Return, Prodigal

They'd all but given up on him, the critics had I mean; they'd written him off. After all, when a potentially outstanding artist is roasted by reviewers, then takes a job at a hick college, well you naturally figure he's thrown in the towel.

But Gio Leoni was no ordinary artist. Those of us who knew him weren't surprised when his name appeared in the Times a couple of years after he'd quit San Francisco. It was a small story written by Ron Kinney, the art editor, saying that Gio claimed to have developed a new genre, something he called "holoform." Kinney referred to Gio as an "erstwhile boy wonder who claims to have developed an ultimate form of organic art." The story featured a small photo of Gio wearing a cowboy hat.

The new art form would be first presented at a show here in the city, at Beddecker's, the very gallery where Gio's last exhibit had been held, the one so badly slammed by Ron Kinney and company.

Well, great, I figured. Anything that brings Gio back to town is okay with me. You've got to understand that Gio and I became close friends as undergrads at State College. Both of us had been married - both since divorced - and both took advantage of the GI Bill. We swilled gallons of wine together, and wenched together, and solved the world's problems several times over. And we've picked one another's livers more than once too. We had one running argument that lasted about three years. He could never understand how I survived a chemistry major. "Too stifling," he'd say. "It would kill my creativity."

"Oh, balls!" I would delicately answer. "What you need is some scientific discipline to free your cluttered mind."

"Free!" he'd shout. "Free! You don't know the meaning of the word!" And then we'd be into it till the wine ran out or dawn forced us to call it a draw.

I remember one evening when I argued for science as a creative endeavor, telling Gio that Art (with a capital A) had vitiated due to its own incest. Did he ever blow up over that. "Artist die for art," he shouted. "Art lovers die for it. But people only die because of science, not for it" That got to me, so we again debated all night, but the point is we neve really got angry.

Another thing we disagreed on was his second show. He had receive favorable reviews with his first set of displayed paintings, but scheduling his next showing so soon after the first, and at a big gallery like Beddecker's - well, I sensed disaster. And I was right. Gio was experimenting with a fly-sprayer for all his paintings at that time, spreading an incredibly fine filigree of feeling on massive canvases. The trouble was that critics seemed unable to see merit in anything but little, gutsy pseudo-Van Goghs and something they called "organic art," what the hell ever that was. Gio's work was doomed, but he said no, they'll recognize originality when they see it.

Well, the critics didn't recognize any originality in Gio's second showing - they characterized his work as "contrived and weak" - so he had to go into hock to pay his outstanding debts and let him get away for a while. He took an artist-in-residence position at Desert State College over near Bishop and, save for an occasional note, disappeared. One letter, I remember, tersely stated: "I'm into something good now, an original synthesis," but he never explained the synthesis and I knew better than to push him.

Came the Times article, though, and I knew I'd see him soon - probably a phone call in the middle of the night would rouse me and I'd hear his Groucho Marx voice: "Hello, you fat kike," he'd say with great reverence. "If you can stop playing with yourself long enough, come get me. I'm at the airport." I would reply with an accurate description of his mother's vocation (and avocation) and would then drive out to South City and pick him up. We'd probably be debating before my car had traveled a block.

Sure enough, one night just as I crawled in bed to enjoy an Agatha Christie, the phone rang. "Hello, you Zionist bastard," Groucho's voice said. I cut him short: "You have the wrong number," I replied in a thick pasta accent, "this is the Italian-American Civil Rights League. Who you want us to kill?" Gio broke up. "Aw," he chanted, "your momma's a tool grinder. I'm at the airport. Come get me." I fetched him home.

Gio was pooped, but we stayed up and drank rot-gut wine and talked. I finally found out what his latest creation was and, I have to tell you, I was astounded. He claimed he got the idea from me, with a little help from Bernard Berensen's writings and Kenneth Clark's. He said that the last two had shown him that new insights in one art form are quickly adapted to other forms. "You know," he said, "you develop something like baroque or rococo in one genre, and pretty soon you've got correlates popping up all over, right?" I nodded. "Well, you add a little McLuhan to the other two, and your own brilliant insights, of course" - I blushed appropriately- "and it just seemed to me that the world was waiting for someone to put it all together at once.

"Well, we've got the technology now to do just that, so I have. Remember all that crap you used to throw my way about the creative potential of the sciences. Okay, I've taken you up." He suddenly metamorphosed into Bela Lugosi: "Meester RRRenfield, I haf created a moonstair," he leered, rubbing his green hands all the while. Then he flew into the kitchen and poured himself another glass of Red Mountain blood. "How the hell can bats drink wine hanging upside down?" he asked.

"They have hollow legs," I responded with scientific gravity.

"Oh," he said, climbing down from my chandelier.

I kept pushing Gio to tell me more about this thing he called "holoform." He said it would replace Lydia Pinkhams in the hearts of the people. "It's better than hash, grass, and lucky number score cards," he claimed, rolling Jerry Colonna eyes.

"I believe, Great Mufti," I salaamed, "but what the hell is it?"

Finally he said that he had created a total artistic experience. "Holoform is a piece of living sculpture. I mean you can see it and touch it, right? But you can enter it too. And once you get inside," W. C. Fields said, "you will experience thrills and delights, de-lights." He placed his top hat on the end of his cane and staggered through the room juggling two small boys and a dog. "And as for you, my little Jewish poltroon," he said, "I hope a sexually crazed Arab voodoo queen sticks pins in the crotch of your likeness." W.C. teetered into the kitchen, goosing himself with the doorknob, then returned holding a full glass. "Ahhh," said he, spiritus fermenti."

"But what the hell's inside?" I asked.

"Nuns!" Gio answered surreptitiously. "Wildly passionate nuns driven into a sensual frenzy by a nude photo of the Marquis de Sade!" He sobbed, his face in his hands. "Oh, my secret is out. Pray, kind sir, I was not always as you see me now." He wiped his hands on a cat.

"Peter Sellers," I said.

"You saw that one too. Good. One of the all-time greats. Well, anyway, about holoform, you get caressed by warm, slick membranes when you're inside." Within, he told me, holoform was precisely the temperature the computer at his college had advised. Moreover, a gentle electronic music played just what the computer ordered. And there was more: The darkness within holoform was livened by a light diffuser prepared by a physics prof at Desert State that shattered and blended colors. And a couple of organic chemists at the school had developed a pleasant musk aroma that was, as Groucho put it, "verrry stimulating" (he raised and lowered his eyebrows several times). "To women, it smells like primed man; to men, it smells like primed woman."

His last revelation was that a mild hallucinogen was sprayed into the air within holoform. "But cool it," he requested, "it's slightly illegal." In fact, before the night was over, he made me promise not to tell anyone anything about holoform. Both Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet aided him in convincing me I'd best not squeal.

While he brought several of his other things - some conventional sculpture and chronology of his paintings - along to help fill the gallery, there was no question that holoform was the whole show. I asked him if he wasn't counting too much on one piece, and for a moment he flared at me: "Haven't you understood anything I've been telling you? There has never been anything like this. Never. " He quickly cooled off and said no, he'd thought about it a long while before making a public announcement, but it was also a question of time, for he knew of several other artists working on similar projects and he keenly understood the value of being first.

Gio spent most of the next couple of days at Beddecker's preparing holoform and the other pieces for the show. Evenings we partied with old pals, including some women I'd somehow foolishly forgotten. Every morning, my mouth tasting as though a marmot drive had passed through it during the night, I'd creak out of bed and find Gio brewing coffee with chocolate in it. He showed no signs of wear. "Work! Work!" he'd say stalking the kitchen, raising his eyebrows and pufffing an imaginary cigar.

On the evening before the show was to open to the general public, there was the usual reception for the select few, mainly critics, plus a sprinkling of fellow artists and, of course, a gang of edible models. Liquor flowed freely, and funny little cigarettes were puffed openly, while the crowd milled around the massive holoform, which stood draped in the middle of Beddecker's main gallery room. You could tell everyone wanted to get started, but Gio guarded his creation like a new father. About the time various critics began glancing at their watches, Herman Beddecker and Gio called everyone to the sculpture and without fanfare, Gio pulled the cord and holoform was exposed.

Wow! The entire audience gasped. It was an earth brown monolith, shaped with the muscular smoothness of an animal form, yet unlike any animal I'd ever seen. I found myself immediately attracted to it. I was standing right next to the holoform and to me it seemed to be pulsing, so lifelike was its exterior, and I thought I heard a vague purring sound, probably feedback from the microphone Gio had used in assembling everyone.

"Well," announced Gio in his usual off-the-wall manner, "let's allow the gentlemen of the press to explore the de-lights within holoform first. Mr. Kinney?"

Dapper Ron Kinney separated his plump form from a tall black girl and, with bemused grin, gave us a thumbs-up and slipped into holoform's glistening crease; I caught a flash of pink as he entered; the purring and pulsing increased slightly. Gio let Kinney have holoform to himself for several minutes, then let other critics enter. I could see Gio's satisfaction as the gentlemen of the press disappeared.

"Give them time to really dig," Gio ordered. "The rest of you can join them in a few minutes. More drinks?" So we all drank until Gio finally gave us the go sign.

I entered first, sliding tentatively into the dark crease, blinded until my whole being suddenly lifted: tingling, tasting, smelling, existing pleasure. Soft, warm sides pressed gently on me as an odor awakened my body. Passionate breath engulfed me; my being orgasmed.

Outside again, I needed a nap. Everyone glowed. "That thing's gotta be illegal," whispered a blonde model I'd been trying to score with all evening. "It's too good. " And I knew what good meant. Did I ever.

One artist friend of Gio's and mine kind of leaned on me and said, "My God, he's actually done it. It is a total experience. It's like your first hit of smack, only better. A total experience. A new space. I can't get over it." In fact, everyone who was willing, or able, to talk praised Gio and his holoform. Herman Beddecker looked like one big grinning dollar sign. What a night for Gio! What a comeback!

When we finally returned home, Gio and I enjoyed a nightcap morning-cap, really - and gabbed for a few more minutes. We rehashed the whole show, step by step, word for word. "You really showed those smug bastards," I told him. "You made them back off."

"One of 'em, anyway," he answered.

"One! All of them. Every damned one! Man oh man, were their mouths open," I told him. "What ever happened to Ron Kinney? Did he rush out to retract a postdated review? He's famous for writing reviews before he even attends shows, you know."

"I know. But that dude has filed his last public crucifixion." Gio looked drunkenly conspiratorial. "Arrrrrgh," breathed Long John Silver, "can ye keep a secret?"

"What do you mean? Do you think you can get his job?"

"Arrrrrgh, who needs his job? I've got the lubber a'ready Er at least mc holoform has. Arrrrrgh."

"Got him?"

"It ate him."

"Ate him?" He was putting me on, per usual.

"Aye, boots, buckles, and all. Arrrrrgh. The boots be tastin' better than his wormy carcass did."

He sounded too serious beneath Long John's speech, and I felt a bubble of doubt growing in my throat. "What do you really mean, ate him?"

Gio poured himself another stiff brandy. "Man," he said, "you are one dense dude. Ate him. Devoured him. Gobbled him all gone. Dig?" He shook his head at my imperception.

"But . . ."

"Look," he said with painful patience, "holoform is alive. How else do you think it can do all those things at once? The critics wanted organic art, didn't they? Well now they've got it. Let's see what the sons of bitches do with it."

I could see he was serious. "What the hell are you saying? You mean you killed Kinney?"

"I didn't lay a glove on him."

"But you say he's dead."

"Maaan," answered Step'nfetchit, "he ain' jus' daid, he et!"

"Then how did the rest of us get out?"

He poured more brandy. "You really don't know much about nature for a guy with a Ph. D. It's like a big snake, it only eats about once a week, usually a dog I get at the pound. Old chubby Kinney will last two weeks, I bet." He chuckled. "It's no sweat. I just let it get good and hungry and I can feed it anything I want."

I stood and stalked the room, growing more aghast as the impact of what he revealed struck me. I turned to face him several times but could say nothing. "The police are sure to find out," I finally sputtered.

"Why?"

"Why? Because they'll find the remains, that's why."

Again he laughed at me. "There aren't any," he said, "at least not any that the police will recognize; just a fine gray powder that looks like ashes."

I stood again and walked to the window, then returned to my chair. "But you can't just let it devour critics. It . . . well . . . it just isn't right."

Gio looked at me rather sadly, shaking his head a bit, then he finished his brandy and stood. "Why not?" he finally said. "Critics have been devouring artists since day one."