A Patron of the Arts

Eli Fuller was a painter who couldn’t afford it. To get by, he worked in a restaurant, and it was there that he noticed how the older women he served stared at him. Eli was a handsome young man who had an impact on the predominantly older female clientele; it was only natural he use his appearance to improve his tips. When the women began to write their numbers on the receipts with smiley faces, it occurred to him he could cash in on his youth and vigor in other ways.

But Eli was a discrete young man. He did not like to beg for favors or handouts. If he did call these older women and set up a date of sorts, how would he shake them down for money? Because money was what he needed; if he could avoid working in the restaurant, he would have more time to paint.

Eli was in the right place for such a plan. Carmel, California was full of wealthy older women with too much time on their hands, either divorced, widowed, or with absentee or neglectful husbands, and a distorted perception of their own physical merits. And Don Juan was the right restaurant: an upscale bistro that reminded of some quaint Italian country village, located off Pacific Street down a cozy little alleyway in a courtyard with a gurgling fountain and stucco walls embedded with decorative tiles and draped with bougainvillea. Inside the historic building, the roof was low with exposed wooden beams, single-pane windows, an antique iron-hooded hearth, and worn wooden floors. It was just the sort of place husbands took their wives when they needed to apologize. Or where older women went in pairs to chat and flirt with the waiters and recall their youth over a glass, or several, of wine.

What Eli disliked most about the old was how they clung to the idea of youth. The men bought fancy cars they had worked their lives and health away to afford, to impress women half their age, for whom dealings with such men was primarily an economic transaction. The women employed the artifice of plastic surgery, excessive make-up, and designer clothes and accessories in an attempt to slow the clock. He found it pathetic. There was nothing wrong with growing old gracefully. Each person got to live each year only once; there was no point in being greedy, and certainly no point in toiling away one’s best years in hopes of a luxurious and exciting retirement. Unfortunately, aging was a process of diminishing returns. The egalitarian nature of aging suited Eli’s sensibility because he was not old enough to feel the anxiety of knowing that life was slipping away and doors were closing. He did not know that as people got older they slowly faded and disappeared, the women first.

The problem with the old was that they had all the resources. Living as young man and struggling artist (was there any other kind?) in Monterey, Eli had that inequality shoved in his face daily. Indeed, as a waiter in Carmel, he was simply a servant. Consequently, Eli had learned to hold the rich in contempt; it was a defense mechanism. He thought envy of material wealth to be at best, weakness of character, and at worst, self-flagellation. Every day, after parking and walking to the restaurant, he would suppress the desire to kick the fancy cars and shatter with a bottle or rock, the windows of the ubiquitous galleries of mediocre art, some of which had been produced by the local idle rich who falsely believed that “a room of one’s own” was all that was necessary to be an artist. No, Eli was not impressed by the gaudy and technically mediocre potpourri on display, while his own work was refused.

So, the cynical pastime of milking lonely rich women for tips at the restaurant blossomed into an idea of predation, as Eli searched for a suitable victim. Still, he had his standards. He wouldn’t go with women over sixty, and he wanted to stick with those who were fundamentally attractive despite their age. Instead of waiting for aggressive and enterprising women to leave him their card or number, he left his with the select few he found attractive.

These first attempts resulted in several dates held in neutral locations such as coffee shops, restaurants and movie theaters, contrived romantic strolls on the beach, and occasionally cynical blowjobs in the leather interiors of luxury sedans, culminating in awkward parting embraces and abrupt, perfunctory goodbyes. In all of these encounters, despite his plan, he could not bring himself to take it further and invite himself into their home where he could pleasure them for money. That is, until he met Veronica.

In the flower of her youth, Veronica had no doubt broken many hearts. In spite of being nearly sixty, she had aged well and the essence of her beauty remained. It was apparent she exercised regularly, ate healthy, and her physical assets were authentic. The crow’s feet and faint lines in her cheeks gave her beauty character.

Veronica was clearly a successful woman who had lived a life of comfort and laughter, and who, as a result, was used to getting what she wanted. And she had a reputation for wanting younger men and being generous about it.

It became apparent that Eli was her latest target. A regular at the restaurant, she started to come before the rush to secure a seat in his section when he was also less busy. Usually with a friend, she increasingly came alone. When Eli served her, he noted her frequent, lingering glances and small flirtations: touching his hand when he passed her the menu or another glass of red wine and making small talk that became increasingly flirtatious; commenting on his physique, his resemblance to a certain actor, and questioning him about his personal life.

Ah, so he was painter. Well, couldn’t he show her his work sometime? There were several places in her house that could use a little color and decoration.

During these flirtatious exchanges, her usual dining companion, Gail, attractive in her own buxom, ruddy-cheeked, slightly overweight way, looked on with a mixture of amusement, embarrassment and perhaps even envy at Veronica’s bravado.

In this way, over the course of many meals, always accompanied by excessively generous tips, they developed a rapport. Yes, Veronica was the sugar mamma Eli had been looking for. From the very beginning she made it easy for him, and he felt no shame at calling the number she eventually scrawled on the receipt with the joke: For a good time call Veronica ; ).

Later that week, Eli found himself standing in the driveway of her Carmel Highlands home; a two-story Spanish revival with wrought iron balconies nestled in the cypress on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. Envious, Eli found himself wanting such a house for himself.

When Veronica opened the door, Eli couldn’t help but notice her low-cut dress, the stiletto heels that formed the pedestal for her stunning legs, usually hidden under a dining table, and her perfectly styled hair that she wore up with a few loose strands hanging down her temples. As a painter, he noticed and savored these details. By comparison, he was dressed rather shabbily in overalls, a wool sweater and beanie (which he promptly removed), as he had come straight from his drafty studio on Cannery Row.

He had brought with him what he considered his three best paintings. He would have brought more, but the canvases were large, and he consoled himself with the thought that if she did indeed like his work, he could come back with others. To put him at ease Veronica offered him a glass of wine. They toasted, and she sat down on the couch while he uncovered and displayed his paintings.

He was an abstract impressionist. The first painting was blend of yellows, oranges and reds like sunset or dawns on Mars, or perhaps an infrared image of fornication, with shadowy phallic towers of different lengths emerging from the bottom of the canvas. The next was a swirling tunnel of lush green foliage that lost its definition and texture becoming turquoise and then pale blue, dotted with fine points of yellow, like lights or stars, at its vague termination. The tunnel of the afterlife? A love canal, perhaps? The final painting was covered with amorphous bands of white dots of differing densities that floated above a series of overlapping, multicolored, irregular polygons of varying tints and shades. This latter work, he felt, appealed to the emotions but defied logical analysis. An out of body experience, perhaps?

When he finished showing his paintings, Veronica asked him about the creative process, where he found his inspiration, and the meaning behind his work. Eli explained to her that painting for him was form of meditation and that he painted his dreams, not the events, but the feeling they gave him. Painting for him was an act as essential as eating and sleeping, without which he could not survive. Savoring the earnestness of his youth, Veronica said she was interested in the first painting because of the warm, even passionate, color pallet.

Even though he needed the money, Eli was reluctant to part with it, as it felt like giving away a part of himself, something very intimate and personal, but he did so because he felt she understood and appreciated his work, and because when he named an exorbitant price, well beyond what he considered reasonable compensation, she accepted without hesitation, found her checkbook, asked his last name, and stuck a check for the full amount in his hand. It was his first major sale and now his room and board were paid for the next two months.

“And now I want you to do me a favor,” his new patron said, matter-of-factly.

That was how Eli became Veronica’s lover and avoided the shame of screwing her for money. And in that way, they were able to have a good time, until he ran out of paintings and had to paint more. He had never been so productive.

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