was a pediatrician in Baltimore. They had no children, which was one reason they split up. He lived on Avon Street in a third-floor apartment huddled so closely under the eaves that all the rooms were triangular. He was almost as lonely as I was.
I didnât actually meet him until I showed up one night for dinner and saw a big sign in the window that said Jimmy Luigiâs was closed for a month and would reopen downtown on Chapel Street. I couldnât believe it: not only was my neighborhood pizza parlor deserting me for good, but I had been looking forward all day to my white clam special and two beers. Rituals were important to me. I didnât have a lot of friends, I had almost no time to paint, my feelings about my job ranged from boredom to loathing, my only child lived three thousand miles away and spoke a foreign language, my cat was dead. Jimmy Luigiâs was one of the few stable, positive elements in my life. I went up the street to the Chinese place and had a greasy egg roll, vegetable fried rice that tasted canned, and so much tea that I couldnât sleep at all that night.
In those days, I was just getting into the oversized watercolors that would eventually become my trademark, if I had a trademark, and painting was more real to me than anything. The weekends would fly by while I worked. I had my rituals. Friday night, no matter how tired I was, I prepared the large surfaces on which I would work: I cut the paper from the huge roll I had bought instead of winter boots, soaked it in the tub, made stretchers and stapled the paper tight, like a white rectangular drum. By Saturday morning, when it was dry, I could start. Often, I hadnât had enough sleepâthe excitement and anticipation would keep me awakeâand I would enter the sparse morning light of the room where I worked, impatient to get going, and be paralyzed by the perfection of that expanse of white. How could I possibly improve it? What could I bring to this rare purity? And then the reluctance would pass and I would feel the adrenalin course through me, and I would squeeze out my colors, fill the two Mason jars with water, sketch in the outlines, and begin the initial wash. Time would pass, and the next thing I knew it was dark out, I was faint with hunger, and before me there was the rough beginning of a painting that filled me with a combination of rapture and dread. Sunday would be the same. I discovered that it was possible to finish a 40 Ã 60 inch painting in a weekend if I worked fourteen hours at a stretch.
Getting into my white uniform and stockings every Monday morning was like putting on prison garb, but all day Monday I would remain in a state of exhilaration. This wore off by the evening, and for the rest of the week things were at the point where my nightly beer and pizza were the high point of my life. I began to anticipate them around 2:00 every day.
The day after I saw the sign in the window of Jimmy Luigiâs, I went down to the new place on Chapel Street and looked in the window. It was an unpromising little ex-shoe store a couple of blocks up from the Green. The windows were still filthy, but inside I could see men working. I thought I caught a glimpse of James, so I banged on the window. One man looked up from what he was doing and motioned me irritably away, but I banged again, and James finally came over, peered through the window, and came outside to see what I wanted.
It was freezing out, with a brutal wind whistling up Chapel Street, between the buildings, from the Sound. I felt bad dragging him out in the cold, and once I had him there I wasnât sure what to say. All the way down, I had been thinking of the Hemingway story, âA Clean, Well-Lighted Place,â and how much like that old man I felt. I suppose I had intended to reproach James for leaving the neighborhood, to tell him how I had depended on him and what a hole his leaving would put in my lousy little life.
âMay I help
I didnât actually meet him until I showed up one night for dinner and saw a big sign in the window that said Jimmy Luigiâs was closed for a month and would reopen downtown on Chapel Street. I couldnât believe it: not only was my neighborhood pizza parlor deserting me for good, but I had been looking forward all day to my white clam special and two beers. Rituals were important to me. I didnât have a lot of friends, I had almost no time to paint, my feelings about my job ranged from boredom to loathing, my only child lived three thousand miles away and spoke a foreign language, my cat was dead. Jimmy Luigiâs was one of the few stable, positive elements in my life. I went up the street to the Chinese place and had a greasy egg roll, vegetable fried rice that tasted canned, and so much tea that I couldnât sleep at all that night.
In those days, I was just getting into the oversized watercolors that would eventually become my trademark, if I had a trademark, and painting was more real to me than anything. The weekends would fly by while I worked. I had my rituals. Friday night, no matter how tired I was, I prepared the large surfaces on which I would work: I cut the paper from the huge roll I had bought instead of winter boots, soaked it in the tub, made stretchers and stapled the paper tight, like a white rectangular drum. By Saturday morning, when it was dry, I could start. Often, I hadnât had enough sleepâthe excitement and anticipation would keep me awakeâand I would enter the sparse morning light of the room where I worked, impatient to get going, and be paralyzed by the perfection of that expanse of white. How could I possibly improve it? What could I bring to this rare purity? And then the reluctance would pass and I would feel the adrenalin course through me, and I would squeeze out my colors, fill the two Mason jars with water, sketch in the outlines, and begin the initial wash. Time would pass, and the next thing I knew it was dark out, I was faint with hunger, and before me there was the rough beginning of a painting that filled me with a combination of rapture and dread. Sunday would be the same. I discovered that it was possible to finish a 40 Ã 60 inch painting in a weekend if I worked fourteen hours at a stretch.
Getting into my white uniform and stockings every Monday morning was like putting on prison garb, but all day Monday I would remain in a state of exhilaration. This wore off by the evening, and for the rest of the week things were at the point where my nightly beer and pizza were the high point of my life. I began to anticipate them around 2:00 every day.
The day after I saw the sign in the window of Jimmy Luigiâs, I went down to the new place on Chapel Street and looked in the window. It was an unpromising little ex-shoe store a couple of blocks up from the Green. The windows were still filthy, but inside I could see men working. I thought I caught a glimpse of James, so I banged on the window. One man looked up from what he was doing and motioned me irritably away, but I banged again, and James finally came over, peered through the window, and came outside to see what I wanted.
It was freezing out, with a brutal wind whistling up Chapel Street, between the buildings, from the Sound. I felt bad dragging him out in the cold, and once I had him there I wasnât sure what to say. All the way down, I had been thinking of the Hemingway story, âA Clean, Well-Lighted Place,â and how much like that old man I felt. I suppose I had intended to reproach James for leaving the neighborhood, to tell him how I had depended on him and what a hole his leaving would put in my lousy little life.
âMay I help
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