I had enough thinking about the wide world yesterday. The water cooler- it is a virtual water cooler- was abuzz with talk about what just happened on the Hill, and what it might mean to all of us.
 
I think I am safe in saying that we have no idea, just a certain dread or optimism, depending entirely on whether you are a glass half-full or empty type. There was a gigantic box waiting for me when I dragged my butt in from the office. Amari the Ethiopian guy who works the evening shift waved at me as I came into the lobby.
 
He is a wonderful man, cheerful to a fault, though sometimes harried dealing with the menagerie of characters who live here at Big Pink. I think he has a day job, too, which accounts for the fatigue he shows sometimes.
 
He came out from behind the dark oak counter and led me into the anteroom where the box waited just outside Fred’s office- or what was Fred’s office, when he was alive two weeks ago. I am still reeling about that, but my moorings in the space-time-continuum have been challenged a bit of late.
 
I am going to be away this weekend and will miss the memorial service. It makes me feel sad that I won’t be there in the lobby for the celebration of his life this Sunday. I missed one in Maine last weekend, too, and as a pal observed, “too many funerals.”
 
We manhandled it into the elevator. I rolled it down the hallway to the west tower and unlocked the door to Tunnel Eight and slid the box into the big room.
 
Unpacking what was in it took several minutes- it was a craftman’s approach to safeguarding the work.
 
I thought I knew what the box contained, though the size was unexpected. Admiral Rex’s family was in the process of clearing out his place in Florida and there was an article they said they would send along. I assumed this had to be it.
 
I sliced open the packing tape on the top of the Inside the top was a long strip of Styrofoam to keep the sea of white peanuts in place, and I gently tugged the bubble-wrapped object out, getting only a few dozen of the pesky packing things on the oriental rugs. I like to clean as I go, and stopped to scoop them up and put them back in the box.
 
I then confronted what I realized must be the painting from Rex’s bedroom. It was swathed in two layers of bubble-wrap, with a square of flattened cardboard box across what I surmised was the face of the painting itself.
 
With extreme care I removed the tape that held the first layer of plastic, rolling it up and placing it in the box before going on to the inner layer that protected the prize.
 
When I got it all off, I took the painting and placed it against the mirrored door to the pantry. I had to step back to take it all in.
 
I am astonished at the beauty and the subtlety of the work. What a story is contained on that canvas. The women are nude and lovely, demure in the face of their unpalatable fate. They are unquestionably European, pale and fair, with milky skin. They have been stolen from their families, shorn of their lives, and presented with new ones.
 
The Sultan and his consigliore- perhaps his son? – have a businesslike but speculative demeanor as they choose the next woman to join his harem. The Sultan’s tall traditional fez is black, stating his lineage is linked to that of the Prophet, peace be unto him.
 
The counselor does not, his conical chapeau being snowy white, so I realized he must be the Vizier. The cunning look in his eyes is faintly reptilian.
 
The retainers carry devices of rich brass, and their eyes hold a hint of stoic envy.
 
My goodness, what a profound statement and what an masterful and unsettling work of art!
 
This morning, in between typing these words, I took down Marilyn Monroe’s image over the bureau in the bedroom and hung the painting where I can see it from the soft warm comfort of my bed.
 
I understand it hung over the head of his, though that place in my home is occupied by another original work of art that will stay exactly where it is.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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