Red Lips on Jon Serl

Sam Messer, by Denis Johnson

n December of 1990, Sam Messer met Jon Serl. Serl was ninety-six, Messer was thirty-four. Messer had heard that Serl was a great, self-taught painter and he drove to the desert town of Lake Elsinore, California to find him. Messer couldn't follow Serl's directions, but when he saw a large sign which read "HERE" he knew he had arrived.

Standing Guard, 1993

The gate to Serl's paint-peeling, ramshackle house came off in Messer's hand. Standing on the porch next to a sign that read: CLEAN ENOUGH TO BE HEALTHY, DIRTY ENOUGH TO BE HAPPY, Serl laughed, "It's a dump, but it's a nice dump." Messer followed Serl and Patches, a yapping Chihuahua, through a maze of rooms overflowing with paintings. A family of mice and a chicken or two scurried out of their way. "It's a good way to live. You get tired of living the sissy way, pushing buttons," Serl said, opening his studio door and ushering Messer inside, "There's no TV, no radio, you have to invent for yourself." That first visit lasted twelve hours.

For both Messer and Serl painting was oxygen. Serl often said, "If it weren't for my painting I would have died a long time ago." It is this fundamental import that is captured in the portrait If I don't use the paint it cries.

One day in Serl's studio, Messer found three social security cards, two passports and four driver's licenses-all bearing different names. The truth came out little by little. Serl was Joseph Searles, Ned Palmer, Jerry Palmer and "Slats." He was a writer, a poet, a gardener, an actor, a singer and a female impersonator. With Serl, both everything and nothing was true. Did he walk the rails with Howard Hughes? Was he in Up The River with Humphrey Bogart? Did Hedda Hopper cook dinner in his kitchen? Messer's not sure. But he did see Serl on Johnny Carson twice; and once River Phoenix played the guitar while Messer painted him. Afterwards Serl always asked, "How is that lovely boy?"

Often when Messer would get to Serl's in the morning, Serl would have gone back to bed after painting all night. Serl would always wake up at three a.m. because that was when "the two o'clockers have gone home and the seven to fivers haven't gotten up yet. You have three hours where there is very little static. That's when I paint with my dogs at my feet."

Driving, 1995

When Serl would awaken to find Messer painting him he'd ask, "Can we please get some breakfast now?" Serl loved to take his friends out to eat. There was no choice. Serl had to drive. Messer was nervous the first time, until he got to the local 24-hour greasy spoon and saw that Serl could even read the newspaper without glasses. Serl always bragged that the key to his long life was "grease and salt." And whether Serl was broke or newly rich from selling a painting, he insisted, "The old man always pays."

Serl and Messer shared a need to paint. For both men it was as necessary as breathing. Serl often said "If it weren't for my painting I would have died a long time ago." Serl didn't start seriously painting until he was in his mid-fifties. When he wanted to buy a painting for his adobe house in San Juan Capistrano. "They wanted fifty dollars for it," Serl said. "I didn't have fifty cents, so I painted my own." Forty years later, Serl looked back over his body of work and said, "A dot is an idea born into a mountain."

No, 1993

Serl often called Messer at six a.m. to ask, "When the hell are you coming?" One morning, he called at 4 a.m. Two "women dressed as men" had just robbed him at gunpoint and taken an envelope with twenty thousand dollars in cash. They waved their gun in Serl's face and Serl dared them to go ahead and shoot. He wasn't afraid and that scared the hell out of them. "What they've taken they can have," Serl said. "But they can't have me."

On June 23rd, 1993, Messer noticed that Serl's forehead looked orange and his eyes purple. And in the empty spot next to his left arm Messer painted in the shovel that was leaning against the side of Serl's house. The painting was finished. Messer asked Serl, "Is that old man ready for the shovel?" Serl smiled. "That's the best one we've done." They went to breakfast and this time, when Messer offered to pay, Serl didn't insist that "The old man always pays." He just shrugged, "I guess we could do that." Serl's Volkswagen had been stolen for the third time, so Messer drove to the grocery store where Serl bought a roast for Patches.

The Last Portrait, 1993

Back home, Serl said, "I'll cook the roast later. I'm really tired." Messer suggested Serl take a nap, not on the couch in the studio as usual but in his bed where he slept better. As Messer was leaving he offered to help Serl to get another car. Serl yelled, "No! I'll take care of it in my own way!" The next morning when they found Serl, the roast was still in the refrigerator. The coroner did not think Serl had had a heart attack. Since the eyes were closed, he guessed that Serl had died in his sleep. But Messer knew better. At the end of Serl's long life, his steady stream of friends and fans slowed to a trickle. Even though he was deluged by robberies, Serl refused to put locks on his doors or his money in the bank. Serl simply willed himself dead.

Messer could not let them put Serl in the hearse. Two years earlier, after Johnny Carson's people wouldn't let Patches ride in the limo, Serl dubbed all limos "death cars" and swore never to set foot in one again. So Messer stuck Serl's coffin (on which Messer had painted roosters, dogs, hawks and cherry trees and nailed on Serl's paintbrushes) into the back of his Toyota station wagon. Radio blaring, Messer and Patches headed for the cemetery. The empty hearse followed.

Yes, 1993

The funeral was packed. Serl was loved by everyone: transvestites, forest rangers, boy scouts, museum curators and chihuahua lovers alike. A man with a pony tail recalled meeting Serl for the first time. Serl demanded, "Why do you have a beard? Who are you hiding from?" The man reminded Serl that he too had a beard and wanted to know what the difference was. "The difference is," Serl bellowed, "I am God and you are a pig fucker." That was Jon Serl.

Red Lips was what Jon Serl called Eleanor E. Gaver, a writer, film director, and now the proud owner of Patches.