THE HANDSTAND

OCTOBER 2003

 
"The Camouflage Man"
  by Jerry Vilhotti 

Byrom Hoover Bush looked into the cracked mirror; making his to face appear be slashed into several pieces.  No longer did he have his sculptured hair high in a wave which had fallen onto his forehead when he deliberately bent his head.  His hair was now thin wisps: a gap of skin looking like Mount Rainier surrounded by patches of clouds.  He fought the urge to think he was nearing the age of forty-five for his father had always said if one did not reach his goal by at least the age of forty he might as well have cashed in all his chips then and there.      "The old warrior", that's what Byrom called him while sucking in his breath out of respect for him, had always stayed faithful to his conception of what a man owed to pride, prejudice and hate.      "Men of integrity are unable to show elation when the time demanded it," he would say with his most dismissive face ....     Byrom sat on the edge of the bed making it tilt somewhat.  He shifted his weight but the mattress would not become even.  After three attempts he gave up and walked to the window to sneak a peek to the outside world.     He continued to think on his strategy: if he dangled the mild threat of borrowing money from "Moneybags" - that's what he called his half-sister's husband when in a pall of irritation behind his back -  he might get the bastard to come around to giving him back his managerial position at the Akron custard stand, which is what he really wanted the most to define his existence.  He would not whistle before each consonant as his speech therapist suggested to convey the sincerity of his scheme.when asking for a couple of thousand dollars to get his pretense plans set for his future maneuver ...              "Did ... not one ... have ... to eat, ... Ron?  Ron ... connections ... had ... mouths ...too?"     Byrom fabricated a friend, trying to have as few as possible to maintain a camouflage, whose brother was a newspaper owner and very close friends to the guy who was trying to make the whole country read and hear in his way by buying up all he could of media.  This friend, with whom he became very close while working the Great Lakes as a seaman watching for the three witches of fury who swallowed ships like Moneybags swallowed Cornish hens, had taken him on a weekend leave to his brother's apartment in Buffalo.  He made sure at this point he would look adoringly at Ron's mother Olivia as he told of the statue of Krishna entwined with Radha, hoping this would neutralize her, that adorned the middle of his huge parlor.     Would Olivia out of pity enter his determination like a joss stick placed into an incense burner oozing out scents of rose, jasmine or lavender?     In this one large room not unlike Cousin Edward's, and at this point he would make sure he involved his half-sister with a look of her perhaps recalling; forgetting she was twenty years his junior so never having met that side of the family when they lived below The Row in the little quaint New Jersey town.  The room had carved brass and teak tables, two low sofas spread with damask, golden tigers with eyes of gems, figures carved in porcelain, marble and sandalwood.     "Go somewhere else, Byrom!  You and your so called greatest country ever invented has bullshitted so much - its all out of shit and now it's constipated like you!" Olivia said with an air of insouciance.     Oh, how he hated her.  He blamed her for his firing.  He never should have asked for her phone number at his father's grave; just as they were lowering him into the ground.  He had used the moment hoping her pity would win him the day.  Why did he finally ask her if he could live in her apartment?  That must have been the last brick for Moneybags - for wasn't there something going on between son and mother?  Didn't they hug for the longest time - bumping ever so slightly?  When Ron spoke didn't she always look down first at his feet and then slowly raise her eyes to his  ...?  Wasn't he always constantly touching her with his large sweaty sticky fingers?     He was asked to leave just before supper was to be served. 

Jerry Vilhotti©9.11.2003