2324. But we have been remiss about certain essentials of
Coromo’s biography that have an important baring on his story. We have
sand nothing previously about his parents. Who, for example, were his
mother and father? What were they like? I have no idea. But his
Grandmother knew something about it and shortly after the conversation
in which she suggested to Coromo that he see the world, the voice in her
head began to urge her to enlighten her grandson about his history.
2325. Coromo never had a mother or a father, and as you
know, he had been raised by his Grandmother. In such situations a boy
growing up is bound to have ideas about who his parents were, and added
to that, since two parents actually had existed, over time he was bound
to hear comments and remarks which would become the basis of a story he
constructed for himself about his “family,” and why it was that it did
not exist.
2326. This is what he knew. His mother had died in
childbirth, and nobody was exactly sure who his father was. He had an
aunt who claimed that his father was a local musician who later died of
an overdose, and an Uncle who said that his father was a piano player
who had emigrated to the United States.
2327. His Grandmother knew the truth of his parentage, but had been forbidden to speak about it by the voice in her head, but now, just as with his money and her advice to see the world, she was moved to disclose to Coromo the facts of his birth. Before she was able to do this however Grandmother had a profoundly upsetting experience.
2320. He thought watching some movies that take place in
New York would help his to get a more realistic image of what the
experience of being in the city was going to be like. The movies were no
help. Some were romantic comedies in which the city was presented in
the daytime as a huge opulent, inviting place full of expensive
apartment houses, restaurants, and hotels presided over by affable
doormen in smart uniforms.
2321. Other movies he watched were crime thrillers which
presented him with a vision of night in the city, full of crime and gun
fire, drug addicts and degenerates in dark alleyways. And then there was
“Taxi Driver.” He though about this and imagined he would have to
retire before dark, but where he was going to retire to he had no idea,
because the hotels with the doormen were obviously not going to be
affordable.
2322. At this time it was natural that all his ideas for a
trip should exist in the form of dreamy conjecture because in fact
there was no possible connection between his dreams reality. This did
not matter. We have all known people with similar dreams. It is possible
for some young woman, a waitress perhaps, to desire to make a trip to
Paris. Years can go by and the dream remains unfulfilled but
nevertheless does not dissipate.
2323. Perhaps the driving force in such a desire to travel is simple romance, but a person can marry, raise children, and grow old and still the dream remains.
2316. The paperwork at the airport check in adds so many
little costs that the bill resembles the receipt for a trip the hospital
emergency room. Yes, there are hidden, unexpected, and accidental
expenses as well as outright extortion on the part of hotels clerks and
taxi drivers and in the end the unexpected expenses end up exceeding the
basic costs of the hotel, restaurant and air fare.
2317. The tourist who is traveling is looked upon as a
golden goose to be fleeced, but the traveler absorbs it all thinking,
“This is a once in a life time event, don’t count the cost.” So every
traveler, unless they are very experienced, finds themselves in a phone
booth pleading with their credit card company to extend their line of
credit, or God knows what will happen to them, all alone now somewhere
in Albania, laving lost their passport and other documents.
2318. The sum total of Coromo’s assets came to 2487
dollars, if you added his credit card to his Grandmother’s money. I know
it is incorrect to consider a line of credit as an asset, but such book
keeping distinctions do not enter into the equation when a person is
contemplating a drastic life altering decision.
2319. The idea to cast his fate to the wind and go to New York was arrived at eventually without Coromo ever adding up how much it would cost. He was going to go, he made up his mind, come what may. Having made this decision to go, he was confronted by a crisis of the imagination. He was unable to form any kind of convincing vision of what he was about to do. He tried to imagine what New York might be like, but the best he could manage was a series of mental still shots of things like the Statue of Liberty, and subway cars.
2312. What this was all leading up to perhaps by now you
have guessed. Coromo was in the process of deciding to take a weeks
vacation and make a trip to New York City. In actuality he had no good
reason to go there, and yet he had many different reasons. The first was
his Grandmother’s admonition to see the world, and the second had to do
with a desire to seek out his paintings and see who had them and how
there were doing.
2313. It was as though his pictures had preceded him out
into the larger world, and he had a desire to go find them and pay them a
visit. He was like a parent who wants to visit his children who have
move to a big city and set up on their own.
2314. This was his desire, but the math did not add up.
If he combined his Grandmother’s money with his credit card balance it
looked to him that he could just manage the trip, but only if didn’t run
into any unexpected expenses.
2315. Unexpected expenses? Have you ever had the good fortune to make a trip to some foreign country either for work or as a vacation? Did you run into any unexpected expenses? I know for a fact, whom ever you are, that you ran into unexpected expenses. Those extra expenses begin the very moment you get into the taxi to go to the airport. The brochure you read said sixty dollars, but it was out of date and it is now ninety dollars.
2308. I understand that the above examination of the
exact words used in the conversations between our friend and the resort
patrons may seen a bit didactic, but it points to the crux of the
transformation going on in Coromo. All the words like “pictures,
paintings, oils, works,” refer to the things he did that were hanging on
the wall. But the word, “work,” referred to Coromo himself, his
identity as a person. It was this word, all by itself, that elevated
Coromo to a level of equality with the resort guests.
2309. He was obviously not their equal in the economic
sense, but he was aware that he was equal to them in some intellectual
way. At this stage of his evolution it had not dawned on him that having
one’s work made him superior to them and an object of envy in their
eyes.
2310. The resort guests, although they had money and
connections, were educated and informed, almost to a man lacked any
meaningful work. And I feel the need to be specific about this. Being a
corporate lawyer does not qualify, being a doctor or even an important
surgeon is of no account. Only creative work matters in this peculiar
age. Why this is so I have no idea, but artists find themselves at the
top of the social pyramid in the twenty-first century for some
inexplicable reason.
2311. This being so, all art endeavor is first of all a social phenomena, and only secondly an occupation or an avocation. In the end the actual objects of art themselves are not really of any consequence to anyone, but are only important as a grease of social interaction. Art exhibits are first and foremost social events. Coromo was finding this out by accident, and although it had no effect on his paintings, it transformed his personality.
2304. The travel section produced in Coromo a myriad of
responses but the overwhelming one was the idea of boundless
expenditure. When reading the advertisements it was his habit to avoid
even looking at the price of things if any happened to be printed. His
day dream of spending his two thousand dollars on travel was so
unrealistic in this realm that it hardly entered his mind.
2305. But, keep in mind that Coromo was surrounded every
day by people for whom such expenditures were a normal part of everyday
life. This would have been of no consequence for him except for the
problem of his paintings and his interactions with the resort patrons as
a consequence. These casual conversations about his “work” altered not
only their view of him, but his view of himself as well.
2306. In the above paragraph I used the words “his work”
in reference to Coromo’s paintings. This casual remark is more important
that it seems. At first Coromo called all of the things he did, “my
pictures.” Later, changing his language unawares, he began to speak of
his “paintings.” For a while he started to refer to the things he did as
“my oils,” but sensing a subtly rejection of the word in his clients,
he finally settled on referring to everything as “my work.”
2307. Coromo did not originate the term, “My work.” He arrived at it because the clients, referring to all of his paintings in the dining room would constantly say things like, “I love your work.” This was a very precise language they used. The clients would never say for example, “your works.”
2300. Like an eight year old, who interjects a comment
into his parents abstruse conversation and the parents suddenly observe
that their child has some sort of neophyte understand of their world, so
Coromo at times took the liberty to interject his own comments into the
guests conversations, making observations about the German bond market,
or the decisions of the Conservative Party in Great Britain.
2301. Obviously he could not follow up such observations
with any further analysis or comment, it was just like a person who
knows no Italian saying, “Bongiorno,” knowing only that it is a greeting
of some sort, but having no idea that buon means good, and giorno means
morning. Such a person might say “Boungorno,” to a group of Italians in
the middle of the night, and be puzzled by their confusion.
2302. On the other hand there was the travel section.
Unlike the news sections, the travel section
was as clear as day, and easy to understand in every respect. Gone were
the qualifiers in the texts, and if a location was describes as
“quaint,” or “Rustic,” the writer never attempted to modify the
observation with contradictory insinuations such as “rat infested.” If a
location was recommended as the best for late season skying, no somber
second voice interjected any contradiction.
2303. The positive laudatory, gushing superlatives doled out about this or that location were only exceeded by the splendid advertisements that explained to the reader in no uncertain terms that there were locations of a divine nature, overflowing with every amenity out there in the world somewhere.
