Matrices Mound

 

How I came to meet Feely is one of those tales I would rather not relay in full truth as it would reveal certain small embarrassments about my life.  Surely it would be better to employ the powers I wield as an author to embellish, fabricate, obscure.  But I am not so creative.  The larger embarrassments you would never hide anyway, for they tend to make for more interesting stories, but those smaller ones, those private and seemingly insignificant things you would prefer not to share.  In this case, the embarrassment relates to my proclivity for kicking a football about in a field.  Trivial, you might say.  But if the wife knew, she’d want a word with me, and if my boys knew, they would no doubt suffer feelings of inadequacy wondering why their dad chooses to kick the ball about by himself and not with them.  I would have no answer for them, as I have no answer for you.  It is just something I like to do. 

So it was one of those days where I had stolen into the field and was kicking the ball about by myself merrily.  There was a healthy breeze going and I enjoyed watching the ball curl in the air when I gave it a good wallop.  After one such wallop, the ball curled a bit too much for my liking and ended up in someone’s back garden.  And yes it was Feely’s back garden.  I had never met the man, not many people had.  He was this town’s resident art man, known for his many public entanglements (professional, legal, carnal), and thoroughly disliked nationwide.  These entanglements extended to his most famous work, Matrices Mound (currently on display in the Dekker Museum in Rotterdam as it happens), a great mass of knotted wires, old plugs and cables.  Classified in gallery terms as a sculpture, it was actually, in Feely’s words, a piece of realia which had naturally formed in his house over the years and that he had always longed to be rid of.  With the cords withered and dusty, some torn to reveal the naked copper, and others marked by old tape and product tags, it kind of resembled the land uprooted, like someone had dug up clumps of earth, and all the industrial detritus of the world had come up too.

Feely was tolerated in the town, for he was a blow-in.  From the northwest originally.  How he ended up here is anyone’s guess.  In other places, having a relatively famous artist living within reach would be an endless fount of curiosity.  But not this town, no way. People knew of Feely, knew something of his past, but were passively intrigued.  It was the perfect town for miserable artists to live in.  You could be as miserable as you wanted and the people just went along with it, and you’d still find the bottle of milk on your doorstep in the morning.

I could say that it was fear of the man that prevented me from simply going to his front door and facing him and asking him politely if he could throw the ball out to me but that was not to be the case.  I was more inclined to climb over his wall and retrieve it myself the way I had done as a lad, another admitted embarrassment, but a larger one this; the wife if she reads this will never believe I climbed Feely’s wall.

And I did just that. Up I went as if twelve again but the coming down was in keeping with a man in his forties unfortunately. The legs buckled and I fell on my side getting a face full of garden filth.  My ankle was left a bit sore but nothing was broken as far as I could tell.  Before I could even look for the ball, a voice sounded out: 

What are you up to?

I hadn’t noticed from above on the wall but Feely was sitting on a deckchair behind the shed sunning himself.  Shades on, his hairy bony legs showing.  Feely had been around in the world for a while, but he wasn’t that old.  About sixty.

Ah, I said, nervously.  I kicked my ball in. 

You’re a bit old to be hopping walls, aren’t you?

I am.  I’ m sorry. 

It’s alright.  I’m not going to call the guards or anything.  But I’m afraid your ball is no longer kickable by the looks of it. 

Sure enough, by the shed there was a tool rack containing a number of garden implements and there impaled on a long-handled fork was my stray football. 

Serves me right for using a plastic ball, I said.  A good leather one would have endured.  That one belongs to my boys.

And where are your boys?

They’re at home watching Herbie Rides Again, if you must know.

A classic.

Yes.

Well, said Feely, standing up.  You might as well get out of here.  You can leave through the front door to save you from more embarrassment and you can take your punctured dreams with you.

Oh, thanks.

I pulled the ball off the fork and followed him into the house.  As we walked, Feely began to babble on about something. I couldn’t make out the words but I believe it was a move to prolong our meeting because at one point he trailed off into the sitting room beckoning for me to follow; and he said, Look, I’ll show you, as if I had been listening to him.  I said Okay, as if I had been listening, and dutifully followed. 

You see, nothing controversial, eh? he said when we were both in the room.  You might have imagined a lot worse from an artist like me but it’s pretty normal, isn’t it?

Looks very normal.  Yes.

My detractors would love it if they could get a glimpse into my sitting room and see only signs of incredible deviancy all around.  But there’s nothing deviant here.

I feel sorry for what happened to you, Mr Feely, I don’t quite understand it.

Nobody does.

And truthfully, reader, even I, a man of letters and worldly enough to hold his own with the very best of them in discussions of current and general matters, could not tell you exactly why his name had been sullied.  I had heard the word deviant used, yes.  And misogyny had come up.  As well as fascism, plagiarism, extortion, blasphemy, homophobia, lechery, cannibalism.  I recall that apparently he once appeared in his natural state on the streets, severely intoxicated, but it was before people came equipped with pocket-sized cameras, so there is no photographic evidence available to support this claim.  

But . . . Feely said, pointing to a painting on the wall above the sofa.  That there was half-responsible for everything. 

I moved closer to get a look. 

I am not known for my paintings, he continued.  Primarily I was known for my sculptures and installation pieces, but this single measly effort caused a stir, even though it complements my broader themes – oh, if only they looked hard enough.

It was a painting of a slug.  An oily black slug.  With willowy tentacles and pink glowing eyespots.  Although not an expert in these concerns, I could say it was an impressive achievement for it looked very much like a slug, except dramatised splendidly in a way that I believe satisfied the stipulations of artistic composition.

It’s called Woman, he said.

Ah, I replied.  Misogyny.  I get it.

No, it is a rendering of my true love.  My true love who does not exist.  Except in the art.  In the art you’ll find her all over the place.

A slug?

In my mind she resembles that.  She is a rather small, chubby woman.  Always in dark clothes, dark hair, small bright eyes.  And I have always thought the slug a pretty animal.  It is slow.  Sensual. 

Sensual?  You don’t have inclinations of . . .

No, no.  Catch yourself on.  I would never do such a thing.  I am merely sensitive to the sultrier designs of nature.

Well, I apologise for saying, but your true love doesn’t appear very attractive.

By your metrics, maybe.  Not by mine.  I find gastropods very appealing.  Often I’ll catch sight of one slinking in the garden and I’ll just marvel.  Cry my eyes out too I would if by accident I stepped on a poor snail.  I’ve always had rapport with the subterranean, the earthier ones, the slimier things of the soil, the sour bugs, the sweet bugs et al.  My true love is among the sweeter ones.  She’s not ugly like those grotesquely spotted Kerry slugs.  She’s more like a black velvet slug, with her dark and glossy mantle.  She moves in my mind with grace.  Dignity.  She is quiet.  Accommodating. 

Sorry, it appears to be sexism, by my metrics.  And I guarantee by the outside world too.  At the very least it is an offensive way to depict a lady.  My wife I know would have your arse caned.  In a way . . . I can see why you were cancelled from society.

Hear me now, do not become one of those bastards all up in my face.  Those moral grandstanders have no business in the arts.  Flip their names and thoughts out of you.  Caravaggio will come get them in the afterlife.  Bill Lee will do them like he did his wife. 

Have you been working on anything new lately? I asked, changing the subject.

Some years ago I began work on Matrices Mound II.  It continues to form steadily over there.

He pointed to a desk with a computer.  Building up underneath was a large snarl of cable and wire.  Recent entanglements.

This is my life, he said.

I notice there’s more colour in this piece.  What’s that thin blue wire?  I have earphones like that.

Who knows?  You’re very perceptive, I must say.  I didn’t even notice the colour blue in there and me the artist.  Can I ask what you do for a living?

I work for the Democrat.

What – you’re a newspaperman?

I am. 

He looked at me suspiciously; I realised he might have thought all of a sudden I was after something from him.

Oh, no need to worry, I consoled him.  I’m not here looking for a story.  I just wanted my ball back.

I didn’t think this would offend him but his face swiftly changed as if to ask why not a story about ME?  I might have once thought it viable to do a piece on him for the paper but knowing what I now knew I didn’t think the readership would have it.  Not that they cared about his prior controversies, but if all this other stuff were revealed, there’d be an outcry surely.  It would only confirm suspicions people had on the whole about artists and their habits and I wouldn’t want a mob to go round to his house.  We’ve had issues with zoophilia in the past and it didn’t end well.

I sensed low spirits from him and a little hankering so I put forth some personal questions to insinuate that I might indeed do a piece on him for the Democrat.

You have no family?

Sure what would I do with a family?  Only neglect them.

That wouldn’t be a good thing.  Although I work in media, I wouldn’t call myself a creative, so I don’t have to worry about that problem.

You’re lucky to have people around you that exist.  That are not merely imaginings of the mind.

I am lucky, I said.  I know.

The dreamers have this growth deficiency, he lamented.  Makes it difficult to function in crowds.  Still we cry out for them, even if they have no use for us.  So we are left alone with our convoluted fancies.

Ah, so is that the message of Matrices Mound?

There is no message.  Only mess.

I got it.  I never understood it.  But not a lot of people around here do. 

You are smarter than you let on.  As are most of them.  I would like to share my ideas with the people of this town. 

That might take some doing.  They don’t look favourably upon you.

Really?

Well, they don’t look unfavourably upon you either, but that’s what I mean: we don’t care.  They don’t care, I mean.

They have every right to their opinions about me.

It seems you would like company? This true love if you could find her – would you?

I do not know. She would inevitably go the way of not existing again. And I’m not sure I want that hassle all over.

All over?  You mean she existed once upon a time?

There was a pause.

I did not say that, he replied after a moment.  But in a sense .  .  . once upon a time . . . she may have.

She’s dead, isn’t she?

I never said that either.  Where is your true love besides?

Eh . . . at home.

Ah, home is where love should be.

I guessed then I had figured him out.  His face changed when I mentioned his true love dying.  As if it was something he was trying to cover up.  But he hadn’t fooled me.  And so, content to know I’d gotten one over on him, I decided to bid Feely farewell and push on, apologising once more for jumping his back wall before going to the front door. 

Hold on, he said, before I could leave.  Just one minute.

I held on as he darted out to the back garden and rummaged in the shed.  He returned moments later with a football in his hands – a beautiful, leather football seemingly from a different era.

You can bring this back to your boys, he said.  It’s signed by Michel Platini, but the signature might be faded now.

I was shocked.

Hopefully they’ll forgive you for busting their football when you show them that.  Be sure to watch a Herbie film with them tomorrow and then go for a kickabout.

Thank you. 

I left Feely’s house excited and dumped the boys’ busted plastic ball in the nearest bin.  I wanted to go straight to the pub and show everyone the treasure I’d uncovered.  Espana 82.  It must be priceless.  Someone would buy me a pint just to hold onto it for a half minute. 

I thought about Feely as I bounced along the footpath with World Cup history in my hands.  Would I ever see him again? was the question I asked myself.  I’ll be honest the whole thing with the slugs I thought a bit odd, most definitely questionable, so I’d probably give him the wide berth, as I was inclined to do before our lucrative meeting.

When a stone’s throw from Harry’s Bar, I became aware of stickiness against my fingers and holding up the underside of the ball to have a look I saw that a dirty black slug was glued to it.  I dropped the ball and rolled it violently with my foot, scraping and squishing the nasty thing into the ground, and once respectable again, I scooped up my ticket to the first free drink continued on my way.