Terry Persun's Magical Realism Collection

by Persun, Terry

  “That painting’s awful. I hate it.”

  Lewis breathed shallowly. The electric heater shut off and the loft went dark. “No,” he said, “It has to get done.”

  “I’ll hate it.”

  Lewis swallowed. He should never have let her in, or said that it was all right for her to interrupt him. He shouldn’t have opened that door for her. Not now. But he had known that she’d eventually interfere. He said nothing more. Fine, he thought. He’d do it anyway. He had to.

  Brittany got in the last word. “I hope you love your child, if not me, enough not to do this one thing.” She walked out as though nothing had gone on between them that was problematic. She kissed him gently and rubbed her hand down his arm on the way out. “Come down soon,” she said.

  “I will.”

  When the door shut behind Brittany, Lewis turned the heater off. Outside the window the snowfall had gotten heavier. Small flakes had joined together to create a mass of tiny snowballs. Lewis could not see the field. He could barely make out the stone fence, which seemed to emerge, as dark rocks and crevices, from the slate gray of the air and white puffs of snow. He sighed. He didn’t want to remember Brittany’s comments about how much red he used in his painting, but he knew it would stick. If he could only keep it from entering the next work, keep it stuffed, like an old rag, in the back of his mind’s closet, not to be seen. He brushed a hand through his hair and walked around the room. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. The cold loft air made him shiver. He took his brushes over to the sink in the corner and began to clean them. Tomorrow was another day, oh, but there was Brittany, he thought. He was spending the day with her. Was it Saturday? He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. The sink water was cold, so he adjusted the faucets to a warmer temperature. In his mind he saw his own personal shapes and colors for warm water, for the movement of water over his sensitive fingertips, the movement over his wrists, around the brush tips. The brushes clacked together. He dipped them in and out of a solvent, and washed them with a degreaser. When he was satisfied they were clean, he brought saliva to his mouth and dipped each brush, one at a time, into his mouth and then slipped it out slowly to form a point. He then placed each brush onto the drain-board. When he was through, he went downstairs. It had been an early night for him, but he felt tired from the long hours he had been putting in. Brittany sat in the living room on the couch. Her big belly and full breasts appeared to overwhelm what used to be a skinny frame. Her face looked very small, placed in the middle of her hair which was curled out and fell fully around her cheeks.

  “Are you coming down now, honey?” she asked as if what had happened earlier had been forgotten, or had never happened at all.

  “I might go to bed,” he said on his way to the kitchen.

  “Get me some water while you’re there.”

  “Okay.” Lewis grabbed a glass and filled it, letting the water run unnecessarily long as he watched the snow outside the window. He took the glass to Brittany.

  “Thanks.” She looked up from a toilet paper commercial. “You missed dinner, as usual. Why don’t you get a bite to eat? You’re probably hungry.”

  Lewis was amazed at the change in her, how she snapped back to normal like a rubber band. He nodded and went back to the kitchen where he made himself a sandwich. In the living room, Brittany smiled as she watched the people in a sitcom go about their abnormally funny life.

  Lewis sat down next to her.

  “You look tired.”

  “I am.”

  She touched his face. “You know my mom came over today?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You were up there,” she pointed.

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway, she said we should entertain more often. I know this isn’t a big town or anything, but you are pretty well known, and it’d make things a little jumpier around here.”

  “I’m only well known in certain circles. Anyway it’s not me, it’s my paintings people know.”

  “But they might want to know you, and it’d be fun for me, give me more to do.” She turned her attention back to the television.

  Lewis wondered if he was even heard when he talked. “If they want to meet me, introduce them to Jeffrey. He knows my work as well as anyone. They’ll never know the difference.”

  “Uh, ha.” She laughed at the TV. “Mom said, I’d love it. And you know she’s right.”

  “Can I stay upstairs and paint?”

  “Sometimes.”

  She heard that question, he thought. “Then you can do what you like.”

  “Oh,” she bounced her big, oversize body, and clapped her hands like a child about to receive ice cream. “I’m so glad.”

  “Me, too.” Lewis finished his sandwich and stood up. “I’m off to bed. I’m sorry, but if we’re spending tomorrow together...”

  “We’ll go to the mall and shop.”

  “Yes, well, I’ll need some sleep.”

  “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Love ya.”

  Lewis bent down and kissed Brittany. “Good night.”

  “Good night, honey. I hope you had a good day.”

  Lewis looked at her. She had forgotten. How could anyone do that? And he still remembered it all too well.

  CHAPTER 13

  ABSTRACTS WERE DIFFICULT for Lewis to paint. More so than realism, abstracts had to be perfect to be effective. Realistic paintings only had to hint at the realism, colors could be skewed, shapes out of perspective; as long as the idea came across clearly enough for the viewer to piece it together logically, it was fine. But abstracts had to pull from a different force, a different center. They had to fit more precisely than a double-sided jigsaw puzzle. Abstracts had to pull, from inside the viewer, the meaning, or near meaning, that the painter intended, even if the viewer wasn’t conscious of the meaning at all, which was often the case.

  Lewis fell into his internal, mysterious palette for just the right shape and color, arrived at through continual submersion into common thought mixed with his talent for connecting to the visual. When he tried to repaint the abstract he and Brittany had argued over, this time altering his use of the color red, the painting failed miserably. He tried painting it again and again, the final attempt using gobs of red and pushing the painting over the edge of comprehension.

  He quit. The series was incomplete, never to be finished. He wondered where to go next, remembered the Indian pointing, and decided to consult with nature. He laughed at his own idea, a disheartening fact for me, then discharged himself to the cold out-of-doors.

  The snow of a few days previous had not stuck, but a healthy frost and cold wintry air kept the leaves and weeds in a crispy salad state. Lewis crunched and crackled through the small yard to the stone fence and into the field, its dried, dead weed stems lying at every angle, knocked over by wind, rain or animals. The few weeds that stood were only waist high. He heard a loud knock behind him and turned to see Jeffrey at his front door. Come to announce another sale, he hoped. Lewis lifted an arm, but just before yelling, he changed his mind, plunged both hands deeply into his pockets for warmth, and walked off. Behind him, Brittany opened the door and greeted Jeffrey.

  The air smelled of winter. The tart odor of rotting leaves from the woods and the odor of dried field grass mixed to create its own fragrance. Lewis sucked it in through his nose, adding its uniqueness to his repertoire of painting materials. The sun pushed through clouds and cast a light shadow across the field. Trees glowed, the gray haze of an aura around them. Most of the leaves were gone from the maples, but many still held onto the branches of the oak and beech trees.

  The image of the Indian flashed in and out of Lewis’ mind. The answer to all his problems, he thought, but I knew better. It was a crutch, on several levels. First of all it was a way for Lewis to accept me, common thought, the raccoon, everything inside him which seemed illogical to his human-trained mind. Also, the Indian was a guide, a helper, a person with answers to difficult problems. Finally,
it represented part of himself, part of the mystery of Lewis, a part which he didn’t have to be responsible for. It was that part that he thought could help him finish the painting he had not been able to complete. It was that part, which connected closely to him, that he searched for, inside and outside himself, as he walked over the hollow, crunching forest floor towards me. It was that part which he would not find.

  Nature does not have the answer. It understands life and death only as it is happening. Signatures of what is about to happen here are merely the early parts of what is already happening elsewhere. It’s a fact. It can’t be changed. Nothing said can change the facts. Humans have mobility and analytical thought, and no matter how close I become to Lewis, they are difficult concepts to understand. The way his mind worked was, even after all those years, foreign to me. Lewis still saw the Indian pointing as a spiritual guide. Yes, he still connected me with the guide, but only in that changeling, mysterious, god-like way. I often wished he’d see the truth more clearly.

  He sat down and leaned against my trunk after brushing damp leaves away from the ground. It was very cold, but Lewis bore the discomfort. He closed his eyes and brought back the Indian. “You,” it said. It always said the same thing. Lewis interpreted this as, you are important, you are the artist, you must go on. It was, in a way, the only thing he really believed in that told him to go on, the only thing he listened to. It gave him an identity he felt he didn’t have in life. Jeffrey had identity in life. Externally, Lewis’ was only a mirror to Jeffrey. His real identity was inside himself, where he did look different than Jeffrey. Inside, he was like everything else he made contact with, each emotion was translated into its separate parts and used in pieces to create a unique finished work.

  While sitting, eyes closed, on the ground at my feet, Lewis considered his differences. Then the answer, like a bird flying by, flapped into his mind and landed within reach. He would add himself to the painting, an element of himself which depicted life from the Earth. It would be in keeping with the intent of the painting, plus it would use no red. Not that there wasn’t red in his makeup, there were all colors, but he could choose only his life force, or the life force within him which did not need red. He could, in this painting of the series, drop the paganism and rise to a more spiritual life force. Lewis shook his head, rolled the back of his head against my rough bark. The Indian pointed at him, “You,” it said, and Lewis added, “become a part of your own painting.”

  The answer was his own. I didn’t attempt to push a thought into him. There was no Indian except the one he invented inside himself. There was the raccoon, me, common thought and all that went with it, but there was no Indian. Somehow, he resolved his own problem with a combination of mental image, or vision, and deep-seated analytical thought which allowed him to rationalize himself out of his dilemma.

  He placed a piece of himself inside the painting. While sitting there in the cold, he conjured it up from the ooze of his mind, like a witch doctor or a sorcerer would do. The entire painting, not exact, for his mind was always much more vivid than life, but near exact, fell out before him. In his mind, Lewis could alter shapes and colors at will to adjust the outcome. He always had an outcome in his mind, and once he did, it had to be put down. His ideas haunted him if he didn’t put them down. Eventually, he completed them to his satisfaction, or near satisfaction, for if truth be told, Lewis was never totally satisfied with his paintings and could hardly understand why anyone would pay for one. It was good that Jeffrey took care of that for him.

  Lewis sat for close to two hours, opening his eyes several times just to glimpse the branches and minimum number of leaves against the gray sky. If someone were to walk up on him, they’d be sure that he was asleep, but there was much more than dreams going on inside his head, there was the creation of another world outside his, or mine, or the animals, either outside or a combination of them all, separate and together.

  When Lewis was through deciding, accepting false guidance from the pointing Indian, he got up and slowly made his way back through the winter-cleared path to the stone fence, over its cold, pitted and grooved surface, where his hands lingered long enough to register texture, then through the browned field to his home. When he went to open the door, it was locked. He turned the knob and pushed harder, then kicked the bottom as though it may have been stuck. He peered in the door-glass, but saw no movement, so he pushed the doorbell. Nothing. “Dammit,” he said, feeling his empty pockets. He went around back and felt above the door for the spare key, brought it back to the front and let himself in.

  “Brittany?” he yelled.

  No answer.

  “Jeff?”

  He walked through the house, into every room. Nothing. Walking back towards the front door, he saw the long sheet of yellow paper hanging below the window, taped to the wood. It read: Took Brit to hospital. She had pains. Couldn’t find you. Jeff.”

  “Good God,” Lewis said. He threw open the door and ran around the side of the house. Jeff’s car was gone. He patted his pockets. “Shit.” He rushed back into the house, got his keys, and left for the hospital wondering what time they had gone, and what was wrong.

  It was hours before he got back. When he returned that evening, Jeff pulled in right behind him. I hadn’t noticed Lewis coming until he was in the drive. I was concentrating on the woods, reacquainting myself with my own territory. I had, of late, been spending too much time following Lewis around.

  Anyhow, Brittany was all right. The doctors were holding her for observation. She had had pains she mistook for early labor. Mostly, it had frightened her.

  “Where were you?” Jeff asked as soon as the door closed.

  “Out thinking.”

  “I called and called.”

  “I was at the tree. Sitting.”

  “You should have heard me.”

  Lewis shrugged, his hands out, palms up. “I didn’t.”

  “Consulting with the Indian spirit guide again?”

  Lewis looked at him. “What’s bugging you?”

  “You should have been here. What if I hadn’t come by?”

  “It was a false alarm.”

  “What if it wasn’t and you were gone?”

  “Jeff, for Christ’s sake, most men work all week long. I’m almost always home. It was an accident that I wasn’t here.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right.” Jeff looked up and smiled.

  Lewis turned his eyes away. He didn’t want to see himself smiling, to see himself with Jeffrey’s eyes, and Jeffrey’s obviously better grooming, trimmed hair, shaven face. Lewis reached to scratch his own two-day beard, and to brush his hair back.

  “It scared me,” Jeff said.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry, too.”

  “For what?”

  “Being snide about that Indian thing.”

  “You don’t like it.”

  Jeff followed Lewis into the kitchen. “I admit, I have a problem with a few things: talking raccoons, seeing trees as individuals, Indian tree spirits, but if that’s what you need to be able to paint, I accept it.”

  “It’s not what I need.” Lewis pulled two beers from the refrigerator and threw one to Jeffrey. “It’s what I have, so I use it. I use everything. Everybody. “ Lewis twisted the cap off the beer bottle. Jeffrey’s popped loudly.

  “Yourself?” Jeff asked.

  “I’m about to.”

  “You never have?”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you think you’ll find?”

  “I don’t know, but he said...” Lewis looked up.

  “Go ahead. I’ll get used to it.”

  “He said it was okay to put myself inside this painting I’m working on.”

  “The one you and Brit argued about the other night?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “She told me on the way to the hospital. Talking kept the pain away, I guess. She said you’ve been acting fun
ny ever since the fight.”

  “You know me.”

  “Yeah, you have to get it out of you. She interfered.” He shook his head. “The way I used to when we were younger.”

  “But it’s okay now. I’m the answer.”

  “I’m glad it worked out.” He sat down. “Then things are fine.”

  “I think so. I’m working a lot of the time.”

  “Brittany talks a lot when I’m here. You don’t think you leave her alone too much?”

  “She doesn’t complain.” Lewis sat down at the kitchen table and Jeffrey did the same. Lew brushed his hand through his hair and tilted his beer bottle at a slight angle, and rolled it around on its bottom. “She’s always talked a lot. Besides, now she says she’s going to start having people over. Parties.”

  “She told me. What do you think of that?”

  “Don’t care, I guess. She said I can still work sometimes.”

  “You’ll have to clean up more often.”

  “You mean shave?”

  “Shave, get a haircut. A little sleep might brighten up your face. You can really afford new clothes. It’s not like you’re broke.”

  “They just get paint on them.” Lew looked up. “But I could.”

  “I think sleep’s the big thing. I don’t want you to collapse again.”

  “You still worry about that?”

  “I thought that today when you didn’t answer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You said that, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stay healthy. You’re starting to get thinner already.”

  “I was too fat anyway.”

  “You were fine. For god’s sake, you really need to take more care. For Brit’s sake, the baby’s. Look at yourself.”

  “I am.” He looked up.

  “Don’t start with that shit.” Jeff stood and put his empty bottle on the counter next to the sink. “That’s self pity, or some such shit. You have a life. You have a family! That’s more than I have. What are you going to put into your paintings, now that you’ve started. Self pity?”

  “There’s other things in there.”