The 10:42 To West Palm (Part 2)

It was with a sense of relief that we piled out of the Uber vehicle upon our arrival at the Norton. 

Expecting to enter a chill cocoon of frosty air when the Hyundai Tucson arrived at the corner to pick us up, we instead found ourselves descending into the seventh circle of hell. It was 91 degrees outside, and still cooler than the interior of that car. I own a Tucson so I know that the a/c in these vehicles works remarkably well, especially since mine continuously runs at absolute zero. And yet, here she was, a young woman swathed in heavy sweater and jeans, apparently heralding the onset of nuclear winter, or some other frigid calamity, while the Tucson's dashboard issued lukewarm gasps of the kind usually reserved for priests delivering last rites. I am not a religious man but I remember thinking please God, let this 0.4 mile journey be brief. But, as usual, God was in an ill-humor this day.

Per the instructions of the virtual assistant on her phone, the driver immediately turned down the road from whence we'd just spent the past 20 minutes walking and, before we could protest, back we went, curving around past the imposing building that looks like a museum but isn't, and then angling back around (again) past the new Hilton, ending up back at Okeechobee Blvd., across from the Restoration Hardware and one block from where we'd just been picked up. The perspiration was already free-flowing and in another five minutes things were likely to get pungent. But, it was C's birthday and we are gentlemen (in one realm or another), and as such, we were all on our best behavior. None of us were yet disposed to demand the turning on of the air conditioning. By this time, Kevin was frantically consulting his own virtual assistant (a vigorously assertive voice named Elsa or Elissa, but I think not Alexa) who instructed him thus: make a right turn, go two blocks, make another right and go 0.4 miles, how fucking hard is that, now get me out of this goddam hot pocket and be quick about it! With certain omissions, Kevin kindly relayed the instructions to the driver and the next two heatstroke-inducing minutes flew by like hours. 

C reminded me that the last time we'd been to the Norton, some construction was already underway and we weren't able to use the main entrance. Oh, right, I said, as if this stroll down memory lane wasn't news to me. However, today, the modernist main entrance was open and ready for business, its giant typewriter-eraser sculpture by Claes Oldenburg looming just outside the front door. There's also a small pool there, maybe an inch and a half deep, and such was my haste to obtain some measure of relief (preferably something akin to a polar vortex), that I, along with the Frankenstein boot, nearly charged right through it.

According to Wikipedia, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach contains “over 7,000 works, with a concentration on European, American, and Chinese art as well as contemporary art and photography”. It is the largest art museum in South Florida, having long ago appropriated that distinction from the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. At some point in the past five years, C and I, along with Kevin, made the pilgrimage up from Ft. Lauderdale to spend an afternoon at the museum, and I was apparently so impressed that I remember nothing—nada--about that visit. True, it would have been smaller then; after all, when the museum reopened in February of this year, it included 12,000 more square feet of added space, the better to showcase its many acquired treasures. Indisputably, it's a fine museum, certainly one of the finest of its size, and much of the same art must have been on display during my previous visit. But....I got nothin'. 

Once we were inside the museum and done luxuriating in the delicious bite of this frigid wonderland, there was another order of business requiring my immediate attention. Shockingly, the ice tea from lunch hadn't seeped through my pores so I was pressed to locate what I hoped wasn't another “water closet”. Indeed, it was not. The first floor men's room of the Norton Museum of Art is everything one hopes for in a public lavatory. Roomy and super-clean, it boasts actual urinals, along with stalls that are more like private cabanas, and completely enclosed from floor to ceiling should you require a more secluded sojourn of the second kind. Best of all, hot air does not shoot out of the water faucet; there are actual paper towels on hand for all your drying needs. It is, overall, a dignified oasis befitting an institution of such august repute.

Because there is a new cafe that recently opened in the museum, Kevin expressed his desire to partake in afternoon tea, with maybe a little something in the cake family as an accompaniment. I have my doubts that this pang was an expression of genuine hunger as much as a yen to further display his regal bearing to the occupants of the eatery. But, as it was pushing 3:00, C and I were eager to get on with viewing the museum's numerous artworks, so off we went. First up were some very unique and amazing mannequin/sculptures by Nick Cave whom I, erroneously, believed to be a member of Duran Duran. I thought it was great that he could establish a second successful career once the band's gigs slowed down. I was, shortly, disabused of this notion by a museum docent who happened to overhear this misbegotten soliloquy.

We then strolled into a large room filled with the modernist artwork of Nina Chanel Abney. Covering the walls of this room, her provocative paintings feature transgender figures, and explore currently relevant topics like sexism, racism, and homo- and trans-phobia, all of it presented in the brilliant, deliciously eye-popping colors I find so appealing. 

There were back-to-back benches placed smack in the middle of this room so after viewing each Abney painting singularly and up-close, the three of us sat and took it all in. Not for long, however, since time was a-wastin' and five o'clock crept ever-closer. Kevin's exceedingly long legs propelled him from one gallery to the next with a near-supersonic momentum, while C, quite sensibly, paused briefly before each work before moving on. Even without the Frankenstein boot, I would have been bringing up the rear. For some unknown reason, I seem hopelessly compelled to examine most works of art in minute detail, as if committing each brushstroke to memory. Obviously, this was not effective on my previous visit to the Norton, which I'm still not convinced ever happened regardless of photographic evidence proving it did. 

With Kevin sprinting somewhere far ahead and C always a full gallery ahead of me, I took my time gazing at each masterpiece. There was Miro, Pollock (alas, no Kandinsky), O'Keefe, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Louise Bourgeois, Hopper, Demuth, Stuart Davis, and a stunning ceiling display of Dale Chihuly glasswork. There is a polished bronze head—Mademoiselle Pogany II, an art-deco sculpture done in Paris in 1925 by Constantin Brancusi--that would look fabulous in our living room, and probably has a very interesting backstory. In fact, even Kevin decelerated long enough to offer his approval and appraise the head's value (in 2018, Brancusi's La Jeune Fille Sophistiquee, another polished bronze sculpture, sold at a Christie's auction for $71 million). 

The Picasso sculpture—Head of a Woman (1909)—required closer inspection, as well as a certain amount of introspection. I am an admirer (though no connoisseur) of Picasso's work and have been lucky enough to see some of it in my lifetime. Generally, depending upon the work, Picasso can provoke any number of responses, all of them framed by a general sense of awestruck amazement at his audacity, imagination and extraordinary talent. If you have any doubts about Picasso, check out his moving, monumental Guernica, a powerful anti-war statement covering one full wall of the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp, or his (frequently horrific, sometimes very funny) drawings of minotaurs, satyrs, fauns and other mythical beings, usually cavorting with nymphs in various states of undress. 

Which brings me back to Head of a Woman. Initially, it appears to be a huge, partially melted Tootsie Roll. That's my sanitized interpretation, anyway. Honestly, it more closely resembles something an unnaturally large hound might deposit on the dewy lawn following his morning constitutional. That's right, it looks like an extremely large dog turd. C gave it a noncommittal once-over but Kevin loved it. Kevin knows quite a bit more about art than I do, and C is no slouch in the art department, either. So, I scrutinized this thing, trying to discern the lines that induced Picasso to title it Head of a Woman. Prior to seeing it in the museum, I knew absolutely nothing about this piece. I know that Picasso tended to eroticize many of his female subjects--even with one eyeball on a cheekbone and the other in the middle of a forehead, his women exude a powerful sexuality—but this is a pretty far cry from that. Was he pissed off at his subject when he created it? Maybe. The model of this piece, Fernande Olivier, was Picasso's lover for a period of time and, from the information available online, their relationship was tempestuous and, often, violent. Whether it was born of love, hate or a combination of both, Head of a Woman seems to have been a labor of considerable passion. 

Sidebar: My Great Aunt Thelma spent her last days in a wheelchair, frail and feeble, but if you gave her one of those puzzle books where you look at what seems to be a straightforward picture of an aspen forest, she could quickly locate the herd of appaloosa hidden among the branches and spotted tree bark. Whereas, I could spend an hour looking for those damn horses and never find a one. It's right there in front of you, she'd say. You're just not looking at it the right way. (Aunt Thelma was also great at fingering the killer before she ever got to the end of an Agatha Christie novel. She really should have had a career in law enforcement.)

With this in mind, I tried looking at Head of a Woman from different angles and perspectives. Eventually, the features came into focus and I was able to appreciate the sculpture in all its complexity, as well as the artistry involved in creating it. Still, when it's all said and done, I don't feel much of anything for Head of a Woman. After I figured it out, and ooh'd and aaah'd a bit, I moved on. Next! I know, such a rube.

After admiring numerous other paintings and mixed-media exhibits, some by artists I'd never heard of, I realized it was 4:45, and soon C was steering me towards the exit. The train back to Ft. Lauderdale was scheduled to depart at 6, and we still had to get to the station—not a task to be taken lightly, given our track record. We'd also decided to make a pit stop at the Cheesecake Factory and pick up some dessert to take home, so we needed to go. Now, C said. 

The exit to the Norton is also the entrance, and one must pass both the cafe and the gift shop in order to leave the premises. C and I both assumed we'd find Kevin in the cafe, basking in the celebrity of whispered speculation, if not outright adoration. Much to our surprise, the cafe was closed. Dark, locked and closed. Apparently, the cafe shuts its doors at 4 on Saturdays. Oops. I guess that ruled out high tea. So, where was Kevin? 

There is a very large room, roughly the size of a grade-school gymnasium, on the other side of the museum's main lobby. We found Kevin there, sitting contentedly at one of a number of very long folding tables that are utilized for a multitude of purposes, including art classes and languid lounging around with refreshments. Before C and I had time to exit the building, Kevin was already at the curb dialing Uber on his cell phone. Within a couple of minutes the Uber driver pulled up at the corner and Kevin waved us to the car. With one last, forlorn look back at the giant typewriter-eraser sculpture, I climbed into the Uber, informing C that we need to return soon to see everything we missed—the second and third floors, as well as the sculpture garden! 

Kevin quickly made himself comfortable in the front seat and struck up a conversation with the driver, a charming, handsome man with an accent. “Where are you from?” Kevin asked, to which the driver replied that he came from London. Kevin's interrogation continued and, suddenly, there was something—a tone, a phrase—in Kevin's voice. Wait a minute, I thought, looking towards C. Is Kevin flirting with the Uber driver? Due to an irritating inability to read minds, C's response was not immediately forthcoming, and despite our years of friendship, I can think of no time when Kevin's flirting skills have ever revealed themselves. Surely, this was not what I was witnessing now! Was it?

There were several stoplights, and at each one, that je ne sais quoi in Kevin's voice seemed to become more pronounced and intimate. Suddenly, without further adieu, Kevin casually dropped the gay bomb into the conversation. Instinctively, I felt my colon clench at the TMI spilling from Kevin's lips. The Uber driver, however, was unfazed, and replied to Kevin's queries in a low, sultry voice that could have easily been construed as....frisky. Frisky? Was this really happening? Was the Uber driver now flirting with Kevin? I didn't know and now I suppose I never will. We were delivered to the corner across from the Cheesecake Factory where I expected some sort of exchanging of phone numbers, or at least a knuckle bump betwixt the two of them. Instead, I abruptly noticed that Kevin no longer occupied the space in the front seat next to the driver. Flummoxed, I got out of the car in time to see Kevin's backside vanish into the bowels of the Cheesecake Factory across the street. What? No! Just...no! This would not do at all! After all the fluttering eyelashes, the sly queries, the flirty banter--that je ne sais fucking quoi and the palpable frisson—of the last five minutes, Kevin had the absolute gall to leave us at the altar? I don't know how the Uber driver felt but I was astonished! And utterly disappointed. I swear, as long as I know Kevin, I will never understand him.

Inside the Cheesecake Factory, C debated over which slice most appealed to his birthday sensibilities. I, on the other hand, immediately went for the red velvet cheesecake but, after seeing the server lift my slice into the to-go container, I immediately regretted my decision. For starters, that slab of dietetic debauchery was almost as big as the Frankenstein boot, and probably outweighed it by five pounds. With a slice of red velvet cake sandwiched between one thick layer of cheesecake and another layer of frosting, plus a side of whipped cream, I was green around the gills just from looking at it. I told myself I could eat it in three separate episodes that wouldn't necessarily require an unseemly amount of guilt or a trip to the ER. For his part, C finally selected a hefty slice of mango cheesecake which, in all its glory, was still only one-third the size of my behemoth currently huddled in the Cheesecake Factory bag. Kevin wasn't having any of it since he has to watch his sugar intake so we were soon off to the train station, thinking we were home free. 

Ummmm...not quite.

We arrived at the station at approximately 5:15, plenty of time to catch the 6:00 train to Ft. Lauderdale. By the time we got to the waiting area, we were surprised to find it completely packed. C and I plotzed down on some low end-tables while Kevin managed to find one single seat across from us. Nearby was a small play area where a group of hyperactive children knocked the hell out of one another with what appeared to be swimming pool noodles. It was not difficult to determine that all the shrieks and cries coming from this crew were hardly exclamations of pleasure. Great, I thought, consulting the clock on the wall. Thirty more minutes until our train pulls in. Not soon enough. To make the situation more vivid, the temperature control in the waiting area seemed to be running on the heat setting. I may have mentioned this before but just in case I wasn't clear: I am not a big fan of heat, and more than anything, I hate heat accompanied by humidity. (I know, I know, the fact that I reside in Florida beggars belief). 

As 5:30 ticked by, there came an announcement that the 5:00 train to Ft. Lauderdale would be boarding shortly. Huh? She must have made a mistake! She must have meant the 6:00 train. I looked to the electronic display board and saw that, no indeedy, the announcer was not mistaken. The 5:00 train had been delayed. Which meant, in all probability, that the 6:00 train would also be delayed. We waited with baited breath as the waiting area cleared out (slightly) and the 5:00 passengers boarded their train. 

The display board updated itself to reveal the status of the 6:00 train: delayed.

By this time, I'd managed to claim a place on a loveseat-type contraption with an enormous back that completely blocked the battling brawlers in the play area from my sight, if not my ears. Seriously, you think Game of Thrones was brutal? The station was filling up again and the temperature continued to soar: I could almost hear the heat curdling our cheesecake slices in their to-go boxes. 

“What's the hold-up?” quickly became the dominant murmur echoing throughout the waiting area. Hot, impatient and tired, the denizens thereof fanned themselves with whatever seemed capable of producing the slightest gust of air. Earlier in the day, during our train ride up to West Palm, I'd had a fleeting sense of foreboding when a fellow passenger casually suggested a pedestrian-related accident as the cause for that brief reduction in speed. Now, with a full-fledged delay, that unpleasant feeling returned, so I thought I'd check my iPhone for any news updates. Before those news items showed themselves, that disembodied voice announced that boarding for the 6:00 train to Ft. Lauderdale would soon commence. It was only 6:30 so this delay was of a relatively brief duration compared to some I've experienced in airports before; the heat, the cramped quarters, and the screaming, swimming pool-noodle-wielding heathens only made it seem like an eternity. 

After we located our seats on the train—Kevin at one end of the car, C and I at the other—I resumed my online search for the cause of the delay. Something still felt wrong. As the train pulled out of the station, my phone displayed breaking news from the ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach. An elderly woman had been struck by the train as she returned home from a soup kitchen in Lake Worth. That was the preliminary report. Those few, sad details seemed to dampen any further attempts at conversation between C and myself for the moment. I laid my head back against the seat and looked out the window of the train, which was now going backwards (unable to turn themselves around, the trains face forward going north, backwards when southbound). Approaching Lake Worth, the train came to a near-halt as it crept by the crowded, police-taped accident scene. A few minutes later, Kevin texted C to inform him that, from his position on the opposite side of the train, he had seen the body bag still lying next to the tracks, and policemen walking nearby. Most of the children in our car had been surprisingly quiet since leaving West Palm Beach. I suspected most of them had fallen immediately asleep after boarding the train. I hoped so. I would hate for any of them to have been looking out the window as we passed the body, even if it was swaddled in an anonymous, impersonal covering. I was glad I hadn't seen it!

In Ft. Lauderdale, we disembarked without seeing any more of Kevin, perched as he was at the other end of the, now, Miami-bound train. Approaching the parking garage, C and I both expressed our sincere hope that it was now rid of its odoriferous guest. With low expectations, we slid stealthily from the safe confines of the elevator, lest the skunk still be concealed in the area, quietly awaiting our return.

Another sidebar: When my maternal grandfather was younger, and still alive, he enjoyed having a few libations from time to time. My grandmother, a teetotaler and very religious woman, tended to look askance at this behavior and was occasionally known to lock the front door, requiring my grandfather to spend the night in his car. Over time, my grandfather wised up and made sure to unlock the back door before engaging in an evening of intemperance. This was small-town Texas, and a dry county, but my grandfather had his secret ports of call, none of which were located more than a few blocks from home. That meant he could walk to the source of the evening's entertainment, and then sneak home through the back alley, past the twin apple trees, the weeping willow, the snap dragons, roses and honeysuckle, slip in through the kitchen and on through the rest of the house, dropping into his bed before my grandmother was any the wiser. That worked for awhile. Then, most dramatically, it didn't. One evening, having imbibed a fair amount, my grandfather, sneaking through the back yard, was caught unawares by a roving skunk that proceeded to dowse him with a spectacularly malodorous spritzing. The racket resulting from this unfortunate encounter was enough to awaken my grandmother and, I would imagine, most of the immediate neighborhood. Locking every potential means of ingress, my grandmother remained unmoved by the pleas of her itinerant, foul-smelling spouse. Unsurprisingly, he found himself persona non grata around town until he finally managed to rid himself of the unholy stink of that night. Over the years, the telling and re-telling of the story reinforced the fearsome capabilities of the loathesome creature until, eventually, every skunk acquired the mythic quality of a hound of hell. Indeed, better to have a rattlesnake or a rabid coyote on your tail than the evil, cunning skunk. Such was my thinking, anyway. Undoubtedly, the incident was oft-repeated to teach us something about the perils of indulging in too much drink, and of sneaking around drunk, but that was not the lesson learned. Avoid skunks at all costs! is what stayed with me. 

It was this history, dropped directly down from my family tree, that led to the singular vigilance with which C and I approached our car. True, there was no odor now, but who knew if this was some ruse devised by the beast to lure us into a false sense of security before coating us in a shroud of abominable funk? We flung open the car doors and bolted inside, free at last from the predations of the sinister, conniving skunk. On the way home, we began planning our next trip on the Brightstar/Virgin. Maybe, next time.....Miami?

A few days later, I happened across a news item detailing the accident on the train tracks in Lake Worth. The victim was a 31 year old woman, not elderly, as first reported, and she wasn't returning home from a soup kitchen. She and a friend had been walking when the woman, allegedly, tried to beat the oncoming train by racing across the tracks in front of it. I'm sure her loved ones, those left behind, could speak volumes about this young woman's life. I can't even imagine their grief, or the heartbreak of that one, single, burning question: why? As someone's lover, wife, mother, sister, daughter..friend...she would have left some impact during her 31 years. It seemed so needless to me. So sad. Next week, or the week after that, it will be someone else. They always come to the tracks, the mad, the death-seekers, the daring and foolhardy. And, wittingly or not, it is there they make their last stand.

The Cheesecake Factory slices somehow stayed cool during the trip from West Palm Beach to our house in the wilds of suburban Broward County. C ate his with dinner the next night. Since mine was two-stories tall and required two hands to lift, it took me awhile longer. But, make no mistake, that slice of Red Velvet heaven was dispatched with a ruthless efficiency that left not one crumb remaining in the container. Not a single crumb.