LEITO THE ARTIST

1.

Leito the artist awakens to the sound of garbage truck gear grind. Garbage man whistle: Wher-wheet! Air-brake hiss and garbage truck growl of diesel engine. Fumes spewing, flooding atmosphere with greenhouse gases – better than gases from rotting week-old takeout and citrus rinds and coffee grinds and spoiled cabbages and shellfish shells that canine, feline, and rodent-kind all find appealing [one thing they agree on consistently]. Garbage men, waste management technicians – two, maybe three of them in matching jumpsuits and oversize gloves slip half-seen behind privacy fences – grunt directions and bang garbage bins and fling white plastic cinched-up bags into the back end. Business end. Robotic waste-compactor crushes with agonizing groans – doesn’t want to be working this morning, has waste-compactor arthritis. Garbage man shouts: Get-th-lead-out, Jake! Looks like rain! Garbage truck moves on, taking with it the garbage men and the garbage truck sounds and most of the garbage bin contents but leaving the smell of old garbage in its wake, wafting it around, over and through the privacy fence and into Leito’s face.

Leito the artist rubs the sleep from his eyes, ignoring the odorous wafting. The morning is cool but not cold – Springtime weather, and good thing too since Leito fell asleep outside again. His face half-caked with dirt-grit and old-dry leaves left over from Fall/Winter weather. He wipes it all way, or smears it about, with a hand just as dirty as Leito’s dirty-sided face.

He looks around to get his bearings: home – back courtyard of home anyway, brick-lined with grated drain in one side, enclosed by hardly-private privacy fence – neighbors go up four, five, six stories high and all their windows and all the windows across the street, if ever used, could be employed to spy upon Leito’s private courtyard and Leito himself, asleep and hung over and lying on bare ground.

Leito the artist sits up. Head pounds from too much red wine last night. Too much wine in too little time. Leito doesn’t try to stand; his mouth is cottony and dry and sour, and his head pounds, how it pounds [too often this happens, thinks Leito, too often, and getting too old for this].

His homemade easel, his Leito-the-artist-made easel – tall-man sized for Leito is a tall man when standing upright – it stands silent in one corner, empty and waiting, all eyes, a patient companion. A large, self-stretched canvas lies at easel’s feet, face down and discarded [easel looks guilty]. Wind knocked it over, or Leito in his haggard-drunken state last night did so [does not recall]. His paints sit frozen on pallet on newsprint on a spindly card table on the brick-lined ground – wind did not blow them over last night but dried them out instead – acrylic paint left uncovered dries over time [Leito knows this, of course, but was forgot-to-cover-them-up-again-last-night drunk]. Dried paint on pallet, all colors: lemon, tree bark, firetruck, noonday sky, slate, sidewalk, grass, ocean deep, dark magnolia, beach sand, midnight sky, and notebook paper [sans lines, sans notes, just the paper, clear cut forests of clean, processed paper]. Paint brushes, most of them, soak their toes in mud-colored water – have been for weeks-on-end [paints every day, no reason to clean them, replaces them once they rot down to their rusty ferrules]. Two other brushes are stuck in dried paint [two miniature models of swords-in-the-stone, thinks Leito lightheartedly, but notices one of them is a favorite of his which spoils his lightheartedly mood].

Leito the artist finds his feet, steps inside, makes coffee and toast and turns on the television – morning news no longer news, Leito thinks, all entertainment these days – it fills up the interior with comforting noise so Leito can focus on waking up. Takes a shower, shaves, dresses, feels better about himself, drinks his coffee ink black and eats his toast with margarine from a tiny plastic tub with a yellow sun on it and the words, zero trans fats, outlined in electric red, as if that were the answer to everything and Leito was eating it on toast.

He pours a second cup and takes it outside with him. Leito the artist. He picks up the canvas with care, places it neatly on easel, takes about three steps back, maybe four. Studies the painting for a minute or two, studies its energy, its life. Takes note of its focal points, darkest-darks, lightest-lights and its overall unity. He seeks out its color shifts, its warm/cool modulations and determines its strengths as a painting and pinpoints its obvious weakpoints, and all this takes but a minute or two in the early morning while most people are still sleeping, save for the morning news and garbage collectors, and Leito the artist likes what he sees. He smiles to remind himself that he’s ultimately happy here, doing just this: being artist.

Leito hears the street outside his courtyard waking up, hears footsteps and good mornings and doors being opened and newspapers collected and doors being closed again and locked behind. An occasional car passes by, an occasional dog barks in the distance, another dog echoes back bark, here and there throughout the neighborhood they signal to one another in bark-bark-barks, saying, good morning, how are ya. Leito opens his gate, letting in some of the outside; props it open with a cinderblock and sets out a lawn chair to sit in, sips his coffee, watches the morning unfold with as much care as an artist observing his self-stretched canvas on homemade easel. Watching the comings and goings, the color shifts, the warm/cool mellow modulations, the dog barks, the bagel-and-coffee good mornings, the passing cars, a quiet meow, the sudden shouts: Get-th-lead-out, Jake! Looks like rain! And, Hurry up, Troy! Horn blast. Horn blast. Whir-whir sound of coasting ten speed. Sound of one soggy shoe stomping pavement. Someone saying: Darned kids! And the Pitter-pang. Pitter-pitter of rain drops beginning to fall.

2.

She holds the flea-bitten creature in a cumbersome bear-hold leaving the bottom half hanging down – two tiny legs mash against face: Meow? Holding it to one side, she maneuvers it slowly, carefully, to sidewalk’s end. Pauses to gauge the distance between herself and the empty milk crate. Arching her back, she lifts its legs further up into its face – Meow? – to clear the top edge of the crate. She releases her hold. The scrawny thing lands softly, searching for its motherly captor with befuddled eyes. Meow? Stretching on spindly hind legs, can just see over the edge of the crate.

Theyw, now, she coos. Holds a length of yarn two inches from its cat-face – Heew. Heew you go, she twitters in squeaky falsetto, bobbing her hand up and down to make the yarn move. Meow? Meow?

Before the car stops moving, passenger door opens with a brutal sound, and the boy pulls himself out of the low riding seat, steps out onto curb, leaves car door wide open and follows an imaginary, weaving path between street sign and milk crate, between milk crate and little girl playing, and on into the building.

Outside. Car engine loud, rumbling obnoxious, revs once, twice. The little girl hums make-believe tunes and tries again with the string – Meow? Meow?

Hurry up, Troy! We gotta go, yells someone from the car. Horn blast. Horn blast.

A man in gray business suit shifts his briefcase to fit beneath one arm and fishes for house keys and locks door behind him and returns keys to pocket and stifles a sneeze and smiles sheepishly at a passing woman as he starts down the sidewalk. A glance at his wristwatch – gold-fancy wristwatch, gift from the missus – just a glance without losing stride, affirms he is early, enough time for coffee and bagel on the way [good news because he's starving].

Morning, he breaths to his neighbor, perched on green plastic chair, engrossed in the morning newspaper.

Hey, Gordon! he calls in return.

Little girl huddles on sidewalk, pink sidewalk chalk in hand, humming gaily to herself – he walks around her, prepares a smile in case she looks up. She does not look up. He smiles, instead, at kitten in milk crate. Meow? The cat does not smile back.

Frowns at the car. At engine running, passenger door wide open, completely blocking the crosswalk and making the air toxic unbreathable. Making the turn to go around, he nearly collides with a scurrying, weaving, returning-to-car kid. The man smiles – curt, unfriendly smile – and soldiers on.

Car door squeaks shut, and car jolts, jerks, starting and stopping just short of hitting man in gray suit who had rounded the front and is now angrily glaring at windshield – sees nothing but windshield glare – shakes his head at whoever is watching.

Sorry, mocks a voice from the car as car speeds away. Too fast. Laughing and hoot-sounds fade with the gritty unsorry sound of car engine.

The man, watching tail lights, steps into a pot hole filled with water. Darned kids, he curses, stomping his wet shoe on sidewalk. Darned kids!

She stops pedaling as she nears the road. Smell of coffee and bagels from the corner cafe, whir-whir sound of coasting ten speed – she likes that sound for some reason, that delicate clickety-clickety sound that the gears make when coasting. She slows to a near-stop at curbside, next to man with mismatched shoes – one dry, one wet – scowling, stomping pavement and checking his wristwatch incessantly. Looking left, looking right, she lets the front wheel fall off curb, then the other one, and pedals again. A natural transition. Behind her, she hears the man ranting under his breath – darned kids! – and sound of one soggy shoe stomping pavement. Stomping pavement.

She slows for little girl toting kitten tightly under an arm – Meow? She smiles at the girl, but little girl is too busy playing to notice.

Morning, Boots, she says to her neighbor, bringing ten speed to a halt in front of her building.

Hey, Stace! beams the man from behind his paper.

She dismounts, chains her bike, enters alcove and jogs up the stairs.

Meow?

Old man with newspaper looks up to see little girl standing before him, grinning wildly, flea-bitten creature trapped in an uncoordinated but rigid hold.

What have you there? asks the man.

She giggles and raises it higher, the creature not getting near enough oxygen to its brain. Meow?

That a monkey?

Little girl laughs out loud. No, Grampa, she says, Alice!

Oh, yes! Alice. I remember Alice!

Meow? says the kitten.

Pit . . . pit . . . pat. Pit-pat, says the rain beginning to fall. Pit-pat. Pang.

Looks like rain, child, says the man. He folds newspaper, tucks it under an arm, reaches back for gold-tipped cane.

Pitter-pang. Pitter-pitter. Pit-pat. Pang.

Oh, yes . . . here it comes now! Better get inside before we melt!

Little girl gives exaggerated grimace and tightens her grip – Meow? Old man sweeps little girl up steps and into building.

Pit . . . pit . . . pat. Pit-pat. Pitter-pit. Pang. The rain comes down. The people clear the street. Pitter-pang. Pit. Then a distant thunderclap and the rain begins in earnest, washing the canvas clean again.

3.

Leito the artist plods his brush in newly squeezed paint, lets brush glide freely over canvas, creating illusion and depth, hope and shattered dreams and open-ended conversations. He is retelling the story while fresh in his mind, shaping, reshaping, creating life, tragedy and history in many layers of paint where nothing but canvas existed before. And Leito the artist smiles. He likes what he sees.

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