The Dream of The Broken Horses

by William Bayer

  The Dream of The Broken Horses

  William Bayer

  The Dream of The Broken Horses

  William Bayer

  "We know from our experiences in interpreting dreams that this sense of reality carries a particular significance… that is, that the dream relates to an occurrence that really took place and was not merely imagined."

  - Sigmund Freud, "The Case of The Wolfman"

  Prologue

  As the boy approached the bathroom door, he heard voices coming from within. He was about to leave, seek out another bathroom, but then, when he detected a certain tone in the voices, a tone people use when they quarrel, he was drawn to stay and try to overhear.

  A woman was speaking impatiently to a little girl. Her voice was difficult to make out; she had a strange accent, and the thick door muted some of her words. But he heard enough to understand that she wanted the child to go out with her and that the child was refusing to comply. The quarrel continued. As the woman's tone became more harsh, the little girl's resistance became more adamant.

  Suddenly, he heard a quick sharp sound, followed immediately by a cry. He was appalled, frightened, fascinated too by the drama taking place within. The woman, he knew, had slapped the little girl. After that he heard the little girl's sobs interspersed with the voice of the woman trying to calm her, the soothing voice of an adult trying to calm an hysterical child.

  Hearing movement behind the door, he backed away. Then, fearing he would be caught eavesdropping, he fled to another room and hid. A few moments later, he heard the woman and the girl pass by. The woman was speaking. "Come along now," she was saying, still impatient, "stop that whimpering. Hurry along or we'll be late." And although he could not see them, he imagined the woman impatiently pulling the little girl along by the hand.

  Years later, when he grew up, he realized that though he had actually seen nothing, had only heard a few words and sounds, he had been a witness to a crime.

  Yes, he thought, I was a witness.

  1

  A man and a woman are making love…

  A hot August afternoon. A man and a woman are making love in a motel room. The humidity is high, the streets damp. Venetian blinds cut the light, coating the glistening naked bodies of the lovers with stripes.

  A fan spins on the dresser. A ribbon attached to its shield streams out. The room resounds with the noises of the lovers, their short, hard breaths and gasps. Outside the sounds of traffic and the faint din of the amusement park across the road.

  The motel room is generic – dresser with a TV set, queen-size bed, easy chair, worn beige rug. On the wall above the bed, a framed print of ice skaters, bundled in coats and scarves, gliding gracefully across a frozen pond before a steepled church.

  On the wall parallel to the bed there's a large mirror in which the lovers occasionally glance at themselves as they move.

  The man is lying on his back. The woman sits upon him. They move slowly, sensually, eyes locked, faint smiles upon their lips.

  The woman is in her mid-thirties, the man younger, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight. His hair is sandy, his lean body smooth. The woman's hair is dark and wavy. She is tall, tanned, with well-turned legs, the legs of an athlete, a tennis player.

  Their wristwatches lie together beside the phone; their clothing is heaped upon the chair.

  Afterwards they cling to one another, unwilling to break the seal of sweat. The man closes his eyes, dozes off while the woman turns to the mirror and stares at herself, seeking to discover whether their lovemaking has changed her appearance in any way.

  The sky outside quickly darkens. Then a sudden summer shower. A bolt of lightning followed by a crack of thunder jars them from their reverie.

  "That was close. Sounded like it hit the lake," the man mutters.

  The woman's nervous. "It's getting dangerous now," she whispers. "I know he suspects. He's violent, too. At first I liked that about him. It made him interesting. My husband was just the opposite." She tightens her lips to show her contempt. "I'm afraid now of what he'll do when he finds out. And he will find out. I'm sure of it. Soon. Very soon, I think."

  The man nods. He's heard this kind of talk before and doesn't know what to make of it. The woman lying beside him, this woman whom he adores – she's wealthy, divorced, free, can do whatever she likes. And if she's been involved with some kind of gangster, then, it seems to him, all she has to do is cut it off. He doesn't understand all this talk about ‘what he'll do when he finds out.’ But she seems to like talking about it. This ‘danger’ she speaks of – it seems to make her hot.

  Feeling her heat now, he kisses her, strokes her thighs, whispers: "Yes, I know… it's getting dangerous."

  She responds with soft moans of pleasure.

  Again they make love, this time even more slowly than before, with him quivering beneath, responding to her every subtle move.

  They carry on like this for a long while. He loses track of time. The rain stops. The sky brightens. The strong afternoon light, entering the room through the blinds, again coats their bodies with stripes.

  "Look! We're zebras!" he says, pointing at their image in the mirror.

  She smiles. "Yes, love-making zebras," she whispers. "How do you like being humped by a zebra?" She touches one of the stripes on his neck. "Or would you rather be taken by a lioness?" She makes a catlike sound, then rakes her nails across his chest. She wags her tongue. "Or a slurpy puppy? You'd like that, wouldn't you? I know you would. I know how much you like being licked…"

  He revels in her antics. He can't believe that this is happening to him, that he's with this extraordinary woman, that they meet like this, make love like this, that she, with her beauty and wealth and social position, seems truly to love him despite the fact he's just a schoolmaster, new in town and virtually penniless. And she does love him. He's certain of it. And still he can't believe it.

  She bends to lie down upon him, then whispers discreetly into his ear. "I love it that we meet here. This slovenly place, so anonymous. Just think of all the couples who've shagged themselves to heaven in here. I love leaving here reeking of you. That's why I don't shower afterwards. I like driving off with the smell of you on me. Then back home, stripping off my clothes, sniffing your essence again before I shower. Then maybe going off to a cocktail party where my friends ask me what I'm up to these days, why the glow upon my face, why I no longer spend afternoons playing tennis at the club. Then back home, lying in bed, thinking of you again as I fall off to sleep. Your hands on my flanks. My head between your legs. Licking you. Tasting you. Feeling you grow hard and throb and come inside my mouth…"

  Just hearing her whisper dirty to him like this as she pumps herself against him spins him into a whirlpool of desire. He's on the edge of climax. He can barely restrain himself… and yet he does.

  They stop moving, become still, close their eyes, then begin to move again, this time even more tormentingly slow. Together they enter a state of heightened bliss wherein even the slightest movement sends powerful currents of yearning through their bodies, waves of longing and lust.

  Suddenly the door is thrust open. A cone of blinding light slashes across the room. They turn together, see a dark figure dressed in a black coat and fedora silhouetted in the doorway against the powerful blast of the summer sun.

  A moment of utter stillness as the three of them freeze – man and woman naked on the bed, poised figure in the doorway devouring the couple with his eyes.

  Time expands. The moment is prolonged. The woman, feeling danger, recoils. The man grasps hold of her in an effort to protect. The figure in the doorway, empowered by their fear, raises something dark and long from beneath his coat.
Then the double detonation, the explosions as two quick, loud reports fill the room, then, after a moment, two more. The walls recoil at the shock as the lovers, their faultless young flesh suddenly penetrated by hundreds of tiny steel balls, are hurled back against the headboard of their bed.

  Their bodies spasm without control. Dark ruby-red blood sprays like geysers from their wounds.

  The echo fades. The lovers, bodies tangled, cease writhing and lie still. The figure in the doorway lowers his gun, sniffs at the room, which smells now of gunpowder, bowels, and blood. His eyes take in what he his wrought. For a moment they feast upon the carnage, illuminated as if by a spotlight by the rays of sunlight breaking through the door. There is, he recognizes, a terrible beauty before him, the beauty of young bodies freshly torn by death. After a moment, he pulls his hat down to his eyes, gathers his dark coat about his frame, turns, and leaves.

  2

  Or so I imagine it happening…

  I've been sketching this imagined motel room slaughter for several hours, dividing it into scenes, depicting it from various angles. Even now I'm sketching it while seated at the bar in Waldo's, working on the final close-up of the woman. I want to get her face just right – the questioning look in her eyes.

  The bar's busy tonight, all the tables are taken. Media people, print and network journalists, are gabbing away, exchanging rumors and gossip, as they have every night since the Foster trial began, which we have all come to town to cover.

  I finish my drawing, turn the page of my sketchbook, then look around. The Townsend is the media hotel in town; Waldo's, just off the lobby, is the media bar and assembly point. It's a good bar, posh and dark, with mahogany paneling, soft leather seats, art deco sconces, and an excellent barman named Tony who wears a white jacket and an ironic smile.

  Tony, his manner announces, has seen it all. Nothing about us or the trial surprises him. Sophisticated journalists from New York, some with famous faces seen often on TV, do not impress him. He has assured me (for he and I have lately become friends) that they would not impress Waldo Channing either, that man whose portrait hangs on the bar wall, for whom the bar is named.

  "Wasn't he something?"

  Tony stands opposite me across the bar. He's stopped to chat, as he often does when he has a free moment. "Noticed you gazing at his picture. Mr. C. knew everybody, you know – all the big stars and personalities. Hemingway and Dietrich, Bogart and Bacall. He wrote about them. They were his friends. He could have lived anywhere – New York, London, the French Riviera – but he chose to stay here. Gotta respect the guy for that. He never gave up on this burg even when most everyone else did…"

  Tony moves away to take an order from a slinky black female reporter at the other end of the bar. I make a quick sketch of him shaking a drink. He has sleek silver hair that nicely reflects the light and a complexion so deathly pale I doubt he ever goes out in daytime.

  When he returns, he glances at my drawing.

  "Not bad," he says. "The guy who painted Mr. C. never knew him." He gestures again at the portrait. "Did it all from photographs. Shows too. Made him look stiff, which Mr. C. wasn't. He was smooth, suave – could turn a mean phrase, too, when he had a mind. Some didn't like him for that, when he made fun of them in his column. But most respected him. He could charm your pants off. First time I saw him I was tending bar at the opera. Came the intermission, all these folks stream toward me, pushing and shoving to get their orders filled. Then I notice this handsome fellow standing among them, smiling at me, waiting his turn. I fill his order first, dry vodka martini with a twist. He thanks me, tips me double. Later I learned he was the columnist, Waldo Channing. So, see, now it's an honor for me to tend bar here."

  An honor. Sure, I can see that. For even if the oil portrait of Channing makes him look a little stiff, as Tony says, it also displays his sleek good looks, savoir faire, sense of entitlement, and self-assurance. The brittle quality is there, too, the studied artificiality. And there's a gleam in the painted eyes, the barest trace of his malevolence. I know why Waldo Channing didn't move to London or New York, why he stayed in Calista, where he was born. Because here he could preside not just as society columnist but as social arbiter, a person to whom others revealed their confidences, which he could then preserve or betray as he saw fit.

  "Lady wants to meet you," Tony says. He subtly gestures toward a blond sitting alone at a table near the wall. I recognize her at once: Pam Wells, reporting the trial for CNN.

  "Interested?" Tony asks.

  "Sure."

  Tony raises his right eyebrow, slips away. I pick up my drink, pencil, and sketchbook. Ms. Wells observes me closely as I approach.

  "Well, hi! She says, brilliant blue eyes glowing, voice full of good cheer. "Thanks for stopping by."

  "Thanks for asking me."

  "What a scene!" She indicates the room. "I feel lots of fear and loathing swirling about. I've been sitting here asking myself, ‘Pam, what's a nice girl like you doing in a snake pit like this?’"

  In person she's looser than on the air. Also she doesn't punch up her words the way they train TV reporters to do. She looks softer, too, blond shoulder-length hair hanging loose, lips unpainted, a good quantity of fun in her lively eyes. Her bust is fine, her scoop neck reveals attractive freckles, and her bare arms show well-tended muscles. I won't have much trouble falling for her if she lets me, I think.

  I offer my hand. "David Weiss."

  "I know," she says, giving it a nice shake. "I'm Pam-"

  Yeah, isn't it great – we both know who we are."

  Her laughter's silver. "I've seen your sketches on the air, David. You're really kicking our butt."

  "Henderson's good."

  "He's all right, but his stuff doesn't stand up to yours. My producer's looking for someone else."

  "Poor Henderson."

  "Guy can't cut it… what're you going to do?"

  Like everyone else in the room, we're talking shop. Two tables away, beneath the portrait, a quartet from NBC are paying rapt attention to Waldo Channing's successor, local society columnist and social guru Spencer Deval, who wears an ascot and affects a British accent, is short, stout, has a slack mouth, a smirky grin, and yellowish bags of flesh beneath his eyes. A habitual name-dropper, he's also a compelling storyteller. Last night he held forth at the same table to a spellbound trio from CBS.

  "I hear Westin's flying in for a one-on-one with Kit Foster," Pam says.

  I shrug. "I'm just the sketch artist. I don't know anything about network stuff."

  "A lot more than ‘just the sketch artist.’ I've seen your ID drawings, David. They're fabulous."

  I make a demure gesture to show modesty.

  "Oh, they are!" she says. "The Zigzag Killer – you had him cold. Also the Saturn Killer and that guy out in Kansas City who kidnapped those little girls. When they finally catch the monsters, they look just like the way you drew them. Yet you never saw them. Or did you?"

  "I saw them in my mind," I tell her.

  She peers at me, interested. "How'd you do that?"

  "The way everybody else does. Eyewitness interviews."

  "But your drawings aren't like everyone else's. They're uncanny dead-on accurate."

  I shrug.

  "What's your secret?"

  "It's not like it's a magic trick."

  "I'm just wondering how you pull the memories out. You must identify strongly with your witnesses to get inside their heads so deep."

  "Yeah," I agree, "that's pretty much it."

  She orders another round. As we talk more about the trial, I notice the way her breasts strain against the cotton of her blouse and the firm, bare, tanned flesh or her arms.

  She doesn't have much use for Judge Winterson. "Old Battle-ax," she calls her. I tell her if Winterson hadn't been tough and refused to allow cameras in her courtroom, I wouldn't have gotten the gig.

  "Courtroom sketching's not really your thing, is it?"

  "Basically I'm a for
ensic artist."

  "Ever do fine art drawing?"

  "Gave that up years ago."

  "You're from here, right?"

  I nod. "How'd you know?"

  "Heard it around. Go to the local art school?"

  I shake my head. "They've got a pretty good one, but I went to Pratt."

  "Ah!" she smiles. "Midwest boy goes off to the Big City."

  "Yeah, that was me, the kid from Calista, desperate to get to New York, seek my fortune. Not like Waldo Channing." I gesture toward the painting. "Tony the barman says old Waldo could've lived anywhere in the world, but he liked it best here. Tony finds that admirable."

  Pam Wells gazes at the painting. "Something funny about his eyes." She squints. "Like maybe he wasn't ‘nice people’."

  She's got that right, I think.

  *****

  An hour and two rounds later, we're feeling mellow, interested in one another, flirting. Since she's the one with higher status, I feel it's her place to make the first move.

  Finally she glances at her watch. "Almost midnight." She leans forward, smiles, drills me with her sparkling eyes. "Want to come up to my room?"

  "That's a very pretty proposition," I tell her.

  As we exit, I catch a look from Tony. Again he raises his right eyebrow, his trademark comment on matters of the heart.

  *****

  Making love to Pam Wells, I find, is like driving a luxury racing car, say a Ferrari or Lamborghini – not that I've had much experience with either. The engine purrs. You feel its power. There's a perfect fit between driver and machine. You hug the road even as you take dangerous curves. The ride's oil-smooth, faultless, elegant. Even the sound of the meshing gears is beautiful.

  Which is not to suggest that Pam makes love like a machine. On the contrary, I find her tender. Nor does she give off an aroma of fine leather and wood; I smell wildflowers on her skin. She's a gifted lover who makes me feel like the expert lover I've longed to be but never had the courage to believe I am. In short, she makes me feel like a great driver, even though I suspect it's she who's doing the driving and me who is the car.