People of Pleasure
by Marina J. Neary
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 4 5 |
part 1
University of the Arts, Philadelphia - summer 2024
I was given three days to clean out my office. “Take your time,” they said. So, I took my time to “reflect and process.” That’s what civilized people do after a half-hearted slap in the face delivered with a limp, slippery hand. There was nothing I really wanted or needed from the office. Those filing cabinets filled with decades of lesson plans, some of them handwritten, could go up in flames for all I cared.
I did want to grab two of my abstract oil landscapes that were on display in the lobby of Dorrance Hamilton Hall. Technically, those pieces no longer belonged to me. I had donated them to UArts back in 2006 upon receiving tenure. Looking back, I realize what a stupid, impulsive move it was. A gesture of extravagant, unwarranted humility. I could have sold those paintings privately or placed them in one of New York’s galleries.
At the time it sounded so intoxicating: Rupert Irwin, professor and artist in residence. What a joke! UArts officially closed its doors due to lack of enrollment and mounting debt. The grants and gifts the administration had counted on simply did not materialize. That’s what the memo said.
The news caught the students and the faculty off guard, to put it mildly. Some girls from the Drama Department tried to organize a rally, and I even took part in it, if only for face time. Within days, the campus began disassembling, with the buildings going up for auction to repay the creditors.
Since the institution no longer existed, any prior agreements I may have had with it were null and void. I needed to get my hands on those paintings before our brilliant ex-president decided to donate them to Temple University.
For the record, I have nothing against Temple, apart from the fact that they have an ugly campus with depressing concrete buildings and filthy grounds. It’s not exactly a secret and certainly not their fault. The people at Temple have been good sports, helping us clean up our mess, absorbing some of the displaced students and faculty. They even offered me an adjunct position in their Tyler School of Art and Architecture teaching digital illustration. I am tempted to take that job, because I’m five years away from Social Security, and I need health insurance, especially with my recent cholesterol levels.
It will be awkward once they find out I have no computer skills. The only time I turn on my desktop is to enter the grades. Yes, I’m a brush and paint dinosaur. I use the same technique that my predecessors did three hundred years ago. This is why I needed to get my landscapes back. I almost let them slip away.
When I got to the lobby of Dorrance Hamilton, two guys who looked like glorified janitors were prepared to dismount the paintings. I did not need to yell at them to back off. The workers did so at the very sight of me. I must have looked feral.
The paintings did not want to come off easily. They clung to the wall as if they had grown into it. It almost felt like prying children away from their beloved adoptive parent. After all, Hamilton Hall had been their home for the past eighteen years. And there I was, the estranged birth father, trying to reclaim them. I could feel the canvas throbbing in defiant panic.
Getting the paintings off the wall was only half the challenge. Now I had to haul them to my apartment in Rittenhouse Square. I forgot how just damn cumbersome those pieces were, each measuring five by three feet, with heavy wooden frames. Or maybe I was getting old.
As I waddled out of the building, I spotted a former student of mine, Keith Librandi, vaping on the front steps. He worked as an assistant manager at a smoke shop on South Street. His other hustles included bartending, bouncing, painting murals, tattooing and dog-sitting. A twenty-first century Renaissance man.
Contrary to the stereotype, not all UArts students were trust-fund brats who could easily write a check for sixty thousand each year. Some of them had to juggle multiple gigs like Keith.
“You alright, doc?” he asked, raspberry-flavored clouds rolling out of his nostrils.
“You don’t have to call me that; I’m not your professor anymore.”
“You alright, Rupert?”
“Just call me Perry.”
“Perry it is, then. You alright?”
As you can see, Keith’s conversation patterns were... Hemingwayan. He did not rely on words for self-expression.
“So nice of you to ask,” I replied. “You’re actually the first person to check on me. You want my honest opinion?”
“Sure.”
“We should’ve seen it coming. The whole establishment is a fossil. Who needs art history these days? Who needs color theory? Who has the attention span to sit for hours shading circles? I mean, that’s what I did when I took my first drawing class. I sat there drawing circles with a pencil and shading them to give them dimension. This was way before your time, but that’s how we were taught back in the seventies. We’ll all be replaced by AI. Such a sucky time to be an artist.”
Keith did not exactly disagree. He did not believe in fake, saccharine consolations, like: There are other jobs out there. When one door closes... At least Keith knew better. Sure, there were other jobs waiting for us, most of them in food service and hospitality.
I held the archivist Linda in my arms when she broke down, sobbing that her degree in library sciences would not qualify her as a Starbucks manager. Erik Horn, our music entrepreneurship professor got hired to run karaoke nights at a gay bar. Brenda Lew, the associate dean of the Dance program, joked about working as a cruise ship choreographer. She could no longer afford rent, so living on a Carnival liner seemed like a decent option.
You see my point? These were not exactly dream jobs. Not even lateral moves. These were hold-your-nose, try-not-to-gag jobs. Keith knew that, so he did not interrupt my pessimistic tirade.
“You gonna trip and break a leg,” he said, nodding at the paintings. “Let me help you.”
“You don’t have to. I got this.”
“That’s what you think, Perry. I wouldn’t carry these in the open. It’s not safe.”
“Why?”
“They’ll get stolen in a second, yanked right out of your hands. At least wrap them in cloth or something.”
How generous of Keith. Under less depressing circumstances, I would feel tingles of vanity, like... I don’t know... the past fifty years of my life were not a total waste?
“I’m flattered that you think of my juvenile doodles as theft-worthy,” I said. “I don’t think anyone outside of UArts knows me.”
“You’d be surprised, Perry. I heard one of the guys in my sculpture class compare you to April Gornik.”
“That’s a very odd comparison. But I’ll take it.”
“I’m telling you, Perry. Your stuff is worth something. Don’t sell yourself short.”
Here I began suspecting that Keith was trying to make a quick buck. That would explain all the flattery. Hustlers like him are used to thinking on their feet. I did not have any cash on me, and I never figured out Venmo.
“I don’t like to exploit my students,” I said.
“You’re not exploiting me. I want to help. You can make me a ham sandwich later, so you don’t feel guilty.”
The barter proposition did not shock me. Keith was no stranger to working for food. I had seen him take home leftovers after staff lunches. He always volunteered to set up the conference room and ended up with a chicken panini or cheesesteak hoagie for his efforts.
One time he had taken home a whole pizza, because the crust was a little burned. Our diva of a president had wrinkled her nose, but Keith did not mind the charred dough. He could eat food others found unpalatable. I was not super-worried about him; that boy would never go hungry.
To be honest, the thought of bringing the paintings back to my apartment unsettled me, flashing me back to the day I brought my mother home for hospice care. Not a cheerful sort of homecoming.
“I have a brilliant idea! Let’s bring the paintings to your place.”
Keith looked confused. “Like for storage?”
“No, for good. I’m dead serious. I want you to have them.”
“Why me? I wasn’t even your best student. Never got above a B-minus.”
“But you were my favorite. I saw your potential.”
“Really... That explains why you were such a hardass.”
“I know I’m not supposed to have favorites, but every professor does. You just happened to be mine. I can say it now. These rules don’t apply anymore. I really, really want you to have these paintings. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone crazy. It’s my gift to you. Maybe you’ll sell them one day. I don’t care what you do with them. They’re not coming home with me.”
“Thanks... I guess? I don’t have much room, though. I’ll have to put them on the floor against the wall, next to the cat box.”
“Perfect! That’s exactly where they belong. If your cat pees on them, so be it.”
Keith shrugged and grabbed the canvases out of my hands. I felt instant relief, both physical and mental. The burden was no longer mine to carry.
Keith lived on South Street, about a mile away from the university. It would take us fifteen minutes to get to his place. Have you ever experienced Philadelphia summers? The humidity, the perpetual construction and the pollution wafting from the industrial district. Time and temperature tend to distort under these conditions. Eighty degrees feel like a hundred, and fifteen minutes feel like an hour.
But it’s all worth it. That smell of overheated asphalt and fried onions is an integral element of the Philly experience. It will linger on your hair and your clothes for days. If you live in the city, you stop noticing it. The smell becomes a part of your body chemistry.
Walking behind Keith, I watched a sweaty triangle forming on his t-shirt. To be that young and unfastidious! I could barely keep up with him. With each step, my legs felt more like noodles. Without his help, I would not have made it very far.
As we were passing by an old record shop, Keith suddenly slowed his pace.
“What do you think of this?” he asked, nodding at a faded mural depicting a wrinkled hag with monarch butterflies coming out of her opened cranium.
I needed a few seconds to catch my breath. “Hard to say. I’m not an expert on urban art. They all look the same to me.”
I was really making myself look bad here. An art professor is not supposed to admit to such things, especially in Philly, the mural capital of the world. Imagine an Italian chef admitting he knows nothing about pasta.
“It’s mine,” Keith muttered. “I painted it ten years ago.”
Whew! Good thing I didn’t tell him what I really thought about the painting. I would have had to eat my words and apologize profusely.
“Not too shabby for a high-school freshman,” I said. “Decent grasp of proportions, not that anatomic realism is expected.”
Keith’s gaze grew bleaker by the second, storm clouds of self-criticism quickening over his forehead.
“Can’t say I’m super proud of it. To tell you the truth, I’m kinda embarrassed.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it.”
I knew exactly what was wrong with it, but I wanted to hear it from Keith.
“Butterflies are so cliché. La mariposa... That’s what it’s called en español. Stupid me, thinking it was edgy.”
“At least it’s not a white dove or a dreamcatcher. Or a black jazz player with a trombone. That would be like a scoop of vanilla ice cream with an eye roll on top. Don’t beat yourself up. It won’t kill your career. There are so many other murals in the city.”
“But this one is mine. I walk by it daily. Every time I hate it a little more. I see more things wrong with it. I see tourists take pictures in front of it. Makes me wince.”
“It means you’re evolving as an artist. I don’t like my early stuff, either.”
“I secretly wish someone vandalized it or painted over it.”
“Maybe the building will get demolished.”
“Not any time soon. I checked with the city hall. Don’t tell anyone it’s mine.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Marina J. Neary
