Well Hung

Tom Deatherage spits out a fleck of tobacco from a freshly lit, unfiltered Basic. It's just after 4 p.m., and he's well into his second pack of the day. Dark rings sag under his eyes, and the pale daylight washing over his face makes him look older than his 62 years.

Though he has made significant contributions to Kansas City's flourishing art scene, Deatherage is barely surviving.

It's almost dinnertime, and he's banging around in his second-floor kitchen. Deatherage's Late Show gallery is downstairs, but there's art on every wall where Deatherage lives and sleeps. A painting of a naked red demon hangs in the bathroom, over the toilet. In the kitchen, an assemblage by the MoMo Gallery curator known only as Mott-ly hangs on the wall -- a small cardboard box with a doll's severed arm rising in front of an American flag. Beside the arm is the torso of a well-toned man. Mott-ly, a longtime friend of Deatherage's, gave him the piece for his birthday a couple of years ago. A note on the back reads "Birthday suit for Tom."

"It means really nothing," Deatherage says about the creepy design. "It's just delightful."

A youthful voice calls from the stairwell. Up steps 18-year-old Kyle Richards, a new artist Deatherage has discovered and is preparing to show in his gallery. Richards, who has long, tangled hair beginning to form dreadlocks, has brought Deatherage a couple of paintings.

For the past 15 years, Deatherage has been searching for fresh local work to display and sell at the Late Show. He prides himself on giving artists their first walls. Deatherage has high hopes for Richards' show, which he says will hang in late May.

"It opens May 13," Richards reminds Deatherage. "I've got to keep it straight for Tom. He'll never remember."

Deatherage rolls his eyes and glares at Richards. "It's written down on the calendar, fuckface," he says, then takes a long pull from his vodka tonic and punches the glass down on his worktable.

Richards doesn't flinch. He sits down next to Deatherage. "It seems like I've known him forever," Richards says sweetly.

Deatherage's lips curl back in a crooked smile. He and Richards met only a month ago, and it's obvious that Deatherage is flattered. He looks at Richards a moment and agrees that the two bonded right away. "That's nice," he says. "I appreciate that. And I am not trying to fuck him."

Deatherage lets out a cackle. He says he has a soft spot for any artist who will sketch him something, especially if it's a penis. On one of their first meetings, Richards gave him a drawing of a cartoon character with an erection. Deatherage fell in love with the young artist's work.

He's unpacking a bag of groceries and begins filling a plastic bowl with a mix of Fritos and spicy Cheetos. He's thinking about skipping dinner tonight. He says he isn't all that hungry. "I might just do drugs," he says in a quiet voice.

"Are you going to put more track marks in your arm?" Richards asks.

"They go away," Deatherage says, then turns the corner into the bathroom to put away a tube of toothpaste and some soap. His voice booms from behind the wall, "Draw me another dick!"

By all accounts, Deatherage was one of the first gallery owners in town to scout and display exclusively local art. Some of those artists have stood by him since the beginning. Yet Deatherage, who occasionally wears an "Art Pimp" T-shirt to openings, admits that his harsh demeanor has driven others away.

"People either like me or they don't," he says in a gravelly voice. "I can't help it. It's my personality. Tough shit. I like me."

Philomene Bennett, who, with her husband, Lou Marak, helped establish the Kansas City Artists Coalition 30 years ago, met Deatherage in the mid-1980s while Deatherage was working as a framer and displaying work at Union Hill Arts. She says Deatherage set out to find artists who were creating something fresh, long before recent national acclaim shined a spotlight on the Kansas City art scene. When she walks into the Late Show, Bennett says, she still gets the feeling that she's seeing something new.

Deatherage opened the Late Show in his Hyde Park home in 1991, when galleries were still scattered throughout the city, mainly in Westport and the West Bottoms. He threw wild openings and partied with a steady flow of guests. Each wall of his house was painted a different color, and art hung on them all. Every room was open to the public, but there was one that Deatherage warned people about before they entered -- his bedroom.

"It was called 'The Penis Room' because I had all these male nudes," Deatherage says. "I still have a penis room. I'll alwayshave a penis room."

People smoked out on the porch, drank beer and enjoyed the unique art Deatherage had found. The shows were a success, and after years of envisioning it, Deatherage was finally running a gallery filled with local artists.

Around that time, curator John O'Brien took the advice of an artist friend, Jim Leedy, and moved his gallery from 39th Street, opening the Dolphin at 19th Street and Baltimore, an ugly, industrial part of town. "I think Leedy had a master plan, and I just kind of jumped onto his dream," O'Brien says. "I made a pact with him that we would stick together."