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subject matter other than the one to which he had been assigned. “Immediate steps will be taken to remedy this unfortunate situation,” vowed Dodge, who added, “I am saddened and chagrined.”
    Angela Gregory, consultant for the WPA art project in Louisiana, also voiced an objection. “Mr. Asmore submitted sketches showing the history of transportation in America,” shesaid. “Subsequent visits to his studio revealed that indeed he was developing the project. He followed procedure. In one private conversation he allowed as to how he hoped to show space travel as a future possibility, perhaps in the form of a rocket ship. I thought he was under the spell of Jules Verne and requested he dismiss with fantasy and stick to reality. That he has chosen the subject you describe is a mockery not only to the government agency that so generously supported him but to the American people whose moral integrity is under attack and whose tax dollars are being squandered.”
    Dodge has ordered the station closed until the matter can be investigated.
    Asmore refused to comment when approached last night as he was walking home from a Frenchtown jazz club. He became agitated when questioned about the mural’s content. “I am an artist,” he said before racing off. “I have no interest in the history of transportation in this or any other country.”
    I had barely finished reading the article when Rhys slid another clipping in front of me. The story appeared under the heading “News in Brief.”
    Federal and city officials convened yesterday at a post office on Magazine Street and determined that a mural by controversial artist Levette Asmore was obscene and ordered the painting destroyed.
    A large crowd, estimated at several hundred, gathered at the station, demanding to be allowed entrance. “We want to see how our hard-earned tax dollars are being spent,” said David Parker, a service station attendant from Biloxi. “It isn’t right they won’t let us see it. I drove three hours in traffic to get here. Plus, I need stamps. This is an outrage.”
    Asmore provoked negative criticism earlier in his career when his inaugural sales exhibition proved to be “pornography disguisedas fine art,” as a reviewer for this newspaper reported. The mural reputedly depicted Negroes.
    A WPA official called police to the scene when a supporter of the project became unruly. Order was restored when the artist himself volunteered to whitewash the twenty-foot-long painting. Asmore has been ordered to return the government funds he received for the work. He refused comment when contacted later at his home in the French Quarter.
    “What do you think was in those paintings?”
I wrote.
    She hitched up her shoulders.
“Not sure what you mean.”
    “The subject matter, the scene he painted. Miscegenation means breeding between races—whites and nonwhites.”
    “Ahead of his time, no doubt. Way ahead. Even for THIS time.”
    I stared at her and shook my head.
    “To some people,”
she added in a fast scribble.
    “Are there any pictures of the mural? Any sketches? Anything to show what it looked like?”
    “None.”
    I nodded, then wrote,
“They made him whitewash his own painting. How terrible.”
    Rhys shrugged her shoulders again.
    “Too bad it was destroyed.”
    She waited a long time before writing,
“If whitewashed, not necessarily destroyed at all.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She didn’t answer and I wrote again,
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
    From the notepads she removed the pages with our scribbling and tucked them in a sweater pocket. I helped her gather up the Asmore material and place it back in the file. “Let’s take a drive up Magazine Street,” she said, speaking out loud at last.

THREE
    The building stood about fifty feet from Magazine Street, its wooden façade scabbed with flaking paint, the lawn in front a patch of smooth brown earth bisected by a narrow cement walkway. Plastered on the windows were broadsheets showing