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NIGHT


Alfred Vitale



His mother turned, looked at the clock...and seeing that it was after five, she told him to get his pajamas on. He knew the routine...it was a simple one that he went through more often than not. He’d been doing it for as long as he could remember...and that’s just about when it started. He didn’t think it was fair at first, but then he learned not to complain. It wasn’t fair to his mother, more than anyone.

So he reached up into the second drawer of the tall wooden dresser with the dingy brass handles and pulled out his only pair of pajamas...just washed and folded that afternoon because of an accident he had the night before...that he had almost every night. For that he slept with a plastic sheet under him and it made all kinds of slipping sounds as he shifted in his sleep.

He took off his clothes, still in his Catholic School uniform of blue polyesther pants and black slippery shiny shoes and he had his white shirt already off and laying across his almost empty toy box so that he wouldn’t get it dirty when he and his mother sat down to have their supper at four-thirty. It wasn’t a fancy meal...just the leftover chicken pieces that he hated last night just as much as he hated them tonight, and some mashed potatoes. Usually his mother threw a vegetable in, but tonight, she had no more leftovers and she didn’t go food shopping yet so there was no more cans of peas and carrots or string beans or corn. She let him have some popcorn right after dinner...he liked watching her cook it in that tin-foil popcorn thing you get at the supermarket that puffed up as you cooked it. That was one of the things he always asked his mom to get at the supermarket. . . that and the sticky marshmallow fluffy stuff that came in a jar...and occasionally he’d ask for a certain box of junky sweet cereal, but that was pushing it.

Him and his mom sat down and she let him watch the rest of the cartoons that came on after school. There was a little black and white set way up on top of the refrigerator and she kept it on for him while they ate dinner, then afterwards when they ate popcorn. He started watching ZOOM at five, but then his mom told him to get his pajamas on. For once, he thought, he’d like to watch the rest of ZOOM and see what came on afterwards...maybe stay up a little late and watch Happy Days.

But his mother knew that if her husband wasn’t home by five, then he was out drinking. He’d be home by about eight and he’d go to sleep at nine because he always went to bed at nine and he always woke up at five a.m. But for that hour, his mother would have to put up with hell. He would too, if he wasn’t pretending to be asleep. It was a strange clause in his father’s drunken behavior that he wouldn’t pay any attention to his son when his son was sleeping. So although he might yell and scream, as long as his son didn’t get up, then his son was ignored.

And even though his father wouldn’t be home for another three hours, his mother did not let him watch any more TV. Those three hours were spent in almost complete silence. His mother’s face went darker and darker, and then paler and paler, as the hours passed. She smoked a lot and she didn’t sit on the comfortable chairs in the living room, she sat on the hard, flat kitchen chairs. She sat there thinking and smoking and letting out deep sighs with the smoke blowing out through her nose and mouth and he thought she looked like an sad dragon. There was a cuckoo clock on the wall above the window in the kitchen that faced the alley. It went off at six, cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo- cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo...six-thirty, cuckoo...then seven, cuckoo- cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo...his mother had to pull the thin metal chain with the iron weights at the bottom that kept the clock going. One minute before seven he kept his eyes on the door of the cukoo clock where the cuckoo came out of...he always watched for it, thinking that one day the cuckoo would fly away.

The kitchen light was off, but as the sun went down, his mother turned it on and closed the curtains...looking down into the alley before she did. She turned on the radio then turned it off quickly. It’s static crackles broke the silence for a moment and jarred him out of his daydreaming. His mother told him to get ready for bed which meant nothing to him except a trip to the bathroom where he’d force himself to go even if he didn’t have to.

He went into the bathroom while his mother was pulling the sheets down from his bed and fluffing up his pillow. He sat on the bowl looking at the design on the pajama pants that were down around his ankles. They were college banners...and he thought about what college is like and he could only think of the guy with the beard and the glasses and the volkswagon that lived down the block. That man came home from school every day about the same time he did and he saw the man always carrying books and wearing sweaters that said Columbia across the chest. He didn’t know what you do in college, but he was sure there was no homework.

The cuckoo struck once more for seven-thirty and he reached up to pull the chain that flushed the toilet. He didn’t do anything, but he would tell his mother he did. He really wanted a drink of water though he knew his mother wouldn’t let him have one, so he turned on the faucet while the toilet flushed and he drank from the tap. Then he unhooked the latch from inside the door and walked across the kitchen to the next room where his bed was. At the foot of his bed, on his toy box, his mother had folded his underwear and tee-shirt and socks and left his black belt and plaid Catholic School tie over them...his pants and shirt were on hangers that were hooked onto the top handles of his dresser. Then he climbed into the bed and when he lay back the mattress bounced a bit. He called for his mother, who was washing the dishes in the kitchen. She came in drying her wet hands on a small ragged towel that she had over her shoulder. He said goodnight to her and she stood there and said goodnight to him. That was all he needed. He couldn’t sleep if he didn’t say goodnight and hear it back...that was the close of his day. He needed no kiss or tender gesture...in fact he needed nothing more than to go to sleep content and complete...it didn’t matter if he was happy or not.

He couldn’t fall asleep immediately. He never did. He would wait till his father came home. When he heard the keys in the door, he would pull the blanket over his face, and turn his back towards the kitchen...so he wouldn’t accidentally catch the glance of his father. Like a rehearsed scene, his mother would be sitting at the table reading the paper but not really reading it when her husband walked in...just turning the pages.

His father would be quiet when he walked in...and there was a few minutes of this and then he’d start off with loud comments about work, then the bar and who was there, then how all his friends wives were good to their husbands, and how his wife was lying to him about where his money went. Then he’d tell his wife that he knew she wasn’t paying his bills on time because someone said this or that or whatever...that’s when the real yelling started. That was when the beatings would start.

He would cringe every time he heard his mother’s face get smacked...every time he heard her crying...every time he heard her beg him to stop. He used to cry during these times...loudly. Then his father would hear him. And when his father saw his son awake and crying he start calling him a fag and telling him that he was just like his mother...no good, lying...and he’d hold his hand up to slap his son but his wife would grab his hand and tell him not to touch the boy...but his father would throw her off of him and a hand would sting the boy’s cheek. Then his father would turn around and go into the living room, disgusted with both of them. He’d turn on the opera music and sing terribly along with it until he finally fell asleep.

In that hour, there wasn’t a clock, it seemed. For the boy and his mother would be trapped in an hour that lasted for days...an hour that kept going every day, week after week...an hour that sleep would not relieve, or school, or television or anything...an hour that lasted until he grew up. And even then, the hour would come back to him again and again. He would never escape from it.






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