Picking Them Out

As a security guard at the Guggenheim, dealing with thousands of tourists every day (as well as with New Yorkers who acted like tourists) was bad enough. Even worse than the tourists, however, were the special tour groups who were shuffled through the museum on a regular basis.

Groups of schoolchildren who had not been instructed before arriving that they weren't supposed to climb on the sculptures. Groups of low-level political flunkies in town for the '92 Democratic convention, who poured their drinks off the ramps, insulted the guards and were a generally hateful lot. When Barbara Bush's entourage threatened an "impromptu" visit once, the museum was closed to the public, and all security personnel were subjected to Secret Service background checks (three guards were given the day off). We were instructed that we were not to approach the First Lady in any way, and snipers were placed in the surrounding buildings. She never showed.

At least we were warned about those beforehand. They were unpleasant, but we were prepared. Sometimes we weren't told about a group visit until they were already upon us—or in some cases, had already left.

Someone in the museum administration was apparently trying to make points with a guy she was interested in. He was a social worker of some kind, so this administrative lackey suggested that he bring a group of some of those downtrodden folks he was trying to help through the museum one afternoon. I'm sure she explained that it would be an "enriching cultural experience."

Again, it's always a good idea to tell the guards beforehand when something like this is going to happen, as handling a tour group is quite different from handling the general free-floating public. A guard caught unawares might panic, there might be some bloodshed, you never could tell. Best not to take any chances. Besides, the Guggenheim is not that big a place—not when compared with the Met, say, or the Museum of Natural History. How hard could it have been to give us a little heads up?

Still, we weren't told, and we had no idea that this social worker worked with the mentally ill. For obvious reasons, I normally have no problem whatsoever in dealing with the mentally ill. For the most part, they tend to be more well-behaved than most who passed through the museum every day. But when you're not expecting it, well, the results can be a little unnerving.

About a week prior to that group visit, the museum (surprisingly enough) did something in an effort to help the guards out.

An inordinate number of people feel compelled to touch paintings, and so most of any museum guard's workday is spent making sure visitors don't get too close to the artwork. We'd been given all sorts of excuses to pass along while shooing people back—"the moisture from your breath will ruin it," "the oils on your fingertips will ruin it," etc.—most of which only resulted in dirty looks and snide comments from visitors. But there you go. That was our job.

How far back to keep the public was always a judgment call. For some guards, it was 18 inches, for others, four or five feet. Some didn't give a damn. Myself, I tried to size up each visitor individually to determine how much of a painting-poking threat they represented. It was a crapshoot, but it seemed to work out.

Letting us make our own determination, however, meant that as visitors moved from gallery to gallery, from guard to guard, they found themselves subjected to different standards. To avoid future confusion, the museum decided to handle this problem by simply laying down a strip of black tape on the floor about two feet back from each painting. (Sculptures and other free-standing artworks provided more of a problem, but were handled in a similar manner.)

These strips of black tape became known almost immediately as the "lines of death." I don't remember if other guards called them that, but I sure did. It made things much easier. Now all I had to do was point and say "You've crossed the line of death," or "Please don't cross the line of death," and that generally took care of things.

It was a weekday afternoon when the social worker's tour group showed up. Weekday afternoons, depending on the show and the season, tended to be pretty quiet. I had been posted in one of the museum's smaller side galleries, near a later Picasso. Woman with Yellow Hair, or something to that effect. It was a fairly isolated corner, so I was completely unaware that a group had shown up downstairs. I would learn shortly thereafter, however, that the "group" almost immediately ceased being a "group" as the patients scattered in every direction. With the exception of two or three who stuck close to the social worker, the other dozen or so mental patients had vanished into the various twists and turns of the building, promising they'd "be back later."

If they stayed on the ramp, keeping track of them would be no trouble—but if they ducked into the side galleries or started playing in the elevators, they could end up anywhere.

Word quickly spread from guard to guard that a group of lunatics was loose in the museum. Peaceful-enough lunatics, but crazies nevertheless. That's when the game started.

They weren't wearing name tags, or funny hats, or jumpsuits—there was nothing obvious by which we could identify them—so it was up to us to separate the crazies from the normals.

It livened things up considerably, as immediately the question of the day (at least among the guards) became, "Are they French, or are they insane?"

I hardly got to play, though. There wasn't much foot traffic where I was, and most everyone who came through looked and acted pretty normal. The social worker trotted through with three or four of his charges in tow, but that was the only bit of liveliness. A few old ladies gave me typical problems, and a few parents (also typically) were paying no attention to their children. For the most part, all that early promise—mental patients running wild in the museum!—had come to naught. It was turning out to be pretty boring.

The afternoon was so boring, in fact, that it was almost a relief when the clean-cut, middle-aged man took a step across the tape to get a closer look at the Picasso.

"Whoa, I'm sorry, there, sir," I told him, "but you've crossed the line of death."

He looked at me, a bit confused, but stood where he was. I was used to that sort of response, so I pointed at the floor. "The line of death," I indicated. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to step to the other side of it."

The man's eyes slowly dropped to the floor where I was pointing. He considered this for a moment. Then, very carefully and very deliberately, he took a single step to his left, parallel to the black tape.

Satisfied with this, he raised his eyes again, and continued contemplating the Picasso.

I was about to say something when it hit me: When this man looked at the floor, he'd seen his own line of death—a line of death perpendicular to the one I'd been pointing at.

I left him alone after that, and everything was fine. He didn't bother anything. I knew he wouldn't. Clearly he had bigger problems to worry about. o