or something, it’s more like the paint is spilled on gallon after
gallon, heaps and heaps o f it, it’s inches thick or feet thick, it
dries hard and sticky, you walk on it with trepidation thinking
you will sink but it’s firm, it gives a little but it’s firm, it’s dry,
it’s like an artist’s palette like you see in the movies but it’s a
whole real floor o f a room as big as a city block and you walk
on it like yo u ’re outside in the hills walking on real ground
that’s uneven and it’s been wet and you sink in some places or
at least you expect to, the earth’s higher and lower by inches
and you got boots to help you find your footing, your feet sink
in but not really, the ground just gives a little and it ain’t even,
you don’t fall but your footing ain’t sure, but it’s paint, not
earth, paint, it must be a million paint stores all emptied out on.
the floor and then rising from the paint, from the thick, dried,
uneven, shocking paint, there’s canvases and there’s paint on
them, beautiful paint, measured, delicate by contrast, esthetic,
organized into colors and shapes that have to do with each
other, they touch, you see right aw ay that there is meaning in
their touch, there’s something in it, it’s not random, it’s too
fine, almost emotionally austere, your heart sort o f skips a beat
to see how intelligent the paint is, you look up from the chaos
o f the paint on the floor to the delicacy o f the paint on the
canvas and I at least almost want to cry, I just feel such sorrow
for how frail we are. I just had never seen it so clear how art is
about mortality, finding the one thin strain o f significance, a
line o f sorrow, the thread o f a meaning, an idea against death,
an assertion with color or shape as if you could draw a perfect
line to stand against it, you know , so it would break death’s
heart or something. I can see w hy he wanted to walk me
through this because it’s his paintings, precious to his soul.
Y ou w ouldn’t want some stranger rooting around in it; or
even touching it. Y ou have to go through the whole room, the
whole distance o f it, its full length, to get to the stairs that take
you to the top floor where he lives. I keep being afraid I’ll sink
in the paint but I get to the stairs and they’re normal, ju st wood
stairs, even, sanded, finished, with a bannister, and I climb up
after him; it was different N ew Y ear’s Eve, soft and glow ing,
with grand tables and linen and crystal. N o w it’s pretty
empty, big, vast really; there’s a big blow heater hanging from
the ceiling and he turns it on and it blows hot air out at you, it’s
like being in a hot wind, it dries the air out, it’s a m usky,
lukewarm , smelly draft, and he puts it on higher and it’s like
being in a hot wind, warm but unpleasant, an awful August
day with a wind so steady and stale that the air pushes past
you, old air, used already. At one end o f the huge room is a
single wood chair. At the other end is a sort o f kitchen, a sink,
