Toye Story
The old man held the curtain away from the window just enough to catch a view of the yard through the water-stained glass. All the properties on the block drank in the same sun, yet through the old man’s eyes, God’s palette seemed to favor theirs. He observed his British-born wife Beryl work the shovel; her tedious job strangely relaxing to watch. Splashes of pink and yellow danced on the tangled leaves of the brush, weeds, and tall grass that intruded on what could once have been considered a well-tended English garden.
Things could be worse, he thought. He had always been cunning enough to maneuver circumstance just the right amount to avoid catastrophe from disturbing their lives, yet behind the curtain he felt like a coward. The truth was, he was tired of talking about everything.
His wife was feisty, that’s what he liked about her. She just didn’t have the same “forge ahead” attitude he embraced. She wanted to know details – always details. Beryl had to know about their art collection, the art dealer in New Orleans, their customers, and his projects. Well, darn it, he didn’t have all the answers. His gift was winging it. While he knew she suspected as much, he had always affectionately managed his wife.
As things escalated around them, he just needed a break from it all, even from the cats. The death of their lovely Otis had left him oddly emotionless. As such, the cat’s burial was best observed through the glass. Even if it was just an afternoon – an hour – to be alone was tranquil. Humidity had fed the thin layer of mold that tinted the dirty glass pane green and his artistic mind was drawn to the beauty of it. William Toye watched Beryl through the sliver of window, the curtain still captive in his hand. While he regretted her struggle, finishing the burial in the garden on all fours, alone, he released the curtain and his troubles for a moment.
***
The mallet gave her delicate frame difficulty as it sideswiped the small wooden cross. Sweat ran down the woman’s brow into her eyes, making them sting. She wiped her right eye with the back of the hand that held the mallet, smearing mascara and earth across her face. Perched above the tiny grave on her knees, she collapsed onto her heels, the mallet in her lap. The woman, skin pale from the little sun she allowed herself, held her head in both hands and sobbed.
It was too much. Otis had been with her since he was a kitten. He, like most of the cats, lived out his entire life on this land. In the company of her beloved felines, Beryl spent her days doing this and that, while William – canvases, oils and brushes spread out over two, or was it three rooms now? – created painting after painting. She recalled how soft Otis’s smooth black fur had been in her hands as she tucked his lifeless body into the Louis Vuitton shoe box, and she slumped a bit more as the shoe box brought forth the memory of the cat’s birth. Just five tiny balls of fur in the box in her closet, eyes closed, tiny voices mewing for their mother’s milk. Otis had been the only black furball in the box. Why was life so cruel to gift one the love of a cat only to take it away so soon? Of course, William loved the cats too, but he had been vacant this time, leaving her to carry out the burial alone. It had to be done today, now. Ten years his junior, she had always been the one to dig the holes, but William had been there by her side to help with the grieving.
She would dig the small grave as William stood and recollected the memorable times they had spent with the cat in the box at his feet. The event had always been a family affair, making a cat funeral as pleasant as one could, with lunch served afterward on their country kitchen table, where they’d sip lemonade and reminisce with young cats on their laps and lounging by their plates.
Now, she sat on her hands and knees in the center of their cat cemetery, sixty-plus graves rich, all alone. Devastated from a task that had been a trial for her mental strength more than from sorrow for the loss of sweet Otis. Her fight with self-diagnosed agoraphobia required her focus.
Just look down, get it done, she repeated over and over as she got back to work and sweat and dirt melded on her hands, forming a thin layer of clay.
A car slowed as it passed the Toyes’ property, the only two-story home on Keaty Drive. Beryl was certain the driver was observing and judging her – the crazy Toyes, burying another cat.
Her mind shifted back to William, his lack of sympathy at a time when she needed him – it was so uncustomary. Federal agents were breathing down their backs, and William, distant for the first time, must have felt there were matters more important than the death of a cat. Still, it didn’t make the grief any less real, or the task of burial any less necessary.
Regaining her composure, she straightened the handmade cross and gave it another hearty tap with the mallet, sinking it securely into the earth. Somewhat satisfied, Beryl stood, brushed off her slacks, and made her way from under the Chinese tallow tree through the unkempt tall grass that covered the majority of the cat graves from the tree to the car port. From there, the slender woman carefully maneuvered her way to the front door through the debris that occupied their porch – an old, soiled, rolled-up carpet, an antiquated air conditioning unit, and a good portion of unidentifiable junk.
William met his wife on the other side of the door, in the living quarters they kept comfortably dim.
“Why are you using the front door?” he asked. He smiled at her lovingly, but with concern. “You could trip the booby trap.” A contraption he had constructed amongst the rubble on the porch to alert them of the intruders he anxiously anticipated.
“I know. I just…” Unable to finish her sentence, Beryl smiled back at her husband, and gave him a soft, reassuring touch on his shoulder as she passed him on her way into the kitchen. Three cats followed her, the youngest of which chased her shoelaces, causing her to keep a curious step.
A lump grew in William’s throat. She’d left him in the room with the cracked walls that had once been white. They held up a broken ceiling, damaged by the couple while they attempted to free their large cat trapped in the rafters, behind the drywall. The demolition left a gaping hole to which the couple had become accustomed. The flaky edges around the exposed beams only occasionally drew their attention, as one notices a thin thread on a blouse, which unattended eventually unravels to demand consideration.
William took a deep breath and followed, anticipating what he knew would be a burdensome discussion.
Beryl wasn’t surprised to find her husband at her heels, nor his coy expression that was only made more apologetic by his pasty face, forever stubbled, even fresh after a shave. An artist, his appearance favored that of a farmer; a man uncomfortable in a suit. Hair that thinned behind a huge high forehead was kept too long to help him deal with the loss of it. In all, he was a strange contrast to his wife, who appeared remarkably polished even in her garden clothes.
“I’m sorry.” He let it out as an admission of guilt. “About Otis,” he clarified, in case she already had other things in mind that he also should be sorry for.
His wife nodded at him as she sat in the chair he had recently occupied by the window. He thought maybe she too was tired of all the talking.
“We’re gonna be all right, Beryl. I promise.” He made his way over to her and lightly pulled her head into his stomach. He stroked her hair and kissed her earthy forehead. “Don’t I always make everything all right?”
Was she crying? He pulled her head back, away from him. Yes, there were tears in her eyes, and running silently down her cheeks, creating tracks through the light layer of dirt. He took a breath. This wasn’t his spunky wife.
“I’m simply knackered, William. And I’m scared, and I’m tired of – all of it,” she said in her adorable English accent.
He was glad she hadn’t lost it after all these years in the South. She had come to New Orleans on holiday from the UK some forty-three years ago, and the two had been bitten by the love bug. William swooned her back to America with letters of adoration, flower arrangements, and ultimately a handwritten proposal in a love note he had sprayed with his cologne.
Beryl’s emotional state worried him more than the federal agents. This was not his wife filled with spitfire.
“I’m going to handle this. You’ll see,” he said, moving away from her. “I don’t want you outside.” Stern now, he took control. That’s what she needed. “That’s when they serve papers. We need to keep inside.”
Beryl wiped her tears and nodded again, seeming to understand, as she heaved Puggy Wuggy, the large Maine Coon cat, from the table onto her lap.
The agoraphobia kept his wife safely away from the world that wanted to control them. William believed he too had once suffered from the affliction – but guilt had a way of keeping one prisoner, away from confrontation. Reclusiveness was salvation, that was the truth.
“All we’ve done is given people what they want.” William took a bottle of Coors Light out of the refrigerator. “We’ve given wannabe collectors” – he paused and smirked – “a piece of trash really.” A small laughed escaped as he attempted to cheer his wife. He modified his statement at her raised eyebrow. “Seriously, we’ve given people an opportunity. That’s all we’ve done. Given people what they want. New Orleans culture.”
He popped open the beer. The cap flew from the bottle onto the floor, causing a ripple effect – Puggy flew from Beryl’s lap and scooted the beer cap under the fridge out of reach. As the cat looked back at the couple for a solution, William took the chair opposite his wife.
“Any one of those people should be happier they have one of my paintings. You know that’s true. They are still superior to the finger paintings of that woman. What can they say we’re guilty of? They have the art. Better art. And I scratched those childish initials of hers into them so everyone could be happy. What the hell’s the harm?” He said it not to Beryl, but for her.
William, who was a truly brilliant artist, had made a fortune forging paintings. Ironically, while he was a master at impressionism, he had taken what he thought to be a grand idea and replicated paintings he himself despised: the naive paintings by New Orleans folklore artist Clementine Hunter, whose work he considered to be nothing more than rudimentary garbage. Surrounded in decaying walls that housed his imitation masterpieces – Renoir, Monet, all virtually undetectable as fakes – his fortune had indeed come from imitating trash. At least he thought it was trash. It had been the perfect crime – no victim, not really. Hunter had painted four to five thousand of them. She had made it too easy. All similar, simple, ridiculous cartoons. People were charmed by them – a Black woman depicting the perils of her peers. Each time his brush hit the canvas, he would concentrate on the money. That’s all it was – a way to make money.
Secretly he knew his animosity toward the paintings and the artist was down to the fact that he lacked his own body of work. He was a copier, a master painter whose eye captured every detail impeccably. But he had no style of his own. That was the big chip on his shoulder.
“William, you’ve done it again – Amazing! Spectacular! Uncanny!,” his commissioned clients would say, praising his perfect imposters of Renoir or Monet. William Toye – the great copier.
He could have chosen any New Orleans artist, even Rodrigue’s Blue Dogs, which he considered laughable – a mere step above Hunter’s work. He often festered over the thought, brush in hand. The tastes of collectors reflected the commercial corruption of society and the simpleton minds society worked diligently to create. I should have chosen Fredrick Guess, at least it would have been more fun, he would tell himself as he slapped a cartoon tree on a field next to a clothesline. Choosing a style he despised was his private punishment. He, as Salieri despised Mozart, had created a mental prison he would only admit to himself.
It had started innocently with Beryl’s small collection of Hunters. Art she had been fond of. After a brief encounter with Hunter, she had purchased several, but William grimaced at the sight of them and insisted they be removed from their walls. When she refused, he broke a good number of them over his knee. His rage at Hunter’s artless ineptitude eclipsed any love of the innocent paintings his wife might have once espoused.
Beryl saw the beauty in Hunter’s art, as did so many others, but this was a sore point with William not worth fighting. Alas, when the couple discovered the Hunters were capturing $12,000 for what Beryl had paid only two hundred for, a light went off in William. It was, he felt, poetic justice. He had found a means for his craft and the volition to mock the artist came with great satisfaction.
His work provided his wife with a quiet life. A life away from turmoil. William had woven the money he’d made into a rather artistic blanket of bank accounts, investments, and cunningly hidden cash. The couple was satisfied with a humble life. They were happy there, in their worn house, alone, with their caboodle of cats.
“William, it’s forgery. Better or not.” Beryl stood, collected her cat, and left William sitting alone in the kitchen with his beer.
At least she wasn’t crying anymore. If her accent hadn’t made the comment sound so dignified and sweet, it would have pissed him off.
***
The bell rang in the bedroom – his trap had been engaged. William, jolted awake by the sound, sat up but remained motionless, only his eyes moved back and forth as he strained his ears, poised to detect even the softest peep. A monstrous racket at the front door followed, bringing a strange relief to William that the trap hadn’t been tripped by a silent slinking intruder. William glanced at the digital clock: 3:03 a.m.
“You stay here,” he told his wife as he gathered the belt of his robe around his thick waist before heading down the stairs. The beating at the door never stopped, like the relentless heart of a beast committed to the hunt. He closed in on the sound.
The steely voice came shortly after. “Open up, F.B.I. We have a warrant.”
Streams of flashlights shone through the smoked glass oval in the door and danced about in the hall before him, like those of a search party heading down a dark tunnel seeking an escapee or murderer. The relentless voice tinged against his brain and he found himself falling in step with the pounding heartbeat from the old oak door.
“All right, I’m coming.” William had no choice. He had promised Beryl everything would be okay, and now police were raiding their home.
They wouldn’t find much; he had sold most of the Hunters. What he painted, he got out of the house quick. In fact, he often took requests from hungry art collectors and created exactly the Hunter they craved, anxious to deliver the goods. He had delighted innocent enthusiasts enamored by the artist’s exclusive “holiday scapes,” even though they featured nothing more than a simple, childish Christmas tree. In these situations, he would search his brain for effect. “I do believe my wife has one in her collection.” After the appropriate amount of negotiation, he would commit to prying it away from Beryl.
William glanced to the top of the stairs and found her leaning on the railing. The sight of his delicate wife in the dark – a forlorn angel above the roaming beams of light – was enough to make William buckle at the knees, but he had to be strong. He had to protect her.
William opened the door and a search warrant was held to his face.
“Gentlemen, can’t we do this at a more amiable hour?” he appealed, pushing the warrant aside.
“I’m afraid not,” the detective – an average man in an old brown suit – said. He forced the warrant into William’s hand as he took over the fortress.
William watched as a small card table was pulled out of a van and set up outside the door. Cars continued to pull up to the house, a sea of them, as though a great celebration were about to transpire for the invited guests. He wondered how far the agents had traveled to arrive in Baton Rouge at an hour when birds had yet to think of a worm. By the end, he counted over forty vehicles, most of which he believed were part of the raid. Lookie-loos and neighbors alike walked to the house across the street to observe the small-town excitement.
Beryl’s body ached as she made her way down the stairs, which creaked in step with her movements. She glimpsed the motorcade of vehicles in front of their home. Flashlights and neighbors’ lights illuminated the arena, waiting for the drama to begin. Front doors opened, and robed neighbors peered out at the Toye’s circus from their front row posts. Each step she took wound her anxiety a little tighter.
She watched William’s paintings disappear to be inventoried at the card table. The agents wasted no time. Item after item of “evidence” was removed from their home. Agents also pulled paintings from the walls – Gauguin, Renoir, Alfred Sisley – all copies painted by Toye.
Disgruntled that only a couple of the Hunter paintings were in the mix, the agents probed Toye, who simply smiled.
“Nobody does Monet better than me,” he said, admiring his work as it was walked past him to the dark bustling outdoor netherworld where his art was being fed to and devoured by a large black van.
William’s smile left, causing what had been a smug expression to transform into one of anger when he spied the inquisition of his wife. Agents pushed at an already tightly wound Beryl, who remained silent while attempting to juggle her cats, keeping them from following the flow of intruders out the door.
The invisible string wrapped around his wife finally snapped when Goosy, a calico, slipped out of Beryl’s arm and was kicked by a black shoe under gray polyester pants that didn’t even break stride as the cat hit the wall. A scream so loud came from the tiny woman it was as if a tornado erupted in the middle of the house. The scream rose through the hole in the ceiling, and the detectives pulled their guns in reflex.
“I confess,” she hollered. “I painted them all – right after I finished helping Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel and Chagall paint the lobby of the Met. I painted forgery upon forgery – that’s why we live this lavish life.” She twirled around the room, showing off their humble surroundings. Then she abruptly stopped. Beryl had spotted a uniformed woman with a cage lifting her Humpty, who fought to be contained, into the contraption. “William!” she screamed and fell to her knees. It was the final straw. She might be feisty, but fragile had won. “I’m going to kill myself.” At the sight of several more cages meant to steal her cats, despair, pure and simple, melted Beryl onto the floor.
Hebe Gebe, an old cat with cataracts, ran past her and out the door, frightened by William’s raised voice. The cat jumped the fence and was gone.
“The nation of cat lovers will know about this! You understand?” William threatened the detective before beelining for the injured cat. He hadn’t noticed Beryl scurry back up to the second floor, but it wasn’t long before he saw her sway back down the stairs.
“Beryl,” he said, rushing to her, barely catching her before her knees gave out. He set her down on a step, where she rested her head against the wall. “What’s wrong?” William’s chest heaved with anxiety at the sight of his wife’s limp body.
“I’m sorry, William,” she whispered. Her eyes closed as the word “Valium” left her lips.
“How many, how many?” William held his wife by the shoulders, slightly shaking her, insisting on an answer.
“All of them. I just can’t, William. I just can’t.” Her eyes never reopened.
“Call a paramedic! Call 911!” William hollered at the detective standing stunned at the bottom of the stairs. “For God’s sake, call 911!”
It seemed like hours before the paramedics arrived. The whole time his art continued to pass him, carried out by thoughtless robots. His wife rolled past on a stretcher – the only thing of value that left the house that day. She would be all right; when he heard that news, his chest loosened and his intellect returned.
The ambulance lights disturbed the brightening sky, a brilliant cloud-free blue that could be seen over the neighbor’s roofs – neighbors he had never bothered to meet. He watched as the ambulance disappeared down the road, followed by the motorcade of police vehicles. Were they satisfied? Happy with themselves? Only a few detectives remained, loading the last of their gear into the van.
William, dressed in mismatched clothes, rushed to lock the front door. He climbed into his car and drove past the neighbors watching him with blank expressions. He realized he had given them a story. The missing thread that turns a street into a neighborhood – a common bond at his and Beryl’s expense.
***
“It’s not good news,” William’s attorney reported, opening a folder thick with accusations.
“You’d think we committed armed robbery.” William shook his head, scanning the document.
“How’s Beryl?” the attorney asked, only to be polite.
“She’s all right. They’re the ones who ought to be on trial for putting her through this. Anyway, they can’t prove anything.”
“I’m afraid they can.” The attorney puckered his lips. “All the forgeries – copies,” he corrected himself, attempting to make the word sound less insulting. “All your paintings have one unique trait – an undeniable trait, I’m afraid.”
“Impossible,” William said. He stopped pacing and planted himself on the leather chair opposite his attorney’s desk. They could no more prove his prized Merlot was a fake, let alone the Hunters. “Please.” The word escaped as a sarcastic confirmation.
“Cat hair,” the attorney said, pausing so William could let the words sink in. “None of Hunter’s originals had any cat hair in the paint. However, all the ones they suspected as fakes include cat hair – a lot of cat hair – nicely mixed into the paint. Undetectable by the human eye, but upon close examination – your hidden signature, William. There’s no getting around it.”
William sat up straight. The epiphany had him almost speechless. “Isn’t that the kicker?” He stood and went back to pacing. “Cat hair.” A grin grew across his face and he took the pen from the attorney, without further question or hesitation he signed the papers. “Cat hair,” he repeated. He couldn’t explain it, not even to Beryl, but somehow it pleased him that the hair of his beloved felines had been the identifying factor to finger him as a forger. His passion for cats had become all tangled up in his counterfeit craft. In the years to come, when he thought of it, it always caused him to smile.
***
The last glimpse of light fell beneath the horizon on Keary Drive and it was dark over the Toyes’ colorful estate. William was at peace – delighted at his wife’s pleasure as he massaged her manicured toes and slender feet. He had escaped jail time, due to his age and the Toyes’ ability to pay the handsome settlement for damages from their hoarded riches, receiving the not entirely bothersome punishment of house arrest. In the comfort of their home, whose walls needed mending, their situation was fixed.
William’s confiscated imposter paintings, minus the two Hunters, had been returned. Still wrapped in brown paper, they took their place in the moist attic. The irony of his downfall was not lost on William and he took up painting delightful portraits of cats. But only those felines who called this two-story house home were immortalized on canvas and hung among cracks on the Toyes’ walls. The cat portraits preserved considerable amounts of feline DNA within the paint. William often thought this might be his greatest legacy, and so the Toyes remained nestled within their humble walls, where they found lifelong refuge among their menagerie of guilty cats.
The End