Monday, August 13
At 11:45 a.m. Trans World Airlines Flight 83 landed on schedule at New York International Airport, commonly known as Idlewild, since it was built on the grounds of the Idlewild Beach Golf Course. Alfonso Ossorio and his companion, Ted Dragon, were on hand to meet the plane. As they watched Lee descend the gangway, they steeled themselves for the long drive back to East Hampton with what they assumed would be a basket case.
But when she neared the gate they could see that she looked composed and determined, ready to face the ordeal they all knew was coming. The outpouring of sympathy had already begun, with tributes flowing in from friends and enemies alike. Even Alexander Eliot, Time magazine’s conservative art editor, who never missed an opportunity to heap scorn on Pollock and his art, had sent his condolences to Lee. Those who viewed Jackson as the killer of an innocent victim—assuming Edith had died in the crash—were maintaining a discreet silence, at least for now.
Alfonso and Ted embraced Lee, wrapping her in their protective blanket of concern. She greeted them gratefully, but with cool reserve.
“Give me your suitcase,” urged Ted, relieving her of her hand luggage. “Where are your baggage claim checks? I’ll take care of collecting the bags.”
“This is it,” Lee told him. “I sent my trunk back on the ship. It should arrive next week. Now please take me home.” Very efficient, very matter-of-fact, all under control. My God, thought Ossorio, don’t underestimate this woman.
“Everything is arranged,” he told her as they walked to his Lincoln sedan. “The funeral is on Wednesday, at the Springs chapel. Paul told me that’s where you wanted it.”
“That’s where Jackson would have wanted it,” she snapped. “His people are Presbyterian, although you wouldn’t know it. They’re actually against religion. But he insisted on a church wedding, so he’ll have a church funeral.”
“The grave is in Green River Cemetery, as you requested,” Ossorio continued. “On that little rise at the back, near the woods.”
“Jackson and I walked there often. He said that’s where he wanted to be buried, with the Bonackers. He respected them, I can’t imagine why. Bunch of inbred hicks.”
Ossorio found that attitude offensive, since he considered the Springs natives to be honest, industrious people with deep roots in a community they loved, like the natives of his homeland, the Philippines. But he hesitated to contradict her. Now is not the time, he said to himself. She’s prickly even on her good days, and this is certainly not one of them.
The return drive was made largely in silence. Lee sat alone in the backseat, dismissing Ted’s offer to join her. His well-meaning efforts at small talk were ignored, so it wasn’t long before he gave up and left her to her thoughts. He was coping with his own distress and sense of loss.
Ted Dragon and Jackson Pollock had grown close in the winter and spring of 1949–50, when Alfonso Ossorio was away in the Philippines for several months. Ted had stayed behind in New York while Ossorio painted a mural for his family’s Roman Catholic chapel in Victorias. It was a painful separation for the young ballet dancer, so early in a passionate relationship that had to be kept secret from Alfonso’s stern father and deeply pious mother. Jackson had been unexpectedly sympathetic, comforting Ted in a brotherly way, even giving him a painting as a token of friendship. This was a side of Pollock—the kindness, the loyalty, the intuitive caring—that was invisible to people outside his close circle.
For his part, Alfonso had taken courage from Jackson’s example, another misfit rebelling against expectations and conventions, struggling with self-doubt one minute and supremely confident the next. Despite their polar differences—Alfonso born rich and Jackson born poor, Alfonso gay and Jackson straight, Alfonso religious and Jackson a nonbeliever—they shared a subjective approach to art that relied on a different kind of faith: the conviction that the artist had something to say that would have meaning beyond his own narrow need to express himself in paint.
But for Lee the loss went far deeper. The years of struggle to gain recognition in an indifferent art world fixated on the School of Paris as the only true innovators, the months of preparation for shows the critics were likely to hate and the collectors likely to ignore, the weeks when her own work was set aside so Jackson’s needs could be met, the days spent on the phone with anyone who might be persuaded to take an interest in his work, and the hours of worrying when he was off on a bender or out God knows where in the car.
Fourteen years of all that—with a respite of only those two marvelous years when he was sober and brilliantly productive—had depleted her physically and emotionally, as well as professionally, since she had put her own career on hold to promote his.
Why had she done it? For love, pure and simple. Love for him, and love for his work. And what did she get in return? Betrayal. Beneath her resolute exterior, her bitterness was palpable to empathetic friends like Alfonso and Ted.
So was her guilt. Lee tortured herself with unanswerable questions. What would have happened if she had stayed home, forced his hand? Would he have come to his senses and chosen her over Ruth? Would she have been able to get him back on the wagon before it was too late? Would he have found his way out of the creative impasse that had stalled his career?
Why had she abandoned him when he needed her more than ever? Why did he always drive so recklessly? Why did he have to throw his life away?
Why, for God’s sake, why did he have to take another life as well?