a high-arched vault, no bats, no vampires. We check measurements and head back out to the map.
It feels wonderful being outside in light, clean air. We calculate that room to be directly under the altar of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, one of the oldest churches in Paris.
I’m covered with cobwebs and dirt, so I take a shower in Lotte’s little stall shower. She’s not making any noises at all about not wanting to share now.
DESIRE WASHES AWAY RELUCTANCE,
REFURBISHES TIRED, SWAYING BONES.
WE ATONE WITH ELECTRIC ATTENTION.
We spend the next day exploring. There are tunnels under the whole Left Bank. They go up to Montparnasse and down to the river. We don’t find any more big rooms like the first one but we do find ways to come up in different cellars all over the quarter.
We invade the cellar of a high-class restaurant and snitch a few bottles of wine. That’s a kind of wet dream, direct access to a wine cellar.
I think of getting a Velosolex, one of those little French bikes with a motor on the front wheel; use it to run around down in those tunnels, my own private Métro. But I don’t. I know I’ll use that tunnel somehow, someday, but now I only want to think about it; let my mind play with the idea of deep tunnels and nests under the city.
Sweik tells me he thinks he’ll stay on at the Isis; leave the place for Lotte. I don’t know whose idea this is but I think it’s Sweik’s. He’s no fool.
EGYPTIAN MUFFLED TUNNELS. NO SKY,
NOTHING OPEN, A CAREFUL PREPARATION
FOR AN UNENDING NOTHINGNESS.
7
Chicken
It’s Saturday and one of those spring days we often get in Paris when there’s a constipated heavy sky trying to rain and thick hemorrhoidal clouds listlessly drifting.
I go down into the Marais, ready to start the first painting of my new series. I figure Sabbath’s the best day, not so much traffic. I don’t figure on old ladies.
I’m setting up my box when the first one comes over to me.
‘A nice boy like you shouldn’t work on the Sabbath,’ says she.
‘Not work, my pleasure,’ says I, smiling. Haven’t been called a boy in about thirty years or more.
‘All the same,’ says she, then hobbles on down the street, shaking her head.
I get the box set up. I’m painting the façade of a broken-down old kosher poultry store. It’s the kind of place where they bleed chickens live, old-style; makes me think of South Street in Philly. There they used to keep all the live pigeons and chickens in wooden cages right out in the windows. No birds in the window here, but the same smell.
This place is a terrific mess: smeared cracked windows, dirty white marble tables inside. There’s chicken shit, blood and guts all over; probably the chickens are out of the window for Sabbath.
I’m doing it straight on. I dig in with the underpainting; mostly dark browns and yellows, with some blue for inside. I’m concentrating and flying; this will be a good one. This whole series is going to be wonderful: interesting people, real places, trapped space, good twisting light.
CUTTING LIGHT DOWN AND STILL STAYING TRANSPARENT:
ANOTHER FACE OF REALITY, FUTILE FANTASY. I DRIFT
ON TRANSITIONS TILL WE TOUCH EARTH
IN DARK STILLNESS.
Another old lady comes up. Skinny hag; hair all whichway. No teeth; bottom lip almost touches her nose. The toes are cut out of her shoes; big bunions bulging out. She pushes me away from the box, good strong push.
‘You got permission to paint my store?’
Face right up to me.
‘No, lady, didn’t know I needed permission. May I paint your store?’
‘No!’
I look down at her, trying to figure if she’s only crazy.
‘I’m going to paint your store anyway, lady. Don’t need permission; street’s a public place. Artist’s got some rights.’
She stomps her bunioned foot.
‘I do not give permission!’
She stares at me wetly. Her eyes have Velásquez lower lids, red, watery. She stomps again and goes away.
I get to work; probably isn’t crazy, we’re just not communicating.
Five minutes later she’s back. She looks at the painting for a while. I smile at her, hoping for a convert.
‘I’ll let you paint my store for twenty francs.’
‘I’m sorry, lady; I’m not going to pay. Artist has rights.’
She watches me for a while. She’s not acting mad or pushing now, just watching.
‘There should be chickens in the window.’
‘Don’t need any chickens.’
‘For ten francs, I’ll put chickens in the window.’
‘Don’t need any chickens.’
I prove this by painting a few quick chicken strokes into the window. She still stands there watching me. I try to keep working. There’s a long pause; then she pushes between me and the painting.
‘Why are you painting my store? Why don’t you go paint Notre Dame or some church for the tourists?’
She’s beginning to bug me. I stare down at her. I can see her scalp through thin gray hair. She’d make a fine painting. When I’m mad or drunk, I speak my best French.
‘Look, lady! I’m a world-famous collector of ugliness. I have a terrible passion for ugly things. I paint pictures of ugly things I can’t buy and move to my castle in Texas. I have a whole museum filled with paintings of the most ugly places in the world. They’re from China, Timbuktu and Cucamonga.’
She’s paying attention now.
‘This chicken-shit place of yours is my greatest discovery. I’ve never, in twenty years’ searching, found anything more ugly than your store. I’m going to paint it and put this painting at the top of my collection!’
Her mouth is open. I can see bumpy, hardened ridge where her bottom teeth used to be. She’s staring at me through the whole speech. One eye is slowly dropping to half-mast, like a dead woman’s wink; her eyes are runny cataractal blue. I smile at her. She looks across the street at her store. It’s probably the first time in thirty years she’s actually looked at it. Practically nobody ever looks at anything.
Her
