Different Shapes of Ice

Johnny was riding his old trusted Monarch bike in this recurring dream of ice and
dark cold. He was gliding away from his two older brothers Leny One N And Tommy
Tom Tom - feeders on teats of dead cows. Leny and Tommy Polio had tried to get inside
him when he was six years old; saying they would not hurt him but Johnny's holding
himself tense prevented them from entering his being and they said in frustration
and sneering contempt that he was no longer a brother of theirs! He was no blood
of their blood!

Johnny was trying very hard to get home to his wife, whom he married when he was
nineteen and she eighteen, and their three children but the ice was getting thicker
and thicker as he slid from side to side; attempting to negotiate a steadiness on
the ice the shape of hate and jealousy, that glistened beneath his rubber tires
which tried to cling to meaning.

Suddenly, he was between two walls the color of rusted blood which reminded him
of the cylindrical tube that had led into the courtyard of their East Bronx Arthur
Avenue apartment building where he was born and lived for six years and then came
the white stream of ice searching the sky for planes carrying explosive ice cubes
making lights dangle, the shape of mangled ice cream cones, go dark.

Johnny had been happy there in The Bronx - even after Leny and Tom told him that
Black Jack, the man who took care of the building, ate little boys with curly blond
hair and then spat them out into the very same garbage cans he always carried around
with him - for his father was there to protect him.

Tina of the Troy, Johnny's oldest sister who was sixteen when he had come among
them out of the body of a thirty-nine year old mother in a somewhat upside-down
landing snarled at him saying: "Big ears! Big ears! Your big ears will stop
you from getting through the tube!" But he did manage to wedge himself out
to the courtyard; scraping his knuckles to rivulets of blood that was taken by the
oily wall like Kuwait was by a British oil corporation from a people whose descendants
were from hanging gardens. Money was their god so the Founding Fathers and their
masters the caste fatherland thought making world orders become with medals awarded
to young lives and caskets draped with meaningless colors was the right thing to
do.

He could see his old mother, who really had not wanted him feeling shame at such
an age showing that copulation was still going on like a Tina teenager was doing
with half the guys around - one to become an eventual raging champion fighter of
the world and another who lost his stammer to become an actor called John Garfield
- and the fear that another mouth to feed would starve them all during the ice age
dying of hunger days of the "GOP" Great Depression, joined by an Icky
of the opposite political persuasion who said often how they the wealthy would know
that if there weren't dirt poor people among them and God indeed loved them
the most since He made so many of the rotters, created by those who thought wealth
equaled self-worth.

Off in the far distance bending over and throwing bits of ice into the wind the
shapes of innocent babies as if heeding those with the stain of self-hate on their
souls to make the little children suffer was a God given right were the members
of new world orders.

His mother said in dark cold whispers: "Don't die but die!"

Now, Johnny was even more determined to make it home to hug away any ice clinging
to his wife and their son Jon and two daughters Lorena and Elaina.

Looking up, he could see his father standing on the roof of "their" building
in The Bronx, where once Poe walked below trying to make his ice demons lurking
in his mind melt away into works of literature, shouting to him: "Johnny, if
you ever get lost - you tell everyone you live at Twenty-four Eighty Arthur Avenue
and tell them all you were my sun in the sky!" The howling wind carried the
words away to the top of Mount Vesuvius, just miles away from where his descendants
were born and had called their province "Malevento" until the Romans came
and changed the name to "Welcome" - imitating the Greeks in trying to
make the body beautiful - swirling into snow dust; the shape of a bloody cross.

Johnny's ten year older sister Alice in Wonderland, who was not around to protect
him when he was six because her mother put her away into an ice castle home for
way ward girls for that summer though she had only stayed overnight at a girlfriend's
house and was innocent of the mother's projecting a Tina's wanton ways on
her, told him it was just like when she would dance with him on her knees to the
songs like "I'll walk Alone to gather Dreams", I'll get by Barely
with the help of others", "Somewhere over the Rainbow with Bluebirds flying"
and "It had to be you Savior of a Family Dying in a Land Of pseudo Gold and
Honey coming from "The Make Believe Ballroom Time" that he would make
it as he was always in her prayers.

Alice would die first and be buried in a January ground in a cold place called Burywater
that was featured in a song called "A Town of No Pity".

The ice was now the depth of two oceans; One on top of the Other. Johnny was now
approaching the Litchfield Hills where their modest home was and the hills were
encased in long sheets of blue-green ice. He began the steep climb up their driveway.
After a very long time he finally reached the top where he could see his loved ones
huddled together; looking out of the little garage windows. He could not see his
face in the frosted panes. He lit a flame to chase the ice away. He lit many more
flames and then the ice became water; a sustainer of life. END 5-13-08


© Jerry Vilhotti