Keith L.

Macario Cuckoo Spring1

Keith L. Macario May 27th 2012 2,800 Keith.Macario@gmail.com

CUCKOO SPRING By Keith L. Macario

Keith L. Macario Cuckoo Spring2

Rafael sat hunched over in his chair, and he agitated grains of cereal in a ceramic bowl. The milk swirled around and through the doughnut like holes of the breakfast brand. There lacked appetite in his eyes, despite his attempts to make the regular morning ritual appealing. Dragged ragged curtains try to block the unwelcomed morning Sun, yet morning light craftily slips under. His room dark and brooding became a glowing pearl against the morning color haze. The thick coarse white hairs on his chin had grown an inch, due to sleepless nights. The hairs on his head were white like rooftop laundry and just as old and just as beaten. The morning had served as a time of reflection. Peaceful mornings were hard to come by in a modern world of economic functionality, lucky for him. Brittle pink hands slip a tiny notebook out from beneath a glass of water. The pages flip and turn as a breeze of wind eases through small openings. Between the files of pages there lie photographs of vague smiling faces. A bone of a finger taps the photograph and pins the page down beneath a harsh light. The Sun light bounces off the photograph. And the image becomes a blind and blur yet revealing and truthful. His house had been shacked in the middle of the country. Waves pushed against rugged cliff edges, eroding the layers into jagged walls. Above on the landscape, dry rocks and autumn hills frame the summer home, hidden from passing cars and onlookers. Standing on the gravel by the edge of the cliff, a young man named Morgan lets a trail of smoke follow behind him as he paces back and forth. Smoke had lingered for a while after he passed

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by and it trailed over a garden of flowers beside Rafaels house. Unsteady insomniac eyes read the door from left to right for an excuse to leave, but his hands betray him as they indecisively pick between the handle and the empty air. Eerie chills trickle down his spine as the ocean breeze spreads floats across the cliff. His knuckles press against the metal plate for the door handle and hesitation stills his lungs. A metal spoon grates against the ceramic bowl as Rafael stirs. Morgan slips in to the house and lets the sound of the ocean waves briefly become a guest in Rafaels home. Still young with a mind for business and philosophy, Morgan had been a person to admire. Hey pops, Morgan greeted. Light some damn firewood, its getting cold, Rafael coughed. Rafael reacts to Morgans entry by hiding the small notebook into his pants pocket. He watched his father lift himself into the kitchen with the bowl full of cereal. The old man does not seem to be eating. When Rafael came back he ached into bed and threw covers over his legs. The fire tickled the tip of the brick Chimney, flickering in and out of the fireplace. Rafael had been bedridden with a sketch book propped on his knees. Morgan sneaks a look at his Fathers drawing as he stirs together a Bloody Mary. Rafael catches his sons eye wandering. Blue eyes, I always loved blue eyes, Rafael noted. "Morgan I want to play a game with you," Rafael persisted. "Sure pops, what game?" He said. He sketches a game of hangman on the other side of his drawings. "Guess," Rafael said.

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Morgan pinned the paged down for a better view. Eleven lines in a row uninterrupted by blanks represented one full word. A lavishing drawing it had been. It had depicted a detailed noose and post. He calls out several letters and the tip of the pen scribed each guess. G, Morgan called out. The old man stitched another well drawn arm to an overly drawn game. On the page the letters had been _A_TE___ECE_. Poor fellow on deaths row had missing leg. He stood one wrong letter away from being a hung man. Morgan examined the row of lines and perceptively guessed out, Masterpiece! Dry cackling furnished the dark room as Rafael laid the pen and paper on his lap. His laughter settled into a well composed demeanor. People always forget people. He said. I hardly remember mom pops, Morgan comforted. Of course you hardly remember, she died when you were three you buffoon. I am speaking of other matters, Rafael barked. Morgan shrugged his Fathers comments. Moments were sparse when it involved bonding between Father and Son. Rafael had been careful to keep his son at bay when it came to the arts and Alicia. Alicia had been the wife to Rafael and mother of Morgan. At the age of twenty-six she committed suicide by cyanide. Depression leaves deep grooves in the heart that runs on for miles. The thought of his Mothers suicide curled his stomach. Wedged in claustrophobia, Morgan wiped the sweat on his brow off with his sleeve. His Father turned a hot pink with bells of sweat rolling down the side of his rough cheek. The Sun left no corner dark and no crevice without shadow. Thick heat bruised

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the walls and a heavy weight made the ceiling feel lower than it appeared. The curtains swayed side to side against a partially cracked open window. Morgan despised the blazing inferno and pulled the ragged curtains apart. He freed the window from the brass latching. Just as the windows open a fine ice wave blasts into the home, turning elderly patched curtains into deranged flaps. Written in bold full letters, Masterpiece, the hung man is spared a losing game. Rafael thumbs the sketches. Men are prone to time and time is our greatest enemy. Im allergic to time, to tell you the truth. Rafael said. He plucks from his pocket the small notebook and rests the book on the table. How well known am I? He inquires. Anything you paint can pay for a years salary. People flock to your paint, Morgan said, yet Rafael still seems unsettled. Both his elderly hands dart up so that both the index fingers touch a thumb. Picture this, he said. I was envied and praised. Invited to elegant parties, I created a reputation for myself. I had money, influence, and women. I gave that up to settle down to teaching the arts, but what did I really end up teaching? He spat. His feet kick the blanket off his body towards the foot of the bed. Art can be a contradiction. One does not teach art, one teaches technique. To tell one how to feel deprives the artist of his art, Rafael licked his lips. The tip of his thumb filed the pages. Machines, manufactured paintings, sketches, they had cultivated a skill of laziness. I am not pleased with what sheep managed to flock to my course. People think great

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artists or well known artists hold the secret to success. Rafael said. There is no secret to success. You either are or you are not. You can be a great mathematician, if you have the mind for it. Art is the same way. You have to have a mind for it. No amount of inspiration or pseudo-inspiration will help. Rafael rambled as he gazed a mile stare. I had a student, Edwin Devillar, how can I ever forget him. Some people you forget, some you do not. Edwin Devillar is one of them. The boy was a visionary. He understood the essence of painting! The old man gasped. The canvas was the world. And the paint was the trees, rivers, rocks, and flesh. Reality is contorted to ones personal dissatisfaction with the world, and he painted just that. A brilliant artistic soul that glimmered and gleamed in a drowning ocean of fakes, Rafael reminisced. The palm of his hand slammed against the desk as if it were declarative. And a glass shifts and rolled off the edge of the desk, smashed into pieces. Small and plenty, the shattered bits were. Broken glass conjured memories within the old mans delusional mind. The little bits each played a certain incident. Some of the memories recalled were of Edwin humiliated before the class. Other memories had been of Edwins paintings torn to shreds by a jealous Rafael. Morgan swept the broken glass and Rafael cupped his hands to his mouth. Morgan, do you see the portrait covered by a sheet? He looked around to find a covered portrait resting on an easel. Go fetch that for me and be careful not to let the sheet fly off! Rafael had seemed giddy, pleased even. Men will

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try all sorts of things to live forever. Elixirs, companies, countries, names, children, inventions, art, Rafael breathed. Deaths stench filled Morgans lungs and the cold air in the room had grown stale. Obeying his fathers command, he set foot toward the portrait. Face to face with the ghost sheet, he pressed the palm of his hand against the flowing white. He plucked the canvas from the easel like an apple off a tree. For Morgan, the air in the room became stale and the stench of death and horror aroused his senses, for the picture under the portrait. Reluctantly he obeyed his Father's command and set forth with hesitant footsteps until he came face to face with the ghost sheet. The palm of his hand slid across the sheet, smoothing out the wrinkles. Both hands plucked the canvas and sheet from the easel. Rafael tidied his bed space as Morgan wobbled the canvas over. A spoiled smile spilled across the old mans face and madness had settled in like a birds nest. Morgan laid the canvas by Rafaels legs. What is it? Morgan asked. I was enamored by his art. The themes he could express, the luscious imagery. I had wanted to find how to be as truthful as he. You see, I was an escapist. I had virtuoso technique, but I lacked honest. That was my greatest fault. I lied to that boy every day. I drilled into his mind how his paintings were like dribble from an arrogant five year old. Finger painted quality. Rafael sipped his drink. He idolized me, but he never paid tribute to me. Not in paint. Not in blood. He kept his work true to himself. I degraded him; he grew stronger in his art. Finally it was too much; he came to me, swelled with tears, red eyes, and

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uncertainty in his nasal voice. That was honesty, the greatest, to see a man cry from his own frustrations, his, his own failures. Such honesty I had to admire, yet equally burdened with hatred in my heart. His health declined, mentally and physically. The paintings became more warped and extravagant. Unimaginable horrors you cannot begin to have the faintest idea of, masterpieces of suffering and loneliness. His hands weighed the white sheet covering the canvas, "Art is the spirit, the reflection of a man's soul to prove evidence of its existence. Hold a canvas to a man and like a mirror it shows who he is. If he was true then a reflection bled on white. I had tormented Edwin, but that had not been enough. He needed to die." Rafael finished his stirred concoction of vegetables and alcohol. Who would've thought he'd do it for me. Police found him hung in his apartment. He died at twenty-one." A curdling cold presence befalls the room as curtains are sent flying from a burst of ocean breeze. Waves smashed the jagged rocks. Roaring white reached for the sky as the waters grew unstable. Morgan, horrified, gazes at the painting. He left his spirit weaved into his paintings. I found them and burned them to ash. I regret nothing, it all needed to happen, so that I could complete my own masterpiece. Unveiled by supernatural winds, the sheet dropped to the floor. Such horror a countenance, deep prominent lines of purple and red looked like physical scratches on a contorted face. The jaw of the face suffered a severe displacement, and the top of his cranium sloped to the right side as if bashed by a hard blunt force. Around his purple bruised neck, a noose woven of regal ring-necked snakes. I had burned and used the ashes of

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his paintings with my paints to give a thicker feel than normal. You have no idea how long it took. Rafael gazed. "You've finally lost it," Morgan Said. "Listen here you little bastard," Rafael spat out as he unrolled from his bed, slamming his bare foot on the floor, where a single piece of glass remained. He let out a cry as blood dripped on the hot dry wood, welcomingly sponging he ruby red. Morgan laid down the sheet underneath his Father's foot, and he applied pressure with both his thumbs to the sole of his Fathers foot, pushing the glass closer to the surface. Stay still, Morgan rushed off to the restroom. Rafael watched the blood drip from his foot. A memory came to mind. Alicia looked beautiful. A younger Rafael steadily paints the Earth on her stomach. Blue and green paints adorned with angels and large hands cradling the world. Alicia fiddled with Rafaels short hair. "You're so stupid," she laughed. "What makes me stupid," Rafael said. "You painted a world on my belly!" "I'm giving you the world of course," Rafael said. She pointed at the angels, "Are these angels?" she asked. Rafael nodded. She pointed at the hands, "So if you are giving me the world, you are the artist, are these your hands?" she asked. "They might as well be," he replied. Funny, I thought they were God's hands," Alicia said. "God does not cradle the world," He spoke with contempt.

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"If I told you I hate you, what would you do?" She inquired. He had thought about it for a second, "I would die." She laughed again, "What if I told you I loved you?" This time he was quick with his answer this time, "I'd live!" "That's interesting to hear," she said. "What is?" Rafael seemed concerned. "When I asked you about love you seemed to know, when I asked you about hate you had to think." She said. "So what about it?" He asked. "Stupid boy, Love and hate are the same thing!" She started to laugh. They are not the same thing, Rafael noted. A person hates what he loves. That is jealousy. Desire and anger, love and hate. Alicia quietly spoke. Rafael, now a bitter old man sat in bed grumbling as his son returned with a box. Morgan cleaned the bottom of his Father's foot with a disinfected cotton swab and slipped the band aid onto his foot after pulling out the broken piece of glass with a needle. "Things never work out the way you want them to. You were supposed to be our legacy, not my legacy. Rafael spoke.Men have their sons as legacies all the time." Morgan replied. "Men are stupid and try to live through their sons. I have my masterpiece, and now, my regrets." Rafael grew sick, an old man's sickness where life becomes stale. The wood in the house had the stench of death, the past all around him. Only the painting and his son were the future in this time prison he called a home.

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"At least I have my legacy Morgan," He tried to comfort himself. Morgan walked off, having cleaned the floor and the wound. He throws the bloody cotton and scraps into the trash. Turning around he spoke, "Is that what you really want?" There is nothing that can connect these two; with that finally established Morgan strolls out of the house. An old man kept castled in a time prison he calls a house, with vintage newspapers from a lost Era of dead poets, poets who were good with news and better with lies. There were worn down shoes that traveled down to the sole, ruined by time. There had been not nearly enough modern appliances in the home, each item told a sixty year story, some held stories of love while others hid tragedy. The old man rested himself in bed, and set the painting to the side. "I've always loved blue eyes," he spoke as a single tear strolled down the side of his wrinkled cheek. He reached over to the notebook on the table. He pulled out the photograph within the small notebook. The picture had been of the world once in his hands, the painting on his wifes pregnant belly. His dull brown eyes closed by heavy eyelids. Goodnight.

END