Jerry Vilhotti
Every time Olivia's son came into the
stand, Byrom was managing for him, Byrom had prepared for possible questions
he might ask. This brash kid whom he called "Moneybags" when no one
could hear manifesting the rage he felt for him and especially the loaded
"thing" he actually wore around his
waist - that was growing bigger and bigger each passing
day - as if the kid, twenty years his junior, was doing his own civil war
on his body by eating tons of his own custard.
During slow periods which was happening
more frequently of late Byrom would go off into his day dream: "You having
to do with my mother, Byrom?"
Shock: "(Whistle) Ron!!!"
"She says you've been doing ugly
things to her behind my back!'
Question: "(Whistle) Ron?"
Exclamation: "(Whistle!!!)"-
"She says you've been using her
to get to me!"
Sardonic mixed with a bit of irony:
"(Whistle) Roneeee."
"If all this is true - you'll be
looking for employment elsewhere whistling man!"
Condescendingly: "(Whistle) (whistle) Ron. (Whistle)
Ron. (Whistle) Ron" ..
Byrom could almost feel sorry for
Olivia with her stern melancholy face. He watched her closely believing
she had another bottle stashed somewhere. He was determined to smash
them all. He would not allow this bony broad cheekbone lady with
the almond shaped eyes to defeat him. After a hundred or more lost
jobs - that his late father had counted with great derision and even delight
- this was his last chance to succeed; evenn if he could not make the dead
see. Nearing the age of forty-five did not give him the luxury of wasting
anymore opportunities.
"By ... By ... By, didn't Prometheus
speak truth? Didn't he give humanity hope by lessening our fear of
death, darkness? He gave us fire - wasn't that love?"
Byrom in honor of his Baptist minister
brother disagreed saying, among many whistles, that it was Christ Who gave
us the hereafter - not the Greeks nor for that matter the Persian God of
Light who preceded them all! He had his speech therapist's suggestion
to whistle before saying consonants so
he could say the word fully down to a semi-art.
"Then you tell me why we hate ourselves
so much? Is it our explosive smelly intrusions that is eating our
souls?"
Byrom became embarrassed, disconcerted
and then repeated, with whistles all his writer friend Johnny's words about
the Greeks and Romans had tried to sculpt a dignity about humanity but
that was all devoured away by the Dark Ages that followed.
"Byrom, don't you see life is a
formless breathing in our uncontrolled dreams that are shaded in deep purples?"
Byrom kept shaking his head repeating
to himself his great father's words: Did not one need to know where one
was in the space of one's own time? Byrom hoped this thought would
ward off another panic attack that he would have whenever he thought of
his father's long wooden match and its flame
licking the palm of his hand - to drain away yet another
fifth infraction he had committed due to all his numerous imperfections
.... END