Of course I didn’t worry about it at the time. I couldn’t help but notice that, for all his big talk, his productions, however unusual– in a time and place where the unusual is the norm– didn’t live up to his aspirations. His efforts resembled, in most respects, the endeavors of those who had gone before him. I once wrote that his works compared favorably to the wilder conceptions of Torquelle and Dereida (which the artist brusquely appreciated). He created imaginative dreamscapes, concocted moody other-worldly visions, and fashioned startling juxtapositions out of conventional scenes. I liked a lot of it, but I wasn’t bowled over by any of it. He wasn’t perfect, not by his own lights. He had difficulties with the shape and lines of the human torso; he couldn’t capture the form, which caused him grief at first, until he contrived to make that a signature feature of his work, transforming weakness into strength. Oh, he could be slick when he wanted to be. I figured Langley was yet another clever mind worth watching, a man who could provide items of interest, perhaps have his day in the sun, maybe make a financial success of himself if he really buckled down. I must say, he did entertain me more than the run of the mill.

During those budding years I kept in touch regularly, but I was a busy man, with plenty on my plate, and there were other possibilities and hopefuls who also absorbed my attention. Langley kept going, somehow, and single pieces found their way into fairs and anthology exhibits. He received comment– I commented– and he managed to keep his head above water which, for a fellow in his line, is no small feat in and of itself. He didn’t disappear, which was the main thing; others fell by the wayside, as most do, but he persevered. I gave him high marks for that. Eventually I broke down and acquired, for a respectable sum, a Langley original, The Prophet’s Secret, offered to me by the artist as his best work thus far. I say it’s the best of his early period. I own it still. Picture a barren, rocky plain by night, strewn with leaning or toppled antique columns and other shattered vestiges of lost greatness, and a low, featureless mound rising in the center, upon which sits a bearded elder in flowing tattered robes. He looks a bit goofy and disjointed, but his woebegone expression and mad eyes are sincere. Above all the blue-black sky swarms with fiery stars and swollen planets, so bright as to cast faint shadows. What did it mean? Who cares? I didn’t ask; I liked it.

Langley’s salad days were approaching. His next big step brought him the fame and notoriety he craved. He showed me the new picture when it was almost complete, at the same time requesting me to pull strings in order to guarantee a proper presentation. I warned him that the painting was grotesque, obscene, and nauseating; and I assured him that it was daring, original, and stunning.

He grinned widely. “Do you think they’ll go for it?” It was the first and last time he cared to ask such a question.

“Everybody will scream,” I replied, “but they will eat it up.” So he pushed it to completion as quickly as he could, and within weeks there debuted, at the prestigious Stanfield Gallery, The Turd Race at Oswiegan.

Artists love to throw dynamite, as long as they can get away with it. Langley got away with it. He handled it cagily enough. He placed the painting– a two by three, larger than his previous efforts– inside an ornate, gilded wooden frame, suggestive of tradition and class, had it set up as the centerpiece in the main hall, and appended below a golf leaf sign (at his own expense) which fully explained the scene’s lurid historical background. “A True Incident on the Ninth of October, in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Three, at the Infamous Nazi Concentration Camp,” ran the subtitle, followed by these words:

“The camp commandant, Obergruppenfuehrer Otto Schoerner, conceived a sportive festival by which to amuse himself and his men. Dozens of Jewish inmates were taken to a limestone quarry and forced, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, to run a relay race, utilizing rules of Schoerner’s devising. Each participant was made to carry chunks of human excrement in his mouth, to rush at breakneck speed across the impromptu court, and transfer his mouthful to the next man, who then continued the relentless cycle. As each victim of this ordeal wilted from horror or revulsion, or collapsed from underfed weariness, he was immediately shot. The victor– the last survivor of the game– was feted at a Vitellian feast, then led, amidst cheering and jibes, to the gas chamber for his execution.”

There you have it. The painting was shortly snapped up by a Middle Eastern collector and lost to sight, but I’ve got a professional photograph which does it justice. Langley made use of an off-colored, somewhat impressionistic style, not his standard, but well done. He imagined the high-walled grotto in shades of blue and gray. The sunless sky lowered in sickly, roiling yellow. On the floor of the quarry three contestants still stood erect, dressed in rags, frozen in agonized postures of staggering, corpse-like motion. They clutched in their clenched jaws what, at a glance, appeared to be rough cigars.

The central figure stood closer to the viewer. The look on his face did not bear long perusal. Several bodies lay scattered about the cracked stones, their limbs sprawled in non-anatomical angles (good old Langley!), the terrain nearby specked with ominous dabs of crimson and yellow. Above and to the left, on a rocky shelf surmounting the scene, a group of spectators stared down and observed with evident mirth. There were camp guards aiming rifles, and in their center a tall officer, clearly the commandant, resplendent in his black uniform and full Nazi regalia. He seemed gravely pleased rather than jovial, and about his head there hovered an aura– one might call it an unholy halo– or luminous emanation, of a somber greenish hue, framing the cold pale face.

Well, howls of protest ensued, most of them valid, all of them pointless. Langley had created an insult, a mockery, a travesty; probably so. He deftly countered the criticism by publicly discussing his “pictorial statement against bigotry and intolerance”, which it may have been. The usual suspects bought that line and simmered down, with a few lingering grumbles and carping complaints about “going too far”. The Narwhal Society kicked him out, then took him back when no one was watching. The practical effect of the episode was the enhancement of Langley’s artistic stature, and the geometric increase of his fame. Suddenly, whatever might be said about him, people who counted– lots of them– took him seriously. He no longer received comments in back pages of the journals; he got write-ups and cover stories, he got interviews and television guest spots. He became a known quantity far beyond the Bay area, and outside his accustomed circles. An historian hosted a documentary about that concentration camp, called One Small Corner of Hell (a title which I considered greatly superior to the original, although the originator scathingly disagreed), which performed adequately in the ratings. During filming the producers recorded a few minutes of Langley opining, and a shot of Turd Race. In the end they cut out the painter, but kept the painting, which could be seen behind the opening titles and concluding credits.

Turd Race packed the gallery. The Stanfield hadn’t seen such crowds since their blockbuster Egyptian exhibit of some years back. All kinds of folks wanted to see the picture, and condemn it, and brag about having condemned it. Langley would drop in occasionally, wait to be recognized, then expound on his theories of art, which everyone sagely approved, and no one understood.

Success didn’t go to his head, but it sure made a difference in his life. Langley got rich off that painting, or near enough. He earned more at one swoop than he had from all his earlier productions. He moved out of that proletarian garbage dump of his and took a long lease on a snazzy apartment at the top of the Hill. He started keeping company with a generally better class of people, including women– even a Hollywood starlet for a spell, which helped maintain his place in the public eye– although he still abused the latter dreadfully. He ate right, or lavishly, for the first time since I’d known him, and gained twenty pounds.

Langley enjoyed his new life, and made the most of it. He no longer had to struggle to sell his wares. Customers came to him, or to dealers, asking for the merchandise. Also, he experienced the new sensation of working with paying clients. Langley, of all people, got into the portraiture racket. There were those, with spare change in their pockets, who wanted their pictures painted for posterity by the famous artist. He obliged. I thought he was wasting his time in an area not his strongest, and I never heard of his clients fully appreciating the end products. The portraits commonly contained unusual, quirky elements, not entirely suitable to the medium. Only by chance did they flatter. I suspect that most of them ended up hidden away in back rooms. Langley didn’t mind. He had money in the bank.

He was far from satisfied, however, with his situation. It took me a while to realize why, and when I did, I could only feel sorry for him, just a wee bit. As I had already surmised, he was a classic auteur, and could not be content unless the world accepted him on the basis of his own self-evaluation, a boon which is granted to few. They didn’t appreciate him, they didn’t comprehend him, they didn’t see him for what he was; those terrible “theys”, who made life both possible and oh, so frustrating. How many times have I heard that lingo! Each new client brought forth a new diatribe from the embittered artist. I always listened patiently, and my heart always bled, but not a lot.

To give Langley his due, that wasn’t his major concern. As I eventually learned, he was far more frustrated with himself. I heard it all at a dinner meeting at the Karbala, in the spring, several months after his big smash at the Stanfield. He treated, because he needed to sulk and talk. In his view, he was just marking time with his artistic career, and had not yet begun to achieve his desired goals. He wondered if it were still possible, or whether he ought to throw over the whole thing and find himself an honest job. I didn’t believe his noise for a minute– this was merely a typical mood swing– but in the spirit of avuncular friendship I sought to dissuade him.