Traffic heading into Manhattan on the 59th Street Bridge was streaming past the aging Dodge pickup sauntering along in the right hand lane. Laid flat in the truck's open bed was Mavro's In Your Face painting on plywood. In the truck's cab, the owner and driver, Luis Aguado, had a question for Victor Sykes sitting in the passenger seat.

"How come he didn't want to come with us, the kid?"

Sykes had been watching the Roosevelt Island cable tram that ran alongside the bridge, the conveyance almost keeping pace with the lumbering truck. "I thought it best," he said, turning to Luis, "to let these people I'm seeing have a look at the painting first. Then, if they like it, go from there. What do you think?"

"About what?"

"The painting."

Luis shook his head. "You're asking the wrong guy."

"Why?"

"It's kinda like what I say about my girlfriend's cooking."

"Which is what?"

"It's interesting."

Sykes nodded. "Maybe it'll grow on you."

"Maybe." 

Taciturn Luis – driver, watchman, general handyman – had a worn, dark face that had done most of its living in Queens and Brooklyn, save for trips to visit family in Puerto Rico and a tour of infantry duty in Vietnam. He'd gotten his girlfriend's nephew to come over and take his place watching the gutted building while he drove Sykes to the city. Not that there was much of the building left to watch, but there were liability issues if somebody who didn't belong there got in and messed around and got themselves hurt. He looked at Sykes from the corner of his eye. "How's your nose doing?"

Sykes touched the bandage. "Okay." He didn't remember having said anything about it.

"I've gotten a few of those myself," Luis said. "It have anything to do with the kid?"

"No, but how do you know I didn't just fall on it?"

"You look more interesting than that."

Sykes accepted that as a compliment "Thank you."

~~~~~~

By the time Sykes had finished telling him a modified version of the story behind the patched-up nose, Luis had taken the FDR Drive uptown, crossed over to Fifth, and pulled into the parking garage of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He helped Sykes carry Mavro's plywood painting up to Philip Tierney's office with its world-class art and left Sykes to do his thing with the curator.

Sykes was watching Tierney frowning at the In Your Face painting, which was propped against the wall next to a Matisse.

"Well?"

"What do you want me to say?" Tierney said. "That we'll add it to the permanent collection?" He touched the edge of the plywood panel, pricked his finger and jerked it back. "Your materials are a little rustic."

"Exactly. The work comes from humble origins. The kid's got what, a leaky pot to piss in. But he makes compelling art."

"That's not a bad hook."

"It's the truth."

Another voice spoke up. "So get it out there."

Sykes and Tierney turned to Helen Carty, who was watching from across the room.

"The pot, the paintings," she said. "Let everybody see the whole shtick."

Sykes stared at her. He looked at Tierney. "You mind if I borrow your associate?"

~~~~~~

She was squeezed between Sykes and Luis in the front seat of the pickup on the trip back to Long Island City. "This better be good," she said, glancing at Sykes and his bandage, "or that nose will have a relapse."

When they got to the loft, after the wobbly ride up in the open freight elevator, they found Mavro on his skateboard, wheeling back and forth among the pieces of junk machinery at the far end of the echoing expanse. He didn't seem to pay any mind to Sykes, who wanted to introduce him to Helen. Sykes started to walk back there, but stopped when Mavro waved him away and pointed to the wall at the other end of the space.

Sykes turned around and saw why the point, saw that his new discovery had been busy in his absence. Lined up against the decaying wall were four new paintings, all in the primitive abstract style of In Your Face. They were painted on four of the scrap panels that Sykes and Luis had brought over from the gutted building.

Helen had seen Mavro pointing and was on her way over to check out the paintings.

Sykes came up behind her. "Was I right?"

Helen took a few moments to look the pieces over. "I have to confess," she said, "that primitive abstract isn't really my field."

"I mean about there being a story."

Helen concentrated on the artwork, the bold colors, the figures, the flamboyant brushwork. "It's possible I can get him some space in the trades."

"What about TV? Cable, Internet..." He nodded toward Mavro, still on his board doing wheelies. "The camera would eat that up."

Helen looked at the artist/boarder. "Who's going to talk up his work?" She turned to Sykes. "It can't be you for obvious reasons." Looked back at Mavro. "And we don't want him tooting his own horn."

Sykes nodded, agreeing on both counts – something had already come to mind. "I have a thought."

~~~~~~

Janna answered the call to play art commentator, Sykes not mentioning to Helen the young woman's skill with lifting wallets, that her street name was Ladyfingers. She was sitting on Mavro's torn sofa, addressing herself to Sykes, who was tutoring and prepping her. "The paintings are about mood and the power of color," she said. "They're meant to be felt as much as seen."

"Good," Sykes said. "And what about the figures in the pieces?"

"The figures in the pieces give them a spiritual energy."

Suddenly a loud, hollow thwack! reverberated in the background.

Janna looked across the loft to where Mavro was flipping his board right-side up after an unsuccessful heel flip. He hopped back on, pushed off, and wheeled around the floor.

Janna continued: "Mavro gets most of his ideas on his board..."

~~~~~~

She used the same sentence that afternoon when, dressed in designer jeans and a glamour-grunge chambray shirt, she stood in front of Mavro's paintings, facing a video camera. "... and because there's room to ride in here," she said, indicating the paintings, "he can put his ideas right to work."

Conducting the interview for whatever viewing medium she could get it on was Helen Carty. "The words that Mavro puts in his paintings – they're obviously a design element. How do they relate to the piece? How do they originate?"

The cameraman, a bearded cultural programming veteran who Helen had borrowed from PBS, turned his lens back to Janna.

"You'll have to ask him." Janna said, and called out of the frame. "Mavro?"

The cameraman panned to Mavro, standing by himself, one foot on his skateboard.

Janna said to him from offscreen,"You wanna tell about the words in your paintings?"

Mavro said, "Not really," and pushed off with attitude in his wake as he rode his board to the murky far end of the loft.

Helen was nonplussed by the rebuff.

Janna was just plain furious. "Can we cut?"

The cameraman stopped the shot and lowered his lens.

Janna stomped over to where Mavro was riding around on his board. "What was that about?" she said.

"What was what?"

"You having a hissy?"

"Looked to me like you had everything going just fine. A star is born."

"Oh, man, grow up."

"Right," he said, and continued making loops on his board.

Janna said, "We got a show to do. For your benefit."

"Don't do me any favors."

Sykes was watching the skirmish, Helen as well. "The artistic temperament at work." He walked over to the two combatants, motioned for Mavro to step aside with him.

When Mavro didn't move, Sykes said, "Bear with me, it's important."

Mavro stood for another few moments looking sullen – then wheeled over and stepped off his board. Sykes turned him so that their backs were to the others and spoke in a low voice. When he was finished he patted Mavro's shoulder. "Okay? I think it'll work."

Mavro stayed quiet, then nodded. Sykes gave a Let's try it again nod to Janna.

Take 2. The scene picked up from Helen's last question to Janna: "The words that Mavro puts in his paintings – they're obviously a design element. How do they relate to the piece? How do they originate?"

Again Janna said, "You'll have to ask him," and again called to Mavro.

Once more the camera panned to him, standing with one foot on his board. He listened to Janna ask her question, about the words in his paintings, thought about it, and responded, "Basically I got no interest in words."

"So why do you put them there?" Janna said.

Mavro hopped on his board, pushed off and smiled back over his shoulder. "So people like yourself would ask exactly that question."