A Work of Art 9

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Sam

Sam

The gallery opening was a big success, and now Sir Paul the manager (I call him Sir Paul, but I don’t think he’s been knighted) thinks he’ll sell out well before the end of the month.

“I’ll have to find a replacement for the large center piece” he told me on the phone. I said I wouldn’t reprint the same, to preserve its originality. “Oh, no,” he said, “I didn’t mean for you to slap one quickly together. I may rearrange the space so it will not be necessary to fill the void.”

He had called me to give me the news, the good news that he had sold nearly half the pieces of the show, including the Gate, the large one that had been displayed in the center of the room where visitors couldn’t miss it. It had sold to a couple in Marin who wanted it for a very large room where they would install a cabling system to hang it from the ceiling so they could raise it or lower it “as needed.”

It sounded like they were buying a room divider, a Soji screen made of rice paper.

“They were especially fond of the framing,” he said, “you know they both work in high tech, they love that sort of things. They wanted the name of the frame maker.”

“Did you give it to them?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, he had left his card with my assistant. Nice chap.”

“Yes, I like Peter,” I said. “But I don’t know what kind of art they want to frame.”

“They mentioned a Picasso,” he said, “and of course a Chagall. Probably small things.”

What was I supposed to say? I ended our conversation saying someone was at the door, probably the UPS man. I kept telling myself that I should focus on the positive news, rather than the thought that people had bought my art for the frame and as a room divider. The fact that they also owned big names meant that they couldn’t care less about what they saw in it.

That was a consequence of tailoring my art to the taste of buyers rather than what I truly wanted to express. On the one hand, it sold very well, I made enough money to feel independent from my lawyer boyfriend. It was important for Gerald that I would be independent, not captive of his largesse. But the gap between his revenue and mine was very wide, and I couldn’t just do small craft works for little boutiques, you know, peddling sets of Christmas ornaments that I would have to produce in July and August, playing tunes to put me in the mood.

But now the frame had become more important in their eyes. They bought a big Christmas ornament, you know the kind that has space to insert a photo of your kids that you send to Grandma? Would they be tempted to replace my art with, who knows what? An electronic display (they were high tech people, Sir Paul had said)? I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up doing that. I can imagine they would tell their guests how they download pictures into it from the Internet, a bit like having a grand piano that plays by itself so they don’t have to bother hiring a pianist.

So I walked out of the house, thinking I might find a bar to drown my disappointment. But then I courageously talked myself out of drinking, and went to the cafe.

“I like your bracelet,” said the young beauty who serves coffee there on weekdays. So young I was jealous, of course. But I knew he couldn’t afford the bracelet.

“Thank you,” I said, “it’s a Lex Cargo. I got it at his boutique in Miami.”

Obviously he didn’t know what to say about that. Maybe he went to search the web for it. Some day Gerald will replace me with a young one like that. What can I do to prevent that from happening?

 

A Work of Art 8

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Max

Max

Jeremy called me this morning, asking me if I would take care of a blind customer.

“I trust you would be the best for him,” he said, “you always take care of special needs.”

I said I had never done it with a blind man, but that it could be interesting. Plus, I needed the money. I always need that extra income from Jeremy’s little enterprise, officially offering one-on-one San Francisco tours. Let me explain. It’s a gay escort service. Jeremy is a concierge at a big hotel downtown, who found years ago that visitors often need an alternative to trying their luck at various bars in SOMA, the Castro, or Polk Street, depending on their preferred style. At times we, officially tour guides working for his tour service, will be hired to accompany those men through the city, and make ourselves available to return to their hotel room for the night. Some will just ask for “a date” i.e. dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe a night at the opera, the ballet, or the theatre, and then decide if they want the company for the night, or part of it. Jeremy has all sorts of guys working for him, and he has a good eye for matching compatible customers with each of us. We have actually helped guys to come out of the closet. Sometimes they come to San Francisco to explore a side of them they couldn’t explore in their hometown.

Jeremy doesn’t advertise locally. Actually it seems he doesn’t have to advertise at all. The word gets around, and he’s a friendly concierge who will figure out what the customer wants even if it isn’t spelled out for him.

And you want to know the odd thing about Jeremy? He’s straight. He won’t extend his services to help straight people, because, he says, they don’t need it. Fine, I’m not judging.

But why do I do it? It’s mostly about earning enough money to stay in San Francisco, but also I don’t like dating, you know, just like I don’t enjoy figuring out if a shirt I buy will still be lovely a week later. I say to myself, I will know when I see the man of my life. I also get tired of getting asked out just because they find me hot, when they could at least try to see if I’ll flirt back. The question I’d like to ask up front would be, would you love me if I were disfigured? If they hesitate to answer, you know you’ll want to pass on the offer.

At least when they pay, I know they’ll go away (or most often I’ll walk out of their hotel room), hopefully satisfied and grateful for the few hours we had together. They don’t get your personal phone number, and you don’t have to give them your name or any information they could use to trace you back, without first asking Jeremy. That also means I can tell Jeremy who can come back and who should not (he’ll tell them I moved out, for example, or that I’m booked until the epoch).

He suggested I go to a place called The Lighthouse to get trained in how to guide blind people. I said, “really? For one night?” He said it could be useful, and since we really want to please, it would be the least we could do. I got his point, and I called, and they said they had brochures for me, and how nice it was that tour guides would take the time to learn about blind people. I said I would come by to pick up the brochures.

Jeremy said the customer would be here Monday.

 

A Work of Art 7

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Peter

Peter

I ran to see the scene in my living-room as soon as I woke up. It was still there, it hadn’t been a dream. Last night I painted the day’s dream, and left it in the middle of the night, my clothes spread in front of it as if they were a strange offering to a deity. You see that in temples of nearly any religion, people leave food (probably eaten by the priests), flowers, incense, objects of their daily lives. The miraculously healed leave crutches, white canes and wheelchairs. There had been transcendence happening right here in this modest (albeit expensive) apartment in San Francisco.

Only saying that could be taken as pretentious. I repeat: I am not an artist. I had a strong urge to paint the impressions of an encounter with a beautiful young man. I took classes, yes, and I suppose one take classes only in something he wants to do. But unlike Engineering, Medicine, or Law, one cannot acquire the expertise to be called an artist. You become one by showing up with your art, by having it recognize one way or another: selling a piece now and then would probably be a sign that you could let yourself be called an artist. Or if your art causes a person to experience an emotion.

I am, like perhaps 99% of people who put paint to canvas, an amateur. And perhaps this phenomenon that occurred last night was narcissism. Or perhaps I was adoring the idea of yesterday’s encounter and had designated the painting its ultimate representation, its religious icon.

It’s hard to say. Perhaps one can start calling himself an artist when, after the paint hasn’t even dried, he wants to start another one, a better one that will take him to a summit, to what I suppose would be called ecstasy. You experience it without any drug.

The scene before me in my living-room inspired the next painting that I now needed to realize. To do so, I had to (1) go through a day at the shop, at the end of which (2) I should have found a blank canvas to bring here and start again.

I took pictures of the scene, in case it would be disturbed, and perhaps it was going to be if I wanted to use the easel. Or I would leave everything there in order to find the other things, the odors good or bad, the light, the ghost… Yes, there was a ghost, even though I don’t believe in the traditional kind of ghost that comes to haunt you.

I guess I had to disturb the scene anyway to get my shoes and my wallet…

The day went by rather quickly. It was Saturday, when a steady flow of customers come in to pick up their frames, or bring new art that they just got and discuss what they would like me to do with it. Some are very precise and demanding, others trust me to suggest alternatives they had not thought of. And the shoppers will be asking a lot of questions and walk out when I tell them how much I would charge. I actually don’t know where they end up going, because even the chain stores charge for custom work. It may be that they buy something ready-made in Thailand that they think is good enough. In a way it is similar to art: people get what pleases them. It could be that a poster of a master painting with the name printed in big letters procures them great pleasure, greater than original art for which they have buyer’s remorse. I know people who, upon seeing just any work of art on the wall, will say something like “It’s just…” a bunch of paint strokes, or a close-up photo of a tree trunk, or something they could do themselves. And I suppose we fall in the same judgment trap when we look at what others have done. It’s envy, I guess. I had fallen in that trap when I judged Sam’s art, until I looked at it with a magnifying glass.

But I digress. Tonight I will paint the ultimate adoration scene, and nobody will know. It won’t be for sale anyway: this is for myself.

A Work of Art 6

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Peter

Peter

There was no time for cooking, and fortunately I live in the Mission, where taquerias abound. And corner stores with cheap wine. With a burrito and a bottle of wine in hand, I entered my apartment where I would clear space to make it my studio. I guess I am a closet artist: in my closet, I had a canvas, an easel, and paint supplies that I took out into the center of the living-room. Now that it was there, blank, ready to go, I didn’t know how to start. I took a bite of the burrito and opened the bottle of wine. Then I reminded myself to relax, to first clear my mind before I could focus on the subject.

But what was my subject? I was not going to paint him, but the emotion born from our encounter. I guess that would make it abstract painting. Still I was to paint beauty, a subjective comparison between all things seen before and this encounter. A sunset may be more beautiful after witnessing a thousand others, and your surroundings, the clouds, the colors, the temperature, the wind, your mindset, the company and so many other factors can make it uniquely beautiful. I may have seen thousands of faces, bodies, colors of eyes, shapes of noses, colors of skin, shirts, hair, absence of hair, muscles, chins, smiles, facial expressions, gestures, heard as many voices, accents, choice of words, and of course experienced them all in different contexts. I should refrain from justifying my infatuation. I can’t really explain why, that particular night, I had enough in me to express an emotion in paint, lines and gestures, colors and tonalities.

My hands were trembling at the first strokes. Then I mixed richer tones of aquamarine, added strange yellow fish that had come floating in my mind. Slowly it was coming to me, the strange sensation that I was starting to fly, hopping and running towards a cliff where everything would be finally alright.

I certainly didn’t know what the final image would be. Painting can be this strange act of visualizing and experiencing something in your mind, and transmitting it to your hands and your eyes to coordinate and apply a little of this here and a lot of that there, with varying strength.

Then I was back in the room, took a bite of the burrito, and a sip of wine, looking and judging, wanting to return to the mysterious dream state I was in. But then it was different, it had a base, an object to work from, to transform again. And now the two of us were bathing in a sea of paint colors.

It is a bit disconcerting to be saying this now. You will think I’m crazy.

Let’s just say that after a few hours I had all my clothes off and I needed to refrain from physically ruining the painting by embracing it. Yes, these were moments of ecstasy, I believe. I stepped back, watching what it had become. It was time to put the brushes down.

 

A Work of Art 5

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Peter

Peter

The drive from the Marina district to the Castro car share parking space was uneventful at this quiet hour after commuters have reached their destinations. All along I had thought about painting the angelic vision of this young guy Max, and reconsidered multiple times. It wouldn’t be wise to push the work I needed to finish to a later hour so that I would realize this impulse of a painting. Yet, I compromised: I could do one or two sketches, so I wouldn’t forget the impression he’d made.

Perhaps that was very childish of me. I am not really what would be called an artist, but it felt like only the right side of my brain had been functioning. The left side was still asleep I guess, numbed by the urgency of the work I needed to do. And at the end, it only took a few minutes. It was a relaxing experience, a bit like meditation, and my mind was clearer then.

Sam had given me permission, if not license, to be creative on this frame, and he had, fortunately, approved when I showed him how it was going to work. It is ironic at times that the cost of framing material can be superior to the cost of material in the art to be framed. In this case, it was obvious. The glass maker had to drill holes so the two panes could be bolted together and hooked to the hanging cable, recalling the structures found on the Golden Gate Bridge. I had been tempted to decorate it with little figurines falling, and to call it The Gates of Hell, but I doubt Sam would have taken the joke very well.

Before I started putting it together, I lay the sheet on my work table and fetched a magnifying glass. I was intrigued by how the shades of gray could be realized not only with black ink, but also with combinations of the other ink colors that the viewer’s eye would perceive as gray. I saw it was the case, but I also saw interesting patterns, letters in fact, of different shapes and sizes. What could have Sam hidden in this image? I couldn’t make words out of the letters I saw, and suspected that some of the letters had become invisible or imperceptible. Perhaps some would be visible in a different light? I didn’t have different light bulbs to play with. Was there a message hidden in the big picture? Was this art, or trickery? Could Sam be provoking the people who bought his art with a message? That was unlike him. He did not really care who they were, as long as they bought it.

My job was to give the art its best presentation, and be unobtrusive. The glass needed to be perfect and spotless, the sheet inside perfectly aligned. White gloves were in order. And the glass needed to be protected while I worked on it with tools, steel cabling, and bolts. I even worried that gravity could have an effect on it over the years, but who would be alive when that happened? Would they still have printers and papers to produce a new version of it? Or even computers? Suddenly it seemed more ephemeral than oil on canvas. A lot more.

I was halfway done when I was hungry enough to dash out to Castro Street to get a pizza slice (potato, pesto, and garlic is my favorite). At the same time, I would find Amanda to arrange for transport. Otherwise, I would need to rent a van. I wished Sam had arranged for it as he had said he would.

“Amanda isn’t working today, she’s in Colorado,” said the young woman at the pizza place.

“Who does your deliveries today?” I asked, hopeful it would be someone with a van.

“Rick. That guy,” she said, pointing at a guy covered with black hair. He wore mirror sunglasses so you couldn’t tell what he looked at.

“Nah, only have the motorcycle,” he said when I asked if he had a van.

“Amanda usually does deliveries for me with her van,” I said. “I thought perhaps you’d have one.”

He didn’t answer anything, and diverted his attention to the guy putting pizza in the oven. I took my slice to the side counter and started eating it.

“You could try the balloon lady,” Rick said to the whole room. I guess he had been thinking about my question.

“The balloon lady?”

“Yeah, she has a van. It’s got helium tanks in it, but she can take them off.”

“OK,” I said, thinking perhaps I ought to look for other options rather than going with the random advice of a bushy guy behind mirror glasses.

“Her number,” he said, “it’s easy to remember: 581-LOON”

“581-LOON,” I repeated, “thanks.”

For some reason, I wanted to explore other options before dialing that number. I walked back to the shop and called the gallery.

“Of course, I can send you the lorry,” said the gallery manager, Mr. Paul Lewis, who sounded like royalty.

“It fits in a regular van,” I said.

“Of course,” he said. I gave him the address and the time, and I wondered why Sam hadn’t simply done that.

The artwork was ready to go, framed, cabled, and wrapped well before the 3:30 time I had given him. It was a small truck, the size of a van, and the driver, whose name was Roger, was nice enough to give me a ride. He also gave me his card, “for all sorts of deliveries.”

“Sure, that could be handy. All I could find today was the Balloon Lady,” I said.

“Only in San Francisco,” he said.

“No balloon ladies where you live?” I asked.

“All sorts of ladies, but none like that,” he said. He scored 0 on my gaydar.

“Do you do lots of deliveries for the gallery?”

“Maybe once a week or so,” he said. “Big art pieces, and their guy comes along to install it.”

“Is that Paul Lewis?”

“No, Lewis is the manager, he wouldn’t do manual labor in his three-piece suit. Nice guy, though.”

After he mentioned the three-piece suit, I realized I would not be dressed appropriately for an opening reception. Then I thought it could be a very good excuse to go home and start working on the painting.

At the gallery I met Paul Lewis in his three-piece suit and a white rose in his lapel. He delegated his assistant and disappeared. I had to hang this – now heavy – art practically in the middle of the room. There was a hook and pulley that seemed in good enough condition to do it. We would anchor it with sand bags so it wouldn’t fly and knock people off as soon as the door opened.

When Sam arrived, everything was ready. I told him I couldn’t stay because of how I looked.

“Oh, Honey,” he said, “you just look… Bohemian! People will think you are the artist.”

I knew he didn’t really care, unless of course nobody else showed up. You never knew, there could be a Baseball or Football game (I wasn’t sure which was playing now), or what else people usually found as a last minute alternative. But I really wanted to go home and start painting. I gathered my things and slipped out, ran to Van Ness where I’d find a bus home.

 

A Work of Art 4

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Gerald

Gerald

This is so frustrating. Because Sam worked all night on his project, his big deal of the ultimate art work, I woke up feeling, well, out of my comfort zone, without coffee, without someone to exchange dreams and fantasies. It’s as if I got up already in my office, where everybody has to guard his territory. I shouldn’t be so jealous, after all it was only Peter who had come to the house, made a house call, unlike the previous framing guy who wanted us to deliver to him. I just don’t like to have such presence in the house while I go through the morning routine. It makes me nervous, gives me the feeling I’m missing something… An intrigue, maybe?

“Good morning, what can I get you?” the cute boy at the cafe asked.

“Triple espresso, to go.” I said. “Actually, make it for here,” I corrected myself, thinking it would be better out of ceramic than plastic.

“Rough night?” he asked.

“No, just a different kind of morning,” I said. I refrained from pulling out my iPhone, enjoying the eye candy for what it’s worth.

“I hear you,” he said. “But there’s something good about doing things differently, you know” he added.

“Like getting up on a different side of the bed,” I said.

“Yeah, or waking up with someone different in your bed. Oopse, that’s not very PC, is it?”

“You like variety?” I said, dropping quarters in the tip jar. Heck, I added the dollar bill too.

“Thank you,” he said. “Are you on your way to work?”

We had time. Nobody behind me calling for his attention.

“Yeah, but I’m parked in the 7 minute spot,” I said, pointing at my car. Our car. I bought it for our anniversary.

“That’s a nice little red car,” he said. Obviously he didn’t know what it was. But I’m sure he would enjoy the ride.

“1965 MG,” I said.

“Wow, that’s like, historic. I don’t have a car, but if I had a car, I’d like something like that.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a ride some day,” I said, finishing my coffee. “Good coffee. See you.”

Saying that excited me a bit, and combined with the strong coffee, I was ready to go through a tough day of arguments and agreements, of getting the best for my clients out of nasty situations. Back on the driver’s seat I considered the empty seat next to me, and thought “yeah, I could have him there some day.”

“No, forget about it,” I told myself out loud, driving with the top off, the heater at its hottest, the engine rumbling. It would be… very complicated, to say the least. San Francisco is a small town, and this guy worked here, a couple of blocks from where we lived, Sam and I even walked there at times. No, keep that off your mind, I told myself. “God!” I said out loud, hitting the steering wheel. Can’t get everything, but I reminded myself that I should be satisfied with that moment, and that I could play with the image, I could keep his image and imagine him whenever I needed to. That’s called fantasy. Highly recommended if you want to keep a long-term relationship going. And appreciate the moment of the actual interaction we just had.

There’s something about having your own parking spot in this big multi-level garage. You don’t have to look for a space, you know it will be there, and you can drive right into it. But there was Jack, getting out of his Lexus, coming from his Marin home I supposed, and waiting for me to park.

“Hey, Jerry, drove the little toy car today?”

“Yeah, it’s like having a dog, you need to take it out,” I said.

“It could fit inside mine, I think, ha ha ha,” he said.

“I suppose it would,” I went on.

“How’s the Laughton case?” he asked in the elevator.

“Progressing rapidly,” I said, “the judge should sign off today on the settlement.”

“Good job,” he said, tapping me on the shoulder when I got off.

“Thank you,” I said, watching the door close with him inside. Always defer to royalty. He was getting a cut on this settlement just for having his name on the partner list. This case was moving my name up on the waiting list to be on the list right below his list, and that meant more power, more money, more of everything. I no longer thought of cute boys in cafes. I was in my world, and what a view I had from my window. Yeah.

 

A Work of Art 3

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Sam

Sam

Peter just left and I think I’m going to sleep the rest of today… Such a nice guy, Peter. We met years ago here in fact, in this very house, at a fundraiser event we hosted, something about AIDS. Nothing like fundraisers for the Ballet or the Symphony, just a self-catered affair, and casual. He had his partner then, not very good looking and one of the poster boys for the cause, of course. The partner, Bill, was the owner of the framing shop. Peter was taking care of him, and he came to the kitchen where I was having a drink and supervising the guys who came in with store bought food that needed a little improvement in presentation.

“I just need a glass of water,” he said.

So I got him a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with water from the fridge.

“It’s filtered,” I said, “tap water is so vile.”

“It’s not so bad,” he said, “Hetch Hetchy water is one of the cleanest in the nation.”

“Hetch Hetchy? Is that a name for a drag queen? Did you want ice?”

So we introduced each other, and he said he had noticed the original art on the walls, and how his partner was in the business, and how he might take over from him.

“Don’t you want a drink? To cheer you up?” I said.

I guess he silently took the moral high ground, then said something about having had to remove all the bottles from Bill’s place, so I said I was sorry and I felt insensitive. He went back to Bill, but later as I browsed through the silent auction items, there was a gift certificate for his framing services, and I bid on it an exaggerated price that nobody in the room would beat. I used another guy that I trusted for framing back then, so this could have been a one-shot deal, you know, “for the cause.”

Long story short, he became my framing guy, he understood and appreciated my art, his prices were competitive, and he always delivered on time. We became friends, you know, like two couples can become friends, but let’s say that Bill and Gerald didn’t get along as much as Peter and I did. Well, Gerald is a lawyer, more like a shark lawyer than a defender of widows and children, but he does pro bono work with the ACLU for example, and Bill, well, was bitter. And I guess we could understand that, when you have an illness for which there is no cure and nobody really cares to find one, you can be angry at the world.

I guess Gerald was upset that I worked all night on this piece, but sometimes he doesn’t understand what it means to come out with your magnum opus, the pièce de résistance, the center piece of your Thanksgiving table… Why am I thinking about Thanksgiving? We’re always happy to skip it and fly away. Last year it was New Zealand, this year it will be South Africa.

Anyway, his side of the bed is cold now. I could feel he would have wanted me to join him even for an hour before he got up. I have to worry about things like that, because he’s going to bring it up some day, like fodder for a fight. That’s how relationships are, they have their own biorhythms and what not, but that’s probably why we’re together. We’re harmonious, and that means there will be crescendos and clashes followed by “sheep may safely graze.”

I’ll sleep a few hours and then worry about what it was that I needed to do for tonight’s opening. The gallery, and Peter, will take care of making it a success.

A Work of Art 2

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Max

Max

We’re about to set a record this morning: two guys in a row came flirting with me. I’m expecting a third one any time now. The first one was a regular, the lawyer guy with the old sports car. He seemed to be in a particular good mood, and left heavy coins in the tip jar. The second, on the other hand, was like counting his money to make sure he had enough, but he gave me his business card as if he wanted to start something, I don’t know. That would have been normally creepy, but it seemed like it was his first time, which is strange because he works in the Castro, at a framing shop. Actually, he owns the shop, because his card says “proprietor.” I’ll keep it, you never know. Plus, he seemed like a nice guy. He was just passing by, he said, coming back from picking up a big art piece for a gallery opening. I guess if he really had a crush on me he would have invited me. I’m not sure I would accept anyway, I like my semi-anonymous situation right now. What is it, fear of commitment? I don’t have the money to spend on some therapist to figure that out, and what would it give me? Some boy friend who, like all these guys when they get older, would forget our history and run for the wild young ones. I wonder if this one, Peter, the framer, has a boyfriend, or even a husband, and that would explain why he seemed so… out of practice. Didn’t wear a ring, but that doesn’t mean anything. I can’t stand rings, or piercings, they make you feel like a branded animal.

Okay, so now it’s quiet hour, before the strollers and the pregnant women come for their double decaf non fat lattes, time to do some cleaning and stuff. The others, the regulars who come for the wi-fi, the boss says are essential to make the shop more inviting, looking busy. I just think, sometimes, my butt would be sore sitting like that all day long, and my face would be, like, radioactive from staring at the screen.

The lawyer guy reminds me of some of my evening clients, the ones Jeremy sets me up with sometimes. They usually come from out of town, many staying at the hotel where Jeremy works. He’s the Concierge, and that’s a cool job in a sense, getting people what they want in a city they don’t know. Nobody scheduled for tonight, which is kind of normal because on Friday the business people leave, and new ones arrive Sunday night or Monday, eager for an evening of relaxation. I don’t know what I’ll do tonight, though. Maybe do laundry, and watch TV… With Paul, my controlling roommate. That’s a mean thing to say, but it’s true. He wants everything so orderly you would think he’d be bored with life. The most exciting thing he does is watching porn, and it’s not even good, in my opinion.

The stroller brigade is starting to arrive. Go to go.

 

A Work of Art 1

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Peter

Peter

“A work of art,” I said, looking at the giant computer-generated suggestion of a gray Golden Gate Bridge. More like 65,536 shades of gray, I thought, but as I always should when looking at art, I didn’t say. Who am I to judge, anyway? I frame art, whatever it is that customers call art, which is sometimes a challenge. This one, by my friend Sam, was a challenge for its size, and the fact it had to be ready and hung for opening at the gallery tonight.

“Oh, I need to sign it,” said Sam, going back to his desk to fetch a purple pen.

“Wait,” I said when I saw where he wanted to sign it. I placed a pad of paper underneath. “That should help.”

Gerald came rushing down in his lawyer’s suit, carrying a leather briefcase, and I could see a spike in the line of Sam’s signature.

“Is it ready to go?” he asked. “Hi, Peter.”

“Hi Gerald,” I said, feigning indifference. He was the kind of person for whom people made space when he entered a room, like royalty, but here the art and the task at hand was king.

“Yes, it is ready,” said Sam, moving to greet his lover. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s fantastic,” said Gerald. “The star of the show!”

“It will hang so that it floats in the middle of the room,” I said.

“It’s two-sided, you know. Oh, you know this, I’ve shown you the project,” said Sam.

“Yes, of course,” said Gerald, who, in my opinion, would never admit he had not been paying attention. “So,” he turned to me, “the framing makes it two-sided?”

“Yes,” I said, “the back is printed as the mirror image, and with the right lighting and opacity of the paper, the reflection-free glass, it will give it a tri-dimensional aspect.”

“Almost like a hologram,” added Sam.

“Fantastic,” said Gerald, who usually had more vocabulary in his head to avoid repeating the same word twice in the same context. But it was morning, and he was not trying to impress us. “I gotta go,” he said, giving Sam a peck of a kiss, and giving me a tap on the shoulder in lieu of a hug.

After we heard the rumble of his little MG getting out of the garage, I started wrapping the artwork in tissue paper in order to roll it. Then I fit it inside a big plastic tube.

“Were you able to get them to send a truck?” I asked, meaning he had said he’d take care of that with the gallery people.

“Oh, I forgot!” he said. “Can you get your Mexican friend? Although I don’t know, this may be too delicate.”

“Angel is back in El Salvador,” I said. “Remember? He had to go back to take care of his mom, we raised some funds to buy him a truck there?” Sam and Gerald had not contributed.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “Sorry, I worked on this all night, I can’t think.”

“That’s OK,” I said, “I’ll ask Amanda.”

“Who’s that?” Sam said.

“The woman truck driver in the Castro,” I said, knowing it didn’t matter to Sam.

“I’m going back to bed,” said Sam. “Can you carry it to your car?”

“Of course,” I said, hoisting it on my shoulder. It wasn’t heavy, but it helped to have someone open the door for me. “I should be at the gallery around 4.”

“Okay, honey, thank you so much.”

“My car” was not really my car, it was a Car Share that I had selected for the rear folding seat so the tube would fit inside like a pair of skis. Once inside, I figured I had time to stop at a cafe to sample the local roast. We were in the Marina, after all, on the other side of the hill, almost a foreign country. But I wondered, looking at the grayness of Sam’s street under the morning’s gray clouds, how this was an upscale neighborhood. You were, of course, at walking distance from the bay, although I never saw people walking on this street (except for the occasional hired dog walker), and your neighbors might be some foreign diplomat or the son of a retail magnate. I still felt it was gray, like Sam’s work.

The cafe, on the other hand, looked like it had hosted the Bohemians in a bygone era, now replaced by well-dressed people with notebook computers and iPhones. I approached the counter, looking at the price of coffee on the board, and searching my pockets for the matching amount.

“Hi!” said the young man behind the counter. Only a beautiful young man, I told myself as if I were meditating and sweeping passing thoughts aside.

“Good morning,” I said. Was I to say anything else? Like “can I have your phone number?”

“What can I get for you?” he said, still smiling, perhaps amused by my apparent paralysis. There was perfection in his features, and I suppose that was how Leonardo da Vinci had come to paint the Mona Lisa.

“Small coffee,” I said, “to go.”

“Would you like a dark or light roast?” he said. “Maybe you want the light roast, it has more caffeine in it.”

“That would be good,” I said. I must have looked like I was sleepwalking.

“Rough night?” he asked, seeing how I was fumbling with a crumpled dollar bill and small change as if I had begged for it on the street.

“No,” I said, “rough day ahead. I just picked up a big thing to frame for a show tonight.” I realized I had said “thing” as if it couldn’t be “art” or “a painting.” How was I to call it? A computer print-out?

“Oh cool,” he said, taking my money, perhaps thinking he should wash his hands and dip the money into a special sanitizer jar. They must have that now, a money drawer with a UV-ray in it to kill bacteria. “What’s the thing you need to frame?”

“It’s like a big sheet, 8 feet tall, 4 feet wide, a two-sided computer-generated image…” I didn’t want to say it was just a gray image of the Golden Gate Bridge.

“And it’s going to a show, you said?”

I couldn’t believe he was interested in what I was saying.

“At a gallery, over by Ghirardelli Square, yeah.” That might have evoked images of expensive art for tourists.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “Well, good luck with it, let me know how you liked the coffee.”

Another customer had arrived behind me, and probably wanted to push me away. The 7 minutes on the green curb parking space were probably over. So I pulled one of my business cards out and dropped it on the counter. “Here’s my card,” I said, “in case you need it.” In case you need it? I thought, what kind of reason is that to give him my business card?

“Nice,” he said, looking at the card. “Peter? I’m Max.”

We actually took the time to shake hands, despite the plow-like pressure from behind me. I left awkwardly, spilling some coffee even though it was covered with a plastic lid. I took a deep breath once I was back in the car. I was going to paint him.