1 Breakfast at Madeline's (4 page)

5

I sat there gloomily pu
zzling over the clister—or glis
ter—of life, when
suddenly a cheerful voice inter
rupted me. "Writing the Great American Screenplay?" said the voice.

It belonged to Gre
tchen Lang, the one and only ex
ecutive director of the Saratoga Arts Council for the past fifteen years. If all a
rts administrators were as top-
notch as Gretchen, then art galleries would be as crowded as Knicks games, theater would still be alive, and ballet dancers would be so famous they'd get their own shoe commercials.

Sweet as Adirondack maple syrup on the outside but tough as a Mam
et play inside, Gretchen had al
most singlehandedly transformed the Arts Council from a genteel coffee klatch of lady landscape painters to a powerhouse quasi-public nonprofit corporation with a yearly budget of $200,000. Which was huge, by Saratoga standards.
Gretchen's Arts Council was in
volved in financing just about every theater opening, gallery exhibit, or other cultural event in the entire Saratoga County area. If you were a Saratoga Springs artist, you definitely wanted Gretchen Lang on your side.

Gretchen's biggest coup came last year when, after a decade of ardent lobbying, she convinced the mayor and city council that what Saratoga needed to attract
more tourists and keep business away from the malls was a glamorous new Cultural Arts Center right in the heart of downtown, which would be run, of course, by Gretchen herself. The city fathers voted to lease the old library building on Broadway to Gretchen and her Arts Council for the grand sum of
one dollar a year
for the next twenty-five years. Not bad. Especially since the building was in a great location, solidly built, and probably worth close to a million bucks.

The Cultural Arts Center as envisioned by Gretchen would feature a grand, high-ceilinged gallery on the main floor for showcasing Saratoga painters and sculptors to the rich
summer tourists; a plush three-
hundred-seat theater with state-of-the-art lighting and sound equipment; plentiful studio, darkroom, and classroom space; and a host of other goodies. For the past month and a half
,
downtown traffic had been snarled by all the construction and renovation work that was being done to turn Gretchen's glorious vision into reality.

Like a mother duck with her ducklings, Gretchen generally had artists in tow whenever I saw her. Today her flock included Bonnie Engels, the boxer/theater
impresario
, and four other artists who fell into the "struggling" category, like most artists in Saratoga (and everywhere else)
. I knew everyone in today's en
tourage, and except for Bonnie, some of whose shows I had truly enjoyed, I didn't think any of them was particularly talented. But maybe I was just being overly hard on them because they reminded me of myself, of who I used to be. And you certainly had to give them credit for trying. Who knows, maybe one of them would even break through one day.

In any case, I was glad to see them. It gave me a break from contemplating Donald Penn's wasted life. "You guys having a party?" I asked.

"You better believe it." Gretchen smiled, waving to her crew. "This is my
trusty grant panel. We just fin
ished giving out the NYFA grants."

NYFA grants.
Pronounced "knife-a." For starving New York artists, thar's gold in them thar
initials
.

For those of you who have the good sense not to be starving New York artists, let me explain. Every year the state-funded New York Foundation for the Arts distributes grant money to arts councils sprinkled throughout the state, which in turn dole out the money to local artists. The Sar
atoga Arts Council gets twenty-
five grand a year, and has the highly sensitive job of divvying up the d
ough among the eighty or so des
perate local "emerging artists" who apply. The council can only say yes to about twenty of them. The losing applicants then go into deep depressions, take jobs at the post office, or both.

It may not sound like there's a lot of money at stake, but these NYFA grant
s are prestigious and can kick-
start an artist's career.
Putting that NYFA imprimatur of respectability on your resume can help you hustle larger grants, fellowships, and artist-in-residence gigs.
And it's something to tell your parents when they ask you how come you're not going to law school already.

Also, in Saratoga Springs, even one or two thousand dollars goes a long way. You can still rent a perfectly decent apartment for $350 a month up here.

So I could see why Gretchen and her grant panelists would want to celebrate getting their task over with. All of the artists in town know each other, and it must be embarrassing to have to reject applications from people you'll be running into at Madeline's the next morning.

"Congratulations, guys," I greeted them as they headed for a nearby table. "So did you give me any money?"

"You should gi
ve
us
money, you Hollywood sell
out," Antoinette Carlson shot back with a petulant toss of her long dreadlocks, but then softened it with a smile. She was looking flamboyant as always in her dreads and African nationalist earrings.

Antoinette was a video producer/director who, so far as I could tell, ha
d never actually produced or di
rected any videos. However, that minor detail didn't prevent her from receiving an astonishing amount of grant money from all kinds of sources. Once you get onto the grant circuit you can ride that wave for quite a while, and if you're lucky, ease on from there to a cushy teaching job.

As soon as Antoinette sat down, a pale young guy named Steve Something-or-Other scurried over to make sure he got a seat
right beside her. Something-or-
Other absolutely idolized Antoinette, maybe because she had so much exube
rant vitality and he had so lit
tle. She was also a good six inches taller than he was, and they made an odd but sweet pair: the Queen of Sheba and her faithful Caucasian sidekick.

Something-or-Other had been rewriting the same eighty-page novella for the past two years. Having once labored for almo
st that long on a hopelessly un
commercial screenplay about elderly Cambodians in a garment factory, I was tempted to identify with him. But the fact that he had a rather large trust fund made me keep my empathy for Mr. Novella to myself.

Sitting down next to him was a folk musician with a long, droopy, hairy face named Mike Pardou. Pardou's biggest claim to fame was that he played the spoons on a Jim Kweskin Jug Band album thirty-some years ago, back in the fabled 60s.
His other claim to fame was that he once had a torrid affair with Maria Muldaur—or so he said.
Every time he got high, he'd start
singing her hit song "Midnight at the Oasis," and burst into tears.

Behind Mr. Novella and the King of Spoons came Bonnie, who gave me one of her killer hugs before heading over to join th
e others. She seemed to have ac
quired several new muscles on her neck since I saw her this morning. Was I sexist for thinking all those huge muscles of hers were starting to make her look a little weird? "If you want to make
money," she in
formed me, "you better invest in my boxing video now before it's too late. I've got investors lining up."

George Hosey, the last artist in the flock, stroked his white goatee, pointed a finger at me, and declared sternly, "Uncle Sam, and Aunt Bonnie, want
you
."

They all erupted into huge gales of laughter at Hosey's sally, acting
punchy as hell. Hosey was a re
tired chemist from Finch Pruyn who grew a mustache and long white goatee just for kicks, and suddenly everyone started telling him he was the spitting image of Uncle Sam. It's true, he was. So now he went around playing Uncle Sam at parades and conventions.

I saw his act once and hated it. I may not be the fairest critic, because I think patriotism is for the birds and the fascists, but it sure looked to me like the only artistic talent the guy had going for him was his facial hair. Nevertheless, Hosey was making more money doing his inane routine than he ever made as senior vice president of research and development.

I tri
ed to shake these negative thoughts out of my mind and just enjoy the happy mood at the table. Even Mike Pardou, who usually looked about as cheerful as a dead basset hound
, was smiling and beating an up
beat rhythm with a couple of soup spoons.

"So how about you guys?" I kidded them. "Did you give yourselves any grants?"

I have a long-standing knack for putting my foot in
my mouth. I meant it
as lighthearted teasing, but in
stantly everyone at their table stopped laughing and beating their spoons, and fell silent.

Theoretically it's a
great idea, giving local commu
nities the power to decid
e which of their artists to sup
port. But there's a flaw. The gr
ant panelists are often artists
themselves, applying for the same grants they're giving out. When this happens, the interested party is supposed to leave the room while his or her application is discussed, but obviously there's great potential for conflict of interest.

Gretchen broke the uncomfortable silence, declaring stiffly, "Some of them did receive grants, but of course we followed all the proper procedures, and—"

"I know, Gretchen, I was just kidding."

But everyone was still glowering at me. Fortunately Gretchen stepped in again and changed the subject. "Interesting way of working you've got there," she said, pointing at the plethora of notebooks, flattened milk cartons, and toilet paper piled high on the table in front of me.

"Actually, this stuff isn't mine. It's Donald Penn's life work," I said, eager to keep the social ball rolling.

Instead, the social ball screeched to a complete halt. If before I had put my foot in my mouth, this time I'd put my whole leg in. As for
their
mouths, they were all hanging open.

Bonnie was the first to speak. "
Really
," she said, treating me to one of her piercing looks.

"Huh," said Ersatz Uncle Sam, scratching at his mustache.

"How interesting,"
Pardou said, then started play
ing the spoons with
an angry vigor, off on some emo
tional tangent of his own.

"Yeah," drawled Novella Man. He wasn't a great
conversationalist, but small verbal tasks like this he could handle.

"Well, well," Gretchen intoned. I waited for her to say more, but all she said was, once again, "Well, well."

And then they all went back to their coffee and soup-sipping and studiously ignored me.

Somehow, I wasn't sure how, I had ruined their party.

6

I stuffed
Penn’s
notebooks and assorted junk back into my pack and headed out of Madeline's back room, waving good-bye to my fellow artists. I must say, they didn't act like they'd miss me much. Why had they all reacted with such distaste when I showed them
Penn’s
magnum opus? You'd think I was showing them John Wayne Bobbitt videos or photographs of Jesse Helms or something.

Madeline was gone from the front room when I came through, but Rob was still there, working behind the counter with Marcie.

Marcie. Don't get me started. May God have mercy, Marcie was a young woman that I simply could not look at without picturing her naked. It wasn't just the long blond hair and the low-cut dresses—well, okay, maybe it
was
just the long blond hair and the low-cut dresses.

No, there was something else, too. A sly gleam in her eyes that made you suspect she was picturing
you
naked. A smoky scent that snaked across the room and pulled you forward like some primeval mating call. I'm usually very olfactorily challenged, but Marcie sure brought out the nose in me.

She smiled as I came in from the back room. I ducked my head and smiled back vaguely, without looking at her straight
on. I get embarrassed when gor
geous women can see on my face that I'd love to go to bed with them.

I'm happily married with two great children. But still. For six months, ever since that three hundred K gave me both freedom
and a midlife crisis simultane
ously, I'd been wondering if I would suddenly start doing something totally out of character, like going scuba diving, or becoming a born-again Christian, or sleeping around. So fa
r I hadn't. But I knew that, un
chained from the constant demands of eight hours a day at the computer, anything was possible.

And since anything was possible, I carefully avoided Marcie's sparkling eyes as I walked past her. But Rob stopped me. "So how's The Penn's stuff? Any good?"

"It's, uh
...
" I hesitated.

Should I tell the truth? But that would turn the dead man into a laughingstock—and what right did I have to do that? Penn had tr
usted me. "It's... extremely in
teresting," I said.

"No shit?"

"
Absolutely
no shit. I mean,
wow
." I pumped my fist with fake enthusiasm.

Rob laughed and high-fived me, looking every bit as excited as I was pretending to be. "Far fuckin' out! Hurray for my man Penn!" I just stood there smiling nervously, bobbing my head up and down. "So what did the guy write about?" Rob continued.

"Man, what
didn't
he write about? I'll give you the whole scoop after I finish reading."

"Okay, dude, but hurry up. We gotta turn his stuff into an exhibit already, get rid of all this crap," Rob said, waving at the pointillist monstrosities on the walls.

"I think fat people are sexy," Marcie said, turning to
me. She was wearing a thin white muscle shirt that showed her nipples off nicely. "Don't you?"

It was hard to answer her with my tongue hanging out.

"Seriously," Rob broke in, "Madeline gave it the okay. And since we w
ant to hold the memorial on Sun
day, and we'd like to have The Penn's stuff up on the wall by then, we'll even do the work. You know, read it and decide what to put up."

Sure, I could just pict
ure it. A hundred different ver
sions of that frigging preface lining the wall
s
. What a horrible mockery of a man's life.

"I'll think about it," I lied, and got the hell out of there.

But even after I made it outside, Marcie's scent stayed with me—so much so that when Judy Demarest waved to me, I felt guilty. Besides being the editor of the
Daily Saratogian,
Judy is also my wife's best buddy and my children's favorite babysitter. "Hey, Judy, how's it going?" I chirped.

"Big story." Judy always spoke in short clipped phrases, trying to soun
d like a tough, hard-boiled edi
tor. But anyone who knew about her babysitting prowess, as well as her passionate involvement in the Literacy Volunteers of Saratoga—she was their chief fundraiser and chairp
erson of their executive board—
knew that in reality Judy had only been boiled for three minutes, at most. "Guy stole forty-six cans of whipped cream from Price Chopper. Sniffed the gas to get high."

"Well now, that
is
a big story. Definitely page one."

She shrugged. "Best we got so far. Unless you have something better."

I started to give her a return shrug, but then my shoulders froze. I
did
have something better.

A hundred versions of that preface on Madeline's walls would be grot
esque
...
but how about publish
ing just one version in the
Daily Saratogian?

And then,
boom,
it finally hit me.
That's what this is all about. This is why Donald Penn threw me his key!

He knew his heart was attacking him and he sensed he was about to die. So with his last living breath and his last desperate l
urch toward my feet, he was beg
ging me to
please for G
od's sake
get him published. Be
cause like myself and every other poor sucker of a writer who ever picke
d up a pen or sat down at a key
board, he believed that if he was published, he would never really die.

He'd be immortal.

If I could get Judy to go for it, Donald Penn would finally, after thirty long hard years of writing, become what he had always dreamed of: a real honest to God
published writer
. Right there in the same ballpark with Shakespeare and all the rest of the big guys.

No wonder Penn came to me when he was dying. I was undoubtedly his best contact in the publishing world. Hell, his only contact.

His only hope.

Nervously, my breath getting shallow, I asked Judy if she'd like to publish
an excerpt of Penn's work. I of
fered her exclusive first rights, trying to make it sound like I was doing her a big favor.

To my astonishment, she jumped at the chance. "Sure. Let's do it," she agreed.

I was so thrilled and relieved at how easy it had been, I could hardly hear her as she continued on. I was flashing back to the first time I was published (a "Letter to the Editor" for McGovern in my high school paper).

"After all," Judy was saying, "man was a celeb.
They even gave him free coffee at City Hall every morning."

I tried to act casual, afraid that if I jumped up and down with joy Judy might get second thoughts. "Free coffee, huh? I didn't know that."

"Sure, Mayor's orders. Cup of Ethiopian."

Weird. "You have any idea why he was so into Ethiopian?"

"Maybe he owned stock. So when you gonna get me Penn's stuff?"

As soon as I can cut and paste together a couple of pages that don't sound like the man was totally insane.
"As soon as I can. He wrote so much terrific material, I'll have to, you know, pick out the best."

"Just give me the whole shebang. I'm the editor, I'll edit."

First Rob, now Judy. Nice of everyone to be so darn helpful. But no way was I going to let Judy Demarest find out that Penn's enti
re oeuvre consisted of ten tril
lion versions of a one-page preface. Two pages at most. "No, the handwriting's, like, totally illegible."

"Not for me. Why I became an editor. Never yet met handwriting I couldn't handle."

I smiled but held my ground. "Thanks, I'm happy to just do it myself."

"Look, it'll be quicker if I do it. Guy died two days ago, I gotta get this in
the paper by Sunday at the lat
est."

"I'll give it to you before then."

Judy argued for a while longer, but finally shrugged her shoulders and gave up.

"So," she said, "guy was a diamond in the rough, huh?"

I gave a knowing nod.

"You could say that," I answered.