that only requires practice– and you’ll realize how extraordinarily well you’re getting along. All of my other contacts envy your success. You set out to excel at creating weird art, and you’ve done it. You’re the only painter with anything as daring as Turd Race on your resume. No one can top that now, and many an age will pass before anyone does; unless it’s you, of course.”

“You obviously didn’t pay attention,” he said. “I haven’t taken one step toward my artistic aims. They continue to elude me. I’m not even clear in my own mind as to what I’m driving at. My recent stuff… oh, it’s clever, but not ground breaking. I could pat myself on the back and say that I’ve pushed the conventions of the form to their logical limits, but that means nothing. Tomorrow I might paint a pretty girl with a bowl of chicken livers on her head, call it Hope or some silly thing, and gain the same glory.”

“No, that would just be silly. Your plan, as I recollect it, is to present what the eyes of others don’t see–”

“That’s my point!” he cried. “Not others, but any eyes, including mine. It isn’t a question of my vision. I have no interest in providing a ‘unique perspective’. I want to portray the world as it really is.”

I threw my hands in the air. “You’ve lost me. Unless you’re speaking of absolute realism– which isn’t your style– I don’t understand you.”

He mused. “Absolute realism; that’s good. Yes and no– no, because I’m not referring to style– yes, because I seek the ultimately real. It’s out there, behind a secret door, and there must be a way to open it.”

“Terrill, you place me in a difficult position. I’m close to accusing you of working too hard and needing a rest.”

“You may be right, but it doesn’t signify. What I need to do is stop mixing oils, and catch up on my reading.”

“Stop painting?”

“Cut back, so that I can concentrate. My reading list has grown. I’ve acquired new books, some of which may contain answers.” I knew he meant his swelling collection of volumes devoted to the occult and the bizarre. Previously I had encouraged his passion, since it helped him generate ideas. I wasn’t so sure now. “Most of it,” he continued presently, “is basic fare, the sort of popular rubbish true believers feed upon. That doesn’t do me much good. On the other hand, there are, or have been, intelligent, learned men, hands-on philosophers, who have sought to unveil the mysteries of the universe. Genuine seekers of the unknown, compilers of the supernormal, men who drove past theory into the realm of concrete investigation. Their books are hard to find, and if found, hard to afford. I’ve got money now– more than I know what to do with– perhaps that will make a difference to my studies. If I know what they know, mightn’t I be able to capture, in my mind and on canvas, images of that knowledge?”

It wasn’t my place to argue. The conversation ran on at greater length, but Langley added nothing of importance. It sounded to me like he intended a crash course in wasting his time, but my chief concern– then, and for a considerable period thereafter– focused primarily on how his obsession might affect his career. I decided not to badger him, and counted on him not to throw a good thing overboard.

During the next two years I had occasion to wonder if my worst fears had been realized. Langley virtually disappeared from my life, and from the public eye. He shortly stopped accepting portrait clients– which suited me fine– but then largely gave up on commissioned projects altogether, which disturbed me. He turned out the rare piece on spec, and received generous payment when he did so. Increasingly strange dreamworld scenes, with the emphasis greater on the grotesque, and lesser on the trappings of humanity, constituted his total output for this period. These assured me that he was still in the running, but that was all. My colleagues knew less of his daily doings than I did. Those with weaker associations to him asked me if he had dropped out of the game.

Langley and I crossed paths, by chance, at the annual Barbary Coast Festival held on Alcatraz. I attended to revel in the historical reconstructions and costume shows; I found him mooning around the mural wall, apparently lost in contemplation. I spoke to him, but he proved uncommunicative.

He did tell me that he had commenced his binge buying and reading of books, and was out that day taking a break from wearisome study. The mural didn’t impress him. He deplored the crowds. No more would he tell

That winter I determined to visit Langley in his lair. I dropped by, unexpected and unannounced, curious as to the sort of reception I had coming. I needn’t have worried about that. He welcomed me into the apartment warmly enough, bade me make myself at home. He seemed cheerful, bright-eyed, even ebullient. He informed me that he had recently received a grant from the NEA, which had made his situation easier still (and from which he subsequently produced a total piece of crap; he laughed about it later). The quality of his living conditions, though, had declined to a tragic level. His rooms, new and pristine when last I saw them, now looked all too lived in. The artist’s chaos reigned supreme. Most of the disorder stemmed from the piles of old books, ragged manuscripts, and unbound papers scattered over the colonial furniture or heaped upon the plush rugs. He brought refreshments, cleared space on the sofa for me, then did the same for himself on an opposing armchair.

He immediately launched into a recital of his current activities. While he did so, I surveyed the scene. From what I could make out, we were surrounded by exceedingly odd reading material. I took in some of the titles: Ancient Heresies, The Paradoxes of Saint Montague, The Death Vision of Pseudo-Plutarchus. Those were old tomes. On the coffee table before me stood a stack of relatively newer works, probably anthropological or scientific, such as The Customs of Shunned Tribes, Developments In Organic Light Sensitivity, and Holobiologia. I can’t tell you how many books there were. Whatever it all meant, Langley had his hands full.

Ah, but at that moment he was explaining. When I had sufficiently tuned in I heard him saying: “This is the real, the hard-core stuff. I began reading as soon as they started coming in, and it wasn’t long before I hit pay dirt. Each of these offers something useful, a little part of the puzzle. In many cases, the old writings are more helpful than the new. I’ve got a rare one over there, on the counter, written by hand in medieval Greek. I needed the right kind of dictionary for that, and you can’t find those just anywhere.

“With all this, I required a key to tie it together, to make sense of the big picture. I found it. Let me show you.” He strode to a closet, extracted a small, frayed, leather-bound volume, and returned with it. He didn’t hand it to me. “This is none other than The Catalogue of Truths, composed by the infamous Jacob Bleek.”

“This is the key that ties?” I asked innocently.

“Indeed. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get hold of this copy. There aren’t many in existence, and I’ve always heard that they’re all incomplete. The original was never professionally published, you know. I sought the most intact version I could find, in order to maximize my chances of striking gold. I had to go outside the usual channels to track it down– funny how people won’t even discuss Bleek, if they can avoid it– and it cost me a fortune, but it’s going to be well worth it.”

Langley grew pensive, then lay the book down and pulled a sheet of newspaper over it. “Perhaps you think I oughtn’t to have done it?” It was difficult to come up with a coherent reply, since I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about, so I mumbled something noncommittal about being careful.

“Precisely!” he cried. “It’s a question of caution, not fear. I have nothing to worry about. It’s only information. Bleek figured it out long ago, he brought the strands together. These”– he indicated the other books– “are the strands. They’re necessary, because Bleek, in his wisdom, assumes too much. He already knows this other stuff. With him, I can connect the dots, and raise his conclusions from the theoretical to the actual. Bleek’s truths realized by me, in oils. How does that grab you?”

“It’s beyond me,” I admitted. “Where does it get you, Terrill?”

“I can bring my dream to fruition. I shall create, without any special tools, an image of pure reality; not the world as I see it, or you see it– or an ant sees it, for that matter– but as it really is. Not a subject, not a theme, not an episode, not a style, just truth unvarnished. Absolute reality, before your very eyes, without pretense.