Hauntingly Familial

Chapter 3

Dominic’s friend arrived in mezzo cammin. I tried to catch on, since catching up was not possible. “Hey, buddy. Man, I can’t thank you enough for ah – I could really use it. That night, that night a couple weeks ago when I, ah, I was. That stuff you were, I mean, it was something else, that chick you had her completely, ah, totally – man, she would have done anything, didn’t know her own name – so what would it cost, ah, you know, you could teach me, I just need to learn some card tricks, like, not even so much the tricks but the style, the handling, I got a book and I been practicing a Faro shuffle, can you come to the house sometime, I can pay you a little, come to the house for some dinner my wife was a lousy cook couldn’t make anything but macaroni and cheese, but she’s get about six things she makes decent now –“

I couldn’t really imagine what kind of magic I could provide that cocaine couldn’t do quicker and better for this guy. I demurred when he produced a jade snuff box. I already feel like enough of an asshole in public. And the last thing I was going to need for the oncoming evening, it occurred to me, was an increased sense of vigilance.

He cornered me behind the walk-in freezer, next to the dishwasher station. Dominic had wandered off, unbeknownst to me, while I was transfixed by the manic display.

“Here’s the thing. This guy, I need him to approve this deal. These TVs – you go to the movies? Yeah. These TVs can play any movie you want. Cartravision – everybody’s going to have this one day. You got this box, about the size—” He held his hands about eight inches apart, about an inch from my face. “—about the size of a cereal box— smaller! And it’s got a movie on it. Any movie you want. And kind of movie, see. And that’s why we want it in the hotels. You check in, you’re a little bored – you go to the desk and check one out. Discretely. Hotel makes a few bucks. Every guy who’s traveling, you know, gets bored, needs some entertainment. Maybe he brings somebody, you know, back to the room, and they want a little something. You go to the desk, bam. Couple a bucks, privacy of your own hotel room. Your own little theater.”

He went on. As near as I could tell, I was being asked to assist in entertaining this key individual, upon whose whim this incredibly involved business deal involving boxes of movies or some such, hinged irretrievably.

“I’m your man,” I offered. “I’ll do all I can to help entertain your patron.”

“Well see, there’s a bit of a problem. He’s not exactly on board, I need him on board. I need him to tell his people – see, we need to get these TVs into the hotel chains. He’s the Southeast – not the Southeast, the National – one word, and we’re up and down both coasts. In every motel in the Saracen group. That’s five different chains.”

“The special TVs, that play the movies.”

“That’s right. Because first they buy the TVs.”

“Then you have a perennial market.”

“What? What’s that?”

“You have a secured market in which the source for… They have to come to you to get more movies.”

“That’s right. You see now.”

“You can, basically, sit back and rake it in, as it were.”

“Oh, man. We can’t even spend it all.”

I expect you can, I thought. But I still sensed there was more to this enterprise.

“I see your present issues. What is my role, my good man?”

“This guy, like I said. I need him on board. And I think, I think—" he clenched his fist and his teeth, leaned up against the freezer for a moment, then stood up straight and punched the freezer door. Shockingly hard. It left a small dent and a streak of blood. He shoved his injured hand deep into his pocket. “SON OF A BITCH!” He shouted at nothing and no one. This moment was only one of many that evening that should have brought all my involvement to a close. Hands. Not my own. You could not have helped me. I could not help myself.

“It’s going to work, though. All I need you to do—well, first. A distraction. Just get him comfortable. And then—like you did that time before. Can you hypnotize him? Without him knowing, see.”

It was not an especially complicated request, of course. My ethics have become equally uncomplicated, it seems. “I can’t hypnotize him without him knowing. But put him in my hands, and I can get him where you’d like. Eminently suggestible. And he’ll go willingly. Trust me. I’ve done this so many times.”

I’ve done this so many times: allowed hubris to break me. To break everything. Just because you can do something does not mean you should. I think my grandmother may have embroidered those words upon my infant wraps, but they’ve done me no good whatsoever.

What about you? What mottos sealed your fate and brought you to me, my audience of one? Is this my last performance? It’s been a while. You’ve brought me back here to teach me, or to learn. I suppose we both await answers, ones withheld by an omniscient presence.

Do I have a line?

“Sir?”

Maybe I have a line.

“Sir, we’re going to get you out of there if you can hold on for a bit. Are you alone in the vehicle?”

I haven’t been alone in a decade.

“Belang. Mlemlem.” My mouth seemed to be stuck together. I reached up to touch my lips, only to find my left arm pinned underneath me. It was pretty dark. Maybe I’d been down here a while. Right. I’d gone for pumpkin custard. With Mom. “Alone,” I managed to choke out finally, over the crackle of the officer’s device. Something with a name that sounded like a pleasant old movie. Walkie talkie. That thing. My lips still smacked with something sticky. Probably blood. Oh dear.

Sometimes I liked to hang a blanket over my desk and get inside, like the forts I used to make when I was a kid. She would bring all the blankets from everywhere in the house and we’d use every one, holding the corners down with art books and dictionaries. Tunnels and caves in all directions, we’d crawl in with drawing paper and snacks. And the radio, turned down low. No one looked for us for hours.

“Should we write this one down?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll remember.”

The drawings documented quite a few of our mutual dreams.

“Was that diner in the dream, too? It looked a little familiar.”

“No, no. That’s just… something else. I was listening to a song and just started drawing. It was nothing.”

Both of us really weren’t too sure if we could do it, but we’d been trying to see if we could get a little more control over the dreams. They’d gotten kind of invasive. It was like having a lot of email to answer, and a lot of them were really jumbled up and took days of sorting out before we could do anything. We’d really only been able to take any action once or twice. It didn’t seem like a good plan to try to fulfill all the needs expressed in these messages. But we at least had to keep them from filling up our heads at night. We each had our meditative practices, and mostly they were helping. So far, there seemed to be no definitive pattern to encourage or avoid. The dreams either came or they didn’t. Sometimes one of us would have five in one night. Usually the alert-message dreams came to both of us, but not always on the same day. Sometimes it would take weeks. I couldn’t really say when I had dreamed about the dog, only that I could remember his soft curls wrapping around my fingers, the shape of my hand in shadow on the screen as I helped the dog with his magic act.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve dreamed about that dog a few times now. Does he talk in your dream?”

“Good lord, no. Is he talking in yours? What does he say?”

“No, no. He doesn’t talk. I just thought it might be helpful if he, you know. Said something about why he keeps coming.”

She paused for a while, then let out a frustrated sigh.

“Maybe it’s not the dog. Is there anyone else in the dream? Usually? Or is it just you?”

“It’s just me,” I heard my voice answering her. But also answering the man behind the flashlight in the passenger window, scanning the back seat to see if I was upside down in this car all by myself. Thinking he could help them.