Catalogue Raisonne by Mike Barnes Read Free Book Online Page B

occupational therapy; and one that would need a lot more carving, and maybe instruction, before players would be able to tell the pieces apart reliably. Availability. It accounted for a lot of what you saw in the art world. Maybe a lot of what you saw anywhere. The Chile Dogs’ playlist – which we called punk and then post-punk – had consisted of short, thrashable tunes with good hooks and no guitar solos. Lots of Ramones. Certain Stones: “Paint It Black”. “Mother’s Little Helper” (minus the sitar part). “Clampdown”, The Clash. Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” (a crowd pleaser, maybe our best). The Sex Pistols. The Kinks. “Summertime Blues”. What we could find. What we could agree on. What we could play . We got called “fearlessly eclectic” in our one review. And prayed no one else would understand that as a synonym for “limited”.
    Sean’s Code 2 was protracted and perhaps difficult, because his lips were barely moving as he crossed the MacMahon Gallery toward me. We exchanged the walkie-talkie without a word and I returned to the lobby.
    There the Gala Preview had entered its final phase, musically and otherwise. Most of the guests had left, including Angela. But the ones that remained, a dozen or so, were dancing wildly to Big Band tunes. Which might have been brought by Piccone, since Artie Shaw was a little out of Ramon’s line, and the Italian had claimed a large space in the centre of the floor. He was dancing exuberantly with two of the society babes, squeezing each of them close around the waist while he kicked his legs out jerkily. The ladies looked a bit excited, a bit appalled. Excited to be appalled maybe, and vice versa. Hans was
fox-trotting with an older volunteer. Most surprisingly, Barbara had her arms up and her hands locked behind Neale’s neck, swaying her hips to the languid beat, while Neale wiggled his a little more tightly, staring down into her hair. I went to where Ramon, who was dancing too, could see me and pointed down at the floor. He took a hand off his partner’s bare back and mimed puffing a joint. After an opening, Walter permitted the attendants to finish the opened wine bottles before clearing up, and Hans didn’t mind Ramon adding something from his stash, though Hans, who’d tried it after some coaxing one night, preferred to “stick to Cavendish.” But I was gallery’d out. I shook my head and Ramon gave me a thumbs-up.
    Robert was too busy manipulating the levers of the lobby cameras, considering the dancing women from various security angles, to detain me in the basement. Without bothering to be sure who I was, he buzzed me out when he heard me jiggle the door handle.

4
    T he earlier rain had passed leaving a tattered sky, big dark clouds scudding like galleons. Mild fuzzy vapours, cutworm smells. Within a month or two, the mild damp would intensify into the sticky burning haze that was our invariable summer. There’d be a couple of scorching days soon, warning of it. But this was the window, our short spring, when the temperature felt just right.
    I cut through the parking lot behind city hall and walked up Park Street, passing the apartment building where Robert lived with his sister. I’d never visited him there; we had a gallery acquaintance only. I’d never met Claudia either, though I knew from my meandering chess talks with Robert that she was in her mid-twenties, a few years older than him, and a painter. A bit of a mixed-up case, too, though Robert never put things that simply. He called her “a talent in exile . . . a refugee from the Toronto arts scene.” Robert being Robert, I couldn’t tell if that was any kind of real appraisal or a grab at reflected glory, borrowing a little self-inflation from a troubled sibling. Across the street, behind a black wrought-iron fence, was an old two-story
limestone building surrounded by a