art world’s gonna love it. Almost nothing titillates people more than a good scandal. And, come to think of it, I’ll still get the recognition I was after and everyone will know it’s me that really did the paintings. You’ll be finished Guido, ah, Mimo. And it won’t look good for the gallery either.’

 

Sheila: ‘And if you get your money, do you keep quiet?’

 

Vito: ‘I keep quiet, but I don’t paint anymore paintings for MIMO here.’

 

Sheila: ‘Why should we trust you You’ll get your money and still call the newspaper. Why shouldn’t you?’

 

Vito: ‘I’ll tell you the truth Sheila, I’m sorry this all happened I really am. You see I got to liking being anonymous. I don’t want the attention or the limelight. I wouldn’t like face to face attention I don’t think. Like I was in Fennelli’s Bar the other afternoon and I overheard a group of artists talking about my painting. I sat and ate it all and really enjoyed  that they didn’t know that the painter was right there next to them listening. I’ve overheard people in the restaurant mention Mimo di Modi. It’s great. Great. Jesus Christ Guido, Mimo, whoever you are, you had a good thing going there, WE had a good thing going. I was happy, you should have been happy too. Why’d you get so greedy man?’

 

 Mimo: ‘It wasn’t me, it was Rena.’

 

Rena: ‘Bullshit Guido, you practically told me to blow the whistle on Vito.’

 

Mimo: ’No i didn’t.’

 

Rena; ‘Yes you did shitface.’

 

Mimo: ‘Hey, come on, you too?’

 

Vito: ‘Sheila.’

 

‘Yes Vito.’

 

‘You’ll never sell that painting.’

 

Sheila looks at the painting for the first time. She is visibly shaken and disconcerted, pulls herself together. Then:

 

‘Want to make a bet?‘       

                                                                                     

‘Um, I take it back, I’m afraid you will, you’ll sell it.’ Bitterly: ‘Shit sells’

 

 ‘You goddamn right I will, I’ll sell every little poo poo he does.’

 

Guido: ‘What? Poo poo?’

 

Shiella: ‘Never mind Mimo, you just keep painting.’                                            

 

                                                                           21

 

And sell them she does. Vito gets his money and steps out of the involvement and Mimo becomes yet bigger with his next show, all painted by Guido. The critics rave. As a group they say that early in his career he has chosen to reject his developed sophisticated approach to his work and reverted, much as DuBuffet did before him, to a more innocent, more childlike expression, one that is not only refreshing ( The wildflower in the greenhouse one critic said) but gives promises of greater things to come.

 

Guido even broke down and allowed himself to be interviewed for the art magazines and TV talk shows.

 

Sheila had arranged for some media advisors to coach him prior to the interviews. The approach was simple; he was coached that when he couldn’t respond with a joke, pun or cold stare, he should respond with a very short cryptic answer. In one case the interviewer had asked:

 

 ‘What is it then that makes your work that much different from the kind of thing any child could do?’

 

At first Guido tried the stare technique. Then cleared his throat:

 

‘The new moon goes through phases, you know, before it becomes full.’

 

Interviewer: ‘Are you saying that in order to grow one must  be willing to change?’

 

 ‘Cool man, you’ve got it.’

 

The interviewer beamed.

 

‘So. Even though they LOOK childlike, they are actually a way of permitting another growth can take place.’

 

‘Wow man, you’re inside my head here.’

 

Another beam.                            

                                                                                                                                                                

‘And so they are, in that light, not at all childlike but rather starting milestones to some as yet unknown, undiscovered and undeveloped goal. ’

 

‘Christ man, you’re savvy, you know that?’

 

‘But the destinations of the moon through it’s phases are known Mr. Di Modi.’

 

‘Assumed to be known man, assumed to be known.’

 

‘Why I believe you’re right. It is indeed an assumption and quite uncalled for when one considers it as such.’

 

‘Right man, right on, you’re right on.‘  

                                                                                 

                                                                          22

 

Vito watched it all as it happened, watched his Frankenstein monster grow bigger with each passing day. Guido had moved out of the basement long ago and had one of the very rare top floor five thousand square foot lofts with terraces in Tribeca, Vito noticed in a write up in a prestigious architecture magazine. Guido even dared to keep returning; girlfriends on arms, entourage in tow, to S.P.Q.R. from time to time where he proceeded to humiliate Vito every chance that he could. Vito took it for awhile, then got tired of it. Didn’t look good, in front of the waiters and all, being picked on like that. The waiters wouldn’t interfere ‘cause Guido tipped big. No matter. Vito would take care of it. All it took was a casual complaint to the right ear.

                                                   

                                                                         23

 

Guido had just roared up to his Tribeca loft building, took off his helmet  and was getting off his bike when he heard his name being called from a car parked nearby.

 

‘Hey Mimo! Come here a sec man.’

 

Guido walks over to the car parked right there about twenty feet in front of his just parked big red top-of-the-line  Harley-Davidson.

 

He can’t see the guys face as he leans into the window on the driver’s side ‘cause the guys bent over getting something out of the glove compartment.

 

The guy straightens up and his hand comes slowly out of the compartment. In it is a revolver, a BIG revolver. He slowly points it right at Guido’s face. Guido  turns pale and stands there unable to move. The guy’s smiling. This is it, thinks Guido. This is where it ends, stops, over, nothing. Fear frozen but fascinated waiting for the shot, the bang, the explosion that would end it all.

 

‘Ya ever see anything like this?’ The guy says, slowly turning and flattening out his hand until the gun is lying harmlessly in the palm.

 

‘I, ah, I dunno’

 

‘It’s a forty-five revolver. Snub nosed. Colt. Rare. I’m on my way to do a little target practice. Ya like it?’

 

‘Ah, yeah, I like it.’

 

The guy, still smiling, swings his arm away and puts the gun back into the glove compartment. Guido is relieved, immensely relieved. Maybe, he thinks, maybe I still have a life. He gets his breath back, feels the blood, the warmth, coming back into his head and body. Whew! My god, I’m alive, alive!

 

‘Whattaya think of that?‘                 

                                                               

‘Ah.’ Guido had no idea of what to say to this guy. Felt trapped. Couldn’t walk away.

 

‘Hey! You’re a friend of Vito’s ain’tcha?’ The guys smiling up at him, big warm genuinely friendly smile.

 

‘Yeah, yeah, Vito’s a friend’ Guido responds warmly to the friendly smile then slowly, very slowly, begins to comprehend something, something sinister, threatening.

 

‘That’s nice ya know? Friendship. Friendship’s a real nice thing. Andda friend of Vito’s is a friend of mine.’ The guy is offering his open hand, face up, to Mimo.

 

Guido, of course, had to  take it. Had no choice.  The guy gives Guido’s hand a long warm squeeze and smiled through it all.

 

‘Well, gotta go.’ He says, releasing Guido’s hand,’ Say hi to Vito for me.’

 

‘Ah, I will, I will.’

 

‘Oh, and Pammy. You know Pammy?’

 

’Pammy?’

 

‘Pammy, Mimo, Hunter College, black chick.’

 

With that the car, a big Jeep SUV, roars in reverse right up to Guido’s bike but stops just before contact is mad.

 

‘OOPS!’ Says the guy, laughing, ‘wrong gear. I almost got your bike. Nice bike.’

 

And with that he drives off, very slowly, one had waving a warm slow good-by out the window.

 

And Guido is left standing there, staring, scared, white with scare,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

Scare and fear. Deep and cold penetrating every part of his being.

 

He had pissed in his Levi’s, the big and spreading warm stain covered the entire upper half of his right leg and a part of the left also. As he turns (happy to be alive; so fucking happy to be alive, he never realized before what it meant to be alive, to be really alive, fear and joy, fear and joy) we see that he has shit in his pants also. He wobbles away. Gotta get home, gotta clean up this mess. So fuckin’ what, so fuckin’ what? So I pissed and shit in my pants. I’m still alive. Still alive, Christ alive. Thankya God, thankya God. Gotta go to church, make a contribution.

 

                                                                          24

    

For Vito the Guido problem was solved. He, Guido, had never again to date, come to the restaurant. Still, Vito was frustrated because the entire episode with the gallery had put an end to the form his paintings had taken. There was no way he could continue to paint such works now, he would only be dismissed as someone imitating or being influenced by the early works of Mimo di Modi.

 

His apartment was empty now of all the di Modi work. He sat at his little table early one morning, doing black ink studies one after another. Simple little studies, yet poetic. He drew, painted, his cigar in it’s ashtray, his pot bellied stove, the shelf above the hot plate with it’s lineup of bottles and cans, an open book on the table, anything and everything ordinary that caught his eye. Vito had the touch no matter what or how he painted or drew. The floor was covered with the pages of discarded sketches, some of which he felt he could work into larger paintings. On the table next to him was a half empty bottle of Wild Turkey, his new drink of choice having given up Tullamore Dew after the di Modi episode. (Tullamore had paid Guido to appear in a full color ad endorsing their product.)

 

Vito hadn’t slept after leaving S.P.Q.R. earlier that morning. He just couldn’t. The worry about his studio work had finally gotten to him, real deep. And so he was up drawing his sketches all night. And so it was a tired sleepy Vito who realized suddenly that there was another presence in the room. He jerked back to alertness. There, in the doorway to the tunnel was a young woman, nineteen, twenty, he would have guessed. Bib overalls, tight white t-shirt underneath. Short black hair that pointed in every direction outward from a pretty head. Short. Real cute. Big black eyes. Dark brown complexion. Sandals. Flashlight in hand held by one of the two yellow cotton gloves she wore. In the other hand was a baseball bat. I know this person, he thought. He tried to remember. Where? Christ. Pam.

 

She: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.‘   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Vito: ‘No. no, it’s alright. My fault. I should have locked the door.  Pam?’

 

She: ‘Vito?’

 

He: ‘Christ.’

 

She: ‘Hey! What a nice surprise.’

 

He: ‘It is, a very nice surprise for me also.’

 

She: ‘I got curious, you know.’

 

Vito: Sit down Pam.’

 

She: ‘Thanks.’

 

Vito: ‘You’re the new basement tenant?’

 

She: ‘Yeah. I get the apartment free for being the janitor for the building. Mimo arranged it. Did something decent for once. Guilty, I guess. Ain’t that somethin’?’

 

Vito: ‘Yeah, that’s something. Who would have believed it? Janitor huh? ! I like that. Janitor. Haven’t heard that used for a long time. So what happened to building superintendent?’

 

She: ‘Why kid myself Vito, I’m a janitor whatever or however you call it.’

 

He: So am I, so am I. So. Mimo arranged it for you?’

 

She: ‘Yeah. Maybe it’s his way of like apologizing. He came up to Hunter and found me. He almost cried ya know about how mean he had been to me. Asked me to forgive him, said he had had too much to drink, wanted to know if there was anything he could do for me. Anything, just name it he said. Well, I said, I am looking for a place to live, a small apartment or something downtown, if you know or hear of something. And he was so happy. He was jumping up and down in the hallway. He said I’ll do it for you, I’ll do it for you. I’ll get you a free one but you gotta superintend the building, but that’s Ok only a few hours a week, nothing to it. So here I am. That was real nice of him. Maybe he’s a nice guy after all.’

 

He: ‘You like his work since it changed?’

 

She: ‘No. I gotta be honest. No.  It looks a little like Basquiet but without the conviction, the anger or the soul. It’s...lacking, flat, toneless. It’s not intellectual, like DuChamp, and it’s not visceral, like DeKooning and it’s not ocular like Elsworth Kelly and it’s not recklessly abandoned like Cy Twombly. Not that that means anything. I mean, he could lack all those things and still be off on some new path, but I don’t think so.’

 

‘You’re pretty smart Pam, what’s your major there, at Hunter?’

 

‘I’m tryin’ a double...Art History and English.’

 

‘So like what do you want to do, when you finish? Grad school maybe? What?’

 

‘I dunno. I thought that I’d like to write or crit art.’

 

‘You ever take any studio courses there?’

 

‘No. Why would I?’

 

‘Just wondering.’

 

A pause in the conversation.

 

Vito: ‘You want some coffee or something?’

 

Pam: ‘I had. Thanks.’

 

Pause

 

‘Think you’re going to like it, down here, in little Italy, I mean?‘                                                                                                 

 

‘Yeah, I like Little Italy and being downtown.‘     

                                                                              

Pause                                         

                                             

‘Think you’ll be able to take care of the building?’

 

‘I guess, I hope.’

 

‘I’ll give you some tips like if you don’t know how to handle something, OK?’

 

‘Thanks Vito. That will help a lot until I know.’

 

‘No problem. No problem. Glad to help.’ Fingers tapping on table top.

 

Pause.

 

‘Just don’t do any plumbing or electric. OK?’

 

‘OK. No plumbing or electric work.’

 

“I mean you can change a fuse, stuff like that, but nothing serious. Like don’t mess with any wiring or anything.’

 

‘I won’t. I’m scared of electric.’

 

‘Good. Good. Be scared. Scared is good especially around electric. See Pam, all you have to do do, all you’re responsible for, is keeping the hallways and sidewalk clean and putting the garbage cans next to the curb three times a week. Don’t let anybody ask for anything beyond that. OK?’

 

“Yeah. Thanks. OK.’

 

‘You OK Pam? I mean can you do it, you know, your expenses and all?’

 

‘Yeah, I can make it. I’m OK Vito.’

 

‘That’s good, that’s good.’

 

Another pause. Vito is looking at Pam. Studying her. Looks at her gloved hands, empty now of baseball bat and her flashlight is lying on the tabletop next to her. Pam is about to get up and leave. The silences are awkward for her.

 

Pam: ‘Well I think that . . . ’

 

Vito: ‘Manina D’Oro.‘     

                                                    

She: ‘What?’

 

Vito: ‘It’s Italian. Means golden hand.’

 

Pam: ‘I don’t get it.’

 

Vito: ‘ Your gloves.’

 

She: ‘Oh’

 

Vito: ‘I like that. Like for a name. You like that name Pam?’

 

She: ‘Manina D’Oro. Yeah. it’s a pretty name. Musical like. Sounds like a song. I like it.’

Long, long pause.

 

Vito: ‘Would you like to be famous Manina?’

 

She: ‘Huh?’

                                                           

 xxx