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Patron

Calder Lutz

The storm was still some distance off, though the smell of rain breezed in casually with every patron who passed through the large glass doors of the museum entryway. Clarence stood stoically at the doors left, savoring the wet scent of the clouds that each breach brought. He was one of the oldest guards still employed by the museum, and he remembered clearly the day the central air conditioners had been installed, filling the halls and galleries with the stale odor of recycled oxygen. He had requested door duty from that day on. He signaled one of the younger guards engaged in conversation with a woman at the information desk to come and relieve him while he relieved his bladder.

He nodded to the young man as he approached and began his slow walk to the lavatories adjacent to the main hall. He was accustomed to this route, as it took him through the central corridor of the museum and past the open arches of the galleries and exhibits themselves. Clarence had seen many of the great works in his decades of duty to the museum. Employment as a guard in the museum for such a stretch of time was rare, made more so by his knowledge of and affection for the art itself. He treasured each piece as his own, and had survived the mundane tedium of the job by viewing his himself as their stalwart guardian.

He stopped and stood by the frame of the open doors to the eastern gallery. Through many more door frames and arches there hung his centerpiece, his most cherished and prized above all in the collection. Olympia. Manet’s work hung as one of the museum’s greatest trophies. Its detail and beauty visible from even this distance, he gazed with well aged longing at the beautiful auburn haired girl within. He continued on his walk, thinking idly of the girl, the storm, and painful pressure both had caused on his bladder.

He walked briskly back to his station, cutting through the roundabout service doors to avoid running into anyone. As he came to the main lobby he was irritated to see the young guard he had placed at the door had strayed back to the woman at information desk. He quickly rechecked the zipper of his pants and resumed his place by the door before noticing one of the curators was making his way towards the desk, a look of agitation stretched across his pale face.

“You’ve let a vagrant into the exhibits, Clare.”

He hated that title coming from the man’s mouth. He had brought his wife once to the opening of one of the new wings year before. In exclaiming over of one of the new pieces she had let slip the private name only those closest to him were familiar with and it had stuck like thick paint to him every time he was chided by a superior.

“I certainly did not.” He replied in the most dignified manner he could muster, standing and stretching to his full height before the round, cherubic curator.

“Well one is in here now whether you took notice or not. Go and do your job. He’s in the eastern wing with the paintings.” The curator snapped, and rounding on his heels he began sauntering away. Clare shot a look of steel nails at the young guard by the door. He looked away and busied himself with adjusting his blazer and nametag before turning his back.

“What did he look like?” Clare quickly called to the curator before he was out of earshot.

“You know the look. Black hair, scraggly beard, trench coat.”

Clare began making his way towards the east wing, careful to watch for the man in case he attempted to double back, if an intruding vagrant he actually was. The curators were known for their pretentious view of most visitors to the museum. They showed no signs of cordiality or affection to any they assumed beneath them. Especially the guards. Explicitly Clare.

There were few visitors to the museum this day, even fewer to the east wing. Clare moved slowly from the hall to the first of the rooms, careful not to draw attention to himself from the few couples he watched poring over the Degas wall. He glanced into the next set of rooms and found they held no sign of the vagrant visitor who had aroused the suspicion and anger of the curator. It was not in Clare’s nature or requirement to harass or demean the patrons with questions and obvious scrutiny. His method was one of quiet subtlety and observation. It was this very astute observation that brought his attention to the small fragments of orange peel on the ground by the wall. He bent gingerly down to his knees and scooped them up, placing them in his blazer pocket for future disposal.

Orange peels were no obvious sign of vagrancy. They did, however, lead Clare to think that he was perhaps on the trail of the culprit. He stood and found his face within only a few inches of one of Cézanne’s paintings. Still Life with Apples and Oranges, he recalled. Yet there was something that gave him a slight pause about the painting. Besides the obvious coincidence of the orange peel being left beneath it, there was something off about the painting. Clare put the thoughts behind him as he continued on to the next room and then the next, seeing nothing of the vagrant visitor in either.

He was suddenly stopped again as he entered the adjacent room, his gaze drawn magnetically to the Floor Scrapers of Caillebotte. He took a step closer and allowed his view to encompass the work. His jaw sagged only slightly as an inaudible release of air escaped his lungs. The floor scrapers were not scraping. They were staring. Staring out of their wood paneled room beyond the frame of their painting. Clare had passed this painting ten thousand times before this day, and not once had the scrapers ever ceased their tireless work. Only a small echo of metal on wood from deeper within the gallery broke his spell of wonderment. He shook his head clear of the muddle that was beginning to grow there and continued to the next room.

The museum collection of Manet’s and Monet’s work were housed in the larger sections of the east wing, great spans of wall filled with vistas of city streets, lakes, and cafes housing women, men and children. Clare looked at each and found them all staring back. Faces once placid were now unsettled, their eyes drawn to the farthest door. The smooth graceful bodies of the women and men had recoiled to the safer corners of the paintings frames. A small fork lay under Manet’s Oysters. The oysters themselves were barren, stripped of their meat and covered with the juice of a lemon that lay just at the edge of the frame. The Dead Toreador, proud and noble in his pose, lay nearly naked in the dirt of his stadium, the best of his clothes stripped away. Clare began to move more quickly now on through the wing. Each painting giving some credence to the fire that began to burn through his brain, losing track of the small items that seemed vacant from each painting he passed.

He was drawing closer to the end of wing now. Olympia hung only three, and now two, and one room away. He entered the last and caught his fall on the door frame. The painting still hung, but of Olympia herself there was no sign. The only evidence of her existence was the faint outline of her body on the pillows of her chaise.

He was running now. His footfalls echoed through the wings as he mapped the shortest route to the doors in his mind. He rounded a corner and nearly collided with one of the passing tour groups, sending a cacophony of Pardon’s and Excuse me’s reverberating off the walls of the main hall. He reached the glass entryway in time only to see the doors shuddering to a close on their old springs.

The rain was falling in slow, lazy sheets as Clare pushed through the doors and stood at the edge of the stairs marking the museum boundary of his influence and authority. The rain stung at his eyes as he watched a man, his man he knew, stroll across the plaza. He wore the white leggings of an old gentleman, with a dark jacket stained dark crimson across the shoulder. On his arm hung a woman, her trench coat cinched tightly about her waist, her auburn hair falling off her shoulders. An orchid lay in the puddle at her feet. 

Based on:

Édouard Manet's Olympia, 1863
Musée d'Orsay

Paul Cézanne's Still Life with Apples and Oranges, ca. 1899
Musée d'Orsay

Gustave Caillebotte's Floor Scrapers, 1875
Musée d'Orsay

Based on Edouard Manet's Oysters, 1862
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Based on Édouard Manet's The Dead Toreador, 1864
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

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