Wish Myself to Dream
Javyn Taylor
The dream woke me one night, not long ago. It caused me to sit up, soaked in a layer of sweat, the cheap itchy sheets clinging to my skin, my heart racing. I lay back down, breathing in and then exhaling—slow and steady. I acclimated to reality again and my body calmed. I went through the images as they flashed in my mind and pieced them together over and over until the dream played like a movie reel and I could remember every last detail.
That’s what I’ve been doing every day since so that I don’t forget it, because being eighty-six years old, things slip out of my brain quite easily. I know I’m eighty-six because just last week when I walked in the dining room, there was a cake sitting on the table, candles aflame, a group of residents and nurses singing me Happy Birthday. Two numbers sat on top, an eight and a six, dripping wax on the chalky white frosting. Everyone in the room sang. Even David, loud and improperly gleeful, with that smirk on his face, enjoying how much he knew I was hating it. Of course, Kimmy was there with her god-awful grin. Yes, I said Kimmy. What kind of name is that? For an old lady living in a nursing home? There should be Mildreds and Nancys and Paulines. I can’t believe I’m still alive, and I can’t believe I’m in a nursing home with a Kimmy. Anyway, Kimmy always has a stupid smile on her face. It’s just plastered there. Even at Wednesday dinners, when they feed us the green mush, I watch her put the spoon up to her mouth, waiting for it to go away, but nope. Sometimes I think about pressing my cane down on her toes when she’s wearing those ugly brown slippers in the morning, just to see if I can get the smile to disappear. I might do it.
So, the party … David and Kimmy and the other oldies and the nurses, they all sang me Happy Birthday. Crowded around in the dining room, with the mauve vinyl chairs and white plastic tablecloths. Angela, the nurse I really hate, stood in the doorway. How could I not hate her? All the other nurses, like Jasmine and Monique, they call me Jack. Because that’s my name. I can deal with them. Monique, she’ll even leave me caramel candies under my pillow some days. But this Angela—you know what she calls me? She calls me baby doll. I’m no fuckin’ baby doll. I used to correct her, now I just wish she’d get run over on her way to work one morning. It could happen you know; accidents happen all the time.
So yeah, I’m eighty-six. Those are the numbers they had on the cake. I didn’t smile, though. I don’t like them seeing me smile. If the Cowboys win a game on a Sunday, I might.
~ ~ ~
I was maybe fifteen. In the dream, I mean. It’s hot as hell and I’m barefoot. Well, I don’t know why I’m barefoot. But I am, and I’m walking in a parking lot and I can feel the heat from the pavement and it’s warming the bottoms of my feet, not quite burning, but with every step it’s getting closer to burning. The sun’s out, though I never actually see it because the sky is white. Bright hazy white, all of it, everywhere I look up—all I see is white and it’s ethereal looking and mystical and really just the perfect sky for a dream.
So, I’m walking on this hot day, under this white sky with the sun hidden but beating down and I’m headed towards this building. Now the parking lot and the building are real. From my real life, in the town I grew up in, the town I’ve lived in all my life. All of it, the layout of the parking lot with the pine trees standing tall along the side and the highway directly in front were the exact same. Hell, I had probably even seen the same milky white sky before, buried in some faint memory from deep within my subconscious.
The building from my real life was a grocery store. I had been there countless times throughout my childhood, into my teenage years more sparsely, as an adult only occasionally. But as a kid there were weekly visits with my mother and my two brothers. I was the oldest, so it was my responsibility to keep track of Paul and Sam. Sam, the youngest—what a pain in the ass, that one. When he wasn’t moving or talking you could almost be tricked into thinking he was some kind of angelic being, what with his plump fair cheeks that flushed easily and his crystal blue eyes that flickered with a spark. But he was almost always moving and talking. He would pick up every box of rice, every bag of crackers, swapping and throwing and tossing. He ran down aisles pushing carts into shelves and stranger’s ankles. Paul might not have been as rambunctious as Sam, but he was still trouble, sneakier and more thoughtful in his antics. I caught him one time squeezing honey all along the cart handles, sweet thick globs dripping down, forming sticky puddles on the floor. Another time—probably the most heinous of his acts, at least as a kid—was when he hid underneath one of the fruit stands filled with lemons and kiwis and limes. Most of him was concealed, except for raggedy brown hair and greenish-gray eyes that just barely peeped out, just barely enough to be gazing up some lady’s skirt. Paul, eyes wide and eager, would stare for a good three minutes until the lady finally chose her produce and sauntered off, clueless of the eight-year-old scraggly deviant violating her at eleven in the morning. I walked over just after she was out of sight, just before he could see me coming from the side, knelt on the floor and gave him a good slap on his right cheek. Hard enough to leave it red and stinging, hard enough to see his eyes water, his face all scrunched up and twisted, not ashamed of being a perv, only mad I caught him and mad I got a good hit in. He held back from crying, I’ll give him that, mostly because he’d have to explain to Mom what reason I had to hurt him.
While I was monitoring and patrolling, Mom was shopping. Smiling and shopping. I didn’t understand why she smiled with kids like Sam and Paul running around causing chaos. It didn’t occur to me until I was an adult that maybe Mom always smiling was the reason why Sam and Paul were running around causing said chaos. She never fussed, I rarely saw her get mad and even when she was mad, she was always so calm and she would even smile mad, and maybe Sam and Paul were heartless, but I just thought someone with so much grace shouldn’t be betrayed or mistreated, so I was sure to keep things running smoothly in our world, keep everyone in line, keep Mom smiling.
When I remember Mom in the grocery store, I see her in one of her fancy dresses, because she was always wearing fancy dresses. Even days she didn’t leave the house. She might only wash dishes, or prepare dinner, or chain-smoke out on the porch swing all day, but she’d have on some big fluffy dress while doing so—with ruffles and flowers and sometimes lace. If she did go out somewhere, even the grocery store, she’d get extra fancy—she’d wear heels and dangling things on her wrists and ears and she’d have painted lips, sometimes peach or pink or varying shades of red. And the perfume! Oh man, the perfume. We’d all bark at her, tell her to lay off, we’d cough and cough and cough when she spritzed it, we’d gag and sometimes fake our own deaths. She’d laugh and roll her eyes and say, “Oh boys …” But that’s how she’d walk around the store, pretty and picturesque, as if she were going to an elegant dinner and not walking around on dirty linoleum floor while rummaging through boxes of corn starch and rotting potatoes.
She was always running into someone there too. What might be a quick errand for another mom was a couple-hours social outing for my mother. Maybe that’s why she put such time and care into her looks. She’d stop in the bread aisle, gossiping for forty-five minutes with a neighbor or church lady, and then she’d be near the canned beans, chatting with the preacher or the guy who worked at the auto shop, and she had to check in with the cashiers. She’d ask about their schooling or their families, encouraging them, giving them advice, and some pimply teenager would wheel the cart to our car. Even if there were only two bags, we never carried any groceries out. She’d walk with the gangly workers, thank them profusely and tip them five dollars every time. Sometimes before we left, several boys would huddle around, hands on our cart, eyes darting between one another, and my mother would laugh and say, “Oh the most wonderful employees here, always so eager to help.”
~ ~ ~
Now, another thing about the dream is someone else was walking in the store too. They were ahead of me, and they went in first. I don’t know who it was, all I could see was a moving figure in a long black coat. I saw no face or anything else.
So, there I go in my dream … I walk in and the stranger’s in there, the mysterious black-coat figure is up ahead, walking around the edge of the store. That’s what I did too. It seemed as though nothing existed in the middle of the store, just along the perimeter. Every wall had several shelves and every shelf had something on it. The items appeared blurry, but once I stood there for a moment and really focused my eyes, I could see them. That first wall held everything I had desperately wanted and never needed. Just a glance at my toys, and the joy bubbled over in me, at being a kid, and having been a kid. What a remarkable way to live. If only to live that way forever—in ignorance and simplicity and freedom. G.I Joes and Nerf balls, Legos, and Battleship. One after another. I look down and suddenly see that I’m holding a basket. So of course, in they went. The treasures of my childhood in my possession once again.
The next wall held more treasures, only not quite as juvenile. My favorite pair of basketball shoes, which I wore when I scored a three-pointer to win the league championship in the eighth grade, my wrinkled and tattered copy of Where the Red Fern Grows. And then I saw the picture. Faded and small, of Paul, Sam and I standing on a dock with a bass hanging from a line, on a sweaty, steamy day in July.
Did I ever tell you about that day? The sky wasn’t white and hazy, but bright blue, the bluest you could ever see, with occasional clouds slowly meandering by. We woke up early that summer morning. I was probably fourteen, meaning Paul was twelve and Sam nine. Of course, I had to get them out of bed. Sam was especially difficult to wake, and finally Paul dumped a cup of water on his face, and after squealing and shoving and hitting we made our way out of the house and headed down to Solomon’s Pond. It was about a mile away and we could have followed the road, but instead we crossed behind the woods through a field of wheat straw that we didn’t realize was a neighbor’s backyard. It seemed to last forever, our trek, but that made these trips much more exciting and important. As if we were doing something we shouldn’t, something maybe even a little dangerous, something grownups would do if they were kids, if they were still brave and not boring and predictable. It was hot out and by the time we got to the dock we were all gulping waters and pops that Mom packed for us. The pond was small, but not to us back then. To us it was vast and wide and on most days, it was all ours. Some days we never even fished, we’d just jump in and swim and dig in the muck and hike along the trees under the shade. But that day we took turns with our one fishing pole, quiet for the most part, which was kind of unusual for us. A strong breeze showed up in the afternoon and some dark clouds rolled through threatening rain, but they came and left quickly, leaving us alone with the scorching sun. I dug out some peanut butter sandwiches Mom had packed in our cooler and while Sam and I ate, Paul held tight onto the pole and the next thing we know he starts leaning back on his heels and the pole starts bending and he’s cussin’, and up comes a real nice-sized bass, I mean a big one, and he hollers and squeals, “Look Jack, look at this ol’ honker right here … oohhhh we gonna eat nice tonight!” And Sam and I laughed and agreed, even though none of us knew how to skin and cook it and we knew we were gonna let it go back in the water. Then I remembered the disposable camera Mom left in the pouch of our cooler and I never used it before, but I sat it up on the dock post and hit the timer. I was looking over at Paul, Sam was blinking, Paul was holding the bass high and proud. We were shirtless, barefoot, sweaty, red from the sun and we all wore smiles, big ones.
Late that afternoon the sun’s hostility slightly softened. After taking a dip in the pond, I lay down with my back on the dock, my knees pointed towards the sky. With my eyes closed, I let the rays dry the droplets of water off me, evaporating as though they were never there, and a soft breeze swept by, a sweet relief. I thought of nothing at all, just listened to Sam’s and Paul’s voices in the distance and the occasional rustling of trees swaying in the wind. A loud call of a bird caused me to open my eyes. It must have been a hawk or a falcon squalling or chirping or whatever they do and right at the moment that I sat up it dipped down, hovering just inches above the water. For a few seconds that somehow felt like minutes, it soared steady over the pond. Nothing else existed for those moments, Paul and Sam and the sun disappeared, and nothing existed in my mind, it was only the bird and the water and me—the witness. I could make out the brown and white markings on its outstretched wings, and its beady eyes, intense and focused. I blinked, and just like that it swooped high up into the trees, vanishing into the thick forest.
We headed home as soon as the light began creeping away, the darkness slowly taking its place, before Mom would start hollering for us and worrying. Cicadas welcomed the approaching night, singing to us on our way. We were tired and burnt, yet full and whole in a way I don’t ever remember being as an adult. Days almost exactly like that accumulated every summer, all the way into high school. There was nothing particularly eventful about it, but for some reason that day is what I think of when I think of my brothers and me at Solomon’s Pond. It was the picture in the store, it was the day I lived, as true and bright and every bit alive as any day had ever been.
~ ~ ~
The next wall held the notepad I kept through my two years at Ervin Tech, a written log of every class I needed. With scribbles and check marks, it served as my visual map while earning a degree in electrical technology. A proud accomplishment that served me well throughout the rest of my life. And then there was an airline ticket from when I went to visit Paul, lost in some mountain town in Montana, drawing or painting or maybe it was writing then. I didn’t leave home much, but he begged me for months to visit him and finally in the warm summer I agreed.
Sam had been dead for exactly six months by then, when I went up to visit Paul, though we didn’t talk about that. We never did talk about how drunk the coroner said Sam was when he flew off the road, the road that was on a hill, with a curve, into a swarm of trees, big pines, and how the front of the car was crushed into nothing. We didn’t speak of how sad it was, that Sam was supposed to leave the next day, on his great adventure out to California, to be the next great actor and maybe eventually a director, to do something. To do something BIG, Sam would say. We didn’t talk about how sad we were, ’cause we knew how sad we were. We did, however, talk about the funeral. How Sam would’ve hated those old church hymns, how he would’ve much rather had The Clash playing instead. We laughed at Reverend Mitchell, how ancient and feeble he was, how we expected him to just keel over beneath Sam’s casket and how funny Sam would’ve found it, if it had happened that way. We talked about how well Mom had held up that day, heartbroken, yet remarkably solid and strong, even as we shoveled dirt on his casket.
Occasionally Paul would appear with a pad and pencil and in the middle of him talking or me talking, he’d start scribbling. I never asked what he was writing, and he never told me.
When we were sitting by the fire that first night, we were recalling some of the people who came to the funeral, old and forgotten buddies from our childhood. Fred Hounchell’s name came up, as it did from time to time with Paul. It was always kind of strange, the way Paul would say his name and then look at me and wait for the story. As though he didn’t remember, as though he hadn’t heard it many times before. So, I repeated it again: It was senior year in the parking lot after class. I don’t remember the first punch but I do remember blood squirting out of his nose and spraying my sleeve. Then I got off him, with everyone staring at me, as though he didn’t say the most awful things about a saint of a woman. I don’t know why he would say something like that, and I still don’t. “What did he say?” Paul would ask me with some kind of look in his eyes I could never get used to and even though I told him before and even though I didn’t like saying those words out loud—I really didn’t—I told him again: Fred Hounchell walked up to me and told me my mother was “easy,” that she slept with half the town and half of the next town over and that everyone knew it.
I tell the same story every time and for whatever reason Paul never responds. He just stares at me with that strange look in his eyes I don’t care for, like he’s waiting for me to finish, and the vein in his forehead sticks out and normally we change the subject but this time up in Montana Paul says, “Really Jack … really? You knew more than any of us. You were older, you saw more, you were more aware.” I don’t know what he meant by that, and that’s what I told him. He shook his head and said, “Okay Jack.”
We stared at the flames and listened to howls in the distance with the big moon shining bright. He wrote something in his notebook again and we talked more about Sam until the flames turned into nothing more than softly burning ash, and darkness faded back to light.
Of course, Paul had a girl hanging around. He always had a girl around, didn’t seem to matter to him who it was or for what reason. Ugly ones, pretty ones, some breathtaking, some mean, some nothing but trouble, but for whatever reason Paul didn’t care. I, for the most part, ignored them. This one up in Montana must not have bathed, because an unpleasant aroma emitted from her, spreading throughout the house. One evening, while sitting at the table after dinner, I told her she might want to take a bath. She said nothing, only grabbed her purse and stormed out. Paul fumed for the next hour, fiddling around in the kitchen, slamming cabinets and dishes as he told me how rude I could be, and how I shouldn’t talk to women that way. I’m not sure why he wanted to appear to care—we both knew she wouldn’t be around much longer.
The day I went home we said goodbye standing outside the airport amid a whirl of people coming and going, rolling suitcases and fluttering tickets all around. I knew he wasn’t upset with me about the girl anymore, but he seemed bothered. He stood rigid and tense, and I kept waiting for him to say something, to release whatever it was that seemed to be paining him, but all he did was hug me tight. I told him I’d visit again, but I never did.
~ ~ ~
The next wall was a blur, except for one item; the necklace I bought for Lora. I bought it because it matched her eyes; emerald green with glimmering specks. She wore it on every date, including the last. “The necklace is not enough,” she would tell me again and again. She wanted a ring, she wanted marriage and children, but every time I went to look for a ring, something would happen. My car would make a clunky sound, or a storm would appear. My mother would call, the lightbulb in her bathroom out, her furnace filter needing changing, the leaves in her yard needing raking. She would need accompaniment to a doctor’s appointment or a ride to get milk. While my mother smiled always, regardless of a down day, or sad news, or a hard time, Lora did not. In fact, over time, her smiles diminished more and more, as did my infatuation, and she stopped wearing lipstick and stopped dressing nice for our dates. She would show up in slacks and she seemed cheered at my disappointment. And then one day she said goodbye to me, the green pendant resting on her chest. She thumbed it between her fingers, and I thought maybe she might give it back to me, but she didn’t, she walked away with it still on, she walked away for the last time.
Being in this place with all the oldies, they’re always movin’ in and movin’ out … well, dying being the movin’ out, but there’s always new ones walking in the door, or wheeling in or shuffling in, and I don’t really know why, all these years later, but sometimes I think one day one of them might be Lora. Or maybe I hope it will be her. Absurd I know, but when you get to be my age everyone you know is dead, or everyone you knew is dead and suddenly you dream about ghosts. I’m not sure what happened to her. She could be dead by now, certainly. Or maybe she’s living out her days somewhere nice. Somewhere near the ocean. She probably got married and had lots of kids and one of them is taking care of her now, letting her stay in a room with a view of the water and there’s probably a nice caretaker to look after her, one that cooks her meals and takes her out for walks on the sand. Maybe one day her kids will go through their mother’s belongings and find the green necklace and admire how striking it is and assume it was from their father. Maybe one of them will keep it and wear it when Lora is long gone.
Maybe if I had kids I would be somewhere nice too. They might be burdened and tired of me, but they’d keep me around out of guilt, or maybe they’d pay for one of those posh retirement homes, with swimming pools and tennis courts and gourmet meals. Or maybe I would still be in this crappy place, maybe they’d be just fine with that. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’m here now.
~ ~ ~
I stared and stared at the last wall and tried to focus, but nothing appeared and then I remembered the black-coat person walking in the store. So, I walk along some more and there he is, standing at the counter. My hands are empty suddenly, and I see his basket and it’s got everything that’s mine in it, all my toys, all my mementos, my picture and every object that ever meant anything to me. I look up at him to tell him it’s all mine, he can’t have it, but then he’s not there. I turn around and he’s already out the door.
So, I walk out of the store, after this faceless person in a long black coat. I’m yelling at him, “Hey you! Come back, hey!” I’m still barefoot, and the heat of the asphalt shocks me. It’s burning hot, and I kick my feet up as I’m running after him. He doesn’t stop, but he slows just long enough for me to catch up to him, and I put my hand on his shoulder and he turns around. It’s like one of those moments in the movies, where time slows down, and this figure turns, but when he does there’s no black coat. There’s a white dress, with gold buttons and lace sleeves, and I knew without seeing her face that it was my mother. And then I looked up and I thought she would appear young, but she didn’t. She was even older than the last time I saw her, though I don’t like to think about that. But she had on just a touch of lipstick, a light dab of pink on her gray face, so that made me feel good. She was still mom, old as she was. She looked at me, and smiled her same warm smile, as though she were so happy to see me. Then the smile faded, and her face became puzzled as she looked down at me, her eyes stopping at my feet. “Oh Jack, you boys shouldn’t be running around barefoot, going to get a splinter or a nail. Tell Paul and Sam not to fill up on candy and pop, dinners going to be ready soon.” And at that she dropped the basket and I looked down as it hit the ground, and that’s when I woke. I lay there sweaty and confused, my old heart pounding, trying to remember it all.
It’s strange, how some memories stick out bright and alive and others you only get a glimpse of. You can just barely see it, taste it, smell it, hear it, touch it, and right when it starts coming into focus—poof—it’s gone. I think of Paul often. I think of him writing and I wish I had done some of that. Maybe if I had written some days down I’d still have them here with me.
That dream brought many of my memories back. But there are others I still can’t find no matter how many more nights I sleep and wish myself to dream. In the afternoon when the day is sullen and stuck and endless and I’m alone in my room, I try and look for them. In the corners and crevices of my mind, when I attempt to filter and sort everything I’ve ever lived through and experienced, there’s something else there. I only get a sense of it. A faint shape, a faint form, a hint of something that … isn’t there. It’s the presence of an absence—it’s identity cruelly never revealed.
Some days I tire of remembering. If it’s decent weather, I’ll go sit out in the courtyard. Did I tell you about the courtyard? There’s a fountain in the middle with benches scattered around. In the spring tulips and irises stretch out near the bushes, and when I’m lucky no one else will be there. I like to sit on the bench that’s front and centered with the fountain. When you look straight up all you see is blue, or gray, depending on the weather, but blues are my favorite days. That means the sun’s out and if I stretch my face towards it, the surrounding building disappears. Then all you see is the wide sky, wide enough to see clouds and the occasional birds. Some of the smaller ones flutter down, hopping along the bricks, picking bugs hidden under mulch and bathing beneath the droplets of the fountain. Others fly high, with their wings spread, tilting against the wind, looking like they might just reach the sun, dipping down out of sight and then soaring back in.
Javyn Taylor
The dream woke me one night, not long ago. It caused me to sit up, soaked in a layer of sweat, the cheap itchy sheets clinging to my skin, my heart racing. I lay back down, breathing in and then exhaling—slow and steady. I acclimated to reality again and my body calmed. I went through the images as they flashed in my mind and pieced them together over and over until the dream played like a movie reel and I could remember every last detail.
That’s what I’ve been doing every day since so that I don’t forget it, because being eighty-six years old, things slip out of my brain quite easily. I know I’m eighty-six because just last week when I walked in the dining room, there was a cake sitting on the table, candles aflame, a group of residents and nurses singing me Happy Birthday. Two numbers sat on top, an eight and a six, dripping wax on the chalky white frosting. Everyone in the room sang. Even David, loud and improperly gleeful, with that smirk on his face, enjoying how much he knew I was hating it. Of course, Kimmy was there with her god-awful grin. Yes, I said Kimmy. What kind of name is that? For an old lady living in a nursing home? There should be Mildreds and Nancys and Paulines. I can’t believe I’m still alive, and I can’t believe I’m in a nursing home with a Kimmy. Anyway, Kimmy always has a stupid smile on her face. It’s just plastered there. Even at Wednesday dinners, when they feed us the green mush, I watch her put the spoon up to her mouth, waiting for it to go away, but nope. Sometimes I think about pressing my cane down on her toes when she’s wearing those ugly brown slippers in the morning, just to see if I can get the smile to disappear. I might do it.
So, the party … David and Kimmy and the other oldies and the nurses, they all sang me Happy Birthday. Crowded around in the dining room, with the mauve vinyl chairs and white plastic tablecloths. Angela, the nurse I really hate, stood in the doorway. How could I not hate her? All the other nurses, like Jasmine and Monique, they call me Jack. Because that’s my name. I can deal with them. Monique, she’ll even leave me caramel candies under my pillow some days. But this Angela—you know what she calls me? She calls me baby doll. I’m no fuckin’ baby doll. I used to correct her, now I just wish she’d get run over on her way to work one morning. It could happen you know; accidents happen all the time.
So yeah, I’m eighty-six. Those are the numbers they had on the cake. I didn’t smile, though. I don’t like them seeing me smile. If the Cowboys win a game on a Sunday, I might.
~ ~ ~
I was maybe fifteen. In the dream, I mean. It’s hot as hell and I’m barefoot. Well, I don’t know why I’m barefoot. But I am, and I’m walking in a parking lot and I can feel the heat from the pavement and it’s warming the bottoms of my feet, not quite burning, but with every step it’s getting closer to burning. The sun’s out, though I never actually see it because the sky is white. Bright hazy white, all of it, everywhere I look up—all I see is white and it’s ethereal looking and mystical and really just the perfect sky for a dream.
So, I’m walking on this hot day, under this white sky with the sun hidden but beating down and I’m headed towards this building. Now the parking lot and the building are real. From my real life, in the town I grew up in, the town I’ve lived in all my life. All of it, the layout of the parking lot with the pine trees standing tall along the side and the highway directly in front were the exact same. Hell, I had probably even seen the same milky white sky before, buried in some faint memory from deep within my subconscious.
The building from my real life was a grocery store. I had been there countless times throughout my childhood, into my teenage years more sparsely, as an adult only occasionally. But as a kid there were weekly visits with my mother and my two brothers. I was the oldest, so it was my responsibility to keep track of Paul and Sam. Sam, the youngest—what a pain in the ass, that one. When he wasn’t moving or talking you could almost be tricked into thinking he was some kind of angelic being, what with his plump fair cheeks that flushed easily and his crystal blue eyes that flickered with a spark. But he was almost always moving and talking. He would pick up every box of rice, every bag of crackers, swapping and throwing and tossing. He ran down aisles pushing carts into shelves and stranger’s ankles. Paul might not have been as rambunctious as Sam, but he was still trouble, sneakier and more thoughtful in his antics. I caught him one time squeezing honey all along the cart handles, sweet thick globs dripping down, forming sticky puddles on the floor. Another time—probably the most heinous of his acts, at least as a kid—was when he hid underneath one of the fruit stands filled with lemons and kiwis and limes. Most of him was concealed, except for raggedy brown hair and greenish-gray eyes that just barely peeped out, just barely enough to be gazing up some lady’s skirt. Paul, eyes wide and eager, would stare for a good three minutes until the lady finally chose her produce and sauntered off, clueless of the eight-year-old scraggly deviant violating her at eleven in the morning. I walked over just after she was out of sight, just before he could see me coming from the side, knelt on the floor and gave him a good slap on his right cheek. Hard enough to leave it red and stinging, hard enough to see his eyes water, his face all scrunched up and twisted, not ashamed of being a perv, only mad I caught him and mad I got a good hit in. He held back from crying, I’ll give him that, mostly because he’d have to explain to Mom what reason I had to hurt him.
While I was monitoring and patrolling, Mom was shopping. Smiling and shopping. I didn’t understand why she smiled with kids like Sam and Paul running around causing chaos. It didn’t occur to me until I was an adult that maybe Mom always smiling was the reason why Sam and Paul were running around causing said chaos. She never fussed, I rarely saw her get mad and even when she was mad, she was always so calm and she would even smile mad, and maybe Sam and Paul were heartless, but I just thought someone with so much grace shouldn’t be betrayed or mistreated, so I was sure to keep things running smoothly in our world, keep everyone in line, keep Mom smiling.
When I remember Mom in the grocery store, I see her in one of her fancy dresses, because she was always wearing fancy dresses. Even days she didn’t leave the house. She might only wash dishes, or prepare dinner, or chain-smoke out on the porch swing all day, but she’d have on some big fluffy dress while doing so—with ruffles and flowers and sometimes lace. If she did go out somewhere, even the grocery store, she’d get extra fancy—she’d wear heels and dangling things on her wrists and ears and she’d have painted lips, sometimes peach or pink or varying shades of red. And the perfume! Oh man, the perfume. We’d all bark at her, tell her to lay off, we’d cough and cough and cough when she spritzed it, we’d gag and sometimes fake our own deaths. She’d laugh and roll her eyes and say, “Oh boys …” But that’s how she’d walk around the store, pretty and picturesque, as if she were going to an elegant dinner and not walking around on dirty linoleum floor while rummaging through boxes of corn starch and rotting potatoes.
She was always running into someone there too. What might be a quick errand for another mom was a couple-hours social outing for my mother. Maybe that’s why she put such time and care into her looks. She’d stop in the bread aisle, gossiping for forty-five minutes with a neighbor or church lady, and then she’d be near the canned beans, chatting with the preacher or the guy who worked at the auto shop, and she had to check in with the cashiers. She’d ask about their schooling or their families, encouraging them, giving them advice, and some pimply teenager would wheel the cart to our car. Even if there were only two bags, we never carried any groceries out. She’d walk with the gangly workers, thank them profusely and tip them five dollars every time. Sometimes before we left, several boys would huddle around, hands on our cart, eyes darting between one another, and my mother would laugh and say, “Oh the most wonderful employees here, always so eager to help.”
~ ~ ~
Now, another thing about the dream is someone else was walking in the store too. They were ahead of me, and they went in first. I don’t know who it was, all I could see was a moving figure in a long black coat. I saw no face or anything else.
So, there I go in my dream … I walk in and the stranger’s in there, the mysterious black-coat figure is up ahead, walking around the edge of the store. That’s what I did too. It seemed as though nothing existed in the middle of the store, just along the perimeter. Every wall had several shelves and every shelf had something on it. The items appeared blurry, but once I stood there for a moment and really focused my eyes, I could see them. That first wall held everything I had desperately wanted and never needed. Just a glance at my toys, and the joy bubbled over in me, at being a kid, and having been a kid. What a remarkable way to live. If only to live that way forever—in ignorance and simplicity and freedom. G.I Joes and Nerf balls, Legos, and Battleship. One after another. I look down and suddenly see that I’m holding a basket. So of course, in they went. The treasures of my childhood in my possession once again.
The next wall held more treasures, only not quite as juvenile. My favorite pair of basketball shoes, which I wore when I scored a three-pointer to win the league championship in the eighth grade, my wrinkled and tattered copy of Where the Red Fern Grows. And then I saw the picture. Faded and small, of Paul, Sam and I standing on a dock with a bass hanging from a line, on a sweaty, steamy day in July.
Did I ever tell you about that day? The sky wasn’t white and hazy, but bright blue, the bluest you could ever see, with occasional clouds slowly meandering by. We woke up early that summer morning. I was probably fourteen, meaning Paul was twelve and Sam nine. Of course, I had to get them out of bed. Sam was especially difficult to wake, and finally Paul dumped a cup of water on his face, and after squealing and shoving and hitting we made our way out of the house and headed down to Solomon’s Pond. It was about a mile away and we could have followed the road, but instead we crossed behind the woods through a field of wheat straw that we didn’t realize was a neighbor’s backyard. It seemed to last forever, our trek, but that made these trips much more exciting and important. As if we were doing something we shouldn’t, something maybe even a little dangerous, something grownups would do if they were kids, if they were still brave and not boring and predictable. It was hot out and by the time we got to the dock we were all gulping waters and pops that Mom packed for us. The pond was small, but not to us back then. To us it was vast and wide and on most days, it was all ours. Some days we never even fished, we’d just jump in and swim and dig in the muck and hike along the trees under the shade. But that day we took turns with our one fishing pole, quiet for the most part, which was kind of unusual for us. A strong breeze showed up in the afternoon and some dark clouds rolled through threatening rain, but they came and left quickly, leaving us alone with the scorching sun. I dug out some peanut butter sandwiches Mom had packed in our cooler and while Sam and I ate, Paul held tight onto the pole and the next thing we know he starts leaning back on his heels and the pole starts bending and he’s cussin’, and up comes a real nice-sized bass, I mean a big one, and he hollers and squeals, “Look Jack, look at this ol’ honker right here … oohhhh we gonna eat nice tonight!” And Sam and I laughed and agreed, even though none of us knew how to skin and cook it and we knew we were gonna let it go back in the water. Then I remembered the disposable camera Mom left in the pouch of our cooler and I never used it before, but I sat it up on the dock post and hit the timer. I was looking over at Paul, Sam was blinking, Paul was holding the bass high and proud. We were shirtless, barefoot, sweaty, red from the sun and we all wore smiles, big ones.
Late that afternoon the sun’s hostility slightly softened. After taking a dip in the pond, I lay down with my back on the dock, my knees pointed towards the sky. With my eyes closed, I let the rays dry the droplets of water off me, evaporating as though they were never there, and a soft breeze swept by, a sweet relief. I thought of nothing at all, just listened to Sam’s and Paul’s voices in the distance and the occasional rustling of trees swaying in the wind. A loud call of a bird caused me to open my eyes. It must have been a hawk or a falcon squalling or chirping or whatever they do and right at the moment that I sat up it dipped down, hovering just inches above the water. For a few seconds that somehow felt like minutes, it soared steady over the pond. Nothing else existed for those moments, Paul and Sam and the sun disappeared, and nothing existed in my mind, it was only the bird and the water and me—the witness. I could make out the brown and white markings on its outstretched wings, and its beady eyes, intense and focused. I blinked, and just like that it swooped high up into the trees, vanishing into the thick forest.
We headed home as soon as the light began creeping away, the darkness slowly taking its place, before Mom would start hollering for us and worrying. Cicadas welcomed the approaching night, singing to us on our way. We were tired and burnt, yet full and whole in a way I don’t ever remember being as an adult. Days almost exactly like that accumulated every summer, all the way into high school. There was nothing particularly eventful about it, but for some reason that day is what I think of when I think of my brothers and me at Solomon’s Pond. It was the picture in the store, it was the day I lived, as true and bright and every bit alive as any day had ever been.
~ ~ ~
The next wall held the notepad I kept through my two years at Ervin Tech, a written log of every class I needed. With scribbles and check marks, it served as my visual map while earning a degree in electrical technology. A proud accomplishment that served me well throughout the rest of my life. And then there was an airline ticket from when I went to visit Paul, lost in some mountain town in Montana, drawing or painting or maybe it was writing then. I didn’t leave home much, but he begged me for months to visit him and finally in the warm summer I agreed.
Sam had been dead for exactly six months by then, when I went up to visit Paul, though we didn’t talk about that. We never did talk about how drunk the coroner said Sam was when he flew off the road, the road that was on a hill, with a curve, into a swarm of trees, big pines, and how the front of the car was crushed into nothing. We didn’t speak of how sad it was, that Sam was supposed to leave the next day, on his great adventure out to California, to be the next great actor and maybe eventually a director, to do something. To do something BIG, Sam would say. We didn’t talk about how sad we were, ’cause we knew how sad we were. We did, however, talk about the funeral. How Sam would’ve hated those old church hymns, how he would’ve much rather had The Clash playing instead. We laughed at Reverend Mitchell, how ancient and feeble he was, how we expected him to just keel over beneath Sam’s casket and how funny Sam would’ve found it, if it had happened that way. We talked about how well Mom had held up that day, heartbroken, yet remarkably solid and strong, even as we shoveled dirt on his casket.
Occasionally Paul would appear with a pad and pencil and in the middle of him talking or me talking, he’d start scribbling. I never asked what he was writing, and he never told me.
When we were sitting by the fire that first night, we were recalling some of the people who came to the funeral, old and forgotten buddies from our childhood. Fred Hounchell’s name came up, as it did from time to time with Paul. It was always kind of strange, the way Paul would say his name and then look at me and wait for the story. As though he didn’t remember, as though he hadn’t heard it many times before. So, I repeated it again: It was senior year in the parking lot after class. I don’t remember the first punch but I do remember blood squirting out of his nose and spraying my sleeve. Then I got off him, with everyone staring at me, as though he didn’t say the most awful things about a saint of a woman. I don’t know why he would say something like that, and I still don’t. “What did he say?” Paul would ask me with some kind of look in his eyes I could never get used to and even though I told him before and even though I didn’t like saying those words out loud—I really didn’t—I told him again: Fred Hounchell walked up to me and told me my mother was “easy,” that she slept with half the town and half of the next town over and that everyone knew it.
I tell the same story every time and for whatever reason Paul never responds. He just stares at me with that strange look in his eyes I don’t care for, like he’s waiting for me to finish, and the vein in his forehead sticks out and normally we change the subject but this time up in Montana Paul says, “Really Jack … really? You knew more than any of us. You were older, you saw more, you were more aware.” I don’t know what he meant by that, and that’s what I told him. He shook his head and said, “Okay Jack.”
We stared at the flames and listened to howls in the distance with the big moon shining bright. He wrote something in his notebook again and we talked more about Sam until the flames turned into nothing more than softly burning ash, and darkness faded back to light.
Of course, Paul had a girl hanging around. He always had a girl around, didn’t seem to matter to him who it was or for what reason. Ugly ones, pretty ones, some breathtaking, some mean, some nothing but trouble, but for whatever reason Paul didn’t care. I, for the most part, ignored them. This one up in Montana must not have bathed, because an unpleasant aroma emitted from her, spreading throughout the house. One evening, while sitting at the table after dinner, I told her she might want to take a bath. She said nothing, only grabbed her purse and stormed out. Paul fumed for the next hour, fiddling around in the kitchen, slamming cabinets and dishes as he told me how rude I could be, and how I shouldn’t talk to women that way. I’m not sure why he wanted to appear to care—we both knew she wouldn’t be around much longer.
The day I went home we said goodbye standing outside the airport amid a whirl of people coming and going, rolling suitcases and fluttering tickets all around. I knew he wasn’t upset with me about the girl anymore, but he seemed bothered. He stood rigid and tense, and I kept waiting for him to say something, to release whatever it was that seemed to be paining him, but all he did was hug me tight. I told him I’d visit again, but I never did.
~ ~ ~
The next wall was a blur, except for one item; the necklace I bought for Lora. I bought it because it matched her eyes; emerald green with glimmering specks. She wore it on every date, including the last. “The necklace is not enough,” she would tell me again and again. She wanted a ring, she wanted marriage and children, but every time I went to look for a ring, something would happen. My car would make a clunky sound, or a storm would appear. My mother would call, the lightbulb in her bathroom out, her furnace filter needing changing, the leaves in her yard needing raking. She would need accompaniment to a doctor’s appointment or a ride to get milk. While my mother smiled always, regardless of a down day, or sad news, or a hard time, Lora did not. In fact, over time, her smiles diminished more and more, as did my infatuation, and she stopped wearing lipstick and stopped dressing nice for our dates. She would show up in slacks and she seemed cheered at my disappointment. And then one day she said goodbye to me, the green pendant resting on her chest. She thumbed it between her fingers, and I thought maybe she might give it back to me, but she didn’t, she walked away with it still on, she walked away for the last time.
Being in this place with all the oldies, they’re always movin’ in and movin’ out … well, dying being the movin’ out, but there’s always new ones walking in the door, or wheeling in or shuffling in, and I don’t really know why, all these years later, but sometimes I think one day one of them might be Lora. Or maybe I hope it will be her. Absurd I know, but when you get to be my age everyone you know is dead, or everyone you knew is dead and suddenly you dream about ghosts. I’m not sure what happened to her. She could be dead by now, certainly. Or maybe she’s living out her days somewhere nice. Somewhere near the ocean. She probably got married and had lots of kids and one of them is taking care of her now, letting her stay in a room with a view of the water and there’s probably a nice caretaker to look after her, one that cooks her meals and takes her out for walks on the sand. Maybe one day her kids will go through their mother’s belongings and find the green necklace and admire how striking it is and assume it was from their father. Maybe one of them will keep it and wear it when Lora is long gone.
Maybe if I had kids I would be somewhere nice too. They might be burdened and tired of me, but they’d keep me around out of guilt, or maybe they’d pay for one of those posh retirement homes, with swimming pools and tennis courts and gourmet meals. Or maybe I would still be in this crappy place, maybe they’d be just fine with that. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’m here now.
~ ~ ~
I stared and stared at the last wall and tried to focus, but nothing appeared and then I remembered the black-coat person walking in the store. So, I walk along some more and there he is, standing at the counter. My hands are empty suddenly, and I see his basket and it’s got everything that’s mine in it, all my toys, all my mementos, my picture and every object that ever meant anything to me. I look up at him to tell him it’s all mine, he can’t have it, but then he’s not there. I turn around and he’s already out the door.
So, I walk out of the store, after this faceless person in a long black coat. I’m yelling at him, “Hey you! Come back, hey!” I’m still barefoot, and the heat of the asphalt shocks me. It’s burning hot, and I kick my feet up as I’m running after him. He doesn’t stop, but he slows just long enough for me to catch up to him, and I put my hand on his shoulder and he turns around. It’s like one of those moments in the movies, where time slows down, and this figure turns, but when he does there’s no black coat. There’s a white dress, with gold buttons and lace sleeves, and I knew without seeing her face that it was my mother. And then I looked up and I thought she would appear young, but she didn’t. She was even older than the last time I saw her, though I don’t like to think about that. But she had on just a touch of lipstick, a light dab of pink on her gray face, so that made me feel good. She was still mom, old as she was. She looked at me, and smiled her same warm smile, as though she were so happy to see me. Then the smile faded, and her face became puzzled as she looked down at me, her eyes stopping at my feet. “Oh Jack, you boys shouldn’t be running around barefoot, going to get a splinter or a nail. Tell Paul and Sam not to fill up on candy and pop, dinners going to be ready soon.” And at that she dropped the basket and I looked down as it hit the ground, and that’s when I woke. I lay there sweaty and confused, my old heart pounding, trying to remember it all.
It’s strange, how some memories stick out bright and alive and others you only get a glimpse of. You can just barely see it, taste it, smell it, hear it, touch it, and right when it starts coming into focus—poof—it’s gone. I think of Paul often. I think of him writing and I wish I had done some of that. Maybe if I had written some days down I’d still have them here with me.
That dream brought many of my memories back. But there are others I still can’t find no matter how many more nights I sleep and wish myself to dream. In the afternoon when the day is sullen and stuck and endless and I’m alone in my room, I try and look for them. In the corners and crevices of my mind, when I attempt to filter and sort everything I’ve ever lived through and experienced, there’s something else there. I only get a sense of it. A faint shape, a faint form, a hint of something that … isn’t there. It’s the presence of an absence—it’s identity cruelly never revealed.
Some days I tire of remembering. If it’s decent weather, I’ll go sit out in the courtyard. Did I tell you about the courtyard? There’s a fountain in the middle with benches scattered around. In the spring tulips and irises stretch out near the bushes, and when I’m lucky no one else will be there. I like to sit on the bench that’s front and centered with the fountain. When you look straight up all you see is blue, or gray, depending on the weather, but blues are my favorite days. That means the sun’s out and if I stretch my face towards it, the surrounding building disappears. Then all you see is the wide sky, wide enough to see clouds and the occasional birds. Some of the smaller ones flutter down, hopping along the bricks, picking bugs hidden under mulch and bathing beneath the droplets of the fountain. Others fly high, with their wings spread, tilting against the wind, looking like they might just reach the sun, dipping down out of sight and then soaring back in.