by Sandy DeLuca
I’m holding the kittens in my arms. Their mother stands by my side.
Take the cats and go back, Julia. I’ve got to go with your father now. Her screams blend with the others.
I leave her, enter another room. Its walls are pure white as are the floor and furnishings. My brother greets me, reaches for the kittens. Mother cat rubs her cheek against his leg.
They see the dead.
I open my eyes. The vision slowly dissipates. Mother cat is purring. Her eyes are wide as she tilts her head upward as though listening to a gentle voice from beyond. I hear it too, Paul is humming an old Beatles song. His voice takes me back to dreams and I am at peace for a while.
CHAPTER 3
The dead always knock twice. My late Aunt Lil said that often. They linger for a while, white knuckles wrapping on wood in vain. The living blame their gentle taps on storm winds, or on kittens scampering down the stairs. But what do the living know?
I remember how my brother Paul always knocked twice before entering my room, and realize I am somewhere between consciousness and sleep, a place of partial illumination where dreams and reality blend. I long to hug my brother and to kneel at my Aunt’s feet as she reads the Tarot—if only I could do either just once more.
I gaze at my pillow. I turned it over hours ago and prayed then that it would be white and clean when early morning sunlight drifts through the window, when mother cat’s babies come to greet me as they do each sunrise.
Two black kittens scurry into the room and bury their heads beneath the sheets. They purr softly as my eyes adjust to the morning light.
I gaze around my room. I search each corner. I study the cracks on the ceiling and look to the foot of my bed. No specters greet me. Ghosts do not hover above me as I was certain they had earlier.
I watch playful felines wrestle and allow them to distract me from the dark thoughts. They soon grow tired and nestle close to me.
“What do you dream?” I ask while petting them. They stare at me with innocent eyes. “I dream of dead things. I dream of Hell sometimes.”
I’d shut my eyes earlier, but had I really slept?
I don’t sleep much anymore. I press my fingers against my forehead and see the vision once more.
* * *
Lil sipped red wine, sitting cross-legged on my Nana’s living room floor. She was young again, with her hair wild and free and her white lace skirt spread around her like a fan. Her blouse was embroidered with birds and flowers and they changed color each time she smiled.
My brother Paul sat next to her.
Lil and Paul. They both had dark sides. Too much liquor, too much white powder, too many decadent friends, but despite the decadence, both were pillars for me, providers of great strength and solace in my life.
In my dream Lil and Paul were having a discussion.
It was surreal, filled with metaphors and cryptic messages.
An altar leaned against a wall. Candles burned with orange flames. Roses in crystal vases lined the walls. Their petals opened and closed in unison. Rosary beads were wrapped around a statue of Isis the moon Goddess. She smiled and flew away on a straw broom when a yellow crescent appeared on the ceiling. She hummed a Rolling Stones song from back in the 70s.
“Damn, you never wait for me,” my aunt said, pointing to the humming Goddess. “All those prayers—the offerings—and you never wait.”
“She means well, Aunt Lil. She just speaks another language, doesn’t understand English, that’s all.” Paul took a swig from the bottle where stars floated in a sea of whiskey, “You know, the son of God spoke in parables. An appointed teacher—a human being—born to exorcise demons from tortured souls. Julia once told me she dreamed she danced with him in the rain. They were laughing.”
“Julia never laughs much anymore. But she’s not a bag bride. She’s got the King’s habit.”
“It’s all because of Isis.”
“Fuck Isis. We’re to blame for some of it. But there are things unfolding.” Lil stroked a gray tabby that had climbed into her lap. “Julia told me about the dancing dream too, but was it a dream? I was never sure.”
Paul shrugged. “This is a dream.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Lil giggled, put her finger to her lips like she used to when a new thought came to her. “Julia is a visionary, a magic woman. The visionaries are the ones who feel the universe and the haunting truth of life and death within their hearts.”
A butterfly landed in Paul’s open palm. ”Her fate so tragic and yet so important, don’t you think?” He sighed as the butterfly flew away. “Such a responsibility.”
“Artists and writers interpret the parables of every age. They speak in the subtle tongues of Heaven. Yet demons come to visit and demand payment for things you’ve grown tired of.” He tapped his fingers on his knee. “They gave her twenty-one years to use the magic in her hands.”
The butterfly brushed by Lil, then landed on a silver crucifix hanging on the wall. Butterfly and cross melted, and their colors ran together as my aunt began to speak.
She snapped her fingers and I stood against the wall where the cross had been hanging moments before. “The powers of Heaven and Earth. The teachers of the soul. Twenty-one years—that was the deal.”
“It’s not enough.” Lil said as she sprouted colorful wings. “Transformation: That’s what the butterfly signifies in some magical teachings.”
“Early Christians said a butterfly represented the soul.” Paul poured whiskey on the floor. It turned to sand. He drew circles in it with his finger. “Perhaps a painter’s soul. Doesn’t she create with all the colors of the rainbow as well as with the dark shades of winter? Isn’t the writer inspired by the whisper of the wind and isn’t every myth of old a new story reinvented within the writer’s mind? Didn’t Danté, Dickinson, Beckmann—and countless others possess that power? Didn’t they conjure that inspiration? Weren’t they all plagued by hellish things?”
“It’s passion.”
Paul nodded. “Passion runs so deep that the kisses of God and the fires of the Devil are common.”
Aunt Lil’s wings withered, crumbled as the sand blew away on a gust of wind.
“The Devil is near.”
Then Lil and Paul spoke in unison. “The Devil is a tempting muse. He wears many faces. Sometimes he’s a handsome man, offering dark delights and rich eternities.”
A man dressed in a black tuxedo, a red carnation in his lapel floated above them. He held a magic wand.
Sammy.
Lil and Paul looked up and pointed at him. “He may be a magician laying painted cards before those who whisper his name, telling fortunes made to order to those who kneel at his feet.”
Sammy held the head of a man he’d slaughtered back in Georgia. Veins and clots of red fell onto the floor, but my deceased relatives continued with their litany, unimpressed.
“He knows they’ll offer their souls in return for his lies. He’ll inspire fame and fortune then gladly escort his chosen ones on the path to Hell.”
Paul and Lil floated towards me.
“Wishes are always granted—they are fleeting, and often, before flesh is wrinkled with age, the Devil will collect his dues.”
Paul took my right hand; my aunt took my left.
“Remember your lessons, Cara Mia.” Lil kissed me on the cheek.
Blood trickled from my nose.
“To love everlasting.” Paul kissed my forehead.
A crescent moon formed there.
* * *
The phone wakes me and the dream ends. It is still early morning, and I realize I must have drifted off again.
I still feel a slight buzz from the wine I drank before bed. My pillow, no longer white, is littered with small drops of crusted blood. I flip it over, place my finger beneath my nose then reach for a tissue and wipe away the price of my habit. The phone continues to ring. No one calls this early. I grab at it angrily, pull it to my ear.
“Hello?”
>
“Me again,” comes drifting through the receiver.
“Who is this?” I demand, though I already know.
“Everlasting love, Julia.”
CHAPTER 4
A week passes since my rendezvous in New York, and since the ghostly calls that haunt my every waking moment.
Rather than focusing on the phone calls, I think back to New York. If only I could cut him out of my heart. I keep thinking about the way he smiled at me over breakfast, his gentle hands and the way they shook when he touched me.
My mother is asleep in her rocking chair downstairs.
I decide to put all this emotion into my work, to take advantage of the quiet.
An unfinished canvas leans against my easel. The paints are lush and waiting on my palette.
I do a line of coke, certain I can work through the night. I promised Mr. Bernini at the Greenwich gallery that I’d ship my paintings to him over the weekend.
I won’t drive to New York City. I’m too fearful of the traffic, of aggressive drivers. And I can’t lug twenty paintings with me on a Greyhound.
I have one more piece to complete, and I know I can’t fuck this up. Still, my mother will try her best to do just that.
The rocking chair is in motion. She clinks a spoon against her teacup. A kitten meows softly.
I hear light footsteps on the stairs. She stands in my doorway, hands on her hips. Her hair is wild. Her voice is shrill and irritating. “Why don’t you get a real job? You’re never going to sell all those paintings. When was the last time you got a check for any of your art?”
“Mom, I’ve made some decent money for my art. I always do. I always take care of the bills. And you.”
She clicks her lips. “I cover my face when I go out in the yard. I don’t want to face the neighbors. They all see your picture in the newspapers. They see those depraved paintings you do.”
“They’re not depraved. It’s art, Mom.”
“You were never normal, always going off and doing what you wanted. Always doing senseless things. You’re going to miss me when I die. Who’ll do your laundry? Who’ll cook for you? I’m telling you for your own good, find a man. You can’t be alone. You’ll never survive.”
I cover my ears; wish her away.
She turns and pads back down the stairs. Mother cat looks after her with half-closed eyes. I hear the rocking chair creak. My mother mumbles something in Italian and then it’s quiet once more.
I do another quick line and decide to paint until she climbs the stairs again. It won’t be until early morning. I’ll have hours to myself. Hours to create, hours to remember that people always praise my work, despite what my mother says, despite what she needs.
* * *
Paul looked different when he came home. His eyes had lost their mischievous glint and instead possessed a haunted, hollow expression. His broad shoulders were slumped, and his hands seemed to shake constantly, even when he tousled my hair and put his arm around me.
The day he came home, my parents walked him upstairs to his bedroom. Ma had been cleaning up there all week, and Dad had gone to the record store and bought Paul new records by the Beatles, The Beach Boys, and Janis Joplin—all artists he loved and said he listened to every chance he got when he was in ‘Nam.
I waited all day for more hugs, for some brotherly jokes—like the old Paul used to do—but my brother had become more serious, introspective, and sullen. Darker. The things he’d seen and done had changed him forever. He disappeared into his room not long after he came home that day.
Later, Aunt Lil dropped by. She’d stopped at the bakery and bought some Russian teacakes. “Remember how you’d both gorge yourselves on these things when you were younger?” she asked me. “I’m sure Paul didn’t get any of these when he was in Vietnam.”
“Yeah, I love those things.”
“I wrote to Paul a lot when he was gone,” Lil told me, as if I didn’t know. “I sent him herbs and stones for protection.”
“Maybe he’ll come out of his room for you.”
I knocked on my brother’s door.
“What?”
“Aunty is here. She brought Russian teacakes. Remember when—?”
“Send her away.”
“Paul. Out of respect. Aunty loves you.”
“She’s crazy. Sent me all this lunatic shit when I was away. Mumbo-jumbo charms to ward off harm. Tell her to go.”
“You loved her when—”
“Julia, not today. Not today.”
The following day Dad told me Paul needed treatment. He’d seen a lot of shit in the jungles and he was going to have to spend some time over at the Veterans Hospital. He’d be fine, Dad assured me. This happened to a lot of guys who’d come back, he said.
Paul spent a month at the hospital.
When he came home he seemed to have the old devilish glint in his eyes again. He seemed almost happy, but something was different—something not visible—just a feeling I had in my gut.
* * *
I move my brush quickly, painting over shadowy areas with lighter colors, bringing out highlights with shades of yellows and some white. A city scene is manifesting, a crowded street where a lone specter exists in a shadowy realm.
CHAPTER 5
The kittens sniff at the mixtures of paint and odorless turpentine. I shoo them away. Mother cat seems to scold them with a low meow as they gather around her.
She blinks her eyes at me, gazes at my canvas and then lies on her side, allowing her babies to nurse.
Her stare remains in my direction as I paint more details, as the mystical and alien figure becomes sharper. She twitches her whiskers when the rocking chair creaks downstairs. She growls deeply as my mother mumbles my brother’s name in her sleep—in a bitter-sweet memory.
* * *
My mother kissed Paul on the cheek. “Make sure you take extra helpings. I made the pasta and meatballs just for you.”
I was glad my brother felt well. It was great to see him smiling again. He was even glad that Aunt Lil had joined us.
“Why don’t you take a seat, sister?” Aunt Lil’s face was flushed from too many glasses of wine, which of course, was nothing new or unusual. Her hair was wild and curly, and she wore several strings of plastic beads, a red satin blouse and a black lace skirt. On her wrist was a delicate rose tattoo.
“Is that new, Aunty?” I asked, motioning to it.
“Yeah, I know a guy on the hill. He gave me a deal. Got it done after I drank a bit too much.”
“Lil, behave.” My mother scowled at her.
“Paul…you know,” she said softly, as if he couldn’t hear her too.
“Sit.” Aunt Lil waved her hand at my mother.
“I gotta care for my guys.” My mother’s voice was sharp.
My aunt shook her head and reached for the wine.
“Are you going back to work at the bank?” I asked Paul as he scooped meatballs from the casserole dish.
“Hey, the government is paying me a thousand bucks a month. Disability. I don’t need to ever work again,” he said between mouthfuls of spaghetti. “And we get raises when the cost of living goes up. I’m set for life.”
My mother poured him a soda. She waited as my father made his way to the table.
“Want coffee?”
“I’m all set. Take care of our boy here.” My father nodded at my aunt.
She raised her glass to him in a toast.
Paul was amused. He was happy that night. He seemed to glow as he said again, “I never have to work another day in my life.”
Dad patted him on the back, not really hearing what he’d just said. “You’ll be as good as new. You’ll get your old job back. You always made me proud.”
Paul winked at me. I winked back and we both laughed.
Lil leaned over and whispered in my ear. “There’s something amiss. You and Paul should stay away from Providence, from certain people. I can feel—”
“We’re fine,” I whisper
ed back. “Stop being a witch.”
“But I read the Tarot and—”
“Hush now. Look how happy Paul is tonight.”
That same night Paul and I went out dancing.
“Some of my friends told me about this new club,” he told me while we were en route. “It’s downtown Providence, called Xavier’s.”
“Can I get in?”
“Yeah, I know the bouncer.” He gave me a playful nudge. “No problem, kiddo.”
“I don’t care about drinking anyway. I just want to be with you tonight.”
Paul smiled and winked. His hair was darker than mine, but we had the same light skin and blue eyes. The look of a Northern Italian, Aunt Lil often said whenever she saw us together.
Xavier’s was an old factory building turned into a nightclub. There were neon lights and abstract paintings scattered here and there but the floors were the same splintered wood from the building’s factory days. The bar had a marble top and plush velvet stools.
“This place is different,” I said, taking in the art.
“I’ve gotten into other clubs like The Warehouse, January’s and The Edge. Not as much atmosphere as this place. I kind of like it.”
“Yeah.” Paul chuckled. “It’s unique all right.”
He bought us each a mug of beer and at that moment the band broke into a shoddy rendition of Gimme Shelter. People rose from their seats at the bar and at tables and began dancing with each other. Only then, did I realize they were all men.
“What the fuck, Paul?” I said, punching him playfully.
“It’s about time you learned that there’s a whole world out there—the real world—not the one Ma and Dad and crazy Aunt Lil want you to believe in.”