Jerry VILHOTTI
Born a hyphenated American in the East Bronx—where Poe once walked with all his demons —coming in on a crash landing and still can't shake that hyphenated label—though he lives in a simpler place in time among the Litchfield Hills where the ghosts of Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Brown walk. Published in literary magazines in the USA, Greece, India, Scotland, Ireland, England, Canada, Singapore, and Romania. He does a mean slow dance and, almost as good, an invigorating stroll.
DAWN COPULATING WITH TWILIGHT
By joking, Tom succeeded in getting his fourth wife Rhoda to get him out of what he called "Kafka's tomb"—when no one could overhear him: "You know kid when I was flying out of my mind looking for Christ—the thing I missed the most was the ground!"She laughed and repeated the joke to the doctors and with the same grave expression as when she repeated her mother's words of wisdom about giving a man everything and he would give back double, she told them she would give him even more than that and would make sure she held Tom to his deep promise that he would return the very next day to sleep if they let him go to his parent's home for Christmas dinner and a rest. Tom often confused sleep and rest with help.
Tom laughed as Rhoda, his older brother Leny One N, who thought shouting at people going out of their mind was a panacea, and he left saying: "I stopped by a tree in Northshredder, New York by the Endrun River and saw a squirrel under it and I picked up some acorns and threw them at him and he threw them back and then the next thing I knew a bunch of arms were around me taking me to this place where Kafka once lived!"
Completely free of the grounds Tom added: "Don't you people know Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself and at the same time Jesus and His trust in it may remain permanently concealed from us all!
"Jesus fucking Christ—shut your fucking mouth or else we'll sign you in for the rest of my life! You wanted that guy your friend Scent to be first chef and not me! That's why you're going bankrupt in that stupid fucking place on Irving Place! Gift of the Magi! What a real fucking dumb name for a restaurant you say was once a apartment that O. Henry lived in! Everybody knows he never lived in fucking New York City! So shut your fucking mouth and start getting better!" Leny said as he increased his speed.
Tom squeezed the door handle tightly as they drove out of one night toward another.