Joe Burke's Last Stand Part 44

"Where your wheels?"

"Parker's going to pick me up."

"Have a beer while you wait?"

"Excellent," Patrick said. Hendrik went into the kitchen and reappeared with two bottles of Heineken. He waved Patrick over to a picnic table and opened the bottles with a pocket knife. He was a strong man with a brooding expression and a flattened nose. He looked like someone who might have painted a famous picture of a boxer. "Happy days," Hendrik said.

"Prosit." There are few things better than the first swallow of cold beer after a day's work. "Yes!" Patrick said.

"Looks good," Hendrik repeated. "Have to keep after these old houses."

"You've got a nice one. Is that your studio over there?"

"Yep."

"Could I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"What is art, anyway?" Hendrik raised his eyebrows. He took several long swallows of Heineken. "I've met a lot of artists in this town,"

Patrick went on, "and I realized that I don't understand it."

"Bunch of bulls.h.i.t, mostly."

Patrick waited. Hendrik looked at him and sighed. He took another swallow of Heineken and indicated the valley with one hand. "Everybody wants to be an artist," he said. "Doctors. I saw a clinic the other day--said 'Medical Arts Group' on the building." He burped. "It's like this, Patrick: there's art, capital A--fine art, it's called sometimes--and there's everything else."

"So what is this 'fine art?"'

Hendrik shook his head. He went into the house and came out with two more beers. "Let's start with everything else," he said. "It's easier."

He pried off the bottle caps. "Everything else is commercial art--calendar graphics or posters or paintings of lighthouses, fall foliage, the streets of Paris--that kind of stuff, done in familiar styles. Nothing wrong with it. But it isn't art; it's craft." He drank.

"It's craft because the painters know what they're doing when they start. Some of the paintings seem magical, but it's trick magic. They know how to get the rabbit out of the hat. An artist--capital A--doesn't know what's in the hat or how to get it out."

"Hmm," Patrick said.

"A guy in Vermont came up with that comparison--Robert Francis. It's like this, Patrick: an artist needs to make a picture that expresses how he feels about something or someone or some place. Since every artist is different, good paintings, true paintings, are original."

"True?"

"Yeah, true to the artist's feelings," Hendrik said.

"True," Patrick said, turning the word over in his mind.

"It's not so easy. What the h.e.l.l, I'll show you." Hendrik got up and led Patrick to his studio.

"Look there," he said, pointing at a wall covered with charcoal drawings of a nude Julie Van Slyke, fifteen years younger. "Those are studies I made before I did the painting. You can see how I kept circling around the central idea, this line here." He moved one hand through the air as though he were stroking her hip. "Once I got it right, it was mostly a matter of color. Not a bad painting, as it turned out."

Patrick saw what Hendrik meant through a light haze of embarra.s.sment.

He took a drink from his bottle of Heineken and acted grown up. Mrs.

Van Slyke was leaning forward. She had unexpectedly exotic b.r.e.a.s.t.s that hung and then swelled upwards. "The thing is, it can take a while before you get it. Sometimes you never get it. I've been working on this one all year." Hendrik walked over to a heavy wooden easel. A canvas, half painted, half sketched in pencil, showed a young man sitting by a fireplace and holding a guitar. His chair was sideways to the fire. His body and guitar were turned toward the painter. There was a wine bottle on the floor next to the chair.

"No gla.s.s," Patrick said.

"He's drinking alone."

"Why is he turned? Who is he looking at?"

"Maybe if I knew that, I could paint the G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing."

"Oh," Patrick said. "I like it--so far, anyway. Pretty intense."

"Hendrik, are you there with Patrick?" Mrs. Van Slyke's voice came loudly through an intercom. Hendrik made a face, went over to the door, and pressed a plastic b.u.t.ton.

"Yes, Dear."

"Parker is here for Patrick."

"Be right there," Hendrik said.

They walked side by side to the main house. Patrick felt himself looking at Mrs. Van Slyke differently; he was seeing her partly through Hendrik's eyes, as Hendrik had painted her. She was more female.

"Patrick asked what art is," Hendrik explained.

"Are you clear on that now?" Mrs. Van Slyke asked as she took the empty bottles from their hands. Parker was grinning on the sideline.

"Umm--it's over there," Patrick said, waving at the studio.

"Of course it is," Mrs. Van Slyke said without changing expression.

"What wonderful crews you have, Parker! The place looks marvelous. I hope you will be able to do the studio next year."

"It will be first on on my list," Parker promised. "Come, Patrick, let's get the ladder on the rack."

"Thanks for the Heineken," Patrick said to Hendrik.

"Good job," Hendrik said.

"Goodbye, Patrick. I hope that we see you again." Mrs. Van Slyke smiled and waited for his reaction.

"Bye," he said. They hustled off. On their way down the mountain, he felt the mood lighten. "Whew," he said.

"Nice going, Patrick. A raise is in order--$2.25, retroactive to the beginning of this week."

"No s.h.i.t!"

Parker slapped one knee. "It's over there--ha, ha--art . . . "

"Well it was, is," Patrick said.

"Yes, yes, no doubt."