When you are engulfed in flames - By David Sedaris Page 0,46

she called it.

“I’m just not certain he needs that top hat,” I told her.

And my mother said, “Oh, really?” in a way that meant: If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.

It bothered me that she’d bought something without seeking my advice, and so I continued to offer my thoughtful criticism, hoping it might teach her a lesson.

Her next piece was a grandfather clock with a body made of walnut and a human face pounded from what appeared to be a Chinese gong. The face wasn’t realistic but what my mother called “semiabstract,” a word she had picked up from Ruth. A word that was supposed to be mine. I didn’t know exactly how much the clock had cost, but I knew it was expensive. She called it Mr. Creech, in honor of the artist, and when I tried to explain that art was not a pet you gave a little name to, she told me she could call it whatever the hell she wanted to.

“Should I put Mr. Creech next to Mr. Balloon Man, or does that make the dining room too busy?”

“Don’t ask me,” I told her. “You’re the expert.”

Then my father was introduced to Ruth, and he became an expert as well. Art brought my parents together in a way that nothing else had, and because their interest was new they were able to share it without being competitive. Suddenly they were a team, the Walter and Louise Arensberg of Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Your mother’s got a real eye,” my father boasted — this in regard to Cracked Man, a semiabstract face made by the same potter who had crafted our new coffee table. Dad wasn’t in the habit of throwing money around, but this, he explained, was an investment, something that, like stocks and bonds, would steadily appreciate in value, ultimately going “right through the roof.”

“And in the meantime, we all get to enjoy it,” my mother said. “All of us except Mr. Crabby,” by which she meant me.

The allure of art had always been that my parents knew nothing about it. It had been a private interest, something between me and Gretchen. Now, though, everyone was in on it. Even my Greek grandmother had an opinion, that being that unless Jesus was in the picture it wasn’t worth looking at. Yiayia was not discriminating — a Giotto or a Rouault, it made no difference so long as the subject was either nailed to a cross or raising his arms before a multitude. She liked her art to tell a story, and, though that particular story didn’t interest me, I liked the same thing. It’s why I preferred the museum’s Market Scene on a Quay to its Kenneth Noland. When it came to making art, however, I tended toward the Noland, as measuring out triangles was a lot easier than painting a realistic-looking haddock.

Before my parents started hanging out at the gallery, they thought I was a trailblazer. Now they saw me for what I was: not just a copycat, but a lazy one. Looking at my square of green imposed atop a pumpkin-colored background, my father stepped back, saying, “That’s just like what’s-his-name, that guy who lives on the Outer Banks.”

“Actually, it’s more like Ellsworth Kelly,” I said.

“Well, he must have gotten his ideas from the guy on the Outer Banks.”

At the age of fifteen, I was maybe not the expert I made myself out to be, but I did own a copy of The History of Art and knew that eastern North Carolina was no hotbed of artistic expression. I was also fairly certain that no serious painter would devote half the canvas to his signature, or stick an exclamation point at the end of his name.

“That shows what you know,” my mother said. “Art isn’t about following the rules. It’s about breaking them. Right, Lou?”

And my father said, “You got it.”

The next thing they bought was a portrait done by a man I’ll call Bradlington.

“He’s an alcoholic,” my mother announced, this as if his drinking somehow made him more authentic.

With the exception of my grandmother, everyone liked the Bradlington, especially me. It brought to mind a few of the Goyas I’d seen in my art history book — the paintings he did toward the end, when the faces were just sort of slashed on. “It’s very moody,” I pronounced. “Very . . . invoc-ative.”

A few months later, they bought another Bradlington, a portrait of a boy lying on his back in a ditch.