"Come on, Velma, you know it's not like that." Johnny Gossamer scowled into his Scotch. "I love art. It's just that sometimes... sometimes art needs to be slapped around a little."
The saloon door slammed open and a shadow fell across the table. Johnny looked up into the angry eyes of Gulch Lonergan, the rising neo-realist painter whose newly-opened solo show Johnny had just panned. But the Chicago piano clutched in his sweaty fists showed that right now, painting was the last thing on Lonergan's mind...
... "Go on, Lonergan, sit down before you fall down," Johnny Gossamer said carelessly, kicking a spare chair out from the table. "And stop waving that typewriter around. You're not scaring anybody. I know you can't shoot any better than you can sling paint."
"Geez, Johnny, cut me some slack fer once," said Lonergan, slumping into the chair and letting the submachine gun slide to the floor with a thunk. Nobody took any notice; it was that kind of joint. "Bring this pale aesthete a shot of whatever the hell it is that I'm drinking," Johnny called out to the bartender, and turned to the painter again.
"I mean it," Lonergan said. "Why are you riding me so hard? First you write in that @#$% blog of yours that my brushwork is insipid and my approach to pictorial space is derivative, and now you go and insult me in front of your girl."
"I'm not his..." started Velma, eyes blazing, but Johnny cut her off with a gesture.
"Don't you get it?" he said to Lonergan, almost bitterly. "Don't any of you palookas get it yet? You think I enjoy insulting people? You think this kind of life is fun for me?"
"Yes," said Velma under her breath, but Johnny Gossamer ignored her.
"I'm doing this for you, ya dumb dornick," he barked at the painter. "All of you. How long has it been since you heard regular people talking about art? How many Joe Schmoes do you see biting the ends off strawberries at your la-de-da openings?"
"Uh, dunno," said the painter, looking at his shoes. "Not many, I guess."
"You guess right. And why should they? All the art world has ever done for them is BS them and talk down to them and tell them it's all over their heads. Somebody's got to show them that art is for them – and the only way to do that is to show them it's okay to feel, to get passionate, to have crazy opinions. And you know what? Once they get that, then maybe they'll be brave enough to go to a gallery and say, 'Ah, that Johnny Gossamer is full of baloney. I don't think this Gulch Lonergan's paintings are half bad.'
"And by the way, I didn't say your brushwork was insipid. I said it was crap."
The painter twisted restlessly in his chair. "He gets this way," Velma said to him. "Thinking he's saving the world. Don't pay too much attention to him."
"I'm not," said Lonergan, grinning sourly. "It almost kinda makes some sense. But I'm still not sure I'm buying it."
"You don't have to," Gossamer said. "I'm not sure I buy it myself. But down these mean streets a man must go."
Velma leaned over to toward Lonergan and whispered: "He stole that gag from Raymond Chandler."
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