Body Work Read online

  The Artist let the tension build until we were all ready to claw at each other, and then she lowered her hands, palms open toward us, in seeming invitation. “Art is in the hands of the maker, it’s in the eyes of the beholder, it’s in the air we breathe, the sunsets we admire, the dead bodies we wash and wrap in linens for burial. My body is my canvas, but tonight it’s yours as well. Tonight is a night to let your imagination run free and to paint, the way you used to paint in kindergarten before you started worrying what someone might say about your work, your art. I’m your canvas, your-bare-canvas.”

  The five guys who’d been pounding their table, demanding the start of the Artist’s act, now whistled and called out. One of them shouted, “Take it all off, girl, take off that thong thing. Let’s see some pussy!”

  I half turned to look at them. One of them was trying to signal for another round. All five were big guys, and the one shouting for the Body Artist to take off her thong had the kind of muscles you get from lifting heavy stuff all day long. The room was lit dimly, but I could make out a thicket of tattoos along his arms.

  The woman on the stool smiled. Maybe she was used to drunken vulgarity. Maybe she enjoyed it.

  “Can’t we get a drink here?” the tattooed man cried, slapping the table.

  “Cool it, Chad,” one of his tablemates said.

  I looked around for the bouncer and saw him at the back of the room, talking to the owner. They had their eye on the table and seemed to think the quintet didn’t need professional attention just yet, but as I watched, I saw the owner shake her head at the waitstaff: No drinks right now, at least not in Chad’s part of the room.

  The Body Artist held out her arms to the tattooed man so that her breasts drooped forward, hanging like fruit above her thighs. “You and I both like body art, don’t we? Come on up, I won’t bite. Draw your heart’s desire on my body.”

  “Go on, Chad,” his buddies urged him, “go for it, do it. Like the lady says, she don’t bite. Or at least not in front of all these other people she won’t.”

  The group began to laugh and pound each other, and the tension eased out of the room.

  The Body Artist picked up a brush from a tray of open paint cans on a cart beside her and began painting on her leg. For a moment, we forgot the strangeness of her nudity and watched as she picked up different brushes. She worked quickly, talking the whole time, about the body art convention she’d just attended, about gallery shows around town, about her childhood cat, Basta.

  As she painted, the two burka-clad figures posed on the stage, periodically shifting legs or arms into new positions that mimed pleasure or excitement in the Artist’s work.

  After five minutes, the Body Artist stood, showing off her painting. Only people in the front of the club could see it, but they all clapped and cheered. The rest of us craned, and Chad and his friends got restive again. Before their complaints grew too loud, one of the burkaed figures picked up a camera from the cart that held the Artist’s paints and other supplies. The Artist beckoned a man from the table directly in front of the stage. He had the embarrassed exchange with her that people often do when they’re called up from the audience by the magician. After a moment, though, he joined her on the raised platform that served as Club Gouge’s stage.

  One of the dancers handed the camera to the man, and the Artist directed him to point it at her leg. The image appeared on one of the screens: a cat, elongated, disdainful, in the Egyptian style. Underneath it, the Artist had written “Let’s see some pussy.”

  The room roared with laughter. Everyone had been upset by the catcalls from Chad and his drunk friends and was delighted to see them put down. Chad’s face seemed to darken in the dim room, but his buddies kept their hands on his arms, and he didn’t try to get up from the table.

  The Body Artist kidded and prodded the man who’d joined her onstage into taking up a paintbrush. He drew a red stripe down her left arm.

  “Now your work will be internationally famous,” the Artist said. She handed the camera back to her dancers. One of them focused on her striped arm, which appeared on the middle of the three screens. “These go up in my picture gallery,” she said. “You can sign it, if you want, or just tell your friends what to look for.”

  The man, who was as red as the stripe he’d painted, said he didn’t need all that recognition. “You’re the artist,” he said, “you get the credit.” He bowed to her awkwardly and left the platform, to another burst of applause.

  After that, several other people felt bold enough to draw on the Artist. No one was able to match any of the elaborate paintings that kept flashing on the screens, but after a bit they’d covered her breasts with blue and green streaks, and someone had drawn a yellow smiley face on one of the Artist’s shoulder blades.

  Mr. Contreras grew more disturbed as the painting progressed. He wanted to have it out with Petra, but Jake persuaded him that a noisy club wasn’t the place for an argument. Max, sizing up my neighbor’s agitation, said he had a meeting in the morning, and Lotty had an early surgery call: they were leaving; they would take Mr. Contreras with them.

  The old man grudgingly agreed, much to my relief. The thought of riding home with him while he vented his frustration on me was a treat I hadn’t been looking forward to. I gave Lotty a grateful kiss, and returned to the table with Jake. Mr. Contreras tried to force Petra to leave with them, but she gave him her biggest, brightest smile and said she’d stay until the end of the act.

  The Body Artist kept up a sort of patter while people painted on her. Occasionally, someone would say something that seemed to genuinely interest her, but most of her responses sounded aloof, almost amused at our expense, even while her words celebrated “the community of artists” in which we found ourselves.

  One heavyset man walked up to the platform with a kind of rolling gait that made me think of a beat cop. In fact, as he bent to inspect the cans of paint I was pretty sure I could see the outline of his holster. I wondered for a moment if he was going to try to arrest the Artist for indecent exposure, but he dipped a brush into the can of red paint. After inspecting her body for bare spaces, he drew some numbers and letters on her buttocks-everyone else had been too squeamish to touch those. He picked up the camera himself and pointed it at his master-piece. Ignoring the applause and jeers from the audience, he rolled back to his seat.

  Just as Jake and I decided we also had seen and heard enough, another woman stepped onto the small stage. She didn’t say anything to the Body Artist or the audience, but began painting with the kind of focus none of the other volunteers had shown. The two dancers had mimed enthusiasm throughout the show, but now they seemed genuinely engaged by the work in progress. They began filming, and we all saw the woman’s work: stylized flames that covered the Artist’s back were overlaid with an intricate design, scrolls of fleurs-de-lis done in pink and gray. The painter was adding a face to her composition when the tattooed man began shouting again.

  “Are you dissing me, bitch? Are you dissing me?”

  Chad stood so quickly his buddies couldn’t hold him. His chair clattered to the floor, and he tried barging past the customer tables to the stage. By that time, the bouncer had reached Chad. He used some moves that I hadn’t seen since I left South Chicago. Chad was doubled over and out the door in under a minute.

  The bouncer’s speed and ability subdued Chad’s buddies. When a server suggested they settle their tab and join their friend outside, one of them pulled a fistful of bills from his pocket and laid them on the table without counting or even looking at the check. All four left as quickly as they could.

  The owner, a tall woman about my age, climbed onto the small stage. In her own way, she was as striking as the Body Artist. Her hair was black except for a streak of white that fell artistically over her forehead, and she was wearing a big white satin shirt, tucked into skintight black pants. She introduced herself as Olympia Koilada.

  “We all owe a big round of applause to our Body Artist. H
ave fun, but be safe, use protection.” She flashed a peace sign, and walked back to the bar.

  Canned music began to throb and whine through the room, and the noise in the audience grew loud with relief. Jake and his friends decided to take the Raven out for a late dinner. He was good-natured enough to include Petra, but she announced that she was staying on to talk to the manager.

  “I heard them say at the bar that they’re shorthanded, and I need more work,” Petra said. “You know, my nine-to-five, we’re kind of going day to day on whether we’ll even have jobs at Christmas, so this would be great.”

  “A club job would be great?” I said. “It would be even more unreliable than your day gig.” Petra was working for a Web-based design firm.

  “Have you seen the way people are tipping?” Petra’s eyes sparkled. “I used to work as a hostess, you know, in the summers, at my folks’ country club. The waitstaff never pulled this kind of change, and we still had some pretty good tips.”

  I wondered if I should try to do more to stop her. Petra was only twenty-three, and, in some ways, I felt responsible for her. She’d stopped taking money from her parents after learning about a serious crime her father had spent his life covering up, and she wasn’t used to looking after herself full-time.

  Jake waited, a little impatiently, while I tried to talk Petra out of applying for work at the club.

  “Don’t be a snob, Vic,” he said. “I was a roadie in clubs like this all through my twenties, didn’t do me any harm. Let’s go. I told the others we’d catch up with them at the restaurant.”

  I followed him into the bitter night. The backup at the parking lot exit looked as though it might take twenty minutes, but an alley ran behind the club; I turned my Mustang around and eased my way against the flow of the traffic.

  “Petra was right, it was awesome,” Jake said. “And at the same time disturbing, especially those dancers in their burkas. I suppose anyone doing art is manipulating public emotions. I do it myself, so why does her expression seem to cross a boundary?”

  “It’s the body,” I said. “You can’t get away from it. Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where the exposed female body is a turn-on. Music only suggests the erotic or the private self. The Body Artist forces you to see the private.”

  “Maybe. Bass players, we have a reputation as the crudest of musicians, so if I’m uncomfortable at a public display of nudity it makes me think I’m not a genuine bassist. I will confess, in private and to you alone, that I sat there feeling like I didn’t have enough clothes on.”

  I laughed. “Speaking under cover of darkness, I also confess-Hello, what are they doing?”

  I had turned in to the alley. Chad and his friends were hovering outside Club Gouge’s back entrance. I stopped the car.

  “Vic, please don’t get out to fight them. I’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

  “I never get to have any fun,” I whined, but added, “Of course I’m not going to fight them, but I do think the club’s nifty bouncer needs to know these guys are hanging around.”

  I made sure the car doors were locked and pulled out my cell phone, but when the quintet saw us, they moved on down the alley. Ice packed with dirt made the going treacherous, and one of the gang tripped and fell, which gave me time to trail them while I looked up the club’s phone number. By the time I’d bumped through the ice and potholes to the street, the men were circling back along Lake Street, toward the main entrance to the club.

  “Vic, not that I’m trying to tell you what to do, but you know I’m not going to risk my fingers if you go after them,” Jake said. “And I’m pining for bouillabaisse.”

  His tone was light, but he wasn’t joking-his fingers were his livelihood. I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel hurt. “Do you really see me as someone who’s so pining to fight that I’d take on five drunks twice my size and half my age? My only weapon right now is my cell phone.”

  “I’ve seen you come home covered in burns and bruises; I’ve never been with you when you got them. How was I to know?” Jake squeezed my shoulder to take the edge off his words.

  Of course, when I used to cruise South Chicago in my cousin Boom-Boom’s wake, there were plenty of times I found myself fighting for no reason I could ever figure out. I decided not to tell Jake about it. It would be hard to persuade him that I’d matured since then.

  Someone finally picked up the club’s phone. A late-night L clattered overhead as she answered, and, at her end, the music and crowd noise were just as deafening, but she finally realized I wanted to speak to the owner, Olympia Koilada. By this time, I was back in front of the club in time to see Chad and his friends get into their RAV4.

  Olympia didn’t seem concerned about the guys. “I don’t know who you are or why you think it’s your business-you’re a private eye?-and you think your nose belongs in my business? I don’t think so. Controversy brings people to the club, and the Artist knows it. She also knows how to look after herself. I’ve got a live show coming on in two minutes. Ciao.”

  The girders to the Lake Street L, and all the similar SUVs streaming in and out of the club’s parking lot, made it hard to keep an eye on the RAV4. I finally gave in to Jake’s plea that we get to the restaurant.

  3 Brush Attack

  The next Monday at breakfast, I was startled to see my name jump off the Herald-Star’s “Around Town” page, in a small paragraph about the Body Artist and Club Gouge. “Angry customers, who objected to her nudity, tried to lie in wait to attack her, but local PI V. I. Warshawski quickly sent them about their business.”

  I called the club owner to find out if she’d leaked the story. “Do you know who used my name to prop up some bogus story?”

  “What do you mean, bogus story? You called me yourself to tell me that bunch of guys was hanging around the club. I figured I was a little short with you, so I did you a favor, giving you credit. Next time, hire your own publicist.”

  “Ms. Koilada, those punks didn’t object to your artist’s nudity. I don’t know what pissed them off, whether it was her mocking them with her cat drawing, or the woman who was painting her when they charged the stage, but-”

  “But nothing,” she snapped. “You don’t know what they objected to. Neither do I. But the idea of a nude artist offends some people-”

  “And titillates others,” I interrupted in turn. “So this little story will bring more people to Club Gouge. Congratulations.”

  I hung up, making a face at myself. A phone call like that was a waste of energy, and I should have known better than to make it. I went down to my office and tried to put the club out of my mind-not so easy, since my cousin Petra had taken a job there. I learned this from her texts: She, like, totally loved the club! tps r aweso cows gr8! I got the tps but didn’t understand the cows. Petra sent back one impatient word: coworkers.

  Two weeks after our outing to Club Gouge, Petra bounced in midafternoon on Sunday. Mr. Contreras, her honorary “Uncle Sal,” so adores her that she was taken aback when he started lecturing her over taking the job at Club Gouge.

  “You’re a young gal, Petra Warshawski, but not too young to know right from wrong. What are you up to, wanting to work in a degenerate place like that? And that-that woman, that Olympia, who owns it-she’s no better than a madam in a brothel. I saw plenty like her in Italy during the war, and I know one when I see one.”

  “Are you talking about the Body Artist? She is not degenerate! Her performance is totally cutting-edge. You live, like, in a cocoon here. You don’t know anything about art or you’d know that just because someone is naked up on a stage it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person! If some man painted a picture of her naked and hung it in a museum, you’d think, wow, he’s a totally great artist. Well, she’s a totally great artist, and she doesn’t need a man or a museum to make her famous. You saw her, Vic. Explain to Uncle Sal how she’s reclaiming her body and how that helps all women reclaim their own bodies.”

  I eyed her thoug
htfully. In the seven months I’d spent around my cousin, this was the first time she’d revealed any awareness of women’s issues, in the arts or anywhere else.

  “Pretty sophisticated analysis, Petra. The Body Artist tell you this, or did you think about it in the middle of the night and have one of those lightbulb moments?”

  Petra flamed crimson and shifted her weight in her high-heeled boots.

  “Does she have a name?” I asked.

  “Of course she does, but she likes to be called the Body Artist, so we all respect that. So what did you think of her, if you can say it without being a total snot?”

  “You’re right, I was a snot. Sorry. I found it disquieting to watch her. The way she talks, the way she holds herself, she seems contemptuous of her audience, or at least of people like me. Maybe she’s bold and heroic, turning stereotypes on their heads, and I only was uncomfortable because I’m not liberated enough. But maybe-”

  “Liberated?” Mr. Contreras exploded. “Sitting stark stone naked in front of an audience? I’m ashamed of the both of you. Victoria, you’re a grown woman. You shouldn’t sit back while the kid gets into bad company. And Petra, this isn’t healthy, watching a woman take off her clothes in public.”

  He was seriously upset, using our real names like that, instead of “Cookie” and “Peewee.” Petra made her pouty face, and went to put her arms around him. She danced him back down the stairs, hoping to coax him back to his more usual good humor, or perhaps to persuade him that the Body Artist wasn’t degenerate. As I was shutting the door behind them, I heard her say, “But, really, Uncle Sal, you can’t tell me you didn’t look at girlie magazines when you were in the Army. Why is someone nude onstage any worse?”