BARBARA, THANKS FOR THE PAIN(TINGS)

One day back in the 1970's the residents of 222 Seaman Avenue (one of Inwood's  quieter streets) awoke to find their building defaced with black spray-paint.  Apparently, in the middle of the night, some one had scribbled hastily, Barbara, thanks for the pain.

This message remained on display across the burnt-sienna bricks of the ground floor apartments for a number of years and came, in the minds of some, to epitomize the quirkiness of our neighborhood, evoking various scenarios of domestic turbulence all of which culminated in a breakup devastating to the anonymous spray-painter whose grief, we imagined, had overflowed the boundaries of privacy and gushed into the public domain
thereby condemning the named but mysterious woman, source of his anguish, to walk each day, on the path to or from the bus stop or train station, across that glaring reminder of the suffering she had induced,even as she feigned an air of pity, or obliviousness, or innocent mirth.

Then one day, the graffiti having merged, like the renovated steps leading down to the baseball fields, into the general landscape so that we barely noticed it any more, we were surprised to discover that, under cover of darkness, someone had added to the original message four new letters, in a similar script but with a hesitant, faltering hand so that it now read, Barbara, thanks for the paintings.  

More vintage quirky Inwood humor.  Some undistinguished, law-abiding citizen, after years of silent frustration, unable anymore to bear the weight of that unfocused, irremediable sadness the message injected to his daily existence, had relieved himself along with the rest of us - and Barbara as well - with a few bold strokes of paint, and that sorrow still evident in the distinctive lettering of the original message seemed now somewhat alleviated by whimsy, and deflected with mystery.

This updated version remained on display as well for a number of years, a perpetual source of bemusement to the newcomer and the passer-by, even as, for the local residents, it melted again into the vast terrain of all that's unconsciously expected. And so it's not surprising that none of us remembers the moment it disappeared.  Perhaps new ownership desired to improve the building's image; or maybe the instigation came for some tenants' committee (comprised of that new breed of resident that aimed to "gentrify" the neighborhood).  In any case, and finally, the message was gone, washed away.

But not forgotten.  Many years later and living in another place, I awoke with the phrase,  Barbara, thanks for the paintings on my lips.  My dreams these days (or these nights) have been radiant and deep (unless I have too many snacks before going to bed, in which case they are tortuous and humiliating) and so I've grown accustomed to lying in bed as the sun comes up, ruminating  with a clear mind and an optimistic outlook.  So as I turned the little phrase over in my mind, fresh possibilities sprang out at me that I had never
considered.

(For instance,) What if the phrase were devoid of irony?  What if the "thanks" were sincere?  Far from the heartless villain we imagined her, perhaps Barbara was an artist, talented and generous.  But then why the unusual, public display of gratitude?  Why not a card in the mail, a telephone call, even a personal appearance, perhaps along with an invitation to dinner?

And why more than one? - painting, I mean.  Normally one art-work at a time is considered sufficient.  How many paintings did Barbara bestow?  A pair?  Three?  Eleven?  Do they possess a common theme or form, like those medieval diptychs,  a larger unit?  (But then the message would have read, Barbara, thanks for the diptych.)  Are they miniature or monumental in scale?  Complete with frames or just canvases stretched over wood?    

For that matter the question may legitimately be posed (in spite of all our assumptions) whether Barbara painted them at all, or whether, instead, she merely procured them.  In that case what is their provenance?  Are they taken from  a yard sale in New Jersey, or from the bargain section of some department store?  Perhaps they are reproductions of masterpieces   such as the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper.  Or is "Barbara" the code name for a thief of international notoriety who, on the verge of being apprehended by federal agents, unloaded the spoils of a recent heist at the doorstep of an unsuspecting acquaintance?

You will admit that these speculations are interesting.  But as I lay in my bed that morning, contemplating with pleasure how possibilities can proliferate with the help of an active imagination, from a single, simple phrase, the riddle I found more intriguing than any of these was:  what do these paintings look like?  And the more I thought about it the more I became persuaded that they were abstract.  I could visualize, in my mind's eye, the third floor hallway, the door of apartment C, the 3 by 4 foot rectangles leaning against the door with their streaks of orange and spatters of yellow, their patches of crepuscular violet, their calm, cerulean blues.  The anonymous beneficiary, astounded and grateful, or perplexed and hesitant, picks them up, one at a time, and examines them,  turning them now sideways, now upside-down, in search of the right look.  

He loves them.  Or he is ambivalent. Or he despises them, in which case we can understand his scribbled message as an impulsive act of retaliation.  Overcome with horror, he grabs a nearby can of spray-paint, runs outside in search of the mediocre artist who has burdened his living room, his bathroom, his existence, with objects not to his taste: she's gone, and so he scrawls his message in sarcastic fury.  (Had he been calmer he might have added ironic quotation marks around thanks or paintings but he was at that moment in no mood for subtleties.)  

But you will object that I've become confused: in the extravagance of my fancy I've forgotten the order of events: before the message read "paintings" it read "pain" which is, for most, a very different thing.  And therefore (you wish to remind me) there can be no question of gratitude (sincere or not) for the supposed art-works: the "ings" was added years later, by another hand.  

But (I respond) what if that hand belonged to the unfortunate Barbara herself, who, unable any longer to endure her guilt, resolved to re-write (or re-paint) history?  And if so, did she find this sufficient?  For while her public reputation would thereby be restored, she would continue to bear within her a secret shame.  Perhaps, then, after scrawling her "ings," she felt impelled to quit her job, to take up the study of art, to move downtown and live like a bohemian, scratching a living producing charcoal portraits for tourists, or paintings for the
discount sections of department stores, or  federally funded, socially relevant spray-paint graffiti - all this in the attempt to persuade herself of her innocence, to render plausible an alternate past in which she had behaved generously, in brief, to alter the landscape of memory as she had altered the face of history.

Ah, but why assume the worst?  Why not believe instead that Barbara is and always was a painter?  That years ago she wished to surprise a dear friend?  She appears, one evening without warning, her canvases awkwardly in tow.   Buzzing the intercom to her friend's  apartment, she receives no answer.  What to do?  She does what Inwood's apartment dwellers usually do: she convinces the building's superintendent to let her in, she takes the
elevator to the third floor, and leaves the paintings outside number 3C.  Our anonymous recipient returns later that night, maybe a little tipsy.  At first he's befuddled. ("What the hell is this?...Barbara who?...")  But gradually he pieces the facts together and, in his euphoric state, conceives a wish to demonstrate his enthusiasm, a wish requiring immediate gratification.  But he can't find her phone number among the scraps of paper littering his kitchen table - in fact, he's not sure precisely where she lives: all he knows is that he often meets her walking along Seaman Avenue on the way to work on weekday mornings.  There is probably a soft and reasonable voice within him, cautioning him that the plan he's devising is risky, but alcohol has enhanced his courage along with his magnanimity.  He rushes out into the night with his spray-paint and begins, in a flowing script, to express his happiness.  A police car appears; two officers surprise him in mid-sentence.  He panics and begins to run.  Cornered in an alley, he turns on his pursuers, warding them off with squirts of paint.  He's subdued, arrested, sent away for years to languish in a distant prison.  Free at last (his enthusiasm, remarkably, undiminished) he returns to the scene of the crime and notes with a smile that his uncompleted message has endured.  From the folds of his clothing he produces a fresh can of spray-paint.  Satisfied, after thoroughly scrutinizing his surroundings, that he is alone, he completes his message at last.  

Immediately a siren sounds in the darkness; a car with flashing lights approaches.  He tosses the can of paint in the bushes and begins to run...