A Book of Dreams (10 page)

We ran together in the back fields, climbing trees to look around for Indians, charging across the hospital field and galloping down the dusty road towards home.

In the evenings Daddy and I walked together in the fields
with our rifles and then the scouts and cavalry waited in the shadows of the forest in case something happened. We had good talks, walking quietly across the fields with our rifles, sometimes shooting a squirrel or a porcupine. I walked there after the funeral. It seemed a long time ago, and tucked in between a small cluster of fields looking west towards the hospital field, there was a wooden chair. It had warped and the finish was almost weathered away. He must have come there to sit when he was alone. All alone at Orgonon. With Toreano watching.

I wanted to ask Toreano what it was like then, when I was not there and he was there alone, riding at easy gallop behind Daddy’s big white car. I wanted to know if he had seen Daddy cry when he sat in that chair, and if he still played the organ, letting the music float out and mingle with the air. I wanted him to tell me what it was like to stand, as I ordered him to stand, at the top of the stairway in the observatory, watching Daddy work and look out of the windows.

Toreano shifted in his saddle as if he were uncomfortable with my silence as I watched the sky. Yes, this was the cavalry. ‘Well,’ I said, straightening up, ‘let’s get on with it.’

I started walking to the cloudbuster platform that Bill and Eva had built next to their garden. Toreano rode ahead of me. His pony was skittish and whinnied as he reined to a halt next to the platform. I could feel his eyes watching me as I slowly climbed the stairs onto the platform.

Standing at the edge, facing west, I could see way across the dry tops of the cornstalks into the western sky. The men stood very still, at rest, with their eyes on me. Most of them were very
young. They hadn’t been there for many of the battles. Their eyes shone with a kind of respect I wasn’t used to. They would be good soldiers. And brave. My fingers traced the soft wood of the railing as I tried to think of words.

‘Men, some of you were in battle and some of you are new. Many of you will be able to tell your children about what has happened. And you should be proud. You men are part of the newest outfit in the world, the Cosmic Engineers, and you have experienced things that most people wouldn’t understand. Together, we have opened up a whole new world for exploration. First with the cloudbuster, making rain, and then, when the flying saucers began to attack, with the spacegun.

‘And most of you know what happened then. They put the general in jail and he died. They were afraid of the truth and they killed him. So now the big battle is over. We’ve come over a new horizon into a new way of thinking and feeling. But it will be a long time, men, before we are ready to fight again.’

My voice choked and I felt a terrible emptiness inside, like losing something. Only it wasn’t like losing something because when you lost something it just got lost and you didn’t know until it was already lost. And now I felt sad because I knew I was going to lose something and in some funny way I knew I had to lose it myself and that made it harder because if I lost it on purpose, it meant that I would always know where to find it again, even if I couldn’t. It was something I didn’t understand, but had to.

‘And so the reason Toreano called you here tonight is because we’re going to break up the outfit. You can keep your rifles and your uniforms. Use your horses to start farms. Raise families. Be good citizens. But always be ready. Raise your children free
and happy and let them be ready for the next time because they will be the children of the future.’ The wind rose sharply and the men nodded their heads, turning to look at the wind. ‘I …’ was very sad ‘… am going to miss you all. But we will be together again, I know it. We are on the side of truth. Thank you.’

I stood up straight, at attention, and looked at them for a long time. They all looked at me. I waited for a minute until the wind died down, and then very slowly and very seriously I saluted. ‘Dismissed.’

The formation broke up quietly and Toreano and I watched them go to their horses, mount and ride away in all the directions there are. We could hear their saddles creaking for a long time. When they were gone, Toreano nudged his pony up so that he was sitting directly in front of me. His eyes were full of words.

I wanted to ask him what he really thought. If he thought we had really won, and where he would go, what he would do. But I knew we would meet again.

‘Goodbye, Toreano. I …’

He smiled quietly and his eyes flashed underneath the dark brim of his hat. We looked at each other for a long time. Then he leaned forward in the saddle, holding his hand out to mine. We shook hands firmly. He flicked the reins and was gone.

I watched the wind carry him into the night and for a long time I stood on the platform, watching the stars turn over and over in the sky. I shivered. I felt alone, and I knew I would be alone for a long long time.

Every night after lights out I went to the window to watch for EAs because they were going to come and take me away. One
would land on the lacrosse field behind the dormitory and I would know and they would know, and Daddy would be inside, happy again, smiling.

Sometimes, if I felt really bad, I snuck up to Blackman’s room. Blackman would lie in bed and I’d sit by the window and we’d talk. He was my best friend. Once, when I cried, he held my hand all night. We talked a lot.

‘Oh. Watching the sky again?’

‘Yeah.’ Clouds separated the stars.

‘Well, what happens if you see one?’

‘I mark it down in my notebook. You see, we sort of have to keep a record of everything.’

‘Is it all supposed to mean something?’

It means they are going to come and get me, it means everything is all right. That is how they came and got Jesus because they knew he knew, and they got Daddy and Daddy won’t leave me alone here because he loves me.

‘Well, it means that spacemen are sort of keeping an eye on earth.’

‘What for? Are they going to take it over?’

Maybe. But now that they have, Daddy, they know what was happening and the DOR will stop. The attacks will stop. The war will be over. We can be friends.

‘No, it isn’t to take it over so much, I guess, just to observe mostly, and see what was happening on earth. They’re friendly.’ Clouds flew away and the sky over the lacrosse field was clear, stars sparkling in the cold November night. Blackman was quiet for a long time. Then he said, ‘Hey, Reich. Do you really believe there is something out there?’

I nodded solemnly. ‘I really do.’

‘Do you believe in God?’

‘No, I guess I don’t believe in a regular God.’

‘Well, what do you believe in then?’

I sighed and looked out into the stars. They twinkled and glowed. ‘I believe in a kind of cosmic mind, I guess.’

‘You mean like in philosophy books, where a guy has a kind of abstract idea of something bigger but not as definite as God?’

‘No, I mean that there is actually a thing out there.’ The stars seemed brighter now, as if they were answering me. ‘A real mass of plasma floating around in space. It’s probably huge, as big as the solar system or the galaxy, but big, and it is all mind. It is all thinking and feeling.’

‘Is that like heaven?’

I thought about that for a while. It was a nice idea because it would be a place where there was nothing but thinking and feeling inside the big pulsating plasma. It would feel good forever.

‘Yeah, I guess it would be like heaven.’

And Daddy would be there, his mind free. He was so sad at the end, when we walked and talked together. He was like a man who was standing on top of the world, looking over into a new world. That is what Daddy was like. He had lifted himself so he was looking over the horizon to a new world, a free and happy world. He stood there on the edge of the universe looking into the future, and when he turned around to say, ‘Come on, let’s go,’ they pulled the ladder out from under him and killed him.

I turned around and looked at Blackman’s bunk. All I could see was a round lump of blankets.

‘Blackman, do you believe in God? … Blackman?’

He was asleep.

The days passed sadly. Sometimes at my typewriter, I got garbled messages from Daddy about MODJU and HIGs and Christ and I knew he would come soon. It happened the night that Blackman and MacGregor fixed up a special thing on the doorknob of their room.

They spent all afternoon after classes wiring the radio so that the wires came around the door frame and, when the door was closed, completed the connection in the door latch. When the door was closed the radio was on, and when the door was open it was off.

Blackman dusted his hands off. ‘Well, that will drive him crazy. He’ll never be able to figure it out.’

We tried it a few times and it worked like a dream. As soon as you turned the doorknob, the radio went off. MacGregor stood around, tapping his thumb against his fingertips nervously.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Do you think we ought to have a rope ladder ready so we can escape when he gets mad? Ha, ha! Hey Reich, why don’t you get your flying saucers to come and rescue us when Herm figures it out? Ha, ha!’

Herm was a big Persian who was the proctor on Upper North.

He was a senior who had weights under his bed. He was very strong and sometimes didn’t understand what was happening. That night I went to the bathroom after lights out on a reconnaissance mission to find out what kind of mood Herm was in. He was standing, as usual, in front of the mirrors in his underpants, flexing his muscles.

‘How ya doin’, Herm?’ I said, peeing into the urinal.

‘Ah,’ he said, grinning at himself in the mirror. ‘Good.’

He had a big hairy chest and hairy arms and hairy everything. He even had hair on his shoulders and it moved as he wiggled his shoulder muscles. He grinned again. ‘Ah, good.’

I walked over to the sink to wash my hands and Herm turned to me. He lifted his right leg and held his calf out to me. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘feel dat.’

‘What?’

‘Here. Feel dat.’ He put my hand on his calf and tightened the muscle. ‘Dat’s a focking brick. Just like a focking brick. Eh?’

‘Yeah, Herm, you sure are strong. Well, g’nite.’

I tiptoed up the stairs and hurried into Blackman and MacGregor’s room.

‘Is he okay?’ asked Blackman.

Sliding under Blackman’s bunk, I said, ‘Yeah, he’s real happy looking at his muscles.’

‘Okay, then he shouldn’t get too mad, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Ha-ha!’ MacGregor giggled in his upper bunk.

‘Okay, here goes the radio.’ Blackman flicked the radio on, and soft low rock and roll poured out of the room through the closed door into the hall.

Blackman and MacGregor pulled their covers up, pretending to be asleep. I pulled my legs in underneath the bunk. The room was dark and we waited for Herm.

After a few minutes, we saw the shadows of his feet standing in front of the door as he listened. The door flew open.

‘
Hey!
’ Herm shouted. ‘No radio after lights out. Unnerstan’?’

MacGregor leaned wearily out of his bunk. ‘Huh? Hey, Herm, what are you talking about? Radio? We’re trying to sleep. C’mon.’

‘Yeah,’ murmured Blackman. ‘C’mon.’

Under the bed, I gasped.

‘Well, I tot I heard radio. Sorry.’

He closed the door and we all exploded in laughter. Then we held our breath and listened to Herm’s feet pad down the hall.

‘Turn it up,’ said MacGregor. ‘Ha ha!’

Blackman held the radio under his covers and turned it up good and loud.

From under the bed I saw the shadows of Herm’s feet come back and stand in front of the door.

I started giggling. Then I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. The bed rocked as Blackman and MacGregor laughed too.

Herm’s fist closed on the door and he burst into the room. Silence. Well, almost silence. I could hear Blackman and MacGregor eating their pillows.

Herm looked around the room with a low growl.

‘Aaaaarghh.’

Then he closed the door. Bam. The rock and roll screamed into the room.

The door flew open and Herm stood, feet parted in the doorway, snarling.

‘Aaaaarrghh. Wot is dis?’ he muttered. The bed rocked with laughter, but the room was quiet.

Herm closed the door slowly. It was perfectly quiet until the latch hit the metal frame.

Herm burst in and looked into the silent room. Then he closed the door again.

It opened again fast and then he stood there in the hallway, slamming and opening the door, chopping up sound.

SLAM!

SLAM!

WHAM! The door burst open.

‘Turn it off!’ screamed MacGregor. Blackman, clutching the radio beneath his blankets, turned it off. I was a tiny ball under the bed.

Herm roared. ‘Wot da fock? Where’s da radio? Wot da fock goin’ on?’

Blackman tried to look sleepy but his laugh broke through. ‘Uh. Hi Herm. Ha ha we ha we haha were just trying to uh ha ha fix the radio …’

‘Fix da radio. Fock da radio! Where’s MacGregor?’ He walked over to MacGregor’s bunk and ripped him out of bed. Holding him with one fist in the middle of the room, he started to shake him.

‘What da fock you doin’? Ha?’

MacGregor wobbled as Herm shook him, but he couldn’t stop laughing, which just made Herm madder.

‘We weren’t doing anything, Herm, honest. Blackman was just trying to fix the radio. Honest. Ha ha!’

Underneath the bed, I was crying with laughter, my legs doubled up against my chest.

‘Focking pricks! Focking pricks! Make fun of Herm. I show you. Arrggghhh!’ He drove MacGregor against the wall and Blackman hopped out of bed.