Chock-Full-Of-Nuts could be either the First Circle of Hell or the Seventh Heaven depending upon your personal atomic clock. For Artie Hoffman it was home turf. He could relax and expand there. A gum-chewing chickadee cleared away his mess and poured him a fresh cup of that most excellent coffee. A Spartan breakfast of one egg over easy atop whole wheat toast would fuel him for most of the day.
Eyeing his sheaf of job applications, the waitress chummied up a bit. "Good luck wid doze, Soljah."
Hair shorn in the fashion of a Zen monk and his beard shaven so close his chin shone like porcelain, he could very well be mistaken for a GI. "Thanks. I'm looking to get on with the Whitney."
"Should be a snap fah you, Handsome."
He watched her go. Her behind had rhumba to it.
A Goya showing was scheduled for the Whitney. So with his resume he had included an early college paper on "Saturn Devours Children." In it he called to mind seeing a homeless man gobbling a bean burrito scrounged from a dumpster late one night. Under the glare of a streetlamp the man's flesh shared hue and color of a freshly slopped pig sty.
*
It was one of those pricy lithographs often purchased by a scholar living on a small pension in the East Village. Something to be gazed at in quiet awe, it possessed a cruel frisson. Colliding flesh tones. Almost homoerotic, Artie thought. It showed an elderly man, robust and solidly built, stripped to his loins, being nailed to a cross.
A mute frame of acacia wood enhanced the lithograph and its brute force. Just imagine seeing the original, Artie thought. Buying this article was out of the question. His funds for discretionary spending were depleted. Viewing it was one of the several things that uplifted him during his lunch hour.
"Enjoy it while you can, young man," the shopkeeper advised. "A buyer came in yesterday and put down a retainer."
"Some musty old curmudgeon on fixed income from NYU, I bet."
"Wrong. An investment banker," the shopkeeper clucked.
"Oh."
Artie knew he would miss seeing it tremendously. "The Crucifixion of Saint Peter" by Michelangelo Buonarrori.
*
Ten minutes remained of his lunch hour.
"I've got to run."
"Wait. Here she comes." The shopkeeper was wearing a green cellophane visor.
"Who?"
"This French dame. Gorgeous. Kind of sullen, no, pouty."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, walked in and asked me how much for the Feininger print I just wrapped."
"Halle Cathedral."
"Paid me in Traveler's Cheques."
Artie gasped. She could have walked off a movie set.
Tall with slender legs in clingy denim jeans, faded to salty azure. White longsleeved business shirt with a high crisp collar. Black jodhpur boots. Auburn hair woven into a thick braid. Long narrow nose, the kind Artie associated with Verscingetorix, chisled between wide-set gray eyes. High cheeks, and flawless skin in radient blush, possibly from recent sex.
She passed by him, giving him the briefest of nods.
"Good day," she said to Green Shade. "Regrettably I must ask a large favor of you."
"Hold it. I've seen this a million times. You don't want the item but you want your money back. Now whadda you take me for, Lady?"
"Oh, you are mistaken. Allow me to explain."
Green Shade gestured. "Go ahead. I won't interrupt."
Artie pretended to examine several things in the store while closely listening to her dulcet voice. He learned that her name was Solange and that her friend in New York was Kit Pico.
She had purchased "Halle Cathedral" as a surprise gift.
Kit Pico already possessed such a lithograph. Had had it since college.
"Well, Lady," Green Shade grinned. "You're in luck. I can swap you with a Feininger's 'Gaborndorf 2.' How's that?"
"Oh, merci, Monsieur!" she gushed. The jiggle within her two-button decolletage did not go unnoticed.
Artie's lunch hour expired.
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