Thank You and Good Night Read online

  Published by Capacity Press (Ray Succre)

  Copyright Ray Succre 2012

  Cover design. Ray Succre

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is dedicated to Elijah J. Brubaker and Jeremy S. Kemp, great artists and grand friends, and for whose company the author is perpetually grateful. The author would also like to thank the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, a wealth of information on an interesting man.

  Table of Contents

  ACT I

  Chapter One| Fade In

  Chapter Two| North High School

  Chapter Three| Leyte

  Chapter Four| Antioch

  Chapter Five| WKCD in Cincinnati

  Chapter Six| Tuesday with Maury

  Chapter Seven| If You Say So

  Chapter Eight| Smith for a Paycheck

  Chapter Nine| DISSOLVE TO: THE EMMY

  ACT II

  Chapter Ten| All the System and Other Stories

  Chapter Eleven| Long Talk

  Chapter Twelve| And Here’s the Wind-Up...

  Chapter Thirteen| Creative Control

  Chapter Fourteen| The Other Side

  Chapter Fifteen| Dear William

  Chapter Sixteen| Listen, You Want to Get a Beer?

  Chapter Seventeen| CUT TO: THE MIND - NIGHT

  Chapter Eighteen| Cancelled

  Chapter Nineteen| A Boy and His Mother (and Everyone Else)

  Chapter Twenty| Hindsight

  Chapter Twenty-One| Marks

  Chapter Twenty-Two| All the Advice I Have Left for You

  Chapter Twenty-Three| Baruch Dayan Emet

  Chapter Twenty-Four| Third Time’s the Charm

  Chapter Twenty-Five| REVOLVE TO: MEANING - DAY

  Chapter Twenty-Six| A Certain Blade of Logic

  Chapter Twenty-Seven| Through the Looking Glass

  Chapter Twenty-Eight| Dishonorable Discharge

  ACT III

  Chapter Twenty-Nine| Uncercranked Clockwise Pan

  Chapter Thirty| Hong Kong

  Chapter Thirty-One| The Black Come to Life

  Chapter Thirty-Two| The Numbers, The Dim, and Larry

  Chapter Thirty-Three| Crossfade

  Chapter Thirty-Four| The Moon

  Chapter Thirty-Five| Whirring from the Large Camera

  Chapter Thirty-Six| The After Hours

  Chapter Thirty-Seven| Seven Levels

  Chapter Thirty-Eight| Mr. Asher

  Chapter Thirty-Nine| Matters of the Heart

  Chapter Forty| Thank You and Good Night

  Epilogue

  Thank You and Good Night

  ACT I

  FADE IN:

  EXT. CAYUGA LAKE, 1936 - LATE AFTERNOON

  A slow pan over the surface of Cayuga breaking with white reflections from the light of overhead summer. Beyond the rim of the lake, the parti-colored foliage of upstate New York, cabins cloistered on the coveted view, their reflections atop the lake’s outer edge and always at end the frisky motions of the younger vacationers.

  LOW ANGLE SHOT from the active lake’s surface to an area near the shore, devoid of groups. We see a boy and a man walking from the lake into a seasonally umber field.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  The twelve-year-old EMERY ASHER and 1ST CAVALRY LIEUTENANT MERRILL, a uniformed confederate soldier with his saber drawn. As day enfolds them, the two appear comfortable with one another, old friends, and the leader of these two does not seem to be the older. The ASHER boy leads. He is being accompanied.

  CROSSFADE TO:

  Summer. The faltering breezes of Cayuga met her child compatriots, whose every splash against her surface surprised the afternoon. The sway of low viburnum felt this push of wind, moving like the jangle of light castanets. Above, the sheer Sun. Below, a warm coating of just-disturbed lake water, the scent of which signaled a recreational feeling in those who could discern it. Over the black walnut tree near Mud Lock, a loon gave trill of her joys in a sudden harp, tattling to the Sun about the workings of her wings. In those moments and through many more, a boy and his guardian traipsed into the fields beyond the trees. They walked in hunt, searching for great prey.

  The cavalry lieutenant spoke with a rich, southern intonation, a drawl that found, at times, certain pep in his pronunciations, speech that moved quickly between tiredness with vowels and a zest with the stresses of words. As he spoke, his long beard and conjoined moustache dipped with his chin in a playful and energetic manner. That Merrill’s hat fit, snug against his temples, was no confidence against his hair, which was copious, all gray, and somewhat unkempt. He was a certain sort of very old fighter. Lieutenant Merrill had been a military man, but had long ago been congratulated, dismissed, and forgotten. He had left his active service to past decades, was near to sixty years a veteran of Lee’s army, and he had not aged a day since Appomattox. His old body, while certain and still strong, did bear the mark of a man who had seen much and lived full measure.

  “Perfect weather for it,” the Lieutenant remarked, gait slight to maintain his place beside the boy.

  “I don’t like it,” Emery said, “A hotter day will make our prey more courageous.”

  “Yes, it will be a dangerous hunt,” Merrill agreed, looking at the boy for a reaction to this statement, however small, an indication that Emery was apprehensive. There was no smoke of this, however. Merrill’s confederate pride swelled; he found no fear in the boy.

  “We’ll have it dead by five,” Emery planned.

  “That soon?”

  “Mmm. And eat until we feel to burst.”

  Though a browser, with teeth replete in those pulverizing nubs best suited for grinding leaves, and a bulk designed to keep upward where its fodder grew, the mastodon was still, by no measure, simple quarry. Though an herbivore, the beast was fearsome and filled with a certain delight for the stamping murder of all small creatures, of which near everything was fit in comparison his mass. Sociopathic by nature, the monumental beast held in its mind an image of mutilation with each heavy step. By holding this disturbing image and hunger in its mind, like an image burned into film, the mastodon was never off its guard, or in any means without urge or short temper. Its tusks could gore a man in half with but a single motion and even the cold death in its eyes could take a life with but a glance. Lucifer himself could not have envisioned a more atrocious, hate-filled mass of flesh and tusky malevolence.

  One had to lurk, was the thing; stay in the brush that lined the animal’s resting grounds, peer out and stay motionless until the sentry-like devil decided to uproot itself and travel. The mastodon would eventually move toward the grove, toward the fruit and leaves it kept near, into the arms of the trees. That was the opportune moment, the time for chance, when a hunter crept, low and with the tall grass in his face, slow and certain to the animal’s rear, flanking. When a man’s shadow was aligned with his breathing and his crouch was just so, near enough the unwary monster, with both heartbeats in his very fingertips and eyes focused most... that’s when the hunter sprang and made his grievous gambit. The stabbing could not be thirsty or random, angry or felt, but needed to be tacit in reasoning. The attack required a spot into which the saber could pierce with precision and, once into the flesh of the animal, go deep as clarity.

  “The jugular, then?” Lieutenant Merrill as
ked.

  “Right in the throat. Between the shoulder and jaw. I come up from beneath,” Emery detailed.

  “That’s it. But one cut and then you run. To the grove. Promise me you’ll make the single cut and then run. And don’t miss that artery; he’ll be wary of us then and we won’t achieve a sneak on him again.”

  “You need no promise of my skill; I know my way around a saber, sir,” Emery said.

  “We’ll see. Just wound him and let him give chase to the grove. I’ll fire from my mount there to assure the matter. This hunt might end up in a chase, I think. Him after me. But he won’t catch the sprint of my Lauderdale, so I might fire many times in the safety of our speed.”

  “And we bleed the thing.”

  “It’s a good way. Very old. We work it to its slow death.”

  “With any luck,” Emery said.

  “No no, my boy. We forgive ourselves luck,” Merrill said, “We are the last soldiers in our great Confederacy. You and I are to move with diligence. We’re in it for the full bounty. With God above and Mr. Colt on our sides, you see.”

  “Right, for the South.”

  “Yes, well done. For the South. For the War Department. Now take up the saber.”

  The lieutenant’s ever-slung ammunition pouch wobbled against his leather belt and holster. He leaned his head aside and removed the sword’s sheath-strap from his shoulder. After a brief testing of the weapon’s weight, he spun the sheathed sword around and presented it to the boy. Pure curve. Grave design. Sharp death sheathed in steel and chamois. Soon, young Emery had attached the scabbard to his waist. He tightened the strap over his chest and across his nape. His height was matched by the length of the sword, however, and the sheath’s tip against the ground made a brief, scraping ruckus as they walked.

  “Pivot the handle down, keep yourself quiet,” Merrill whispered. Emery nodded and did as advised, saying nothing. There was such foresight in the boy; a born hunter. Young Emery seemed to be soldier at his most green, but an achiever, and a boy on which to base one’s expectations. He was a fine young being who would do much good that day. They made their way toward the beast quietly before parting company, Emery crouching into the grass and the Lieutenant sneaking off to the grove at the field’s edge. The lieutenant mounted his tethered horse, Lauderdale, and had a time of saddled wait with his shooting iron.

  The mastodon was in the field’s center, as if that powerful animal featured the faculty to know this position gave its hunters a declined benefit. Mastodons were fierce creatures and quite accustomed to death’s tactics, having many of these maneuvers at their disposal. A desperate animal looking to make a meal of a mastodon would have to attempt many things to succeed, and in so attempting would have inadvertently taught the mastodon, or its peers, over time and application, how to avoid them all. Emery would have to move in near silence and cover a strong distance to reach his quarry. If the flank was not made before the animal stood, its neck would be too high for the saber to reach. Merrill’s later gunshots would likely do too little damage without the blood loss of the slit artery aiding in the beast’s downfall.

  Emery was President of his class. Yes, at West Junior High, and his Scout training had been followed with stringency. The responsibilities of Emery’s young life were as the bobbles of a bird. No effort, no trial; life and youth were simply how one walked for a time. Money turned many dials in a man’s life, however, particularly when that money was present for one’s youth. Emery had heard it called privilege, and thought he might disagree if this were approached formally, in argument. Informally, he had been given riding time on chestnut horses, ate well, wore the clothes expected of his station, and he was well-loved. Emery had an older brother from which to model his mistakes and degrees, a mother willing to cook fresh mastodon pies, and a father lenient to a boy’s certain flights of imagination. Perhaps this was, in a more questionable marrow, a truer privilege than currency and resource. That his father might sell the gained meat that day for sale in his shop was the impetus behind the fervent hunt. A young boy might provide, after all. Capital was a fuel of the civilized world, but was not provision its true ruler?

  The hour passed with a lugubrious boredom, spent alone, creeping along the grassy floor. He had removed his shirt to stave off the rustling of cloth against soil. Moving on his hands and knees, each moment of inching motion had him aware of the scabbard’s possible noise against stone or stalk. The saber in his hand reached out in those slow creeps as he made his cautious, hungry way to the monster’s flank. It was here, beside the great, living meat of the animal, that his appetite began asking him to hurry. The boy was patient however, pulling in his stomach to keep it from rumbling and exposing his position to the slumbering animal. His target was near. The neck. Just before him. He had to move slower than ever, so close to the sheeted ears, so near to those tusks that could sweep him to the air with broken ribs or back…

  And then Emery sprang his well-laid assail. He lurched to his feet in a rush with the saber drawn back. The animal’s deathly eyes shot open and the tusks lost their stillness. Twice through the mass of neck the saber shot, deep and bringing out the hot blood beneath. Emery turned and ran, the fatal blows having been struck. The beast began to move. Emery reached his good sprint, feet the scatter of drums against evening, the ground beneath in a blur as the grass whipped against his bare belly. He ran his certain, swift way toward the grove, hoping only that he was fast enough to reach this place of assured safety. The stomping, earth-tremoring mastodon had lifted onto its feet. With heavy, quickening steps, the animal began after the small hunter. Emery nearly fell as the sound of the angry beast neared him. He was losing ground against the massive creature. No foot-race was enough. The animal would trample him any moment. Emery squinted and ran at his peak, as fast as his body could move, his intent as if to outrun the season itself. The grass began a steady impediment to his gait and the scabbard beat about his back, bruising and gashing him as he swiftly leaped and ran through the grass of the field.

  The grove was too distant. He would not reach safety before the mastodon apprehended him. The sensation of the beast’s tonnage, its powerful legs, was overwhelming. It had run him down and was at his back by a mere dozen yards. The young boy jumped and made a mid-air turn, choosing to face his recompense. The motion ceased in a skid of up-tufted dirt about his shoes. There were but yards between two creatures; a giant and boy and twenty-five feet, then eighteen feet, then seven. The monstrous Proboscidean lowered its tusks and lunged forward for the simple, brutal kill.

  The lieutenant’s firearm had been readied, but required no use. It was with wonder the aged soldier watched from his mount, seeing the talented young man atop the mastodon, riding it toward the grove and stabbing with his saber down, again and again into the meaty nape of the monster. Who had seemed an energetic boy of certain delusion and a quaint sense of servitude to the Confederacy, now appeared the embodiment of bravery and legend. The mastodon was brought to its knees at the grove’s edge. A coarse roar escaped the massive lungs as its life fled, as its head lowered and the tusks propped it to stillness, into the final comatose of blood loss. The lieutenant rode into this scene, pulling his reigns back hard and dismounting Lauderdale several feet from the boy and the dying behemoth. Soon, the mastodon whimpered and rolled to its side in the grass, the Sun hot against its hairs and eyes starved of oxygen. Emery stood beside the animal, holding the red-stained saber, much alive and full of cheer.

  “Never had to fire a shot,” the impressed lieutenant noted.

  “Nope. And tonight, we can have a feast,” the young boy replied.

  “That we can. I saw your skirmish from afar. Stabbed twice before you ran,” he said to Emery’s smile, “Precocious.”

  Binghamton’s west side held many boys, including Emery’s brother, William, and in each of these boys lived the well-scoped constitution of fantasy. That Thomas Welter played his jacks with the rigid ruling of a blackbird’s pecks was but style. That
Agatha Bilridge enjoyed heady, dark licorice in her ice cream was a wondrous and intimate preference. That Emery preferred the involvement of others in his studies of clubs and programs, festivities and all things student, was hard-won; others could be cruel. Social youth in Binghamton was a circus wherein fantasy and style met reality and the ever-present complexity of growing up. Children shared the blocks and park, the dogs and radio programs. There was very little that a young boy did not share, particularly if that boy had a brother.

  Even Emery’s birthday was not solely his own. He had to share his birthday with Christmas itself, though only one of these celebrations was endeavored in the Asher house. Outside however, Christmas was always a large event that pleased children, his friends, schoolmates, and even a few adults. Emery had grown accustomed to the multi-functional in both festivity and company. When children ran about the block on Christmas day with their new bicycles and various toys and trinkets, he liked to imagine they were celebrating his birthday.

  Each young man or woman held a fondness for certain details and matters. His brother William worked the year’s elements at schooling, and perched behind his thick glasses was a stare at times cold and bookish. The sod of Binghamton was richly topped with structures and the changes of sky and floor with the seasons. The world became cold with the snow and its call for thick clothing, warm with the summer and out-of-school activity, and wet the rest of the year’s days. Each season sparked a particularly distinctive feeling of warmth or shivers, comfort or dampness, adventure outside or hiding inside from the sky.

  Long ago, New York had been the land of mastodons. They left their fossils in Queens and Manhattan. In Binghamton and Cayuga. No citizen had ever hunted the stately beast until now. Only Emery and his companion in the Confederacy. A mastodon had no fondness for certain details and matters. Not like children. It was quarry, and already grown up. Simple and unchanging. No mastodon had ever been President of Binghamton junior high school. No mastodon had ever celebrated a birthday or Christmas.