I had just gotten off my stool and I walked over to stand in the doorway connecting the two rooms that I monitor so I could get some circulation going in my legs. It's important that you move around. Alternate position. Every twenty minutes is what they recommend. I also had to adjust myself which can prove difficult with the patrons in the vicinity. I have always been a jocky shorts man which can lead to tangling up at inopportune moments.
Now I didn't take much notice of this guy. He came in and started moving along the wall, hands behind his back, moving from painting to painting, stopping, looking, reading some of the plaques, moving on. Like they all do. Nothing unusual about that. Generally speaking, in terms of security alerts, we're looking for people with bags or people who are behaving in an erratic way. This guy was just cursing along, minding his own business. Or so it seemed.
I used to wonder about the public's viewing habits sometimes. Specifically, these people who spend extra long periods of time staring at the paintings, making a show of absorbing all that history and culture. Do they think they get extra brownie points for having at staring competition with a painting? Maybe. I've seen people standing there for up to 10 minutes, locked onto one canvas, mesmerized. I always wonder what is going through their heads. Does the painting remind them of something? Something completely unrelated? Are they absorbed by the technique? Hypnotized by the brushstrokes. Me? I look at some of these paintings for a minute or more and it's like I stop seeing them. My mind goes elsewhere, slides sideways into some other holding mental zone. It stands to reason. I'd been surrounded by some of these so-called masterpieces for seven years up until that point, day in and day out, forty-two hours a week, so as far as I was concerned, some of them, not all, were more like decoration you might see on the walls of a bank. Some abstract detonation of the artist's psyche. Some clever little prick who managed to convince the art world that his spatterings are worth serious money and consideration.
Anyway, this guy I'm talking about walks up to the little Picasso. And I may have looked him over once or twice but I can't be sure. At that precise moment, I had a lot going on. I was tingling with pins and needles and that other situation I mentioned-my wedding tackle being knotted up in a disconcerting way-needed to be dealt with. Keep in mind hundreds of people had passed through those two rooms that morning and as it was the school holidays, I was more likely to have been on the lookout for someone's child acting up. Kids don't seem to understand that these paintings aren't a tactile experience specially set for their grubby little hand to explore. Look but don't touch. I chalk this kind of behaviour up to the parents. They don't set boundaries these days. No one does. They too busy negotiating with these children. You see it every day in the supermarket. Adults negotiating with their kids. I have a daughter. When she was young I would just say 'No. End of discussion'. It didn't hurt her in the least.
After the incident occurred, we learnt that this guy was a university student. Or he had been before he flipped out. He was studying economics up at the University on the Broadway, the one they renovated in 2009 with all those new glass buildings and walkways and reclaimed industrial landscaping. Funny how public spaces these days need to have this cold, over-designed look. Glass and concrete boxes. Clever containment of nature. The whole world is turning into an airport. Anyway, the student's name was Milo Haynes. And Milo had some quite severe mental issues which, they say, accounts for what happened. I learnt all this from the police and then from the newspaper and television coverage. We all did. It became quite a big local story. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.
On the day in question, I was standing there, taking a moment to untangle my balloon animal scrotum sack and next thing I know, I hear someone screaming their lungs out and when I turn around, Milo has slashed the little Picasso diagonally, from corner to corner, with a blade of some description. A huge gash right through the middle of the canvas. A gash through which you could see the wall behind.
This accomplished, he started shouting some rubbish about art and commerce, ranting away, all this nonsense echoing through the room as the other patrons recoiled and began to freak out. What was this? they were likely asking themselves. Art performance or terrorist attack? Milo had some kind of manifesto with him. Dirty little-photocopied pages containing scrawled notes and hand-drawn diagrams that dropped out of his coat and fell to the floor to be stepped on and crushed in the ensuing scuffle. I couldn't make sense of what he was saying but if these scrawlings were an indication of what was happening inside his head...the man was obviously disturbed. He was also attempting to film himself with his phone which was proving quite difficult. That was the thing that instantly struck me as inconsistent, even before I knew about the mental issues. Young Milo seemed to be a raving lunatic yet here he was, mentally organised enough to record his activities. Like every one of his generation, his hunger for an audience on youtube remained intake despite the chemical imbalance in this brain. For me, instinct took over at that moment. I saw the immediate aftermath of the vandalism and the next thing I knew, I had him pinned to the ground. It wasn't that hard. Beneath his jacket, Milo proved to be a weedy little toe-rag.
I brought him to the ground hard. Basically, a rugby tackle from the side that knocked him off his feet. And when I was on top of him, using my full weight to hold him down, I lost track of where the blade was. In his sleeve? In his hand? On the floor? Of course not knowing the whereabouts of a sharp instrument was cause for alarm. We're talking personal safety here. Miles was squirming around, still shouting and spitting at me, so naturally, I reacted. I hit him once, probably twice, no, at least twice, maybe three times, in the head with my closed fist. You see I was an armature boxing champion back in the day, back when I was in the army so I definitely know how to hit people. These are my brush strokes, the techniques that are evident in the composition of my character. You stare at me long enough you'll see the ingrained history in my face and in my eyes. Anyway, I got in at least two clean, hard shots. So yes, I hurt him pretty good. I don't care what your opinion of modern art is, you can't go around damaging private property. It's just not on. And I was responsible for these fucking paintings and this nut job had just swanned in, right under my nose and basically destroyed one of them with one flick of the wrist. So yeah, I was angry, of course, I fucking was. Maybe, in that confusing, blurred moment, I was not acting in my most professional mode. Can you blame me? What he did is infuriating on a number of levels. You think about it: the journey some of these artworks have made to reach this place. Take the one Milo destroyed with his little Stanley knife. Created from the paintbrush of a little Spaniard on the Riviera. It looks like a quick, playful doodle with patches of vibrant colour applied. A child's drawing. Beloved the world over. It ends up, a hundred odd years later on the wall of this gallery in Sydney. Just think about all the shite it had to survive. War. Theft. Egotistical millionaires. Let alone all the little people who handled it, transport it, appraised it, cleaned it, guarded it....whatever. All this human energy invested so that the public can pay their money and stand here appreciate it. Ooohing and Ahhing. Marvelling over colour, composition and perspective. Not to mention the intellectual, cultural baggage this little object drags along in its wake. A few bits of wood, a piece of canvas and oil paint configured in such a way as to be worth millions of dollars. Make no mistake, I see their faces every day. I know the effect it has on them. Cubism might not be to your cup of tea but you can't deny it has an effect on people. It makes them think. Reality fractured, broken down into pieces and rearranged in a way not seen before. Flattened out so you can see everything at once. The subject, a woman, seen from several angles at the same time. The little Spaniard, with his bald head, his striped t-shirts and his endless supply of skirt, broke the viewer's perception down, flattened it, so as to more honestly represent the world through his art. Well, that was until this Milo cunt decided to walk in and slice it in half. So yeah, absolutely there was a bit of extra force behind those punches. Special delivery from me to Milo.
After the dust settled, after the police had taken him away, the Curator, who I have had problems with in the past, started treating me in a way I thought was unfair. I'd never really had any problems with her in the past but things changed. In terms of respect, after the incident, our ability to communicate in a professional manor declined. I thought I would get some credit for what I did. Instead, I got reprimanded. I got quite a severe rap on the knuckles. It was very humiliating, a man my age, with my service record. I thought I had been doing my job but apparently, there were a few do-gooder bystanders who said I might have come down a bit too heavy on our boy Milo. Poor Milo. I wish someone had told me he was both perpetrator and the victim in all this. I would have asked him polity to stop fucking up all the priceless works of art. I would have negotiated with him.
The Curator is quite a bit younger than me and she has all the qualifications required to do the job but I don't think she really knows how to talk to people. I won't resume the entire generational difference diatribe. Really, I have no special allegiance to people my age. In some ways, I quite like younger people's fearlessness. Putting that aside, the Curator might be my boss but that doesn't mean she has the right to talk down to me. There is a difference between being forthright and direct, and being rude. It was her bluntness that raised my hackles. In her mind, not only had I'd neglected my duties, I had also assaulted a patron. Lunatic he might be but he was still a patron. I was quite shocked by this turn of events.
The painting had been badly damaged. It was going to cost a lot of money to repair it and it would never be the same. Miles had left his indelible, permanent impression on the art world. As I say, the canvas was cut in half from corner to corner. The authorities tried to make Milo pay the restoration costs but, after a thorough phycological assessment, it was determined that he was not responsible for his own actions. He was controlled by the voices in his head one of whom was long dead Russian political dissent. It also turned out that Milo's parents had a bit of money. They were able to put him in a private psychiatric hospital for three months. So he earned himself a holiday in a comfy facility with daily medication and television to wile away the hours. Milo needed to relax and reflect on his actions. Milo needed a timeout.
This is the reason they keep the Mona Lisa behind bullet-proof glass these days. Because people kept throwing acid onto it. Or they kept throwing rocks at it. Some mad geezer walked into the National Gallery in London with a sawn-off shotgun and shot the Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist. This is one of humanities priceless works of art. Bang! A load of buckshot right in the kisser. I read up on this stuff. I did quite a bit of research actually. In terms of art vandals, there are two distinct categories: you have your nut jobs who destroy priceless works of art with some misplaced political agenda in mind and, even worse, you have these bloody parasites, these so-called 'artists' who have done it as a 'statement'. The only artistic tool or outlet at their disposal is the wanton destruction of someone else's work.
After that, things got a lot harder for me at work. In terms of the Curator, there was friction. I've never been good at being entirely subservient. I just can't do it. And I have a temper which has lingered beneath the surface of my life over the years and has probably limited my opportunities. That's why initially I liked this work. It was the kind of work an older man, lacking qualifications, as I was, could do and still maintain some level of integrity. I might have been a glorified security guard but I wore a suit to work. Not a paper hat or a little apron. I wasn't required to bow at anyone's feet. There was a level of autonomy. Respect. In terms of this Curator, what she didn't understand was, it's not what you ask me to do.....it's how you ask me to do it. Tone. Just ask politely and we'll have no problems. This Curator, this little know-it-all, who was barely out of university, had zero people skills so it was just a bad combination; her and me. She kept on pushing my buttons and the situation quickly deteriorated. Shortly after the incident, I got a warning for my attitude. And then another one. I could see what was happening. I was being fast-tracked out of a job: a H.R. hatchet job. In the end, they said I was too aggressive with the patrons and with the other members of staff. Performance management turned into a suspension. Then another one. I am not the kind of man who can easily play these games. I felt like some old dog that was getting senile and snapping at everyone. I was certainly not going to be muzzled by some child who, in my opinion, had lucked into this managerial position.
Milo was completely oblivious to all this. He received his psychological treatment. Briefly derailed, now his life was back on track. He was cured. Don't get me wrong: if this man was truly suffering from a mental illness, I except that his actions during this time might be excusable. He saw things floating up in the sky. Secret codes in the fine brush strokes of the artworks. And it was great that he got better. But me? I didn't do so well out of the deal. Despite what I said before about the work being acceptable, do you think being a museum guard was my life's grand plan? It wasn't. Admittedly, I had squandered quite a few opportunities. Youth does that to you. Constant reinvention and the illusion that there is an endless supply of days. I wasted quite a bit of time. Sticking with the museum patron metaphor, I never stepped back and took in the bigger picture. That is the truth of it. Like many people, I got lost inside my own life. It's easy to do. The museum wasn't part of the plan but it was steady work. I learnt to live with it. I learned to take pride in what I did there. Dignity, even if it is maintained in silent and behind the scenes is not a bad thing.
How did I know all these personal things about Milo? About him getting his life back on track? From Facebook of course. I joined the modern world and signed up, got myself an account. Everyone is visible these days. We voluntarily throw away our privacy like it's nothing. From my snooping, I learned that Miles had really turned his life around. It was very impressive. Ultimately the destitution of that painting, whether he knew it or not, ended up greatly benefiting him. Sometimes it takes a dramatic turn of events, right? And of course, it changed things for me as well. After a lot of warnings and meetings, they officially got rid of me, the bad stink that I was. Think about my situation: what would it be like to be searching for work at fifty-six years of age with no marketable skills? Not exactly fun. Things have changed dramatically since I last went into an employment agency. They want your entire life story in writing just to get a look-in. Then they expect you to go through an endless series of interviews just so someone younger, more suited for the role, ends up getting the job anyway. It's a joke. As a favour to me, to tie me over, Robert Carrington got me some work on the door of a club in the city. Me, at my age, standing out in the cold, dealing with drunk kids. Needless to say, I didn't last long. I didn't have the patience for it.
And while this was going on Milo was healing, integrating himself back into society, shedding all his paranoid delusions about nanobots in his hair and on his cornflakes. His crazy manifesto had been thrown out and he was moving on. Onwards and upwards, to more sensible pursuits. Milo went back to university and he graduated with full honours. He got a job. A good one. He reconnected with his girlfriend and all his friends. I suppose this was all possible because of a renewed commitment to maintaining his medication regiment. I understand this all happened because he had this Jekyll and Hyde inbalance. He wrote some very revealing stuff on social media while he'd been in his Mr Hyde state of mind. And while I do sympathise that aspects of his condition are beyond his control, to a certain extent, it is still part of him. And I know that on several occasions he purposefully lapsed because, as he freely admitted, he enjoyed being Mr Hyde. It felt like he was really himself. But now, like a recovering alcoholic, he has seen the light and has vowed to control Hyde through the diligent taking of his medication. He also apologised to everyone online. All his family members and friends, for the terrible anguish he has put them through. Hyde has permanently banished to the distant recesses of his subconscious mind. Chemically shackled. Praise be modern psychotherapy. In more recent photographs Milo has lost that gaunt, psychotic look. In fact, he looks like a completely different person. All things considered, the future looked pretty rosy for our young Milo. He even went on holiday to Machu Picchu. You may have heard of the place. The Inca ruins up in the mountains. In Peru. One of the seven wonders of the world. A place which, considering my financial prospects, I will never get to see. Not in this lifetime. The way things are going I'd be lucky to afford bus fare down to the beach on a daily basis when I hit retirement.
And with all this in mind, one morning, I found myself sitting in Milo's apartment, in Paddington, on his sofa, looking around at all his nice things. It didn't take much to get inside. I just climbed a wall leading on to the back alleyway and came in through the panelled glass door on the balcony. I bought a hammer and some other tools with me. Milo didn't have any roommates. He could afford to live alone. Anyway, I was just sitting there, taking it all in, thinking about this man's life. How grand it all was.
Part of me though, don't do this....it is beneath you. You are better than this. But then I had a look at my new fancy phone, at Facebook, and I saw Milo and his girlfriend on the side of that green, beautiful mountain in the latest uploaded photographs. Photos which were only posted an hour before I broke into his place. As young people do, Milo was captured in a number of selfies with one arm slung over his girl's shoulder and the other arm extended out to the edge of the frame, where he held the camera. The captions read 'Greetings from Machu Picchu'. Both of them were dressed in designer mountaineering gear and they had lovely wide smiles on their faces, smiles that contained beautiful, uniform, white teeth. They both looked exceptionally happy. They looked like they were models in a travel brochure aimed at an exciting, well-heeled segment of the youth market. Behind them, you could see the stone ruins set into the side of the mountain like giant steps and dramatic clouds formations wrapping and unfurling around the summit.
My idea was to break everything up into small pieces. Slowly, methodically, taking my time about it, all afternoon if need be. I was conscious that I needed to keep the noise to a minimum so as not to get the neighbours involved. I was wearing heavy demolition gloves. My idea was to break everything up so Milo would arrive back from distant shores and see his life in a new and transformative way. Much like cubism makes you see the world. I would transform his entire life into a mosaic that covered every square metre of the apartment. I would carefully arrange the broken glass, splintered wood, shattered plastic, cut cables, bathroom products, food items, dismantled electrical appliances, clothes, computer equipment, feathers...you name it. I had several tubes of building grade adhesive if I felt the need to extend my artwork up the side of walls or onto the ceiling. It depended on how inspired I became, how absorbed in the work. I also had a thick moving blanket to dampen the noise of the hammer. I had pliers and metal cutters. This was my vision for young Milo. A life taken apart and then put back together in a new, exciting, if not haphazard, way.
I waited for a bit. I wanted to savour these peaceful, still, moments before the disassembly began. I felt this tremendous energy locked up inside me and my ears were ringing with all that silence stored up inside the building. It was a kind of thick, oppressive, middle-of-the-day silence, not even a dog barking in the distance. Nothing. The complete absence of noise.
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