Letter

I’ve lived in Bridgeport over two years now. It’s about the fifth neighborhood I’ve tried since coming to Chicago twenty-seven years ago, but probably the first one I truly feel a part of. At least as much as I’m able to feel a part of anything. A big part of this novel community feeling comes from working at Bernice’s, which has been here for over fifty years. Being connected to that place makes me feel connected to the streets which surround it. This is the first place I’ve lived where I’m recognized on the street almost every day. It’s a small thing but it makes me feel like I belong here, which is a rare feeling.

I started hearing about the Bridgeport All-Stars art show a month or two back. John told me to expect a call from Mike, the guy organizing the exhibit. Weeks passed with no call. Then postcards and flyers started appering at the coffee shop and other places around the neighborhood. Steve’s name was on them, so was John’s, but not mine. I felt a little left out but didn’t think too much more about it.

A few days before the show was to open, Steve told me he wanted to take a couple of my paintings along and insist they include me. I agreed, though not without misgivings. The art world, like every other world, functions almost solely on personal connections. Talent and merit have very little to do with success or whether one is included. Still, it didn’t seem right to be smuggled in at the last second and I have too much ego not to feel slighted for not being asked.

My last dealing with Ed Marzewski’s Co-Prosperity Sphere (where the Bridgeport All-Stars show was to be hung) was a couple years ago, when I made the artwork for Lumpen Magazine’s Field Guide to Chicago Jagoffs. I remember Ed from when he hung around Wicker Park back in the 90s. Now he’s the unofficial mayor of Bridgeport. I painted the Trump Tower on the cover of his magazine because I couldn’t think of a bigger jagoff. Back then, making fun of Donald Trump still seemed like a valid way to spend one’s time. Now we’re far, far through the looking glass. So much of the everyday comes off topsy-turvy now; having my paintings at Co-Pro only added to the strangeness.

Before the opening at 6pm Friday, I went to have shawarma at Zaytune’s a few doors down from the gallery. Four dressed-up women walked in after me. I recognized one of them from a couple nights before at the Skylark. Antonio introduced her as another artist in the All-Stars show. They had just finished hanging it and he was proud of the job he’d done. All the women at Zaytune’s were excited about the show but I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm. Openings invariably fill me with dread. Add the dubious way in which I was included in this show and I couldn’t even feign interest.

When I walked into Co-Pro, I immediately fixed both of my paintings, as they were hanging crooked. That, and the fact that they were installed above the kegerator, killed off the last of my good will. I wandered about a bit, then sat at one of the wooden benches and stared off into space. Mike, the curator, was introduced to me and proceeded to talk my ear off, but I wasn’t listening and did nothing more than nod and agree with whatever he was going on about. I fought the impulse to grab my work off the wall and walk out, but knew that would only invite attention I didn’t want. I left soon after to watch Detectorists (which you should all watch because it’s brilliant). I was home by 8pm.

Sunday morning I was a guest on Lumpen Radio’s Eye 94 show. The station shares space with the gallery so I was forced to think about the show again. I wasn’t mad anymore and was back to being grateful for being included. I still didn’t like the way my work was hung but the show would be done in a week or two and I was already starting to forget that I was even part of it.

I’m no Bridgeport All-Star but I’m still glad I live here and don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

A couple weeks ago, during Saturday gallery hours, a couple young guys came in to take a look at my show. They looked too young to be art collectors but after a few minutes the blond one took out a wad of twenties and started counting them out. Then he came over and asked if I took cash, pointed at the painting of the beer cooler at Bernice’s and started peeling off bills.

Generally, it’s customary to wait until the end of an art show to deliver sold pieces, but I could tell this guy wasn’t in a waiting kind of mood. Then he told me how he came by that stack of bills. His brother, who was in the military, had killed himself and left the surviving family members his money. His brother was choosing to honor his memory by buying my painting. I took the painting off the wall and he and his buddy walked out. I didn’t even catch their names.

I’ve been painting and drawing seriously for over thirty years but the mental and emotional inner workings of collectors remain a mystery to me. I rarely know why they’ll buy one piece over another. My own connection to my work pretty much ends after I’m done making it. In an ideal world, someone would show up at my door and take each one away the day after it was completed. But it is all but the opposite of an ideal world; so in the one I live in I have to also be the salesman, which I hate and am no good at. At least I’ve learned not to talk people out of buying pictures by pointing out flaws. Now I just keep my mouth shut and hope for the best.

A couple hours after the guy left with his new painting my friend John came by. I told him about the weird sale and he told me he was just coming back from the funeral of his friend’s son, who had been in the military and had taken his own life. It’s such a small world. Either that or it was one hell of a coincidence.

When I was hanging this show, I learned from one of the gallery’s founders that she had a piece of mine hanging in her apartment. We’d never met prior to that day. Apparently, her boyfriend’s parents had bought a couple pieces from me years ago and gave her one as a housewarming gift. Small world…

On the last day of the show Steve from Bernice’s gave me a lift to the gallery so he could see the show. Then John, one of my regulars at that bar pedaled up on his bike. Then Dee and Jimmy from the Rainbo came in and I felt like putting the show up was maybe worth it after all. With a lot of these shows I have I never get that feeling. A couple other paintings sold without my having to do or say much, so that did nothing to hurt my good feeling about the whole thing.

Tomorrow, when I take the paintings down, the good feeling will likely disappear, but for today I’ll try to hold on to it for as long as I can.

Wednesday I went to Kelly’s house so she could show me how everything was situated in her place. I would be dog-sitting Eddie and Ernie till Sunday and there was a lot to know. We decided that rather than uproot their lives further by schlepping them to Bridgeport, I would just stay at her place in Humboldt Park. We watched many episodes of Baskets and ate much delivered Club Lucky grub while discussing all the particulars.

The next morning she asked me to take the fellas on a long walk so she could get ready for her trip in peace. Then, a half hour after our return she was gone. I’ve lived alone in the same place for over two years; now I was in a different place, in a different neighborhood, with two dogs keeping track of my every move. It was kind of a mindfuck.

Knowing that I had to go to a play that evening and leave them in the house alone filled me with anticipatory dread. I recalled the ritual of leaving the house when I lived with Porkchop. We always had to distract him with treats and then get out the door before he noticed. I knew Eddie and Ernie didn’t require the same level of subterfuge and yet it still gnawed at me. When I returned I could hear their whines from the outdoor gate. Then they jumped all over me as if I’d abandoned them for years.

When we were going to bed they suddenly sensed that Kelly wasn’t coming back, there was more moaning and howling, but they eventually found their spots on the bed and drifted off. Thankfully, there would be no waterworks on the nights that followed. 

Each day involved a long walk around the neighborhood, a bunch of time on the couch, then my leaving alone at some point. Saturday I had gallery hours at Hume so we walked all the way over there only to realize at the door that I’d left my regular keychain back at Kelly’s. This is what happens when my regular routine is disrupted. Luckily, Fontaine lives just down the street and was able to let us in. My gallery assistants dutifully barked at every single passerby throughout the afternoon.

Walking through Humboldt Park—a neighborhood I’ve spent little time in over the last decade, and with two dogs in tow—made me feel as if I was in another city. The pace of my stride was largely beholden to the dogs’ gait, which involved endless stops and starts, as every fencepost, bush, and vacant lot warranted investigation. Living among someone else’s things had a similar effect. After a couple days I started to forget most of my everyday life. And yet that life would be waiting for me come Sunday night when I walked into the Skylark for my bartending shift. The idea of that now felt completely outlandish.

Washing dishes, stripping the bed, and packing up the dogs’ gear for the trip to Sheila’s, further on the North Side, it was hard to imagine that this new routine was about to end. I don’t know if I could handle the responsibility of caring for living beings on an everyday basis but it was good to find out that I was still capable of it given the chance.

In a few hours I’d be back to the solitude I’ve come to know all too well.