After Mapplethorpe by Steve Olderman

Mac had no idea how seriously Richard would fuck him up when he first spotted him from the terrace of the Pescado Rojo in old San Juan. Shit, I would have jumped his ass myself. I was on my fourth mezcal and lime and Richard was something to behold, all six foot four of him, strolling along the Calle Montenegro in tight white shorts, a silk green and orange banana patterned shirt tied around his midriff, four-inch heels, oversized sunglasses and a pink floral parasol with white lace trim to protect his glistening obsidian skin. Mac’s eyes began to spin like one of those classic Looney Tunes cartoons. “Th, th that’s all, folks.”

Mac was at the top of his game back then, this must have been ’08 or ’09. He was showing at Matthew Marks and selling limited editions for $25,000 per print. The critics compared him to Robert Mapplethorpe but Mac felt that no one had done the male body like Mapplethorpe in the 20 years since he’d died. Mac was sure his Mapplethorpe moment was still ahead of him. Then along comes Richard.

Unfortunately, I got to watch the whole thing unravel. I was covering the Chelsea galleries for Art News. Richard flew back to New York with us. Apparently, there was nothing keeping him in San Juan. In fact, as I heard about it later, the sooner Richard left San Juan, the better it would be for Richard. 

Mac’s Walker Street loft had room to spare and so Richard took up residence. Mac bought him a more sedate wardrobe, something a bit more New York, and started having small dinner parties to introduce Richard to his friends. I was at a few of those parties and let me tell you, they were not pretty.  Richard’s years in the San Juan barrios did not prepare him for catty art scene gossip around a dinner table laden with medium rare ribeye ordered in from Peter Luger’s.  He flirted with just about everybody which drove Mac to distraction. Half the time he dined with us wearing nothing but a silk thong.  Soon Richard was making his own friends, bringing them back to Mac’s for a few rounds of crack and sex. Lots of sex.

“He’s making me crazy,” Mac would say. “But the camera loves him. God how it loves him.” And Mac loved him, too, which was not such a good idea for Mac. 

“The bastard didn’t even have to be taught how to pose,” said Mac. “He knew exactly how to turn his head so the key light brushed his lips. He knew how much to move his shoulder to let a perfect ripple of shadow flow across his pecs. He would twist his hip just enough to reveal that giant johnson of his lying on his thigh.” 

Mac felt his work with Richard was the best he’d ever done. Maybe this really was his Mapplethorpe moment. Matthew Marks rearranged his schedule as soon as he saw the Richard photos. It was Mapplethorpe all right, but in color. Deeper, richer, yet without losing the troubling edge of Mapplethorpe’s great black and whites. 

I found Mac at the opening night party and congratulated him on the work. He had obviously lost weight, his suit didn’t fit, he kept looking around for Richard. I told him he looked like shit and needed a break from Richard.  That’s when Richard arrived, high as a kite and dressed in his old San Juan finery. He took a shaky, glassy-eyed tour of the gallery accepting congratulations at every turn, then fell off his four-inch heels and crashed into the corner under a 5-foot aluminum-mounted image of himself. His eyes rolled back in his head. Brownish yellow foam leaked out of the side of his mouth and pooled on the floor. He never woke up.  He never heard Mac screaming.

Steve Olderman is a retired advertising creative director. When he isn’t writing he volunteers as a tour guide at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He lives in New York City.

31 January 2024