Somewhere he read that one of the ways to bring on sleep was to stare at one spot on the ceiling through half-closed eyes until rest came. He chose a small spot near the corner of the ceiling and settled in. Maybe, after all, it was boredom that actually put you under. After a couple of minutes he realized it wasn’t only a spot he was staring at but was actually a line, a jagged line that extended from the spot to the corner. That set him wondering about settling houses, and foundations, and lack of proper support, leading to cracked walls and chimneys and. . . and. . .
He turned on his side. 12:30. He had never before noticed how bright the clock radio was, a barely visible timepiece in daytime that was a beacon in the darkness. As well as the red light on the security system panel. And on the smoke alarm. And the VCR. He threw back the covers and, stumbling toward the bathroom, grabbed three washcloths and covered what he could, muting the light somewhat. “There,” he said, to no one in particular, his wife curled in a contented state of slumber, unmoved.
Laying back down, he exhaled loudly, just in case someone, just anyone, anyone like maybe his wife, might wake up for a nice chat. Nothing. 12:50. He began counting sheep, white fluffy sheep jumping over a fence. When he reached 100, he began counting backwards, rewinding the moving images, sheep jumping backwards over the fence. Inane, he thought. He considered cleaning out a particularly cluttered drawer in his office, writing a few pages on his latest book, but after a minute or so, his sudden work ethic flagged. He didn’t move.
A long, contented exhale from his son’s room brought to mind his father’s deep snore. Had he been this way since childhood? Sleepless? As a matter of fact he did remember lying awake in his bed, more than once, listening to the night sounds, the creaks of the house, the purr of the cat, the furnace coming on and shutting off, car lights streaking around the walls of his bedroom, the somnolent murmurings of Paul, his older brother, who he'd sometimes wake when he couldn't sleep, and who'd always good-naturedly carry a conversation about fishing, school, girls, whatever. A lot of water under the bridge since then! And with that not so pleasant thought, he turned over on his other side, adding a bit of bounce in the turn, hoping, just hoping for response. But his wife dozed on.
He’d had some success inducing sleep by thinking about nothing, if you can imagine that. Thinking about nothing is no small task. In fact, if you think about thinking about nothing you're actually thinking about something. No, it’d be more accurate to say he thought about no one thing in particular, or many things momentarily. Kind of like a roulette wheel. You never knew what you were going to get, but it wouldn’t last long whatever it was. But thinking about nothing (or everything) was hard work, a kind of deliberate absent-mindedness or nothingheadedness or mindlessness. He wasn’t sure "nothingheadedness" was even a word, but right then he didn't give a rip. Couldn’t he make up words for himself? Who cared, anyway? At this time of night, he could darn well do as he pleased. They were all asleep anyway --- shutdown, unplugged, hibernating, or whatever. And right there he vowed he would never say "whatever" again just for punctuation, serious wordsmith that he was. Whatever.
The dictionary. That tactic had worked before. Twenty words that start with “A,” and on to “B,” and so on. Let’s see. . . asperity, ambivalence, astute, asinine. . . well, that brought to mind several persons. . . but never mind that now. . . argyle, axiom, aardvark (he made a note to check the spelling on that one), amalgam, argumentative, arrogant. Paul . . . Oh, forget it. Paul? He didn't want to think about Paul. This was simply too thought provoking, too big a subject, too emotionally raw to continue when what he needed was no thought, nada, a cessation of conscious brain activity.
2:15. Good grief, he thought. Nothing's working. In desperation, he went to work on the family tree, climbing the branches both ways, paternal and maternal. As he reached his mother's side, images of wiry, hard-baked aunts came to mind with names like Zinna, Rose, and Gladiola, all gone. Dead and gone. Wilted flowers. That wasn't too comforting --- thoughts of death in the bowels of the night. And cousins too --- real honest-to-goodness kissin' cousins like Jennie who chased and tackled him and planted a yucky one on his 10 year-year-old lips and no-good bully cousins like Houston or Junior or "H" or whatever he said call him or else. He realized that the line through good and evil ran right through his family tree, a sobering and philosophical thought for 3:15 a.m. Good grief! 3:15! This is hopeless, he thought. He felt a blanket of impassivity descend on him, a giving up, a calm. . . before the storm, anyway.
The last thing he said to Paul was an unrepeatable profanity, at least not the kind of thing he normally said, the kind of thing he would chastise his children for saying. A conversation stopper, for sure, careless words spilling out over nothing, over old pent up feelings of inadequacy, his own failings measured against a practically perfect brother. He stretched his legs out, found a cool place at the end of the sheets, tried to think of something else.
Maybe he'd take a walk, he thought. Who said a man couldn't walk in his own neighborhood at 4:00 in the morning? No one, as far as he could tell, though he admitted it was a weird venture. Only his neighbor, excessive-compulsive Kerry Jacobs was up at that hour, and she was doing step-aerobics in purple leotards in front of the bay window. He definitely needed to find something else to think about and quick.
He sat up. "Be back later, honey. I'm taking a walk." No answer from the other side. Nothing. He slipped his trousers on, slid his shoes on. Downstairs he grabbed his keys from the key ring by the door. But when his hand touched the doorknob, he paused. He turned and picked up the phone, dialed a familiar number, heard a drowsy voice answer.
"Paul, it's me. It's your brother. I can't sleep."
