Go to Sleep - By Jerry Vilhotti

The start of the word was like a baby struggling to become but often the word was like a thing to be ridiculed; trying to twist out between lips as the listener - in a mean hearted-way - reached out for the first letter and then pulled the word out with one sharp jerk by saying it for him.

Seeing the _expression would cause Byrom Hoover Bush to tense and feel in much the same way as when he was a four year old and his father saying: "Trying to say the filthiest word in the English language - that is staining our soul - again, Byrom? Cry me a tune of pain, before you go to sleep. Hand out! Hand out - I say!"

The graduate chemist from Cornell, dismissed by the Du Pont Corporation, steadied his stance for the task at hand. He was still very upset with having to live in his father's house; groveling to an inferior's handout; having totally forgotten his father had worked hard to put him through school.

"Mark my words." He would say to a Byrom who was struggling in his forties; having gone through a hundred positions and eventually divorcing a wife who never sucked in her breath for him out of respect. "We shall have another chance at a New World Order when a second Leader will come among us to lead this country out of its 'can you spare a dime, brother' nonsense!"

Byrom extended his hand like a word and then his father clutched it between his legs and then holding it firmly over the flame he had made with the long wooden match of the kind that was still being used by lamplighters in their New Jersey town, not terrible far from Princeton, below the people on "The Row" who with great derision looked down on those who could not make as much money as they. Oh, how his second wife loved the song "The Old Lamp Lighter"! He would always blame Byrom for the death of his first wife Jenny Blue from Buffalo - giving her the vapors ....

Everything turned black for Byrom after his father died. The "Old Warrior" had blamed the crippled person in the White House for bringing on the Great Depression and turning his back on his class emanating from the time New York was New Netherlands.
The Old Warrior and his authoritative ways; always insisting there should be a kinder gentler society to embrace the elite captains paving the way for a better world. "The business of government is to help big business and let the riff-raff get out of the way!" he would tell his fellow members at the exclusive country club that could only exclude women. Most agreed; creating farting anxiety about the Red Menace looming over their heads.

" (Whistle) Dad (whistle) we (whistle) don't even (whistle) have a (whistle) real (whistle) trumpeter (whistle) playing (whistle) Taps (whistle) for our (whistle) fallen (whistle) warriors." Byrom said during one of the few disagreements they had had and he purposely used his speech therapist's suggest he whistle before saying words that began with a consonant.

"Nonsense, stuttering man! Go to sleep and give your meaningless thoughts a rest. Do you suppose they will play songs for me after I die? I won't have any such sentimental hogwash blemish my existence!" the Old Warrior replied; not trying to hide his pained _expression - brought on by the whistle.

Byrom put his coat on over his father's pajamas and raced out into the sleet. He desperately wanted to get out of himself. He would not be able to show the Old Warrior he was making a new life for himself. This great man who thought the world could become one with itself. How would he be able to make the dead see now?

Byrom began to whistle but the sound came out in twisted chunks. Repeatedly, he told himself he was not in the present and before he could say his name he would indeed be in a realm of nothingness but the sleet stinging his face like so many flickering flames made it impossible for him to exercise his mind to win over the night.

"I'm (whistle) not (whistle) here in (whistle) this (whistle) damn (whistle) world!" he shouted to the sleet stinging his face.
Over and over he repeated this trying to get beyond himself into a state of somewhere; to perhaps where the little boy, father to the man he became, would be hiding under the light of a lamp pole as the old lamplighter with flowing white hair smiled with love and gently sang a song of going to sleep as he lit another lamp pole trying to cover the little boy with a warm light.

END 12-16-02