|
|
Oh man.
He’s doing matches. Arno’s doing matches.
Joe put the sample down on his desk. He’d gotten it in the mail from a friend who worked for Ohio Match, with a note: “so are we legit now or is he hard up?”
Arno. Joe used to page through the New Yorkers at the library, and he’d always liked Arno’s style. Mostly for the dames. The guys all looked drunk, in that top-hat-and-tales style, where you’re sophisticated and charming right up until the moment when you toss the caviar in some grande dame’s lap. The women were always blond and big and round and eager and never seemed to give any thought to tomorrow. He could remember one punchline – hey mac, which way to Mecca – but only because he never understood what it meant.
He had his flaws as a cartoonist – I mean, look at those arms. They start at the woman’s cheekbones and go down to her legs. But look at his eyes: the girls got real eyes, not the fireman. That’s how happy he was. So happy he got cartoon eyes.
I’ll bet someone else gave him the gag to draw, and he decided to make them two girls. Twins, at that. Although all the Arno girls were sisters.
How is he going down the ladder? From the looks of the fire’s below him, and he’s walking backwards down a ladder, starting straight ahead with unseeing happy cartoon eyes. Who cares? It’s Arno.
Joe wondered what he charged. Couldn’t be much. But would it be worth it? Try selling that to a customer: here, look at this cartoon. I can get you one like that. So? What’s so special? It’s Arno. He was in the New Yorker when I was a kid. So was Mussolini. Who cares? It’s not even that funny.
It wasn’t, now that he thought about it. Just a cartoon. People liked cartoons.
What if this had a different gag originally? Maybe something racy. Didn’t Arno do cartoons for those magazines they had at the barber shop? Joe had gone downtown with his dad a few times to watch him get his hair cut, and he remembered feeling alone and out of place. There wasn’t much conversation and he suspected there would be more if he wasn’t there. The barber handed him a comic book – some stupid thing with bunnies and a fat kid, not anything good like the Torch or Submariner. When no one was looking he snuck a look at the Esquires.
Maybe he’d seen this cartoon already. Maybe it had a risqué caption he hadn’t quite understood, but knew meant something naughty. Something from the barber-shop world. This is the third fire this month. Are we doing something wrong? That would have gone right over his head.
Whenever he thought of the barbershop trips, he wondered if this was his father’s way of introducing him to the culture of men without having to say or explain anything. Fathers didn’t want their sons to pick up their knowledge on the streets, but the waiting room was a different matter.
Joe got out his address book, found the number.
“Chet? Joe.”
“Hey, Joe! Come crawling for a real job, huh?”
“No, I like it here. I’m my own man.”
“Yeah, and give the boss my regards. You like that one I sent over?”
“Nice. How’d you get him?”
“Arno? Ah, we just bought it from a New York outfit that sells the illos. Blank. You supply the caption.”
“Really? I wonder what the original caption was.”
“It didn’t have one. It’s a guy with two beautiful women in negligees in his hands. It doesn’t need a caption. But, we gotta sell razors, so.”
“Yeah. You got the number of that place?”
“Sure. Hold on.” Joe waited. The boss wouldn’t go for this – what’s the idea? What’s so special about this? You can draw better than that. But the boss didn’t have to know everything. These days he didn’t seem to want to know anything, for that mat –
“Okay, here it is. Butterfield 6 3923. Hey, you want to get a drink some time?”
“Sounds good. Drop by you ever get over where the action is.”
“I will. See you.”
Joe hung up the phone. He thought a moment, checked his watch, then put in a call to New York.
“Associated Illustrators,” the receptionist said.
“Mr. Peter Arno, please.”
“I can take a message.”
“Fine.” Joe gave his name and number. “I’m calling about some custom illustration.”
“I’ll see that he gets it.”
“Thank you.”
Joe put the phone back in the cradle. I am running this shop, he thought. If Dad could see me now.
He’d probably ask why I hadn’t hired Vargas.
------
Peter Arno, aka Cortis Arnaux Peters, RIP. And the Mecca cartoon.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
