Raphael Redcloak

by McBrearty, Jenean

  "He has given up his death for the sake of another's soul."

  "His good deed will not go unpunished. He was born with bad blood. Look to see the odd in the ordinary." With these cryptic words hanging in the air, she disappeared. He would have to see Suffering—a visit he dreaded more than the charnel houses his brother frequented with delight.

  "Mother sends you greetings and praise, Brother," Death said to the being gnarled with deformities. He and his children, Stupidity, Torture, Disease, and Defect resided in squalor at the far end of the universe, downwind from decent spirits, just across the Styx. Hell was so close, Death could smell sulfur.

  Through a drunken haze, Suffering gave him a cheery wave. "You'll have a good harvest, Brother. I've just returned from Haiti where cholera is ravishing the water." He kicked a stool towards Death and motioned for him to sit, but Death declined. "I heard Kha'zar's story. He told me as he waited for the Ferryman. He and Dracula and Iago."

  Death discerned a rare opportunity. "Fate wasn't with them?"

  "Charles-the-fop? Hell, no. Too meticulous, and they were all breathless and sweating from lamming it out of the Fortress, afraid the aroma of terror would give them away and too scared of the Valkyries to rest easy until they were safely across the river. Once on the boat, they laughed like a pack of hyenas. If Charles had heard them, he would have cringed." Suffering drank again from the goblet filled with rancid regret. "You're on a mission, Brother?"

  "Of a sort. Raphael Redcloak, has reincarnated and I seek to know where he is." A crowd began to gather near the river's bank, but unlike most of the doomed, they waited happily for the trip to their chosen destination, oblivious to what horrors awaited them. He recognized some of those he had taken the night before from the Barenaked Ladies concert fire.

  “Tell me, how was able to reincarnate without assistance?”

  Under his robes, his bones felt the needling. Why hadn’t he considered that all would demand he confess his deed and think him a fool? “Alright, I allowed it. But I’ve lost track of him. There is confusion in my records and I find it intolerable. That should suffice as reason enough.” Death produced his own chair and sat at Suffering’s table. “So pare me thin-veiled sarcasm.”

  "It is said many in the Spirit World seek him. Certainly Kha'zar would like to meet him again in a frailer, human form," Suffering said.

  "I don't doubt your information. You hear the echoes from hell," Death said. His eyes fixed on a plate of rotted meat oozing with maggots from which Suffering devoured handfuls of putrescence.

  "Proximity allows it,” he said, wiping his chin on his sleeve. “I hear the moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth. The world I inhabit is repugnant but I do not want for entertainment."

  "Does Kha'zar know where the Raphael is?" Death said. The ferry was nearing the shore where the crowd waited, and they cheered as it pulled up to the dock. Their celebration would change to sorrow when forced to bade the opportunity for redemption good-bye.

  "Not yet. He thinks he has rid himself of the bastard because he caused Madison Rector to lose her child. Foolish demon. She did not carry the Guardian in her womb." Suffering grinned. "That's the trouble with demons—they're as stupid as they are evil."

  Insincerely, Death joined him in laughter. "Mother knows where he is. Yes?"

  "She does, Brother, but she’ll not tell you. Our plights do not concern her." Suffering said. "The gods keep up with the world. It's their favorite playground. Weather permitting." He was quite drunk now. Death had to help him stand, and he staggered as he walked to the liquor cabinet. "Now what shall I drink to quench my thirst. I'm always thirsty."

  For one who cannot drink water, there is no slaking of thirst. "Mother says he has bad blood. Do you know what she meant?" he said as the crippled man reeled back to the table with a flagon of vinegar and gall.

  Suffering sank onto his stool and carefully placed the flagon in front of him. "Do you know what the cruelest thing is in life, Brother? It’s not knowing the reason for what happens. You must have heard your friend Beethoven when he called you to Heilegenstadt. Didn't you hear him say, why me, as he wrote his suicide note? I'm sure he didn't hear himself say it. Deafness being what it is."

  Suffering held the brass flagon to his face and looked at his reflection. "When Fate must wield a cruel blow, he doesn't do it himself. He looks to us, Brother. Suffering and Death. We are the fop’s henchmen. Look at us. Ugly. So ugly mortals curse us and shrink from us in disgust. Yet each human being meets us on their path. You'd think they'd realize we have a job to do. If life was all pleasantness, no one would want to leave it. We get them ready for the inevitable, right?" His eyes closed and he put the flagon on the table. "He has bad blood, Brother. It is tainted with irony."

  Death watched as his brother slipped into a sot's sleep. There would be no refreshment upon his waking, for those who cannot dream know neither peace nor hope. Suffering was the invisible guest at every entry into the world—just as he attended every exit—and he gave to each human a terrible gift, a source of sadness that Fate decreed he must bear throughout his life however long or short. There is no escape from Suffering, only respites along the journey.

  Another Career Success

  Alby drove around the block twice before spying the 2 x 4 foot sign that read: 6th Ave. Gallery. It was squirreled away, shaded by a blanket of crimson bougainvillea, near an outside staircase that led to the basement of Joe Cupertino's modest brown-shingled home. Designed to discourage foot traffic, Alby thought as he passed by the sign and walked towards the staircase. His assessment was validated when he saw a warning taped neatly in one of the windowpanes: by appointment only. He had an appointment, but there didn't seem to be a sign of life about the place. He rang the doorbell, heard it chime, and then heard a voice say, "Be with you in a minute Mr. Rector." It sounded like Cupertino. Effeminate. High-pitched.

  He shifted his portfolio, a flat case a quarter size of a card table that held his photographs, to his left hand. So this is where the wealthy came to buy originals to decorate their downtown condos and beach houses. He'd heard California old money detested ostentation, preferring intimate boutiques and private sales to glitzy public shops, and Cupertino's was the place to go for one-of-a-kind's.

  Cupertino was a small, delicate man who hovered and flitted like the hummingbirds that adorned his business card, but he had a good sense of the avant-garde and knew his customers well, or so Alby had been told. "Let him handle your photographs and he'll make you a fortune," Manstein had said, "I'll give you a referral."

  Cupertino escorted him down the gallery's well lit main thoroughfare to an office near the inside stairwell. "Most people are surprised the first time they come here," Cupertino said. "They aren't artists like yourself, so they don't appreciate the trouble it is to maintain a constant, consistent environment for the works they see. Fluctuations in temperature and humidity can be devastating to art. Environments, like artists, are fragile."

  Alby thought about his home studio with its expensive windows that remained open 90% of the year and felt unworthy of the label 'artist'.

  "You brought the pictures?" Cupertino said.

  Alby set the portfolio case on a square table and unzipped it, spreading its pockets flat. "Enjoy," he said.

  Cupertino, slipped his hands into white cotton gloves and removed each plastic covered print, one by one, from their pockets, holding each one with both hands up to his face and writing an ID number on a pad. "They're lovely," he said. "Such stories they tell. I'm thinking a special showing in the downtown gallery. Black tie. Open to the press." He checked his notepad, and went back to numbers four, five, nine and twelve, laying them side-by-side over a slanted viewing table. "These I think. Enlargements. Posters—but this number seven, this is spectacular. A limited edition. I have a customer who would pay dearly for the exclusive if you're willing to part with it forever. He'll want the negative."

  He expected Cupertino to single out number seven. He
called it Via Dolorosa. He and Maddie had decided to turn down one of Urbino's side streets, and came upon a church where a wedding party was filing out the carved 15th century doors. The bride and groom emerged from the darkness, and hurried down the steps. A priest leading a blind child, his one hand hidden by the priest's and the other flailing in the air as though grasping for a life rope, crossed the piazza in front of them.

  Alby snapped his picture, capturing the boy's desperation and the dread that spread over the couples faces. Marriage and children were more than social expectations. They were affirmations of faith in life's roulette wheel—misplaced as that faith was. Today's ecstasy could turn to tragedy in an instant. The crossing of the stumbling child was an ill omen.

  Deadly silence descended on the revelers as the priest and the child disappeared. Everyone made the sign of the cross. Then someone shouted something to the bride and she tossed the bouquet over her shoulder. The bridesmaids scrambled to catch it, as though trying to restore the evaporated gaiety, but the old women continued muttering prayers. The groom drew the bride into an embrace, but his face was as pallid as hers.

  "You have such a gift for the horrific. Seems with every genre you choose, you can't avoid depicting it," Cupertino said.

  Maddie had made the same observation when he showed her the pictures he'd shot that day. "I don't seek the dark side, it reveals itself to me," he'd told her. He'd given up his brushes for the camera, wondering if changing mediums would allow him to escape completely the horrid and the grotesque that he’d shoved away from his life. It didn't. But, when it did creep back into his life, he quickly disposed of the evidence. Still, he hesitated to part with the Via Dolorosa entirely. "I'll have to think about the exclusive." he said.

  "But the exhibition, you're on board with that?" Cupertino said. "You haven't signed with another gallery?"

  "No. I know the value of an exclusive brand.”

  They parted, agreeing to have their lawyers draw up a contract. Alby would retain the right to reject any offer below his minimum, but he was legally bound to accept any price above it, even if it was a penny, as soon as it was made. Cupertino's cut was to 15%—higher than his brush-work agent—but Cupertino's connections were worth it. And Cupertino would handle everything, giving Alby the pleasures of time.

  Alby was pulling into his driveway when Cupertino called him on his cell. "I've contacted my client. He's very interested in the Via Dolorosa and would like to see it. Can you bring it tomorrow?"

  "Before the exhibition?" Alby said.

  "He doesn't want a bidding war."

  "He can see it, but I haven't decided to sell yet."

  "He knows that. He's a true collector. Whet his appetite and all of San Diego's upper crust will salivate. Say, tomorrow at five?"

  "Give me an hour to decide. I haven't even had time to piss. I'll call you." Alby disconnected and sought Maddie, who was busy with the twins' homework. "It means selling all rights," he explained, "and that doesn't seem right."

  "You mean to profit from the boy's misfortune? Would you want our children to fatten someone's bank account—and this collector—does he collect pictures of children?" She had hung the Via Dolorosa on her favorites wall in his studio and was gazing at it as she spoke.

  "When you put it like that..."

  "We could help this child, Alby. God knows we have the money. We could find him, Alby." She turned her face to his and he into her eyes.

  "You've decided to return to Urbino," he said as he kissed her eyelids.

  "Someone will recognize him or the priest," she said.

  "And when you find him?"

  "I'll bring him home." He enfolded her in his arms where she fit perfectly close to his heart. "We both know there will be no more babies for us," she whispered.

  "The doctors said..."

  "The doctors are wrong. I know it, Alby."

  Whether she did or she didn’t, he knew it was pointless to argue with the Wife about mothering things. "What about the boy's parents? They may not want to give him to a stranger no matter what you promise them."

  "A chance he can see? Of course they'll let him go. At least for a while." Alby saw resolution written on her face. He wasn't sure if his own misgivings about the sale of the photo sprang from the same sensibility, but wherever its genesis, he knew he should wait.

  "I'll tell Cupertino. I won't sell the Via Dolorosa until you're back from Italy, but how do I know you were not running off with Luigi the gondolier?"

  "The only thing worse than being married to an artist is having a gondolier lover. Gone all the time. Ferrying around horny tourists. Pizza maker, maybe." She gave him a kiss on the chin. They loved pizza so much, he’d be willing to run off with Papa John.

  "I'll do what I can and be back for the exhibition. I wouldn't miss it for the world." Maddie said.

  "A woman with a mission. Sexy stuff."

  "A mission of mercy," she said. "Such a sad, sad little boy."

  Alby glanced up at the shocked faces of the bride and groom. They didn't see a sad, sad little boy. They saw a threat to their happiness as menacing as Nazi Stormtroopers. Maddie could only see the child, one waving his hand in the air as one drowning, unable to see either the loathing or the compassion in the eyes of the helpless women who looked upon him.

  Maddie's Search

  The concierge recognized St. Rocco's church in the photo, but none of the people. Most likely, he said, the blonde boy attended St. Catherine's, a school for handicapped children, staffed by lay teachers. He gave Maddie a map of the city, highlighting the route to both the church and the school with a yellow marker. For a small fee, he could hire a guide who would interpret for her. Maddie agreed. Alby felt comfortable navigating foreign cities, but she was apprehensive. She followed Paulo, an exchange student from Milwaukie, to a taxi and listened as he explained why the streets were empty. The recession, steep air fares, terrorist threats—he could barely pay for his art supplies.

  "I know your husband's work," Paulo said as the taxi rolled to a stop in front of St. Rocco's. "He's evolved into photography. All true artists evolve. But it's a shame he's given up real art..."

  "I've heard that from a number of people," was all she said. The young man opened the right side of the church's wooden door and they stepped into the cool, dark vestibule.

  "Father Sebastiano," the young man said to a weathered-looking man on a rickety ladder dusting off a statue of green-robed man with a red cape and baring a wounded thigh. The priest hushed him with a finger to his lips, and continued his dusting. "Now what is it, Paulo?"

  "The Signora is here to see you."

  "I know that. Such a lovely woman would not be the companion of the likes of you." Sebastiano put down his dust cloth and smoothed his hand on his cassock before offering it to Maddie. "I take good care of our Rocco."

  "It's a beautiful statue."

  "An exact replica of the one in Scilla. Are you familiar with our patron, Signora?"

  "No. But Rocco means rock, doesn't it?"

  "Yes. Yes,” Sebastiano said. “Generally speaking. Bolle says his name comes from the French for storm, tempeste. Who knows? Maybe so. Plague is like a storm in the body." The priest caressed Rocco's wound with reverent fingers. "This wound, licked well by a heavenly dog, was his bout with the Black Death. Have you been to Venice? Of course you have. Our Rocco was put there on the ceiling in the Scuola Grande by Tintoretto. Art and fascism is all Italy has. And sex scandals. Do you seek protection from a storm?"

  "I'm looking for a child," she said.

  "Ah. It's said Rocco's mother was barren until Our Lady gave her a son marked with a cross on his chest. Pray. Go home. Pray. Make love."

  "I'm looking for a particular child, Father." Maddie hauled out a copy of the Via Dolorosa and handed it to Sebastiano. "Do you know any of these people?"

  He took his glasses from his pocket. "Come into the church. The light is better at the altar." They walked the center aisle to the sanctuary. Sebasti
ano sat down in the front pew and patted the seat. "Sit here." He put on his glasses and smiled as he gazed at the photograph. "My niece," Sebastiano said, pointing to the bride." A beautiful girl—and he was a nice boy."

  "Was?" Maddie said.

  "Is," the priest corrected. "My English, not so good. Where did you get this picture?"

  "My husband took it. Albion Rector."

  "Ah. The Persistence of Tragedy—Blessed Francesca.” He made the sign of the cross and raised his hands to heaven. “May I live to see her canonized."

  "Do you know the priest in the picture, Father?" Maddie said.

  "Father Gonzaga. He's the pastor of St. Catherine's. This boy, Angelo Ballesteros, such a tragic case. Why do you want to find him?"