From Chapter 3 The Shack by the Sea
The sea was all aglitter now, surfers floating about like bowling pins near the break. It was a shame about George’s career, though Perrin had never asked him how he felt about it. He would either have feigned indifference or really been indifferent, and it would have been hard to tell the two apart. From her own experience in art school, she guessed that her father simply preferred the company of artists and his young wife, to working. It was easier to tune into the muses in the shack by the sea, smoke pot and talk about art, than to create it. Before Perrin was born it was Iris who finally convinced him to cut out the hard booze and drink only wine, because he got too wild. It was as if they and their contemporaries were attuned to failure. (Drawbacks were constant, and namely the fault of the “bastards” in commerce, who understood nothing.) Their group were supportive of each other, and kind in their criticism of each other—it was agreed that everyone was doing good work. But by the time the seventies drew to a close, they were in a state of gentle decline, attuned to their own ruin, almost relishing it, the wind off the sea whistling on the roof of the shack, and rattling its windows. They had a sense of themselves as authentic, and perhaps they really were. George was at his best then, erudite and earthy, and Iris was funny and counter cultural, even if the culture at that moment had still, by a hair, been favorable to them.
From Chapter 6 Reality Television
Kit felt time expanding, each second big as the sea. Up close like this Glasgow had an exaggerated quality of futility; he was a sad sack. Kit smiled over clenched teeth while tears stung his eyes. Meredith, Mayla Khalife and no one knew how many more had died from his drugs trafficking racket. Most of them kids—dying under bridges, dying in foyers of apartment buildings, dying in cars, in alleyways, dying in their bedrooms while parents slept nearby. Glasgow seemed harmless, and people can seem harmless; sometimes the more harmless they seem the worse they are. The danger in them is that it is all the same to them.
Glasgow was playing the role of host, showing them the bar, telling them about the stack of beach towels in the corner of the deck. “Take a swim, it’s beautiful! We’re here all day!” No one reacted. Kit’s leg started to pulse. The pain always had a precursor, a series of beats before the full-on ache began.
He stalled, whispering to Gia, “So sorry, still haven’t got your name.”
“Gia,” she said impatiently.
He met Jack Triplett, whose show at the Whitney he had gone to see. In it, there was an enormous red and gold dog, as tall as a two-story house. He also remembered some sculpted flowers in vases made of eternal looking materials that he had liked.
“Saw your show, loved the dog,” Kit said, which was true, though the rest of it went right by him. He sipped at the Scotch, which helped turn the ringing in his ear down a notch again. Perrin beautiful girl was with Triplett. Kit shook her hand, an absurd way to greet one so lovely. He met an older gentleman in an expensive but old blue linen suit, whom Perrin introduced as her father, George. Glasgow was besotted with Perrin, his puppy-ish stare fixed on her face. She had a wedding ring on, though Triplett did not. Kit immediately noticed Triplett’s possessive grip on her elbow. Something was amiss there.
“Amazing place,” he said to Glasgow. It was amazing, for its lack of taste and its energetic efforts to be something it could never be. It was a spanking new movie set inspired by the Garrick, that had somehow ended up in the dunes of New York. He half expected Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh to come trotting down the stairs. Only they’d be made of cardboard, like movie standees. “Where’s the artwork?” He asked with as much jocularity as he could manage.
“Well, my designer did this crazy wood paneling,” said Glasgow. “So—no place to put it!”
Kit noticed Glasgow’s fingers clenched white around his highball glass. He didn’t enjoy big parties, so why was he having one.
“What you have here—is a virtual collection,” said George, tugging at his drink.
Glasgow looked confused.
“Well,” said George, “you are known as a collector, yet there’s no art. Your guests have come to see you, and also, if we are being completely honest, they’ve come to see it. Having none on the walls is kind of a statement. I think it’s terrific.”
“What’s your name again?” asked Glasgow.
“George Clayton,” said George.
“What an honor it is to meet you Mr. Clayton,” said Gia, holding out her hand. “I love your work.”
“Thank you,” said George.
“Careful, don’t encourage him,” said Perrin.
“But he has just said a wonderful thing,” said Gia.
Still addressing Glasgow, George said, “Do you know when I had a big opening I was supposed to attend, I’d go in disguise, and eavesdrop. It was all valid to me. Even if they hated it, I ate it up every word. Jack would understand that—art is as much an exchange of ideas as an exchange of objects.”
Gia tipped her head back laughed with delight.
The Scotch was kicking in like tumblers in a lock. Kit jumped in chummily, “Mr. Glasgow, do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”
“Ha-ha, ha ha ha...” Glasgow blubbered, unwilling to commit to any level of understanding.
George continued, “Artists are always looking for an unquantifiable essence—a scene, a form, a person. Can be anywhere, but just people and their daily concerns just get in the way of that, don’t you find? Great doctors have no empathy; some very good artists make shitty parents.” George looked sheepishly at Perrin.
Everyone laughed except for Glasgow.
Jack interjected, “I’m going to be a great Dad.”
George’s stare briefly lit upon Jack, signaling this idea as absurd. No love lost between these two, thought Kit.
“What I need is a wife to look after these things,” Glasgow said, his eyes cutting to Perrin.
“She’s married sport—so where do you keep it all?” Kit continued lightly, trying to diffuse the bombs that kept threatening this conversation.
Glasgow narrowed his eyes as if the question was audacious. “A little here, a little there, mostly in Europe. I don’t really have much…”
Bullshit. Through the Dutch bureau he knew that Glasgow was setting up a private museum in Brazil, funded with suffering and death. Through the crisping effect of the second Scotch, a portrait of Glasgow came together. He was personally fastidious, but sloppy in his business dealings. He was the black sheep of the family, the one who would never really succeed. He had kept supply flowing by cutting his product too heavily, and even drug syndicates didn’t like that. He was looking for a mate, that’s why he had thrown this party. But he lacked intuition. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered with this crowd. None of these women would go for him.
“What I can’t believe is these damn birds,” said Glasgow, looking around as if he had just gotten there the night before. Which he might have, thought Kit. He didn’t really look at home.
Gia stepped up, “You mean the piping plover?”
“Yes, those things. I spend fourteen million on a house, and half the dune is fenced, and half the beach is fenced by the EPA. I can’t even use my own land.”
“Uhh—s’not yours, no matter what you paid for the house,” said Gia.
“Yes it’s mine.”
“All of the beaches are owned by the government. They cannot be privately owned.”
Glasgow threw back his head and laughed. “I’ll tell you what Miss Red Hairs, I’d like to get my BB gun for those birds one morning.”
Kit drained his drink—and a blowhard. Not wise.
“But don’t tell anyone I said that,” added Glasgow. “You aren’t with the press are you?”
“No,” said Gia, “but I walk by the nesting sites almost every morning. And now I know that you’ve threatened some poor struggling birds. I’d tell anyone that.”
Kit hoped that this girl would know when to stop.
“Hey what about me? I’m trying to find a wife. I had a modeling agency come to do a shoot last week, and the best light was right where the nests were. I would have taken the fence out, but the girls were worried about it.”
“At least they had some sense,” said George, visibly back pedaling his own disgust.
Kit quickly threw in, “Are you here all summer?”
Glasgow ignored him, “Hey, you know some of the people around here feel the same. I saw on one guy’s car, piping plover tastes like chicken! It was a local guy! Tastes like chicken… Hah ha ha..”
A few embarrassed twitters signaled he is the host. Not Perrin or her father. Gia stood her ground, glaring. George handed Glasgow a napkin with what looked to be his number penned on it, and moved on. Jack was expressionless, Perrin was stony-faced. Beyond the tan slope of her shoulder, Kit caught glimpses of the sea. Such splendor in the vicinity of this troll was sickening.