THE NIGHT RED DARLINGTON DIED

306. THE NIGHT RED DARLINGTON DIED (nyc, 1967):

I wasn't doing much of anything back then except waiting for planes and trains and all the things of that nature which took me nowhere and the lamplit bowels of Lexington Avenue called me forth often enough - all those old stately mansions still piled up before late destruction : the brownstones and the walkups where many interesting people lived until they died and then the real estate interests would swoop in and take nearly a block at a time fronting the avenue and wipe it out and one by one each of those gravely interdicted plots of oldest New York were gone and in the monied filth of the new mid-century real-estate barons replaced everything with junk just as quickly as they could fill it up : defended by hundreds of lawyers and more every word of their mouths was spoken to shut down real life and replace it all with deadened and dreary commerce - apartments and densities piled one atop the other packed with people needing somewhere to live and not caring - thus the transformation began and the age-old sequence of new-world replacement of old-world pride did eventually ring the curtain down on the real Manhattan which once before had been in place - and even for me this was quite obvious but for others it was deadly and Red Darlington was for sure one of those : Red had come in a long time back just after the war in from Oregon or somewhere like that and he was a no-nonsense very gruff painter I'd gotten to know and his loft faced Lexington in the 30's between cars and trucks and big old homes and over its own time it had been used for varied purposes - a piano factory a furniture-storage loft a hat retailer and only by Red's time was its crumbly soiled nature bringing it into its real and perfect use : his wonderful perspective on it has art cans paint and canvas and brushes and everything else that goes with it splattered all about - the right light and where not the right lamps and platforms and work tables and in the far corners each were cots and beds and tables and a small refrigerator and a desk and shelves and chairs - all in some perfect form of hideaway to which I'd attach myself for days at a time - I used to think 'Red takes no prisoners' meaning that he just rolled over and moved on leaving everything behind as he spent weeks at a time toiling over some large-sized canvas the makes of which I often wasn't able to figure out until it was done HE said it was done anyway - zany lines leading to patches of color and deep spots within other colors and along one edge or another the geometric sudden pattern of lines dropped in as a seeming afterthought or a means of finally ending this jagged piece of color puzzle - Red's work only occasionally sold - a few hundred bucks here and few there and yet he managed to stay on always seemed to have enough ready cash to keep it all going and was always happy enough and plenty nice to me too and friends would come and go small parties were held people would hang around and yes things would get done and in his own little personal freight elevator there was always kept a bicycle or two for any of us to use - Red never cared and they seemed always to get returned - and we'd sometimes the two of us together just walk around - getting coffee or some food and he'd be looking at things or grabbing stuff from the gutter and talking about lines and patterns and we'd look along the big shopping streets for things left behind - back in those days one could get rich doing this almost - and long long nights sometimes went into mornings too with art-friends around here and there or forays down into the Village or someone else's pretty much the same loft somewhere else and round and round it went until done : a wonderful and nearly completed circle of intimacies and connections in which everyone ding pretty much the same things knew everyone else involved and there was a small level of perfect competition to see who would finish up best and first and the most right but it little mattered because it was all friendly together in the work of some frame of art some deeper other world I really wanted to become part of and eventually did too and that for me was a satisfaction deeper than anew Cadillac or a house in the country or whatever premise people valued other things by NOT ME I'd never care : separated by need and kept to the distance by the loved of the heart which brings forth goodness these were my times and these were my people and then one day all of a sudden Red was notified of changes - whoever owned this property had decided he'd owned it long enough and it was time for money to take its place and Red was given five months to pack up and get out move off the premises and bring everything else out with him sad to say Red had nowhere else to go and no plans to go anyway for as he said 'this was life the only life I got and the only life I've ever needed and beyond that point I ain't even thinking' and at the end of the fourth month : unbeknownst to everyone and to me too : one night Red just blew his brains out on the loft-studio floor and called it 'Red paints the loft Red'.