Faithless: Tales of Transgression

  So Rafe began telling me about Carlin Ritchie who’d died the previous summer (I guess I knew that Ritchie had died; there’d been tributes to him in the media), at his mountain place in West Virginia that his second wife had made into a shrine for him; he’d died in “suspicious circumstances” and since his death his widow was stealing his art, his reputation, claiming the two of them had been “collaborators” on the important work Ritchie had been doing the last five or six years of his life; she’d hidden away a dozen silk screens—“Carlin’s Appalachia series, some of the best work he’d ever done”—that Carlin had designated in his will should go to Rafe Healy. “She’s taken from me! Stolen from me! Who was a friend of Carlin’s, who loved him like a brother! Not just me but other old friends of his, she’d prevented from seeing him the last months of his life, this vicious woman, this vampire, sucking a helpless man’s blood, and it goes on and on after his death—‘Janessa Ritchie’ she calls herself. I’ve tried to reason with her, Harrison. I’m not the only one, there’s Carlin’s first wife, and his grown children, relatives of his—she’s cut us all out. She wants him for herself. Herself alone. A great American artist, an artist people loved, now he’s dead and can’t protect himself—it’s killing me, tearing me apart. I have to stop her.”

  “Stop her—how?”

  “A gun, I think. Rifle. I’m not a man of violence, no more than Carlin was, but—it’s like there’s a cancer inside me, eating me up. The vampire has got to be stopped.”

  I was astonished. I was shocked. My cousin Rafe telling me such things! I saw he was serious, dead serious; and I didn’t know what to say. There was this queer tawny light coming up in his eyes I’d never seen before. I didn’t have much appetite for lunch but sat there staring as Rafe devoured his, a sandwich and french fries doused with ketchup, ducking his head toward his plate, turning it slightly to one side, his incisors tearing at the thick crust of a roll, slices of rare roast beef.

  5

  THIS IS WHAT Rafe told me, piecemeal over the course of the next three days.

  “The last time I saw Carlin Ritchie, at his place in Buckhannon, West Virginia, that she’d made into a tourist shrine before he even died, it was eight weeks before she killed him, I swear he pleaded with his eyes—I’m not ready to die. Rafe, don’t abandon me! Putting out his hand to me. His good hand, the left. Squeezing my fingers. Jesus, I loved that man! Even when I don’t remember too clearly, I know I’ve been dreaming about him. Like last night. And the night before. Rafe? Rafe? Don’t abandon me, O.K.?”

  “How I knew he’d died, a friend called. Mutual friend. ‘Carlin’s dead, she’s killed him,’ my friend was screaming. I made calls, I turned on the TV but there was nothing, got a copy of the New York Times and there was the obituary across the full top of the page—CARLIN RITCHIE, 49, ‘PRIMITIVE’ ARTIST, DIES IN WEST VIRGINIA. Now I saw it was real, I started sobbing like a baby.

  “That’s bullshit that Carlin was a ‘primitive’ artist. He was a born talent, no one could capture the human face, eyes, soul, like Carlin, but he’d trained himself, too; there was a phase, when he was in his twenties, he turned out these ugly, wrenching silk screens modeled after Goya. At the Shenandoah school, we were just kids then, Carlin was the ‘classicist’— ‘You can’t overcome the past unless you know it.’ And he’d quote Blake—‘Drive your cart over the bones of the dead.’

  “Yeah. The last lines of an obituary tell you who the survivors are. Carlin’s first wife was named, and his three grown kids. Then—‘Janessa Ritchie, his widow.’ His murderer.

  “ ‘Janessa’?—that isn’t even her name, her name’s something like Agnes, Adelaide—and she’d been married at least once before, and wasn’t so young as everybody thought. I found this out later. I never did tell Carlin. He was crazy in love with her, enthralled by her—wouldn’t listen to a word against her even from his old friends. Even from his kids. They’re the ones who’re hurting—she’d gotten him to change his will, leaving her mostly everything and naming her the executor of his estate. Carlin never spent much, money didn’t seem to mean anything to him except as a means of buying art supplies, but we’re talking millions of dollars here. And the way she’s marketing him—we’re talking double-digit millions. She’s gonna suck that name for all it’s worth.

  “Sure I knew Carlin’s first wife, his family, not intimately but I knew them and counted myself a friend. Carlin had married his high school sweetheart, both of them just kids when they started having babies. They were together for twenty-six years. Nobody could believe they’d broken up, Carlin was living with another woman—‘That just can’t be. Carlin isn’t that type’ was what everybody said. And it was true, Carlin wasn’t. But she was—the vampire, I mean. Just took him over. Like she’d put her hand, her nail-polished talons, on the man’s living heart.

  “No, I don’t cast any blame on Carlin. I believe he was enthralled—enchanted. Like under an evil spell. He’d been sick with MS—that’s multiple sclerosis, in case you don’t know. ‘Mucho shit’ Carlin called it—struck him down when he was twenty-nine, just starting to sell his work, make a name for himself, win prizes—and he’s in a wheelchair, like that. Except he gets better, he’s in remission for a while, then struck down again, can’t use his legs, then he’s into some holistic health regimen and actually improves—back in remission is what they call it, though in fact, as Carlin said, nobody knows what MS actually is, it’s like a syndrome, what works for one person doesn’t work for another, one person shrivels away and dies in five years and another person can be on his feet, walking and healthy for twenty years: ‘It can’t be calculated. Like life.’ But Carlin was lucky, I think it had to do with his attitude, his heart—he just wasn’t going to let that disease eat him away.

  “First time any of us knew about ‘Janessa,’ it was a summer arts festival in Virginia, and there was Carlin Ritchie, a guest of honor, without his wife—surrounded by admirers, one of them this strange-looking young woman, this slender sort of snaky-sexy girl, with a constant, nervous smile, showing her gums and white, slightly protruding teeth; enormous dark eyes, you’d have to call them beautiful eyes though they were sort of weird, with bluish, hooded lids, and a way of staring like she was memorizing you. Carlin was embarrassed being with her, that shamed, lovesick look in his face, but he introduced us, saying Janessa’s a photographer from New York, very talented, and I thought Oh yeah? and didn’t say much. The girl looked about twenty. (In fact, she was over thirty.) She wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. Her eyes hooked onto mine, and her skin gave off a musky heat. She pushed her hand into mine like a squirmy little creature, and there’s the pink tip of her tongue between her teeth—Jesus! Did I feel a charge. She said, ‘Rafe Healy! I’m sure honored to meet you.’ Like there was some immediate understanding between us and even Carlin was out of it. I was disgusted by her, but I have to admit sort of intrigued, at that time it wasn’t altogether clear how serious Carlin was about her, whether they were a couple, or just together in Virginia. Nobody would’ve predicted Carlin would leave Laurette for her, after all they’d been through together, and Carlin making money now, famous. I watched Carlin and the girl for the rest of the week, keeping my distance, so Carlin would get the message I didn’t approve, not that I’m a puritan or anything, not that I even take marriage all that seriously, most marriages at least—you make vows to be broken, is my experience. But the last night of the festival I got drunk and spoke to Janessa in private, I said, ‘You know, Carlin Ritchie is a married man, a devoted family man, he hasn’t been well and his wife has taken care of him and before he began to make money she supported him for years, and they’ve got three kids—keep that in mind.’ And Janessa says, all eager and girlish, wide-eyed, laying her hand on my arm and giving me goose bumps, ‘Oh Rafe, I know!’ like she knew me, she’d been calling me ‘Rafe’ for years, ‘—Carlin has told me all about that wonderful woman, “My first love” he calls her.’ Janessa lowered her eyes, and made this sim
pering face like she knew she was being naughty, flirtatious and naughty, but couldn’t help it, ‘—but I’m thinking, Rafe, y’know?—I’d rather be Carlin Ritchie’s last love than his first.’

  “With his medication, Carlin wasn’t supposed to be drinking. He’d had a whole life practically before he got sick when he drank—serious drinking. Without Laurette around he’d relapse, and in this situation he was drinking, and people were worried about him, but not Janessa—I watched the two of them walk off together, from a party, it was late, past 3 A.M., Carlin was leaning on the girl, and she had her arm around his waist, she was skinny but strong, practically holding him up, and Carlin was a tight-packed, heavy little guy, those muscular shoulders and torso, but Janessa supported him walking up this hill to the cabin Carlin was staying in, a white-birch log cabin, and I stood in the shadows watching, I don’t believe I was drunk but stone cold sober, watching after those two, after they’d gone inside the cabin, and the cabin lights were off.

  “Next thing we knew, Carlin was separated from Laurette. He was living with Janessa in New York, going to parties, gallery openings, being photographed by Avedon for The New Yorker—Carlin’s haggard-homely face, like a kid’s, yet he was beautiful in his way, his unique way, like his ‘Appalachian Faces’ silk screens that made him famous—there’s something about faces like that, that touch you deep in the heart. A few of Carlin’s friends turned against him, but not me—I’d forgive him anything, almost. Also, I’m not so innocent myself, with women. I wasn’t anyone to judge. I never judged him—only her. It happened pretty fast that Carlin divorced Laurette, and married Janessa, let her take over running his life, his exhibits, his correspondence, his finances; let her talk him into buying the house in Buckhannon, and renovating it, the shrine to Carlin Ritchie, having it painted lavender with purple trim, and putting up a spike fence with a gate and a little bronze plaque CARLIN RITCHIE RESIDENCE PRIVATE PLEASE so admirers could take pictures of it from the road—‘Jesus, Carlin, it’s like you’re on display, marketing yourself, how can you tolerate it?’ I asked him, I was frankly pissed, and Carlin said, embarrassed, ‘It’s got nothing to do with me. It’s just the idea. Janessa says—“People love your art, so they want to love you. You can’t deny them.” ‘Hell you can’t deny them,’ I said, ‘—you denied them in the past.’ Carlin said, in a flat, sad voice, ‘Well—the past is past.’ We were talking over the phone; Carlin was in his studio, it was about the only way we could talk and even then Janessa was monitoring his incoming calls, lifting the receiver so you’d hear a hissing breath. Most of the time when Carlin’s friends called, Janessa would answer the phone with this mock-girlish greeting, ‘Oh hel-lo! Of course I know who you are. Of course Carlin would love to speak with you. But—’ and she’d explain how it was a day Carlin had worn himself out in the studio, or a day he hadn’t been able to use his legs, or focus his eyes; a day he was ‘fighting the demon’—meaning the MS. More and more when we called we’d be told that Carlin ‘isn’t available, regretfully.’ His sons complained they were told repeatedly, the last fifteen months of their father’s life, that he ‘isn’t available, regretfully.’ Yet there was a steady stream of photographers, interviewers, TV and videotape crews traveling to the Carlin Ritchie residence in Buckhannon, from as far away as Japan and Australia, and these people, you can be sure, who never failed to include ‘Janessa Ritchie’ in their profiles, were always welcome.

  “When Carlin left Buckhannon it wasn’t ever to visit his old friends as he used to. After he married that woman, he never came to see me again. She’d take him to arts festivals, to fancy events where Carlin was the guest of honor, black-tie evenings in New York and Washington, but she’d never take him to the Shenandoah summer festival, or anywhere ordinary. Carlin went as a star, or he didn’t go at all. She demanded high fees for him, and he seemed embarrassed but proud, too; he’d never forgotten his West Virginia background. He’d been born in a small town twenty miles from Buckhannon, just a crossroads, and his folks were poor; despite the Carlin Ritchie legend that’s sprung up, Carlin hadn’t been happy in his childhood, I happen to know—not as happy as I was, and I’d lost both parents. (But I had good, kind, generous stepparents, you could say. And even a brother close to my heart.) Janessa wouldn’t ever let Carlin talk about his real home, his real folks; everything had to be pretense, sentiment. In Carlin’s best work there was always a melancholy tone, like Hopper’s paintings, but with more texture and subtlety than Hopper, sort of dreamy, meditative, after-the-fact—posthumous, almost. Like these Appalachian people and places were really gone, vanished. And Carlin Ritchie was remembering them. (And Janessa started taking these phony, posed pictures in West Virginia, ‘companion pieces,’ she called them, to Carlin’s art, and when he was too sick to prevent her, and after his death, she published them side by side with his work claiming she’d been his ‘collaborator’ for all of their marriage. Carlin Ritchie’s ‘collaborator’! But that wouldn’t be the worst.)

  “The last time I saw Carlin in public, it was a black-tie awards ceremony at the American Academy in New York. Carlin was a member of the Academy, and I was getting an award. And some other friends of ours, from the old days at Shenandoah, the days of our youth, were there. And celebrating. But, hell, we couldn’t get within twenty feet of Carlin. He’d cast sort of wistful, embarrassed looks at us—but he was in his wheelchair, and Janessa had him surrounded by rich, important people—‘Carlin’s privileged patrons’ she called them. It would be revealed afterward that she’d been selling Carlin’s work, drawing up actual contracts, before he’d created it; she was getting the poor bastard to sign contracts, naming her as agent, without knowing what he was signing—he’d always been a careless kind of guy with contracts and money, worse even than I am. We got drunk on champagne, and watched our friend Carlin in his tux that made him look embalmed, in his wheelchair that was an expensive motorized chair but guided by this white-skinned female in a black velvet gown cut so low her breasts were almost falling out, strands of pearls around her neck, looking like the real thing, not cultured, surely not West Virginia–type costume-jewelry pearls, her glossy red hair upswept on her head and her face beautiful, radiant—this was the second Mrs. Ritchie? No wonder photographers loved snapping her and poor Carlin, sunken-chested in his chair, wearing thick glasses now, and his right hand palsied, lifting his ghastly-hopeful smile and managing to shake hands with his left hand as ‘privileged patrons’ hovered over him. Janessa wasn’t a skinny strung-out anorexic type any longer; she’d packed on serious, solid female flesh and looked good enough to eat. Her face was pale as a geisha’s and made up like a cosmetic mask, flawless—crimson mouth, inky-black mascara accentuating her big eyes, flaring eyebrows that looked as if they’d been drawn on with a Crayola. She didn’t look any age at all, now—like Elizabeth Taylor in those glamor photos you used to see on the covers of supermarket tabloids, generic female vamp-beauty. Totally phony, but glamorous as hell. I have to admit that Carlin looked happy enough that night, under the sharp eye of Janessa, and her shapely bust nudging the back of his head so if he was nodding off (on medication, probably) he’d wake up with a startled smile. I managed to get near enough to him to shake his hand—hell, I leaned over to hug the guy, and Carlin hugged me, hard, like a drowning man—though the second Mrs. Ritchie didn’t like this at all. Carlin was saying, almost begging, ‘Rafe? Where’ve you been? Why don’t you visit me any more? Come see me! Come soon! Next week! Show me what you’re doing these days, man! I’m into some new, terrific work—I’m gonna surprise you, man!’ while that bitch Janessa is smiling a tight, angry smile, pushing Carlin’s wheelchair away saying, ‘Mr. Healy, you’re overexciting my husband. He’s on medication, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Excuse us.’ And she’d gotten him to an elevator, blocking me from entering with them, though there was plenty of room, and there was the artist Robert Rauschenberg in the elevator. Janessa recognized a famous name and it was like she’d been shot with pure adr
enaline; her big hungry eyes glistened, her sexy mouth lost its stiffness, her breasts sort of burgeoned out, there she was cooing and cawing over Rauschenberg saying how she’d loved his ‘big wild collage paintings’ since she was a young girl, all the while blocking me, and pretending not to be aware of me, while Carlin looked on, confused and anxious—it would’ve been a comic scene on TV, but in real life, if you had to live through it, it wasn’t so pleasant. Anyway, you know me, I kept pushing onto the elevator, nudging up against Janessa, her perfume in my nostrils like rotted gardenias, and I was trying to talk to Carlin, and Janessa loses control and slaps at me, actually slaps at me, and says, ‘Damn you! You’re harassing my husband, and you’re harassing me! We don’t know you! I’m going to call a security guard if you don’t let us alone!’ I say, ‘What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know me? I’m Carlin’s friend—who the fuck are you?’ So maybe I was a little drunk, and belligerent, and my black tie was coming untied, but Janessa provoked me, and I’d like to haul off and hit her, except she starts screaming, ‘Help! Police!’ so I back off the elevator quick, everybody’s glaring at me, even Rauschenberg.”

  “It’s then I realize that that woman, ‘Janessa,’ is my sworn enemy. And she’s Carlin’s enemy, too. Though the poor guy wasn’t in any condition to know it.

  “The last time I saw Carlin Ritchie in private, it was at his place in Buckhannon, West Virginia, which I’d visited only once before. This was about eight weeks before Carlin died. I’d gotten a call from him, inviting me down; he was trying to sound in good spirits on the phone, but his voice was weak, and I had the distinct idea that our conversation was being monitored by Janessa, but I was damned happy to hear from my friend, and if I figured anything I figured that Janessa was embarrassed at her treatment of me, and worried I might make trouble somehow. So she was allowing Carlin to invite me to Buckhannon. And this was more or less what it was, I think. Also she was preparing to murder him and may have believed she needed some credible witness beforehand, to testify that the poor guy was in bad shape. ‘Lost the use of his legs!’—as she’d say, in this wailing breathy voice like it was a total surprise to her, or to Carlin, that he wasn’t walking just then.