(5/7) “Selling that painting was the spark that Mickey needed....

(5/7) “Selling that painting was the spark that Mickey needed. It was nice to make a little bit of money. But more than that, it was proof that people valued his work. From that moment on he painted nothing but palm trees. It became an obsession. He’d buy wooden doors from Lowe’s, sand them down, and create these vertical panels. On each one he’d paint a giant palm tree. And they became a little bit of a thing in Austin. People loved those panels. They had a mood, a vibe. They took you to a faraway place. And Mickey couldn’t make them fast enough. It didn’t hurt that I was promoting him tirelessly. I was doing some interior design work at the time. And whenever I got a new client, I’d push a painting on them. Mickey grew more confident as his work began to sell. I made him cut his hair. I bought him wire-framed glasses so that you could see his beautiful eyes. We even got him a car, not a new car, but a nice Volvo station wagon. It brought me so much joy to finally see him enjoying a bit of security. We must have sold sixty paintings over the next few years. And the prices kept getting higher and higher. Some of the nicer palm panels were going for thousands of dollars. I still didn’t take a commission, but Mickey would buy me little things. He’d take me to shows. We’d stay in a nice hotel one night. And every time he sold a painting, we’d go out for dinner at a place called Jeffrey’s. It was our little ritual. Each of us would get a glass of champagne, and I’d drink both of them. Toward the end of 2000 we toasted his biggest commission yet. He’d just been hired to paint a mural on the ceiling of a woman’s home. And this wasn’t just any woman, it was a board member of The Austin Museum of Art. Both of us felt like Mickey’s time had come. The pay was five figures. And it seemed like he was finally being noticed by the art world. I drank a whole bottle of champagne that night. And Mickey promised that as soon as he finished, we were going to take a trip to Puerto Vallarta. He wanted to show me the guesthouse where he lived with Michael. He even called up Silver and told her we were coming.”