That was the plan, at least. And while it would have been easy to dismiss this plan—regardless of whether or not I thought it could produce the results that Trip was counting on—as but an obscenely expensive vanity project gone wild, I thought that would have been lazy of me. Cynical, too.
Maybe my role in the plan—maybe even just my being asked to play a role—has compromised my ability to imagine that Trip was only some rich kid who sought to purchase entrée into the art world by way of a nefarious scarcity strategy, but I do think he was more than that. Despite the way he’d blathered on about inspiration, revolution, and innovation all afternoon, I think he possessed a far greater self-awareness than most, and I’m certain he was self-aware enough to realize that, owing to the fortune into which he’d been born, his legitimacy as an artist would always be in question; whatever success he would wind up attaining, he would always be suspected, if not outrightly accused, of having attained it not by virtue of the merits of his work, but rather by having exploited his parents’ wealth and connections—by having exploited his privilege. (Oh, poor, little rich boy—I know, I know, but that immediate reaction: that’s exactly what I mean.) And because of the way he’d blathered on all afternoon about inspiration, revolution, and innovation, I’m equally certain that his belief in the merits of his work—in A Fistful of Fists—was entirely genuine.
So now imagine you’re him: Jonny “Triple-J” Pellmore-Jason, Jr. You’ve made something that you’re certain is good, something you think everyone should get to experience, but, by dint of your parentage, you know you can’t possibly get the credit you’re due for having made that something, and because that something is art, your not getting the credit you’re due for having made it will actually lessen the power of the something itself. This leaves you with four options.
The first is that you preserve the something: you never let the something out into the world. Given that you think the something is great, though, keeping the something to yourself is selfish.
The second is that you just put the something out there, allow people to do you the favors they want to do for you because of who you are, and the something thusly suffers for your being who you are; you get in the way of its having all the power you believe it should have; you fail to protect it.
The third option is to cover up who you are: you put the something out there under a pseudonym, never take credit for it, and hope for the best, but, knowing that the art world (the anything world) is no meritocracy, you know that exercising this third option means risking that your something never gets the attention it deserves, which is a betrayal of the something, a dereliction of your duty as an artist to the something (and, furthermore, if the something, despite pseudonymous dissemination, does begin to get some attention, and you get found out as having been its creator—which isn’t unlikely, the truth will out, etc.—all the disadvantages of the second option accrue anyway).
The fourth option, i.e. the option Trip would exercise, is that you put the something out there, take what you’ve got—your wealth, your connections, and your privilege—and rather than passively accept the rewards to which what you’ve got gives rise (as with the second option), you actively, openly, forthrightly exploit it in a way that will ensure those rewards (you pay for catalogs, a screening, an ideal audience), and then you refuse to reap any financial benefits: a refusal that, by dint of your parentage, isn’t remotely as great a sacrifice for you as it would be for nearly anyone else, and, for that very reason, a refusal that only you—or some other artist of comparable background (which, how many of those are there?)—could ever reasonably make, and, more to the point: a refusal that no one else like you has ever made, reasonably or not.
So to execute this plan of his, I’m saying, yes, was a way for Trip to walk a path of artistic authenticity and integrity, and perhaps the only way he, as a twenty-first-century US billionaire artist, could walk such a path. His plan was to live the elusive, true, and nearly-always-paradoxical American dream: he would transcend his origins by means of embracing them.
Or maybe not. Maybe I was making a mountain of a molehill. An opera of a jingle. A poem of a slogan.
Maybe Trip was less an artist than a salesman.
But what would that have made me?
Turned out it didn’t matter. Not when the cost of never having to wonder was a hundred thousand dollars.
* * *
Our contract contained only seven clauses:
Belt Magnet [hereafter “the Author”] agrees to deliver a faithfully rendered TRANSCRIPT of A Fistful of Fists: A Documentary Collage [hereafter “the Work”] to Jonny “Triple-J” Pellmore-Jason, Jr. [hereafter “the Collagist”] no later than March 1, 2014, in exchange for a sum of $100,000, half of which will be paid to the author upon signing this contract, half of which will be paid upon delivery of the transcript.
The Author grants the Collagist the perpetual right to reproduce and disseminate the Work.
The Author grants the Collagist the perpetual and exclusive right to license the reproduction and dissemination of the Work to third parties.
The Author agrees that he will seek no further compensation for the Work from the Collagist, nor from any third party to whom the Collagist grants license to reproduce and/or disseminate the Work.
The Author retains the right to distribute, display, sell, and recite verbatim copies of the Work in its entirety, without receiving prior permission from the Collagist.
The Author forgoes the right to distribute, display, sell, or recite from the Work in part, unless granted prior permission by the Collagist.
In the event that legal action pertaining to the Work be taken against the Author by any third party, including but not limited to participants in and creators of any of the segments in A Fistful of Fists: A Documentary Collage, the full cost of the Author’s legal defense and any and all resultant fees and penalties will be provided by the Collagist.
Burroughs printed two copies. He glanced at them briefly, folded them in three, then stuck them in his jacket and took out his phone.
“We’re not signing them?” Trip asked, as Burroughs placed a call.
“Your father likes his contracts notarized,” said Burroughs.
“Why does that matter?”
“Notarization?”
“What my father likes.”
“Let Burroughs do his job, Triple-J,” Fon said.
“Mr. Baker,” Burroughs said into the phone. “Burroughs Archon here. Could you hold a minute?…Thanks.” He lowered the phone. To Trip, he said, “What was that?”
“I said, ‘Why does it matter what my father likes?’ ” Trip said. “It’s not his contract.”