Red Dreams

by Dennis Etchison

  "You owe me, remember?"

  "What?"

  "The beer. In your letter you said—"

  "Oh. Oh, yeah. Just a minute."

  Victor went to the kitchen. By the time he returned he had replayed his visitor's words in his mind until he recognized the rhythm. Everything the dwarf—midget, whatever he was—had said so far fit the style. There was no doubt about it. For better or worse, the person in the other room was in fact Rex Christian. The enormity of the occasion finally hit him. Setting the bottles on the coffee table between them, he almost knocked one over.

  My time has come, he thought. My problems are about to be over. My prayers have been answered.

  "This must be pretty far out of the way for you," Victor said.

  "Not at all! Thanks for the invitation."

  "Yeah," said Victor. "I mean, no. I mean…"

  And in that instant he saw himself, this house, his life as it really was for the first time. He was overwhelmed with self-consciousness and shame.

  "Did…did you have any trouble finding the place?"

  "Nope. Followed your directions. Perfect!"

  Victor studied the virgules in the carpet, trying to find his next words there.

  Rex Christian leaned forward in his chair. The effort nearly doubled him over.

  "Look, I know what it's like for you."

  "You do?"

  "Believe me, I do. That's my business, isn't it? I've seen it all before."

  Rex sat back and took a long pull from the tall bottle. His Adam's apple rolled like a ball bearing in his throat.

  "You must know a lot about people," said Victor.

  "Never enough. That's why I take a trip like this, at least once a year." He chortled. "I rent a car, visit folks like you all over the country. It's a way of paying them back. Plus it helps me with my research."

  "I see." There was an awkward pause. "You…you said you were in San Francisco. On business. Was that part of this year's trip?"

  "Right. Nothing beats the old one-on-one, does it?"

  So he didn't come all this way just to see me, thought Victor. There were others. "From your writing, well, I thought you'd be a very private person."

  "I am! Somebody wants a book, they have to climb the mountain. But when it comes to my fans it's a different story. They're raw material. I go to the source, know what I mean?"

  "I used to be a people-person," said Victor, loosening up a bit. He drained his bottle. He thought of going for two more. But the writer had hardly touched his. "Now, well, I don't go out much. I guess you could say I've turned into more of a project-type person."

  "Glad to hear it!"

  "You are?"

  "It just so happens I've got a project you might be interested in. A new book. It's called A Long Time Till Morning."

  "I like the title," said Victor. "Excuse me."

  He rose unsteadily and made a beeline for the stairs. The beer had gone through his system in record time. When he came out of the bathroom, he gazed down in wonderment from the top of the landing. Rex Christian was still sitting there, stiff and proper as a ventriloquist's dummy. I can't believe this is happening, he thought. Now everything's changed. There he is, sitting in my living room!

  His heart pounded with exhilaration.

  Let me never forget this. Every minute, every second, every detail. I don't want to miss a thing. This is important; this matters. The most important night of my life.

  He bounded down the stairs and snagged two more beers and an opener from the kitchen, then reseated himself on the sofa.

  Rex Christian greeted him with a sparkling grin.

  "Tell me about your new book," said Victor breathlessly. "I want to hear everything. I guess I'll be the first, won't I?"

  "One of the first." The author folded his tiny hands. "It's about an epidemic that's sweeping the country—I don't have the details yet. I'm still roughing it out. All I gave my editor was a two-page outline."

  "And he bought it?"

  Rex Christian grinned.

  "What kind of epidemic?"

  "That's where you can help, Vic."

  "If it's research you want, well, just tell me what you need. I used to do a lot of that in school. I was in pre-med and…"

  "I want to make this as easy as possible for you."

  "I know. I mean, I'm sure you do. But it's no sweat. I'll collect the data, Xerox articles, send you copies of everything that's ever been written on the subject, as soon as you tell me…"

  Rex Christian frowned, his face wrinkling like a deflating balloon. "I'm afraid that would involve too many legalities. Copyrights, fees, that sort of thing. Sources that might be traced."

  "We could get permission, couldn't we? You wouldn't have to pay me. It would be an honor to…"

  "I know." Rex Christian's miniature fingers flexed impatiently. "But that's the long way around, my friend."

  "However you want to do it. Say the word and I'll get started, first thing in the morning. Monday morning. Tomorrow's Sunday and…"

  "Monday's too late. It starts now. In fact it's already started. You didn't know that, did you?" Rex's face flushed eagerly, his cheeks red as a newborn infant's. "I want to know your feelings on the subject. All of them." He pumped his legs and crept forward on the cushion. "Open yourself up. It won't hurt. I promise."

  Victor's eyes stung and his throat ached. It starts here, he thought, awe-struck. The last thirty-three years were the introduction to my life. Now it really starts.

  "You wouldn't want to know my feelings," he said. "They…I've been pretty mixed up. For a long time."

  "I don't care about what you felt before. I want to know what you feel tonight. It's only you, Vic. You're perfect. I can't get that in any library. Do you know how valuable you are to me?"

  "But why? Your characters, they're so much more real, more alive…"

  Rex waved his words aside. "An illusion. Art isn't life, you know. If it were, the world would go up in flames. It's artifice. By definition." He slid closer, his toes finally dropping below the coffee table. "Though naturally I try to make it echo real life as closely as I can. That's what turns my readers on. That's part of my mission. Don't you understand?"

  Victor’s eyes filled with tears.

  Other people, the people he saw and heard on the screen, on TV, in books and magazines, voices on the telephone, all had lives which were so much more vital than his own wretched existence. The closest he had ever come to peak experiences, the moments he found himself returning to again and again in his memory, added up to nothing more significant than chance meetings on the road, like the time he hitchhiked to San Francisco in the summer of '67, a party in college where no one knew his name, the face of a girl in the window of a passing bus that he had never been able to forget.

  And now?

  He lowered his head to his knees and wept.

  And in a blinding flash, as if the scales had been lifted from his eyes, he knew that nothing would ever be the same for him again. The time to hesitate was over. The time had come at last to make it real.

  He thought: I am entitled to a place on the planet, after all.

  He lifted his eyes to the light.

  The dwarf's face was inches away. The diminutive features, the taut lips, the narrow brow, the close, lidded eyes, wise and all-forgiving. The sweet scent of an unknown after-shave lotion wafted from his skin.

  "The past doesn't matter," said the dwarf. He placed the short fingers of one hand on Victor's head. "To hell with it all."

  "Yes," said Victor. For so long he had thought just the opposite. But now he saw a way out. "Oh, yes."

  "Tell me what you feel from this moment on," said the dwarf. "I need to know."

  "I don't know how," said Victor.

  "Try."

  Victor stared into the dark, polished eyes, shiny as a doll's eyes.

  "I want to. I…I don't know if I can."

  "Of course you can. We're alone now. You didn't tell anyone I was coming,
did you, Vic?"

  Victor shook his head.

  "How thoughtful," said the dwarf. "How perfect. Like this house. A great setting. I could tell by your letter you were exactly what I need. Your kind always are. Those who live in out-of-the-way places, the quiet ones with no ties. That's the way it has to be. Otherwise I couldn't use you."

  "Why do you care what I feel?" asked Victor.

  "I told you—research. It gives my work that extra edge. Won't you tell me what's happening inside you right now, Vic?"

  "I want to. I do."

  "Then you can. You can if you really want it. Aren't we all free to do whatever we want?"

  "I almost believed that, once," said Victor.

  "Anything," said the dwarf firmly. "You can have anything including what you want most. Especially that. And what is it you want, Vic?"

  "I…I want to write, I guess."

  The dwarf's face crinkled with amusement.

  "But I don't know what to write about," said Victor.

  "Then why do you want to do it?"

  "Because I have no one to talk to. No one who could understand."

  "And what would you talk to them about, if you could?"

  "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do."

  "I'm afraid."

  "Tell me, Vic. I'll understand. I'll put it down exactly the way you say it. You want me to relieve your fear? Well, in another minute I'm going to do that little thing. You will have nothing more to fear, ever again."

  This is it, Victor thought, your chance. Don't blow it. It's happening just the way you had it planned. Don't lose your nerve. Ask the question—now. Do it.

  "But where does it come from?" asked Victor. "The things you write about. How do you know what to say? Where do you get it? I try, but the things I know aren't…"

  "You want to know,” said the dwarf, his face splitting in an uproarious grin, “where I get my ideas? Is that your question?"

  "Well, as a matter of fact…"

  "From you, Vic! I get my material from people like you! I get them from this cesspool you call life itself. And you know what? I'll never run out of material, not as long as I go directly to the source, because I'll never, ever finish paying you all back!"

  Victor saw then the large pores of the dwarf's face, the crooked bend to the nose, the sharpness of the teeth in the feral mouth, the steely glint deep within the black eyes. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck and he pulled away. Tried to pull away. But the dwarf's hand stayed on his head.

  "Take my new novel, for instance. It's about an epidemic that's going to sweep the nation, leaving a bloody trail from one end of this country to the other, to wash away all of your sins. At first the police may call it murder. But the experts will recognize it as suicide, a form of hara-kiri, to be precise, which is what it is. I know, because I've made a careful study of the methods. Perfect!"

  The underdeveloped features, the cretinous grin filled Victor with sudden loathing, and a terrible fear he could not name touched his scalp. He sat back, pulling farther away from the little man.

  But the dwarf followed him back, stepping onto the table, one hand still pressing Victor in a grotesque benediction. The lamp glared behind his oversized head, his eyes sparkling maniacally. He rose up and up, unbending his legs, knocking over the bottles, standing taller until he blocked out everything else.

  Victor braced against the table and kicked away, but the dwarf leaped onto his shoulders and rode him down. Victor reached out, found the bottle opener and swung it wildly.

  "No," he screamed, "my God, no! You're wrong! It's a lie! You’re…!"

  He felt the point of the church-key hook into something thick and cold and begin to rip.

  But too late. A malformed hand dug into his hair and forced his head back, exposing his throat and chest.

  "How does this feel, Vic? I have to know! Tell my readers!" The other claw darted into the briefcase and dragged forth a blade as long as a bayonet, its edge crusted and sticky but still razor-sharp. "How about this?" cried the dwarf. "And this?"

  As Victor raised his hands to cover his throat, he felt the first thrust directly below the ribcage, an almost painless impact as though he had been struck by a fist in the chest, followed by the long, sawing cut through his vital organs and then the warm pumping of his life's blood down the short sword between them. His fingers tingled and went numb as his hands were wrapped into position around the handle. The ceiling grew bright and the world spun, hurling him free.

  "Tell me!" demanded the dwarf.

  A great whispering chorus was released within Victor at last, rushing out and rising like a tide to flood the earth, crimson as the rays of a hellishly blazing sun.

  But his mouth was choked with his own blood and he could not speak, not a word of it. The vestiges of a final smile moved his glistening lips.

  "Tell me!" shrieked the dwarf, digging deeper, while the room turned red. "I must find the perfect method! Tell me!"

  WET SEASON

  Madden watched the black crowd on the other side of the moving gelatin wall, as rainwater poured down in translucent sheets over the windshield. He did not listen to the patternless tattoo. Instead he followed with his eyes the group of black shadows floating past the car.

  "I … I shouldn't have made you come, Lorie," he said at last to the black figure next to him.

  She turned from the window, her lidded eyes not disapproving. "That's enough, Jim. I wouldn't have felt right, otherwise."

  Madden pressed his chin to his chest, squeezing his eyelids shut. He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes, and his fingers came away moist.

  Again his wife spoke, very quietly. "You…were very close to her, I suppose. James, I only wish there were something….Forgive me if I'm crude. But I only wish I could have gotten to know her better. That she might have become, in time, my little girl as well."

  He pressed her cool hand.

  "It was—just—all the mud around her—" He bit his lips and started the engine and roared up the cemetery road, spinning out and spattering mud as he went.

  The Ford geared to a slippery halt under the wet sycamores.

  Bart stood at the end of the cracked driveway, behind the main house, propping open the sagging screen door to his apartment.

  Through mist Madden saw the controlled, mildly pleasant line shaping his mouth, leaving the face somber in a new and ill-fitting mask.

  "Forget about the rug," said Bart. "It's filthy anyway."

  "We're so sorry to do this to you, Bart." Madden's wife brushed water from her clothing. "But we thought the twins were really too young to, well, exactly have their faces rubbed in it."

  Bart smoothed a hand over his protruding, black-T-shirted belly. "The kids are in the bedroom. Rain must have got 'em drowsy. Left them staring out the window, counting drops or something," he added gently to Madden, testing a smile.

  "Let me see to them." Madden's wife started across the room.

  The men waited until she was gone.

  Bart faced him. "Come over here and have a drink."

  "No."

  "Really, boy, really now. You know how I mean it. Come on."

  At once Madden felt his joints chilled and tired. "No, Bart. I…I don't need it." He lowered himself to the sofa that was bulging and splitting like a fat man's incisions.

  Bart watched the misty screen door and compared it to the pale Scotch and water in his hand. Twice he shaped his lips to stillborn beginnings. He shook his head and said nothing.

  "You look at the hole, and the mud," Madden began finally in a low voice, "and you think of… that human being there in a box, being lowered into the ground, and you wonder how it can be that—that a part of your body, a piece that has come from you like an arm or leg, can be cut off, killed and buried away, and you never being able to feel with it again.

  "But you know, I worked with a man once who had lost in arm in the Korean War; and he said he could close his eyes anytime and suddenly it was there
again, the nerves were restored and he could feel down into his fingertips. But when he opened his eyes to see why he hadn't touched what he was reaching for, his eyes told him there was nothing there anymore."

  Rain began to tap erratically on a metal vent somewhere in the roof.

  "And you know, I can still see the world through my little girl's eyes, feel it as she felt it, even…even though she's been cut off me, like one of my sense organs. I still feel her, feel through her, and my nerves, my ganglia just won't listen to the goddam facts."

  Outside, water continued to fall and fall illogically, relentlessly, in what seemed to be the result of a vast macrocosmic defrosting.

  Giggling, the twins came out of the bedroom.

  Madden saw them and smiled wanly from the sofa. The two little boys acknowledged him peripherally and grinned, grasping their mother's hands more securely.

  "How did it go, boys?" inquired Madden, generating concern, and immediately hated his own detachment. You are my sons, now, he thought, my only sons, and I should hold you tight against me—

  "We had fun, Da-da. We had samiches."

  "An' we tooka nap an' went out an' played an'—"

  Why, noted Madden wearily, they're actually speaking directly to me….She almost never lets them do that. What is this, some kind of show for Bart?

  "Out? But it didn't let up today, did it, Bart?" he said.

  "Well, uh," the dark man gestured firmly to Madden, "they—" and he dropped his voice, ready to spell out words before the children, "they begged to go out. You brought them in their raincoats and, you know, it was one of those things. For a few minutes is all. Made 'em real happy. God knows I have no practice in child-rearing. Jesus, Jim, I hope they didn't catch anything."

  "Tad and Ray never catch colds," stated Madden's wife, smiling her wide, smooth, peculiar kind of smile. "You did fine, Bart."

  Madden watched his wife. Svelte in the gray light, she snaked an arm around each of her children's shoulders.

  "We'd better go," she said. "It's Sunday and I have Women's Guild meeting tonight."

  "Thanks, Bart. I mean it more than I can say."