Bathing the Lion

by Jonathan Carroll

  He didn’t answer because he had no answer. Instead, Dean walked into his store and began looking around, looking at various objects in there, looking for answers and clues, possible reasons for why and how this had happened.

  Vanessa was too afraid to move. She stayed right where she was, a few feet into the shop, close enough to the exit so if something worse happened she could flee fast.

  Dean kept moving, touching things and sniffing the air like a curious animal on a scent. As always he seemed unruffled. Watching from a distance, Vanessa loved his ability to stay calm and resolute when all she wanted to do was scream and run.

  Out of nowhere she remembered a note Dean had written to her years ago after they’d first begun sleeping together. “There is the morning and there is you. On the good days, the best days, I have both.” She didn’t know if she loved her husband anymore, but parts of her still loved parts of him, and isn’t this love too? Does it have to be everything to qualify for that holiest of words? In this particular situation there was no one on earth she’d rather have been with than calm, clear Dean Corbin, life’s premier problem solver.

  “We’re leaving. I don’t even begin to understand this. Let’s find Kaspar. Maybe he’ll…” Dean took out his phone and gestured for Vanessa to wait while he dialed. He stared at a white wall while waiting for the call to connect, but it didn’t. Looking at the telephone screen, he saw there was no signal. He tried again but the screen still said no. “Okay, let’s just go. I’ll call from outside.”

  Vanessa was close enough to the door so all she had to do was turn, take three steps, and her hand was on the knob. Turning it, she opened the door and stepped outside. But Dean didn’t follow. Looking over her shoulder, she saw he was looking across the room. A man came into view from the back of the store, wiping his hands on a cloth.

  “Hello. Can I help you folks?”

  At first she didn’t know him. Then she did: it was Whit Ayres, the former owner of her husband’s store. She hadn’t recognized him because this man was thirty years younger than the old grouch she used to buy her newspapers and fashion magazines from when they first moved to town. But this Whit Ayres had a full head of spicy red-brown hair sprouting willfully out in all directions. He was sort of handsome in a 1960s hippy, Whole Earth Catalog way. To fit the part he even wore a plaid flannel shirt and brown Carhartt work pants. In contrast, the old Ayres she knew always wore the same outfit—a threadbare tweed jacket, chambray shirt, and black jeans faded almost to gray.

  The Ayres she knew also had a face as wrinkled as an unironed handkerchief and a mouth that said no without ever having to say it. A grumpy fussbudget, a peek-sneaker at your breasts when he thought you weren’t looking; the old guy never deigned to say hello or thank you for anything.

  “Sir, were you looking for anything in particular?”

  “Are you Whit Ayres?”

  The man’s face changed. It softened when he heard his name spoken. “Yes, I am. Do we know each other?”

  Dean ignored the question. “Can I ask how long you’ve been here? How long you’ve had this store?”

  Ayres looked toward the ceiling a few seconds as if calculating and then said, “Twelve years.”

  “Twelve years? Only twelve?”

  “Correct. Why do you ask? And how do you know my name?”

  Dean stared at him in silence. Ayres smiled but said nothing either. The silence went on until it became uncomfortable. Vanessa tugged on her husband’s sleeve. “Come on, honey, we’ve got to go.” She’d never called him “honey” in their entire married life.

  At last Dean started to move but stopped again to pick up a copy of Esquire magazine on display nearby. He looked at the cover, looked some more, and then held it out for Vanessa to see while he pointed to the date. It was thirty years old. Putting it down, he picked up a copy of a Field & Stream magazine and again pointed to the date on its cover—thirty years ago.

  Vanessa shook her head. How was it possible? What did it mean?

  “Could you tell me the date today, please?”

  Ayres looked at a New York Times beneath his hand and said, “February 3.”

  “And the year?”

  “The year? It’s 1979.”

  “Right. Well, thank you. We have to go now, but we’ll be back.”

  “You didn’t say how you know my name.”

  “The sign over your front door: ‘Newsland—proprietor W. Ayres,’ right?”

  “Riiiiight, but how did you know the ‘W’ meant Whit?”

  Dean waved at him and took Vanessa by the arm. “A lucky guess. Thanks again.” He hurried them both out of the store and onto the sidewalk. As soon as they were there Vanessa freed her arm from her husband’s tight grasp.

  “How did you know about the sign?”

  His back to the store, Dean pointed over his shoulder and up with his thumb. Above the front door was a long white rectangular sign with forest green lettering: NEWSLAND—PROPRIETOR W. AYRES. “We almost kept his sign on a wall in the store after we renovated. But Ayres wanted it back.”

  Vanessa glanced at the sign, then at her husband. “But how did you know it was there?”

  “It was up when we bought the place. If the old store is back the way it was, I assumed his sign would be too.”

  “What are you going to do now, Dean?”

  “Find Kaspar and hope maybe he knows what the hell is going on here.” Dean took out the phone and called his partner’s number again. Nothing. “Maybe he’s having breakfast. He usually is around this time of morning, which means he’ll be at the diner. Let’s go there first.” Without another word Dean walked away. Vanessa hurried after, not given time to think if his abrupt departure was an insult or just that he was preoccupied.

  A few minutes later they left the diner after having learned Kaspar had been there earlier and was probably at Bill Edmonds’s house now. They walked back toward Dean’s car.

  “Do you know this Edmonds? I think I know him from the bar.” Vanessa was two steps behind her husband as they moved down the sidewalk. Keeping up with his quick pace was always difficult.

  “I’ve heard the name before, but I’ve never met him, no. This is about to change.”

  They passed Dean’s store on the way to the car. He stopped and stared in the window. It looked the same as it had minutes before. Ayres was out of sight but inside it was still dark, full of dusty jumble and junk and magazines dated 1979.

  “You see what’s in there don’t you, Vanessa?” Dean pointed at the store window. “You saw what it was like in there before, right? I’m not nuts? What I saw was real and I’m not just hallucinating?”

  Vanessa nearly didn’t recognize her husband’s voice. It was needy and perplexed at the same time. It asked but also demanded to know—you saw the same things I saw, right? His tone of voice clearly indicated Dean was afraid she might say no, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the only crazy person around here, husband.

  “Yes, Dean, I saw it too. Your store is gone. Ayres was young. I don’t understand any of it either.”

  He nodded, clearly relieved. “I passed here this morning on my way to sledding. I drove by and looked at the place as I always do—my little visual hello. Everything was all right then. Everything was as usual.”

  “Let’s go find Kaspar, Dean. Maybe he does know something that’ll help. Come on.” She spoke gently while tugging on his sleeve.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  This time Vanessa led the way. She kept hold of Dean’s jacket as he followed behind, sometimes looking back over his shoulder to make sure his store was still there.

  Jane Claudius loved this part of her run. The long glide down Stadionkade Road, ’round a wide soft corner at the bottom, then hit the straightaway, usually not worrying about traffic because few cars came out here at this time of morning.

  The frigid invigorating air was full of an array of winter’s best smells—woodsmoke, wet earth and stone, a moment’s heavenly
whiff of something baking nearby. She pictured the baker hot and sweaty from her work, throwing open a window to let in a rush of icy air to cool the kitchen. Jane inhaled it all in grateful gulps and gasps.

  She had found her right rhythm now. Her breathing and footfalls were in synch, her arms sawing easily back and forth as she jogged home from the mall with the new skating helmet in her backpack. Of course she would have preferred to be on Rollerblades, but the roads were still covered with snow and wicked patches of ice hid everywhere, so she jogged in her winter boots, which always made Felice smile and call her G.I. Jane.

  As was often the case when she exercised, Jane felt bulletproof. Even if a car were to come out of nowhere now and hit her square on, she had the feeling she would fly unhurt through the air like a trapeze artist, land gracefully on her feet again, and keep running: yet another reason why she loved to exercise. It was really the only time of day when she stopped thinking altogether and just felt. If she was feeling right, if her body was loose and frisky, she was wholly content. Felice joked it was the only satori a middle-class woman in a pair of sneakers could ever achieve. As soon as Jane stopped moving (skating, jogging, speed walking) her brain began chattering again and immediately took over full operations.

  So it took some time for her to register and then distinguish the smell of a different kind of smoke in the air. The first smell of something burning had been winter-friendly—woodsmoke from a chimney, a nice blaze going in a fireplace, sitting in a comfy chair while chatting, reading, or staring peacefully deep into cozy tame flames.

  But this new smoke smell was brutal, repellent. It was not fragrant wood burning, although wood might have been part of the mix. Mostly it was chemicals on fire—rayon curtains, carbon fiber; the bitter odor of fake things melting—plastic, linoleum, Fortrel carpet; an acrid nasty stink punched your nose. The face recoils in disgust even before the brain registers what’s going on. When you get it, when you understand what the smells probably mean, it scares the hell out of you. Because you realize something big and wrong is on fire—like a house or a car—something you know should never be burning.

  Alarmed, Jane slowed and stopped. Looking around, she didn’t see anything suspicious at first. Then farther off down the road to the right there it was—the smoke—and it wasn’t far away.

  She started jogging toward it, patting a side pocket to make sure her phone was there in case she needed it.

  Sometimes Jane Claudius was good in emergencies, sometimes not. She was very good at faking things, at putting on the right composed face and attitude in a crisis so people thought she was in control, but frequently she wasn’t. What about now? What would she do when she got to the fire? Call the fire department? The police? What if people were hurt? She felt for the phone again. At least she had it to help her.

  Down the road, she ran diagonally across someone’s front yard and then onto another smaller road that went in the direction of the smoke. Maybe she should call the fire department right now. But what if they’d already been called and trucks were on the way?

  It didn’t matter. You can never be too careful about emergencies—Jane realized she was only looking for an excuse to stop moving and not go any farther, even if it meant only for a minute or two. She did not want to reach the fire and have to act.

  Enough of this: Get going. Get moving. Hating herself for hesitating, for being a coward when someone near might need her help, she started running again.

  She could really smell burning things now—the caustic odor owned the air, pushing away all others. Her heavy boots on the snow-covered ground made almost no noise, yet everything sounded loud—her footfalls, birdsong, the sound of her breath pumping out, a plane flying by overhead (she wondered for a second if looking down from up there in the sky the passengers could see the smoke). A motorcycle growled along on the road behind her. Could the rider smell the smoke too? How great it would be if the biker caught up and accompanied her. But to her dismay she heard the machine move off into the distance. The sound of its motor grew fainter and fainter until it was gone.

  She saw this now: a small bright red house set back from the road a ways. The roof was smoking and then flames shot out from the side of the building. Two men stood in front of the house with their backs to the road. Neither of them was moving, which struck her as very strange. Why weren’t they doing anything? Why weren’t they trying to put out the fire?

  At least no one was hurt. She ran toward them. If they were both just standing she assumed they were the only ones who’d been inside the burning building. She called out, “Is everyone all right?” The larger of the two men turned around. She stopped abruptly when she recognized him. “Kaspar?”

  “Jane! What are you doing here?”

  “Jogging. What’s going on? Have you called the fire department?” The only thing she could think to do next was point to the fire.

  The other man turned around and she knew him too. He often drank at her bar. “Bill! Is this your house?”

  “Hi Jane. Yes, but it’s okay. We got out safely. Everything else is okay.”

  Confused and frightened she managed to ask, “You were the only ones inside?”

  “Yes.”

  And then without warning their world disappeared. Although Jane and the two men remained, everything else around them vanished: the landscape, sky, all smells and sounds … everything except them.

  It was as if they stood now on an empty stage or in the middle of a dimly lit tunnel. There was light but nothing else around them, absolutely nothing. All three looked around in that weak light, trying to find some clue, sign, or indication of what had just happened. Where were they? Seeing nothing anywhere, they looked at each other.

  “What is this? What happened?” Jane asked the men.

  Bill Edmonds shook his head but said nothing.

  “Kaspar?”

  “I don’t know. Where’d everything go?”

  “There’s no sounds either, just us. Did you notice?”

  “Or smells—the air doesn’t smell of anything, nothing.”

  Without a word Kaspar walked away into the shadows. The other two exchanged glances. Jane nodded—maybe it was a good idea. Maybe something out there in the gloom would explain this: something that would clear up this impossible mystery. They took off in opposite directions.

  But nothing was out there. More “stage,” more emptiness and faint sad light illuminating only this bare new world so unexpectedly thrust on them.

  In time Jane and Edmonds returned to where they’d been. But Kaspar stayed away. They first thought maybe he’d found something. Then they thought, what if he doesn’t come back?

  “Bill, what did you mean when you said, ‘Everything is okay’? Back there when your house was burning? Right before this—” Jane put out a hand to indicate the emptiness around them.

  Bill squinted at her. She could see he was deliberating whether to speak or not.

  “What? What do you know?”

  Instead of answering he asked quietly, “Is this yours, Jane? Is it your dream?”

  The questions were so odd and out of context. She could only shake her head, not knowing what he was talking about, waiting for him to say something else to clarify things. Seconds passed before she demanded, “What do you mean? What are you asking?”

  He stared at her, adding things up in his head. “It makes sense. Just as it started burning, just after we got out of the house, you appeared out of nowhere. Why? It’s a hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jane shook her head again. “What are you talking about?”

  Bill stared at her, his face giving no indication of what he was thinking.

  Kaspar reappeared out of the shadows and said, “My guess is they woke up. It’s why we’re here; it’s why everything disappeared. Whoever’s dreaming all this woke up and left us here. We’re still somewhere in their head, but just the basics—just us and nothing else.

  “You know how when you wake up at ni
ght to go pee after having had a strong dream? You carry it with you to the toilet. Not all of it, but enough. Look around us—maybe this is all that’s left of someone’s dream.” Kaspar grunted. “Let’s hope they’re only taking a piss and haven’t woken up for good. And let’s also hope if they do go back to sleep afterwards they don’t start dreaming about something else. Because then kids, we’re cooked; we might all just be about to disappear for good.”

  “How do you know this, Kaspar? How can you tell?” Bill sounded like a worried child asking his father if the thunder outside would pass.

  “I don’t know if I’m right. It’s all a guess, but it makes sense if it is a dream. Think about it—where do dreams go after we wake up? They’ve gotta go somewhere in our head. Some great big dream storage locker we all have.”

  Jane stepped forward. “You’re saying everything—all this and everything before—is a dream? That’s what you believe—it’s all a dream?”

  Kaspar nodded, looking straight at her. Yes, he was sure.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ll tell you more about it if we get out of here. If we don’t, there’s no point explaining it because we’re finished anyway.”

  “But whose dream is it?”

  Kaspar smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve asked the big question. It could be mine, yours, Bill’s … or even someone else who knows all three of us. If we knew who, it might make understanding things simpler—or not.”

  As quickly as it came, it was gone. Which only made matters worse. Moments before, the Corbins had been held fast in some gray-lit twilight zone mysterious nowhere/what-the-hell-is-this land.

  How did they get there? Not a clue.

  An instant later they were standing in the middle of wide open spaces on an unfamiliar country road with a large black leather desk chair between them.

  How did they get there? Not a clue. The air smelled heavily of newly laid asphalt, dung, and ripe plowed earth.

  They had started out driving to Bill Edmonds’s house to find Kaspar through a gorgeous snow-covered winter morning. Now they were surrounded by vast flat green fields and a high-summer afternoon. They were clueless, trying to make sense of anything and everything.