First Person Shooter – Part Time, Part II

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Fuck. I needed some money. Three days prior I paid rent with the last of my crumpled bills and was now down to zip. Nada. A few nickels, dimes and pennies in a change jar; that was it. I had already gone through the quarters.

My stomach growled. “Fuck you, stomach,” I said.

I went to the kitchen. There was the end of a piece of Italian bread on the counter. The cockroaches and mice did not even want it. It was as hard as a rock. It was the only thing to eat. I drank three glasses of brownish tap water and ate the bread. My stomach growled again. I pulled up my t-shirt and looked at it. The hair on my indented white belly looked like a mass of spider legs.

I had not worked for a blissful month and had not been worried because I was scheduled to have a good paying gig on a movie shoot as a production assistant. I had timed my pauperism to the millisecond, knowing I’d be completely penniless the day the new job started. But then one of the lead actors dropped out and filming had been put on hold indefinitely. That was over two weeks ago.

Now I needed work badly, but was caught in one of those downward, gasping spirals of slow-death cause and effect. I had no money because I was not working. I had no food because I had no money. I had no energy because I had been eating almost nothing for days. I did not look for work because I had no energy. I could not call anyone and inquire about work because the phone had been cut off. Add to that I had no real skills that the workplace was screaming for. A real Horatio Alger success story.

My mama would have been proud.

I needed Divine Intervention. It came. The buzzer to the apartment buzzed.

“It’s Karim.”

“Come on up,” I said.

I opened the door for him.

“You look like shit,” he said.

“Nice to see you, too,” I said.

Karim always looked perfect. He was a young Swiss artist with a Persian father. He lived off a stipend provided by the Swiss Government and supplemented his income with random part-time jobs that miraculously flowed to him through the art world. He was dashingly handsome in a casual, threadbare European way. He had blue black hair and olive skin. He was Byronesque in his brooding and as deep as a dime. He loved chocolate, croissants, and cigarettes. Women swooned for him at first blush.

He was also a terribly dull conversationalist, and loathed work. That was the quality I admired most in him.

His art project, which the Swiss government was paying for, consisted of gray pencil lines on a note pad. Every day Karim would make geometric drawings of straight lines on a little 3 x 5 note pad. He’d usually draw them while in bed. He’d make 3 or 4 of them a day and tear them from the pad.

He was to have an exhibition of his work at the Swiss Embassy in NY in a few months where his entire little note pad opus would be taped to a wall. TAPED! This was art. He called them Meditations in #2 Pencil. The Swiss Government was paying him to do this shit. God, I wished I was an artist.

What a gorgeous con.

“I just quit a job,” Karim said.

“Really,” I said. The longest I ever knew him to hold a job was six days.

“Yes, it was interfering with my art,” he said.

He reached in his shoulder bag and took out a piece of chocolate. He broke me off a piece. I put it in my mouth. It was dark, expensive, divine. It tasted like Persian jewels in a Swiss bank account. The spider-leg hairs on my belly danced. My toes tingled

“I told the owner you could take over for me. He seemed relieved because he had no one else.”

“What is it? When does it start? I’ll do it.”

“Today,” he said. “You’ll be moving paintings from museums to restorers, from galleries to art warehouses, from private collectors to auction houses. Yesterday I moved a DeKooning and a Klimt.”

“Really? Wow. A Klimt, cool,” I said. “What’s it pay?”

“$110 in cash per day, off the books,” he said. “The owner’s name is Tim DeLong.”

Karim continued to give me the background. Tim apparently was getting his Ph.D. in Art History at Columbia. He had been getting it for the last 12 years. He had a nervous breakdown writing his thesis and did not entirely recover. He lacked in social skills and was prone to violent outbursts. He was obsessive. He was a perfectionist who worshiped art, artists, and the snobbier end of its social milieu. This little niche he had created for himself: the transportation and temporary storage of fine art, got him close to his Gods.

Karim handed me a folded piece of paper with directions. “You should be there now,” he said.

He gave me another piece of chocolate. He had to get back to his artwork, he said. I thanked him and raced upstairs, showered, shaved and put on an almost clean white button-down shirt. I dashed out the door to the street. The heat hit me like the wet tongue of a giant, rabid dog.

I clawed my way across town toward the address on the paper:  7th Street, East Village, between B and C, only Blue door. I found it. The paint was peeling from the door. There was no buzzer. I knocked. The door opened and a large head with greasy hair appeared. “I’m a friend of Karim,” I said.

He lurched around the doorjamb and stooped over to look at me. “You’re late,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and he grudgingly invited me in.

I was standing in a dingy room made very narrow by racks for paintings of all sizes. Some were wrapped in bubble wrap. Others had zippered sleeves around them. Others were uncovered. A fluorescent light gave everything a sallow hue.

“Do you have a valid driver’s license?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know anything about art?”

“A little. I go to museums a lot.”

“Who is your favorite artist?”

“Ahhm…”

“Quick, tell me!!!”

“Ah, Egon Schiele,” I said.

“Your second favorite!”

“Ahh, I like Francis Bacon.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“Tell me who you think is a complete phony.”

“I hate Jasper Johns,” I said.

“At least you’re not a complete idiot,” he said.

I was close to telling him to fuck off, but I needed the money. I bit my tongue.

“Read this,” he handed me a legal pad with a bulleted list of do’s and don’ts.

Before I could finish, he handed me a clipboard.

“Here is the route,” he said. All the paintings you have to move can be handled by one person. I’m going to demonstrate how you pick up a painting.”  He showed me. Then he demonstrated how you put a painting down. He inhaled as he picked up the painting and exhaled as he put it down. I wondered if that was part of the process, if I should inhale and exhale. He showed me the papers each client was to sign.

“Here’s your walkie-talkie. Check in after each pick-up. Keep it on at all times in case there is a change of plans.”

“Ok,” I said.

“Come with me.”

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