Bathing the Lion

by Jonathan Carroll

  Once after hearing Kaspar rhapsodize about a particularly beautiful September trek he’d taken in a forest, Dean suggested he buy camping gear and stay out in the woods for a night or two while the weather was still nice. Kaspar thought the suggestion was hilarious and said so. “I’m not Daniel Boone. I like to walk in the woods, but I like sleeping in a bed more.”

  He rented a small green cottage a few blocks from the section of town where the store was. He and the dog walked to work every day no matter the weather and made friends with most everyone they met along the way. Townspeople were first curious and eventually pleased when they got to know these two new neighbors. Kaspar was always willing to stop and chat with anyone. If asked, he would explain where he was from, why he was here, the name of his pit bull, where he came from … or basically anything others wanted to know. He never seemed in a hurry to leave.

  D Train quickly became so familiar and popular in town, Dean suggested they use his likeness on their store logo, stationery, and business cards. When a customer came in, D would often follow them around the place like a salesman eager to help out. He never bothered anyone or intruded on their space unless he was invited over to be petted. The most interesting thing was despite D’s great warmth and friendliness, he was quick to sense whenever someone didn’t like dogs or him in particular. Once he’d caught their negative vibe, he would invariably retreat to a far corner of the store until the person left.

  One afternoon in late August three women entered Benn Corbin when Kaspar was there alone. They were pleasant-looking but not at all unusual or specially dressed. Long hair down to their shoulders or up in ponytails, minimal makeup, none of their faces were memorable—sort of suburbs-pretty. The type of woman you see driving kids to soccer or band practice in either a big whomping SUV or a politically correct green machine like a Toyota Prius. You might notice her passing by, but mostly because she was blond and well kept.

  These women all appeared to be in their late thirties or early forties, casually dressed in jeans and jersey shirts. One of them wore a frayed Baltimore Orioles baseball cap pulled low. Really, the only small detail that stood out was all three were wearing exactly the same kind of black and white high-top sneakers that looked right-out-of-the-box new.

  Kaspar was arranging stock in the back of the store and didn’t hear them come in. Reemerging with a pair of rust-colored corduroy trousers draped over one arm, he first saw D Train gazing lovingly up at one of the women, who was scratching the top of his head with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. On seeing the women, Kaspar stopped, shook his head, and gave a big smile. “Well, well, well, look who’s here! What brought you ladies way up north?”

  “We weren’t sure how you’d react to seeing us,” one of the women said.

  “We didn’t even know if you’d react, Kaspar. Maybe you wouldn’t recognize us,” said another.

  “It’s always possible,” the third added while continuing to scratch the dog’s head.

  “How could I forget you guys? Come on, sit down on the couch. How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” He shifted the pants from one arm to the other and walked forward to shake all of their hands for quite a long time. It seemed an unnecessarily formal thing to do, but the women accepted the gesture.

  One of them said, “A thousand years?”

  “Yes, about what I figured. And where was it?”

  “The Gudrun Asteroid.”

  “Eee—that was a rough time. Especially how it ended up.” Kaspar shook his head and looked out the window, remembering. “Wow, the Gudrun Asteroid. Truly unpleasant!”

  “Yes, it was, but you didn’t stick around to see what happened afterward. Even uglier, my friend, believe me.”

  Kaspar slid the corduroys onto a wooden hanger and hung them on a rack. “Really, it was bad? I had to go to another assignment.”

  “Brutal. Consider yourself lucky. Lots of blood on the stars after we were finished there.”

  “More like scorched earth,” Number Two added while adjusting the tongue in her sneaker.

  The third woman said nothing but her grim look said she agreed.

  “Well, thankfully it’s over. Why are you here now? I mean, I’m delighted to see you but curious too. Vermont’s pretty far from home.”

  One of the women lifted a purse into her lap and opened it. Reaching in, she brought out a large black squirming shiny disgusting obviously alive, your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine thing. Kaspar watched calmly as she broke it into three wiggling pieces and handed them to her colleagues. Politely she offered her section to Kaspar but he put up a hand, no thanks. The women began eating their portions with great gusto.

  “Have your tastes changed a lot since you’ve been here, Kaspar? Do you like food on Earth?”

  “Yes, I do, it’s terrific. I’m especially fond of coffee.”

  “How interesting, because none of us do. We prefer our own.” The others nodded as they ate with obvious relish their portions of the revolting black writhing mass.

  Kaspar wanted to find out before Dean returned why they had come here. Maybe there were things that needed discussing only among the four of them.

  D Train lay down on the floor with a satisfied groan.

  “You’ve never wanted to eat it?”

  “The dog? No, he’s my friend.”

  “Really? He looks very delicious, Kaspar.”

  “Tell me why you’re here.”

  The dog scratcher said, “There’s been a change. I mean, there’s going to be a change. We were sent to warn you so you can prepare.”

  Kaspar tensed. “What kind of change?”

  The woman in the baseball cap swallowed some food, wiped her mouth with a lilac-colored handkerchief, and said, “A Somersault.”

  “No! Soon?” Kaspar was stunned.

  “Yes.”

  “They haven’t had a Somersault since—”

  “We know.”

  His voice rose into complaint. “But what am I supposed to do about it? And what about others like me? I’ve been really conscientious the whole time I’ve been here. Never broke a rule, never told anyone anything—nothing, not a word. Even when my dog was shot and I thought he was going to die I stayed silent and didn’t ask for help. I’ve been good.”

  “We know, Kaspar, but this isn’t only about you, remember. Everything and everyone will be affected—us too. We’re threatened by it too.”

  “Yes, but you’re mechanics and this is a Somersault. You have your powers; I have nothing but memories of those powers. A hell of a difference. When will it begin?”

  “They don’t know; no one ever knows with one. We all just have to be ready. It’s why they sent us out to talk to those who chose to keep their memories. Obviously it’s going to be harder on you. It could happen anytime. You’re one of the last we have to see.”

  Slapping his thighs in fear and frustration, Kaspar groaned, “Jesus!”

  One of the women asked sweetly, “Who’s Jesus?”

  * * *

  As testament to his ever-increasing humanity, Kaspar didn’t really notice when things began to change, albeit the first signs were small. Of course right after the three women visited he was vigilant and skittish about strange sounds or occurrences, frowned at out-of-the-ordinary anythings or psychic bumps in his road. But when life remained calm and very much same-old, same-old day after day with no suspicious dark clouds looming on his horizon, he was gradually lulled into thinking mostly about other much more pleasant things, like the affair he had begun with Vanessa Corbin, or her heavenly recipe for Polish zurek soup.

  In a way Kaspar Benn was like the people who reside in areas of frequent earthquake activity—San Francisco, Thessaloniki, Islamabad. Ask them how they can bear living in a place under constant threat, how they can confidently walk around every day on a piece of earth that is not their friend and probably planning at this very minute its next attempt to kill them. The citizens of these shakyvilles say they’ve got an emergency pack al
l ready to go complete with flashlight, bottled water, canned salmon, and three flares. Or they get stoic and cite well-worn bromides like when your time’s up, your time’s up—so live with it: carpe diem. Or they turn feisty and annoyed at you for bringing up the ugly, sword-of-Damocles subject. They rebuke you for being morbid. It’s not possible to really discuss it with them because deep down they know they’re living on borrowed time (or borrowed Earth) but have grown adept at keeping the eventuality out of their thoughts. In other words, after Kaspar learned a Somersault was imminent he looked away from the abyss by immersing himself in the many pleasures inherent in being human. There was sex and food, fine cashmere and shell cordovan shoes, and those gorgeous long walks in the woods with D Train.

  Kaspar was a man with a sunny nature who liked bourgeois things, not overly bright but so what? He had realized the smarter a person was, the more unhappy they often were for a variety of reasons, both logical and not. Selfish but effortlessly charming, he was especially good at knowing when to take and when to give. He had no qualms about fucking his partner’s wife, but he also worked tremendously hard to make Benn Corbin successful. Both he and Dean knew, without his many significant contributions, not least of which was his winning personality, the store would have failed.

  Kaspar knew the Somersault had begun when he started sharing others’ dreams. These people did not know it was happening, but he did immediately. In essence while asleep, he moved into their heads and witnessed their night dreams along with them. Kaspar fully enjoyed the occurrence and eagerly looked forward to these uninhibited, candid peeks in the windows of others’ subconscious. Yes, it was a kind of voyeurism but he didn’t care and didn’t feel guilty. The experience was good fun, a free ticket to someone else’s hidden home movies. The dreamers weren’t hurt, and some of the things he saw on these excursions were instructive. He knew for certain this dream sharing had to do with the start of the Somersault.

  The first time it happened he actually awoke laughing because what he had just witnessed was funny. He knew the dream he’d experienced belonged to Vanessa Corbin. When he saw her the next afternoon at the store he wanted to ask if she ever really had had sex with an orthodox Jewish rabbi standing up in the back of a moving bakery truck. But he didn’t.

  Or the time normally placid Dean came into the store one morning. Clapping Kaspar on the shoulder, the first thing he said was a gleeful, “You dog.” Kaspar knew the correct response was to smile quizzically and ask his partner, why am I a dog? But he already knew. The night before, Dean had dreamed his old college girlfriend Melinda Szep and Kaspar had gotten together. Dean had caught the couple in his college room bunk bed. But he didn’t feel betrayed because in the dream he was already married to Vanessa and Kaspar was twenty years old.

  After Dean described his dream and both men sniggered a little awkwardly, Kaspar thought it would be good to ask what Melinda looked like. Dean put up two approving thumbs. He was right—from what Kaspar had seen in last night’s dream theater, the young woman was definitely a knockout.

  Big as he was, D Train insisted on sleeping on Kaspar’s bed with him. As a puppy he was brought up there so the young dog would sleep better and feel more secure at night, especially after being shot. But this turned out to be a bad idea because as he grew older, D took it for granted he belonged on any bed with the boss—a kind of canine eminent domain. In the course of a night he might be pushed off four times but the stubborn soul wouldn’t take no for an answer. With the grace and stealth of a ninja, he’d wait a few minutes for the coast to clear and Kaspar to fall back to sleep. Then the wily pit bull crept back up over the side of the bed and settled in until the next foot shoved him off again.

  When they moved to Vermont, Kaspar bought an outsized, marvelously comfortable dog bed from L.L.Bean. He placed it three feet across the floor from his own, but D wasn’t having it. He only catnapped on this bed when there was nothing else to do.

  The ongoing human-dog battle for the Benn bed might have sounded humorous but wasn’t very ha-ha for any lover who woke up in the middle of the night with a thick gray paw on her cheek or breast, put there in friendship and camaraderie by the other (furry) man in the bed.

  Particularly the poor woman—a first-time visitor, no less—who happened to be sleeping over the night Kaspar and D Train shared the same dream. At 4:13 A.M. both fellows came yowling awake and looking wildly around for the horrible creature that seconds before was hot on their heels, its slavering cavernous mouth open to devour them, its breath near, smelling of meat and heat and you’re next.

  People wonder what dogs dream about; why they twitch, shake, and yip deep down in their REM sleep. Kaspar could tell you why: because they dream they’re being pursued by things too awful for words, too big to measure, and too ferocious to grasp by a sane mind. Dogs take everything they know and experience down into their sleep where they blow it up a hundred times. When it’s something awful—times a hundred—that is what chases them in their dreams and why they’re running like hell horizontally to get gone. But sometimes they’re outrun. Their dream monsters catch and devour them in crunchy 3-D, feel-your-bones-snap death-o-rama.

  This is what canines dream of sometimes, and former mechanic to the stars or not, it scared the wee-wee out of Kaspar Benn. Coming awake, both dog and man sprang off opposite sides of the bed, leaving the poor naked woman cowering half-asleep in the middle, sure the world was coming to an end. The dog barked while her lover snarled at some unseen shared enemy while squatting down in a defensive jiu-jitsu stance.

  Afterward Kaspar sometimes shared D Train’s dreams but mostly those of his other friends in town. Generally he enjoyed them. Dream sharing was one of the many skills a mechanic needed to learn and develop, so it surprised him when he regained the ability again as a mere mortal here on Earth.

  The big difference was in this second life he was powerless to interact. If he didn’t like a dream, too bad—he was stuck in it as long as it lasted. Of course a functioning mechanic could change any dream if it was necessary. Right before he was retired, one of Kaspar’s greatest challenges and eventual triumphs was the time he wrestled a dream away from a disturbed being near the Gudrun Asteroid and in doing so, helped her perilously unstable planet survive.

  But not here. When he shared others’ dreams on Earth he was only along for the ride. It didn’t matter because most of the time these dreams were enjoyable and frequently informative. He learned things about his friends he was certain they’d never divulge on their own. He learned important lessons about being human. He also learned D Train was for some mysterious reason afraid of carrots.

  TWO

  After the airplane took off the night before, Kaspar had originally planned to make a detailed list of all the things he needed to do in Vienna. He also wanted to play a new video game he’d downloaded onto his iPad a few days before. But to his mild surprise he felt completely exhausted after eating dinner and decided to nap for an hour or two before doing anything else.

  By the time he awoke, the plane was already crossing the Irish coastline. It made no difference because he was too disturbed by what he’d just experienced to do anything he’d originally planned for the flight. Wide eyed and sitting stiffly upright in his seat, he stared unseeing at the blank television screen on the seat back in front of him, all the while trying to grasp what had just happened and, more important, what it meant.

  Kaspar Benn, Jane Claudius, Bill Edmonds, and the two Corbins had somehow combined their separate dreams into one and then all five of them experienced the mix at exactly the same time.

  Eventually Kaspar got out a large notepad he usually only used for business matters. For the rest of the flight, he wrote on it until the plane landed in Vienna. When a flight attendant walked down the aisle checking to see if everyone’s seat belt was fastened, she glanced down to see what the man was writing and paused.

  “Wow! What’s all that?” She smiled, raising her eyebrows to show how impressed she was
while pointing at the notebook.

  Kaspar looked up but said nothing, which was very unlike him. His expression would trouble the woman for some time. The flight attendant was usually very good at reading people. It was part of her job and she prided herself on the skill. But what she saw on this guy’s face was not only impossible to read, but a contradiction. That was the only word for it. On the one hand the man’s face said I’m busy, can’t talk now, but thanks for your interest. At the same time his large brown eyes were ice cold, steely and appraising. In an instant she felt like he was looking straight into her and seeing things she didn’t allow anyone to see.

  “It’s a map.”

  “Excuse me?” His glance had unsettled her so she didn’t register he was answering her question.

  “I said it’s a map.”

  The flight attendant immediately wanted to say, it is not a map. The page was filled from corner to corner with detailed, precise drawings of mysterious figures and what looked like hieroglyphics, intricate illustrations, strange alphabets, and abstruse-looking math problems. Also, single words and sentences were written in fine calligraphy. The paper looked like some kind of recondite illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages.

  On the taxi ride into Vienna, Kaspar continued writing on his notepad. But it was a new drawing this time. If the flight attendant were to see this page it would have made her even more confused. The entire sheet of paper was covered with seventy-two identically drawn glass ink bottles. They were done in pencil in photo-realistic detail. It was uncanny how much they looked like the real thing. All that distinguished one from the other were the skillfully lettered labels on each bottle describing the color of ink inside each one—cerulean, feldgrau, obsidian, burnt sienna, caput mortuum, gamboge, cerise.…

  Most impressive about what Kaspar was doing was the speed with which he drew the bottles. There was so much complex detail involved in rendering each one—shadowing, lettering on the labels, and perfectly aligning one right next to the other like toy soldiers. Yet all of the execution took him no more than a minute and a half per bottle from start to finish.