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Show Moon -152 hands me a yellow rose. We walk a while on Madison Avenue and look in the shop windows at exquisite porcelain birds, enigmatic paintings and fine bits of tapestry, silk, carved wood. New York says: if you're good enough you can have it all. If you're not, you could end up like the old ladies trying to cross the ice. John ushers me into a good French restaurant. This will at least be carried off in style. Very few words are needed. Over the B&B and coffee, he brushes the back of my hand with his fingers, and there is transmitted, if not electricity, a I tenuous but sufficient connection. He seems tired, a little sad. I think to ask him about his family, then think better of it. He seems interested that I'm an artist and tells me he once studied art, but art was not what he was born to do. I wish Td brought my sketch pad and pencils. He has a finely molded nose, assertive, high-bridged. And those lovely wings of white hair. I would rather be drawing him. He is a better subject than object. But we work with the materials on hand. Besides, as I've said, I need to see this through, unprotected by the filter of artistic interpretation. To experience him straight on is almost an obligation-to whom, to what, I couldn't say. He's staying at a hotel near mine, a much better one. His suite is painted that ice green I've noticed the rich always use, as if it's their right to live always on the edge of a tropical ocean. There's a view, of course. John and I stand at the window and gaze at the lights of the city as if we're about to hurtle through space into an explosion of stars. He touches my hair, asks me if Td like a brandy. The telephone rings. He looks at it with regret, hesitates, then picks it up as I knew he would. Something about selling short. Insider trading? Top secret stuff? I don't have a need to |