by Bibliophage

“Sol Bender is a god. I mean that. He would have to be to save the Earth from the powers of darkness. It’s the sort of thing you’d read about in Norse mythology, the wolf swallowing the sun and all that. But thank heaven for Sol Bender. He’s the one who saved us from all that, like Thor come with his hammer in the nick of time to smite the ravenous beast and save us all from endless winter. Nice story, huh?” His posture flowed away like crude oil as he leaned back, seeming to shrink into the upholstery of the chair. He folded his hands and made a steeple with his index fingers. His eyes went dull. He was too tired to keep it up much longer. Sarcasm was his last, most desperate, weapon, and now he knew it wouldn’t work.

His father shook his head slowly, sadly, as if wondering how he could have begot such a damn-fool son. “I have absolutely no idea what the hell you’re talking about, Lucien. I’m gonna go vote now. You clean up the supper dishes.”

Luke wasn’t old enough to vote, and that was the problem. But he was old enough to campaign against the President, and that’s what he had been doing all day. And all day, every day, for the last six months. The polls would be closed in half an hour, and then there was nothing more anyone could do. Luke closed his eyes. He was so tired. Maybe it had been a mistake to call him Sol Bender. That wasn’t his real name, of course; it was a joke. Maybe that’s why my father doesn’t take us seriously, he thought. He hadn’t thought of the name himself — Tracy had. She was another volunteer at the Sunrise Campaign Center.

A smile crossed his lips as he thought of her. He loved her so much. He desperately wanted to marry her, but the law said they were too young. The smile disappeared. Always too young! Too young to vote, too young to drive, too young to marry. Too young, it seemed, to do anything.

He heard the door open and close. He looked to his watch, but of course he didn’t wear one any more. How long had he been sitting there alone? Could his father be home already? “Dad?”

“Yeah, son?” his father’s voice returned.

“Did you vote already?”

“I didn’t go out to piss off the porch. Of course I voted.”

Did I fall asleep? Luke asked himself. His father came into the room and switched on the TV. Commercials, of course.

“Saw George downt the polls.”

He had to smile, but his father didn’t understand why. Luke didn’t know anybody else in the world who said “downt the.” He’d never been able to figure out if it meant the Midwestern “down at the” or the New England “down to the.” They lived in Minnesota, but his father grew up in Maine, so it could go either way.

“What did he have to say?”

“Same old shit, you know George.”

“Ayeahp.” The older man smiled, but his son didn’t understand why. This word between “yeah” and “ayuh,” with a hint of “yup,” always made Luke’s father smile.

The election coverage was on. Luke turned up the volume. The man said the polls were closed, but the election was too close to call. Too close to call! Luke grinned broadly. He wanted to gloat, but he respected his father too much. Besides, they were getting along pretty well for an election night. This was the first time ever in Luke’s memory that Bender wasn’t declared victor as soon as the polls closed. Their work really had done some good. Bender was ahead by a few points — that was sobering — but there was still a chance. Still a chance. It was going to be a long night.

Luke looked over to his father. He wasn’t looking as shocked as he’d expected.

“Who do you think is going to win?” Luke asked.

“Don’t know.” He didn’t look like he cared, which was surprising to Luke.

“Who did you vote for?” This was the formula. Every election Luke asked, every election his father said Bender, except he used his real name, of course. But not this year. This year he just squirmed in his seat and said something about the secret ballot. Might not mean anything, Luke thought. Most people want to have voted for the winner, which was something he couldn’t really understand. Maybe his father was waiting to see who would win before saying he voted for that guy. Luke didn’t really think his father was like that, though.

He turned back to the TV. The man was talking with some old guy, some kind of special correspondent, who was talking about how many great things Bender had done and how surprising it was anybody but “extremists” would vote against him. At first, Luke was content to sit and listen as the guy ticked off Bender’s accomplishments. His father started nodding and saying “Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm.” But then it came, as he should have known it would.

“And of course,” the correspondent continued, “the second-greatest accomplishment of the President’s career must have been his daylight savings initiative. Nothing he ever does is likely to surpass that except—“ But Luke wasn’t listening any more. He couldn’t have listened if he wanted to. The sound from the TV was drowned out by a louder noise: Luke’s own ranting.

“Initiative! Success! Bull! Shit! Bullshit!”

“Calm down, son.”

“No! I’m not going to sit here an listen to this shit.”

“It’s not—“

“Oh, yes. It. Is.”

“He saved the daylight.”

This parroting of the man’s campaign slogan sent Luke into a new paroxysm. “He did not save any God-damn such of a thing!”

“But if he hadn’t we’d all be in darkness. We’d lose an hour! We save an hour every year, don’t we? I mean, my God, if it weren’t for him, we’d have been in total darkness after twenty-four years.”

Luke slammed his palm to his forehead. He’d rather have done it to his father, and rather yet to Sol Bender. He tried to calm himself. This was his father he was talking to after all.

“The sun doesn’t care what kind of Goddamn law they pass in Washington-fucking-Dee-Cee. The sun doesn’t care!”

“Well how could it, it’s just a ball of gas isn’t it?” His father was looking at him like he was an idiot. Luke whimpered a little.

“Then how, pray tell, does a daylight-savings-time law save any daylight?”

“I never could understand that.”

“See? It doesn’t work!”

His father pointed at the TV set. “Well, I don’t understand how that works either, but it does work.”

Luke sighed. “’But yet it moves.’”

“What does?”

“The Earth.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“Well, they say Ben Franklin is the one who thought it up in the first place, and he was a pretty smart cookie.”

“That’s not exactly true. He did once write an article saying Londoners were wasteful of daylight. What he said was that if the sun in summer rises in London at four o’clock in the morning, people should be up and conducting business at four o’clock, and they should go to bed around sunset, so they’d save candles, making wise use of the daylight. In other words, he wanted to change people’s habits to conform to the sun. He had no illusion that you could change the sun’s habits to conform to people. The politicians in Washington struck what they thought was a good compromise by changing the clocks to conform to people. Daylight Savings Time is just another bit of fancy bookkeeping politicians everywhere are so fond of. Now do you understand? Dad? Dad?” His father was asleep in his chair. Luke got up and covered him with a blanket.

They called the election around midnight. Bender won. Again. Just after they announced it, Luke stood up and switched off the set. He walked to the window and opened the shade. The brilliant sun reflecting off the snow made him squint, but he looked anyway. He heard his father stirring behind him, but he didn’t turn. So this is America, he thought as he looked over the fields to the little town by the river. Finally he turned, and caught his reflection in the mirror across the room. “My God,” he said sadly as stared at what he saw in his face. He walked to the mirror.

His father came up behind him and they looked at themselves through the glass.

“When did I get so old?” Luke asked.

“You’re not old, son. And neither am I. That’s the real reason I voted the way I did. Youthfulness-Savings Time.” The father patted his son’s silvery hair with his gnarled hand, and kissed his wrinkled cheek with his parched lips.

“See,” he said, “I just want you to stay five years old forever.”