Master Frenhofer in the Garage

"Oh, it was a gift from my brother, originally; definitely quite a gift, but he's quite a brother;" spoken in a well-tempered, subdued tone with what was almost a laugh. "He's an art dealer, works mostly in Italy. It's been in storage, we just dont have a good spot on the wall for it."

"But it's a Frenhofer? It's real?"

"Yeah: very life-like; no one else could get the kind of shadows or the feeling of distance that he had. This is a later piece too, one of the last he finished. It's a shame he ended up killing himself."

"I don't understand, you're only asking five dollars?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Yes, but five? This is obviously a fake, there's no other reason you would do this."

"Yeah, yeah," I paused to think about this. Actually, I had already considered this problem: people thinking it would be a fake--but I couldn't come up with any clever or charming way to sell people on the point. Could I at least look like I had thought about it, genuinely, rather than thinking about it only to try to think my way past them? Maybe the sound of defeat in my voice would work. "There's no way I can get you to believe me, is there? But I suppose I could just charge you more."

He seemed to get the joke, but chose to ignore it. "God . . . cheap art: that's so privilaged. I'm actually feeling sick." He looked up as he put his hands on his waist, and had a look of disgust that was so emotionally chiseled and perfect that I was momentarily distracted.

"Sorry?"

"Forget it." He started to walk away and mumbled something that sounded like "bourgeois faggot" underneath his breath. That seemed a little too unbelievable for me, so I ignored it. The day was heating up, pushing down with sweat and light, evaporating the dew from my lawn, bleaching out the sheet I had put under my old c.d.s, trade paperbacks, and other things that were making my house feel cluttered. I hated having garage sales, but these things looked so cheap in my house that they almost seemed to be acting rude; out they went.

It took about an hour before someone looked at the painting again. He parked his Range Rover right in front of my drive-way and came to the painting as if he had made an appointment with it. But that's crazy: I'd never seen him before and the painting can't make phone calls. He motioned towards me and started. He pointed, not at the painting, but right near it. He probably wasn't pointing at my bushes, so I assumed he was asking about the painting.

"What is this?"

"It's a Frenhofer"

"Frenhofer . . . I know that from something: Flaubert? Nah, maybe Balzac or Trollope or some other French dude." He paused and seemed rather to watch the painting than look at it. The face of his chrome watch gleamed in the sun and he continued. "Those guys . . . those guys are such writers, such sonsabitches, such brutal ironists. I work in T.V., trying to bring some of that realist irony into the tube, myself."

"Oh, you produce?"

"Nah, nah. Strictly creative. I'm a writer for that show 'The Hills'. Actually, I don't really write; I accentuate the finer points of the girls' lives; it's supposed to be a reality show but -- So 21st century Balzacean. That Lauren Conrad, she's a master satirista; ironically, she has no idea . . . maybe her and her roomate can make fun of him and call him 'Ball Sack' or something, 'cause I'd love to reference him in the show. I should just throw some novel or something in their apartment and maybe they'll just say it on their own." I had no idea what he was talking about, but I decided to laugh. The heat was wearing me down.

"So. If you're interested, it's only five dollars. No frame though."

"Five dollars?"

"Mm hm."

"Five?"

"Yup. Cash only."

"I don't get it."

"Sorry?"

"I don't get it."

"What don't you get?"

"Five bucks? That's a joke. Where's the camera?"

"Camera?"

"This is either 'Candid Camera' or you're an asshole. Which is it?"

"Well, I certainly don't feel like an asshole."

"Well, then, fuck you, asshole." I barely noticed how red his face had become before he was stomping away. Obviously, I must have been more rude than I imagined; but he had just gotten to his car when he was on his way back, almost skipping rather than stomping.

"Wait . . . so, is there a camera here?" Very strange man, this one. He had some gleam of humiliated interest in his eyes.

"Well, no. Listen, I'm sorry for seeming a little rude, or oblique, or however it is that I'm coming off. But yes, the painting is unbelievably inexpensive. I'd rather it wasn't in a collection or a museum, for however long that can last, so I'm looking for private buyers."

"Well, I don't get it; but I'll be back. My friend is a collector, and I want to make sure it's real before I buy it."

"You know, you could just buy it. I'll let you return it if it's not what you're looking for." He seemed to consider this. But while he was thinking, he turned around and started walking to his car. "I'll come by later," he said as he was leaving.

As I started packing up, one last interested, would-be customer came by.

"Hey honey, they have a Frenhofer replica over here."

"Hi."

"How are you?"

"Great, it's been a busy day."

"How much for this? With the frame."

"Five."

"Nice. My wife's sister really likes this guy."

"Oh, a fan." Easy sale. I was having trouble deciding whether to tell him or not. He was digging through his pocket for the money when I decided that it wouldn't matter. "This is real, you know."

"Well, a hologram would be alright too."

I laughed, but just a little. "I mean, it's real."

He stopped digging. "Sorry?"

"The painting, it's actually a Frenhofer."

"Oh, I know, it's the Catherine Lescault." He started digging again.

"I mean, he actually painted this one. This is legitimate." He had the bill out, but he stopped and stared at the painting instead. He looked up at me with some kind of suspiscion before looking back at the painting. I knew I had lost the sale.

"You've already sold me." He thought I was bullshitting him; God knows why this would stop him from buying anything. He stayed motionless as I answered him.

"My brother's an art dealer--this was a gift."

"Wait . . . it is real . . ." He turned his head slightly and something in his eyes changed. "You know, at once, that sounds reallly exciting, and actually, unbelievable. But really, that's just going to be a pain in the ass; i'd have to buy a nice frame and worry about something happening to it . . . I really like it though." He almost seemed to hesitate here, "Maybe I'll just go buy a knock-off or something."

The wind picked up a tad, and if you couldn't have heard it, you would think the painting, the entire object, began to animate; as if it was attempting to tantalize the would-be buyer into a purchase, shimmering in the sunlight as it moved, showing off its authentic aura.

"You'd rather choose a fake?" I laughed a little. "But that'll probably cost more."

"Sure. But it isn't worth as much; it's less to worry about." As he walked away, he turned around to add, "It's kinda funny: i probably would have bought it if you never said anything." I nodded.

At that point, I decided it wasn't worth telling people that the painting was real. But by that point, it was so late in the morning that the thrill of garage sale shopping looked about as big of a waste of time as it was. The warmth of the late morning sun had turned into an early afternoon heat, and the diffused quality of the light, which once offered such a soft and indistinct partitioning from the dreamworld to the day, was becoming too bright to be comfortable, oversaturating the sensitive eyes of bargain hunters with yellows and whites beyond their wildest and most haunting daydreams. Aside from looking terrible in the stark daylight, the Frenhofer was probably getting ruined in this kind of light. I packed everything up from the lawn. Frenhofer had his chance this weekend but decided to get a sunburn instead of being sold at the kind of bargain price that you could only find in fiction. I layed him out behind the garbage cans to save myself the misery of finding him hidden amidst cardboard boxes and boogie boards years from now.

That night I went to work on my novel. I had a sudden spark of inspiration last summer while at the beach; I saw a plastic bag floating through the sea, dancing through the liquid as if it were full of life. My novel was about these non-degradable pieces of trash, and how micro-biological creatures would ban together and form colonies over the entire surface of trash like this; eventually, the colonies, forming a sort of massive micro-biological commune, would begin to move the trash through the effort of their collective will; they would actually use the trash as a vehicle, while simultaniously making it appear as if the trash were moving on its own. I really had no strong ideas about what this meant, but the chapter I was currently writing was about the media's portrayal of an incident in which a child had suffocated when a bag had rolled onto his head. Although they had no clear evidence that this bag was in fact a bag on which one of these communes had been established, the story was still spun as an act of willful malevolence, which incited a nation-wide occasion of plastic burning--I had no idea where to go from there; I figured I could just keep rolling one idea into another until it felt right. But not that night. After the giant bonfire was beginning to cloud out the sun, I went to bed.

At around two o'clock, amidst dreams and the tangle of my wife's long legs, I heard a car in the alley. Strange that anyone would be using the alley this late; stranger still was the sudden snapping sound as the car passed by the bedroom window. A hushed bundle of excited whispers followed and seemed to incite the engine, which started away twice as loud and twice as fast. I got out of bed, walked to my window and looked down to see the Frenhofer in two pieces.

A dash of cold from the air outside the window, was so fresh and chilling that i dreamed of domesticating it and keeping it inside. It was some chill which seemed as if it would never leave the back alley; not until this city was drowning in hot, burning trash; some ridiculous bonfire, where everyone would turn out what they had previously loved and burned it like garbage; wine would be spilling out of sweaty hands and grotesque smiles, and everyone would, I hope to god, at least feel good in that one stupid moment. I looked up into the night, and the unbelievable crept into shape before my eyes. “Goddamnit,” I was deeply bitter at this point. I swear I had no other name for what I was seeing: “A fucking UFO? Why is my life turning into some cheap science fiction cliché?”--that, with a tremble and a heart-shiver, I woke. It was a dream.

The morning light was back, just as warm and diffused as the previous day. I got some of the empty wine bottles from the kitchen and went to take them out back. When I turned the corner and looked at the garbage pales the painting wasn't crushed; it wasn't even there anymore.