What’s Happening? (18 page)

Rita glanced toward the grill. The colored chef in his high, white, floppy hat, spatula in hand, watched his edible creations simmer. He was fat and jolly, constantly flashing a gold tooth in the center of his mouth. Chef possessed the enviable capacity for enjoying whatever he did, unworried and unconcerned about the revolutions of the universe, or the revolutions of anything in that universe, save, for the moment, the revolutions of meat patties on the grill before him. Rita thought of the millions of workers like Chef who had no ambition, no aim, no goal. Why bother to live? Why bother to work, then rest, then rise to work again, if nothing is accomplished except the sustenance of life, if there is no cognizance of one's personal existence save for the numbness of hunger and tiredness? Ambition springs from thought, and the unambitious, the thoughtless, the plodders merely exist, are not people, and a machine could replace them with less erring efficiency. The plodders only prolong the wait for inevitable death. And when the waters of life close over their grave, they shall be forgotten, and it shall be as if they had never existed. And what shall it have mattered if they never had? Life was a rotten trick, Rita thought. Work and eat and sleep and push plates, and wash them, and go to the movies, and go home and go to work and eat and sleep and nothing and more nothing. It was horrible!

It was horrible, however, only for the plodders with no ideas, no semblance of ambition, who, without their desire were born into a strange world of which they knew nothing, in which they were never afforded a chance to find out anything. Rita felt sorry for them because they were nothing, because they could be no more than nothing. How sad and lonely the plodders must be, those who mope along, waiting, wondering. How they must long for death and, when they wake each morning still alive, feel the dread of another day of life upon them. That's why people feel so badly when they get up in the morning to face troubles; they're disappointed they didn't die.

Beauty alone, Rita thought, in its singular tabernacle within the soul of each man makes the waiting bearable, pleasant, happy. Beauty is the enjoyment of the present. It must come in this moment being lived, however; it can not be in the future. In this moment, there must be the enjoyment of this moment, not the worry about tomorrow. For nothing exists but the present moment blended with past moments by man's intellect.

And yet, Rita thought, all things lose their beauty because they are material, because they do change, must change. The most unchanging beauty is the ultimate beauty, the ultimate happiness. Only God is unchanging. God is true beauty and all beauty is true God, and nothing else matters, and who cares about anything but God all the time?

“Hey, Rita,” a patron called impatiently as he sat at one of the tables toward the front of the shop. “Brew me a cup of tea, will you?”

Rita shook off the wraps of thought and found herself sitting with a cup of cold coffee.

“Right with you,” she called. She stood and walked behind the counter.

A cold gust of air cut across the room as the door opened. The blast of air chilled Rita. She glanced up to see who was entering. Jeannie and Laura smiled toward Rita, then sat at the counter near the front door. Rita brewed tea and walked toward her customer's table. The two Uptown girls, regarding Laura and Jeannie in their Village casualness as curiosities, nudged each other giddily. Rita noticed this, but dismissed it as she made her way to the front.

“Here you go.” She marked the customer's check and turned and sat on the stool next to Laura.

“Where did
you
go last night?” Jeannie inquired, a knowing inflection in her voice.

“I went out,” Rita replied factually. “How come you didn't go to work today?”

“I called up and told them I was a little ill. I was too tired to go in this morning,” Jeannie replied equally matter-of-factly.

“How's that? Stay out late last night?”

“No. Just felt tired this morning.”

“I missed you last night. It was cold alone in that bed,” Laura remarked, chuckling unhumorously.

“I'm sorry I wasn't there to keep it warmer for you. You know how it goes though. How come you're not out on that job you were supposed to start?”

“Oh …” Laura's eyes swept past Rita and focused on the counter. “I didn't think I'd like the place.” She tried to be unconcerned. “I didn't feel like going, that's all.”

“Okay, baby. It's your job. You girls want something to eat?”

“I'll have a burger and a coke,” said Jeannie. “Make sure it's cooked well. I don't want to get sick.”

Rita nodded then looked to Laura.

“I'll have the same thing—medium—and a lemon in the coke.”

“Two burgers! One medium! One well!” Rita called to the cook. “I'll be with you in a second,” Rita said to the girls. She walked to the back to draw the cokes.

“That's absolutely the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Art?” scoffed one customer sitting at the counter to another customer sitting next to him. The first fellow was colored, with a beard. His friend was white. Rita hesitated to listen, wiping the counter in front of them as an excuse to hesitate.

“That whole damn school of abstraction and non-objectivism is boring nonsense,” continued the colored fellow. “Take my painting for instance. I put into it what I see, how I see it. I give it a life of its own, apart from and yet concurrent with reality. That's what art is, the interpretation of life by an artist. And art, I don't care which art we're dealing with, it's merely the interpretation of life by the artist, capturing life.”

“So then, actually, you agree with the abstractionist so long as what he paints and his art is an, or rather, is
his
interpretation of life?”

“
If
his painting is an interpretation of life, yes. Art doesn't necessarily follow exactly and minutely the renderings of nature or life. It has to be a subjective interpretation, and is worth something only if the artist is able to convey his meaning—an inner meaning, the meaning that
he
gets out of life—to the audience. It can be fire, thunder, horror, or gaiety, … but always life.”

“So then there's nothing wrong with the abstractionist and his interpretation of life?” baited the white fellow, upholding his point.

“Certainly not. But, like I said before, his interpretation must be really an interpretation of life. Some of these guys splatter paint on a canvas, and the more indistinguishable a canvas is, the more it's accepted. It's this God damn pseudosophisticated bunch, these phony bastards who walk around with a copy of
The New Yorker
under their arm, just for the sake of carrying
The New Yorker
. They figure this makes them. They're the ones who come to the Village and feel they're not really tourists 'cause they're really with it—they just don't have to prove it by wearing dirty clothes. Anyway, not to get carried away—this phony audience feels it's
the thing
not to understand a painting. So anyone who can paint anything that is utterly un-understandable is great. You see, these creeps don't understand art, so they cover it up by letting people think they follow a new school. It's like everything else. These psuedo-sophist creeps set their own limited standards within their own limited ability or desire—after all,
who can really say what's right and what's wrong
,” the colored artist mimicked viciously. “And when you set your own standards, it's very easy to achieve what you say you want to accomplish. Either that, or like ‘Big Brother' in
1984
you change your standards to fit what you attain. But the standards of nature which you have to interpret in art have been pretty well set for quite some years. Man and the flaura and fauna don't change.”

“But in the new schools of abstraction, those paintings are the author's interpretation of life, and, as such, are art, and are perfectly valid,” the white fellow added earnestly. “Some of these guys put a lot of thought into their work and actually interpret life in their canvas. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not good or not art.”

“That's right. But, wait a minute. If interpretation of life and conveyance of that interpretation is art, then the master artist is the guy who can create such a real, vivid, and universal meaning in his work—such feeling—that it reaches all people, everyone, everywhere, and means the same thing all the time to everyone. No, … wait a minute. Not the same thing all the time to everyone. I mean, that to different generations, the painting still retains a deep inner meaning, even if that meaning is altered by the alterations in life itself. This is mastery of an art form.”

“All right, I guess so. But what the hell does that have to do with what we're talking about?”

“A lot. That stuff they're putting, or throwing, or scratching on canvas, is not necessarily art, nor is it necessarily an interpretation of life. It doesn't even mean anything to anybody now, in the era of its creation.”

“Two burgers ready here,” intoned the cook from the front of the shop. His call interrupted Rita's wrapt attention to the conversation.

“Okay,” Rita called in answer. “Would you fellows hold it for a second while I deliver these burgers?”

“Sure thing,” the white fellow chuckled. “Hurry up.”

Rita drew two cokes from the machine, and rushed to the front of the store. She put the cokes and hamburgers down in front of Jeannie and Laura, looked at the rest of her customers—they were content—then hurried to the back again.

“Go!” she said, resuming her elbows-on-the-counter position.

“Where was I?” the Negro asked.

“You said that the abstract isn't necessarily interpreting life, nor is it even conveying art.”

“Right. Okay. Now, many of these guys, feeling that they want to paint and not wanting to be conventional or anything as bourgeoise as that, you know, really rebelling and all that—perhaps because they can't paint a straight stroke—start throwing crap on a canvas, or a piece of burlap, or whatever. What are they interpreting? They put a piece of red tape and blue cord on white paper, and they call it
Composition 16
. They don't even pretend to give it a name. It's just something, a thing. One thing it's certainly not, is art. But that doesn't matter, 'cause people don't buy it for its feeling, but because it matches their drapes. Bums!” Anger flashed in the artist. “There's my point. Most of the guys I've come across just like to make designs. That's fine, but it's not art. And as nice as some of this stuff may look, it's not art. And don't come and say it's a new school. It may be, but not a new school of art.”

“I wouldn't say that about all of it,” injected Rita.

“Neither would I,” agreed the colored fellow. “I said it wasn't necessarily so. You know, like the song, ‘It ain't necessarily so,'” he sang a little off key. “But it happens all too often. I just like to keep the nonsense on a nice steady, low pitch, you know? And I'll give you another clue. A lot of these non-art artists sell this stuff at good prices, because they have a non-art audience who want to be chic, but don't know what the hell they're doing. You know, like they're scratching each other's back. One paints crap, the other hangs their crap paintings, and they put guys like me down cause I do square, arty stuff, you know, old-fashioned. People don't admire anything that toes the line today. They don't like to toe the line, and they don't want things around that remind them how far off they are. Not like my painting is great, but I'm trying,” he said playfully.

Rita glanced at the two girls from Uptown sitting next to the colored artist. They had been listening to the conversation. They looked at each other, their mouths rippling into mocking smirks, nudging each other, their eyes looking up at the ceiling. They noticed Rita looking at them, and both of them turned their heads to the front as if they were glancing out the front window, their heads shaking with laughter.

The artist noticed Rita's glance and turned and looked at them. He turned back to his friend and Rita with a dismissing, deprecating shrug.

“Anyway … I'm with you,” said Rita. “But what the hell … as long as you enjoy your art.”

“Yeah, but you can't eat unsold paintings. Sometimes you got to give in just to eat,” he said, harshly realistic.

Rita was struck hard by the leaden, compromising remark. She studied his face.

“But don't worry, baby. I'm with you too,” the colored fellow added enthusiastically. “I'm just kidding.”

Rita smiled.

“You've proven your point for today,” the white fellow added, also smiling. “I can't argue with you.”

“Some of these guys are supposed to be great because they started a new school of this or that. So what? Who the hell knows what they've said on their canvas? But they're accepted because some other people say terrific things about something they don't understand either, only they don't want to show their dumbness,” concluded the Negro.

“Hey Rita,” called a customer who had just come in and sat down. “How about a burger?”

“Just a minute. Be right with you.” Rita pushed away from the counter on which she had been leaning. “One burger,” she called to the cook. “How do you want that?”

“Rare.”

He was a heavy man of about fifty years. He dressed the way most most of the people in the Village dress—casual shoes, a sweater, and heavy wool pants. On him, they looked out of place and sloppy. His clothes looked baggy and hanging and were wrinkled and without a crease. Thoughts of the futility of life and about fat people who spend much time eating flashed through Rita's mind. The more time occupied with trivia, the less time there was to think about the life passing by. If one was occupied enough, one could almost forget that life was being wasted.