These Dreams of You

by Steve Erickson

  “Well, that could be anyone, couldn’t it?” says the bartender. Examining the shaken man in front of him, he says, “Are you all right?”

  “They’re black.” Now it seems like a magic word.

  “How’s that?”

  “The little girl,” Zan mutters.

  “Still doesn’t narrow it down much,” the bartender answers.

  In a hoarse whisper the father says, “Can I leave a number with you?” He writes it on a cocktail napkin. “It’s very important. In case they show up?”

  The graying bartender looks at it. “I’ll be straight with you, mate,” he says, “forty-three years I’ve gotten a lot of napkins with a lot of numbers, and never wound up calling any of them.” Back at the table, pressed against the glass of the window and peering out one last time, Zan whispers, Sheba, forgive me. I didn’t even get your hair done like I was supposed to. I’ve failed you completely; and once again he has to pivot sharply so the boy won’t see him break down. “Tell them we’ll be coming back,” he chokes to the bartender over his shoulder, who doesn’t hear, or maybe Zan never really gets out the words.

  Forty-three years ago, at this same table where Parker eats his sandwich, another Yank passing through town on his way to somewhere else, who feels every minute as old as Zan even as he’s almost twenty years younger, gazes at the front page of a newspaper that someone has handed him in the street.

  The newspaper is an unseemly mess of text and image, as anarchic as the sensibility it means to convey. The black ink comes off on his fingers, with streaks of headline-red, and the Yank frowns at its front page, which has the picture of a nun who appears to be at some sort of social occasion. She’s surrounded by people who have the look if not of familiarity, of celebrities, young men and girls with hair longer than his, and caught by the camera from the back, she reveals a bare bottom.

  He glares at the tall ale he’s barely sipped. Lately he’s heard that everything in London is spiked with a new and dangerous intoxicant. He brushes a brown lock of hair off his forehead.

  If he allowed himself to say so, he would admit it’s an impressive bare bottom—and only when he spies the ends of blonde hair peeking out from under the rather chic habit does he fully realize this can’t be a real nun. In another lifetime, as a devout Catholic he would have had to stifle a flash of anger; now it only embarrasses him. It isn’t that he’s no longer given to flashes of anger in his life. It’s that over the past two and a half years the anger has become reserved for outrages greater than the irreverence of young people, when the anger isn’t subsumed by grief.

  Brushing the hair out of his face has become a nervous habit, almost a twitch. it: reads the newspaper across the front, above the altogether too comely nun, in the large red lower-case letters which he discovers inside the newspaper stand for “international times.” Sounds communist, he thinks, which also once would have provoked anger: subversion and heresy in one swoop—and he manages the smallest and most rueful of smiles. Though he knows little about the current music, he recognizes under the masthead the variation on Plato that serves as the newspaper’s motto, and can’t help feeling his admiration stirred: When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake.

  It’s been nearly an hour and a half since he slipped away from the house. I wonder if they’re looking for me by now, he thinks. Perhaps I should go back.

  The Yank lays the newspaper on the table. The music from the Ad Lib upstairs, which can be accessed only by a somewhat secretive elevator, is a muffled throb, and from behind the downstairs bar comes a pop tune on a radio or record player—in dollhouse rooms with colored lights swinging . . . —he can’t tell. Sipping the tall ale in front of him, his first and last of the night, he finally notices the young English couple at the bar that have been watching him, and he’s only surprised he got away this long without being recognized.

  “Too old to be a musician,” says the young man standing at the bar. The Yank at the table is familiar, and the man at the bar, white and in his mid-twenties with long hair, and the younger black woman, her hair already in dreadlocks that aren’t typical yet, are trying to place him. The woman teases, “But not that much older than you, is he?” and her companion exclaims, slightly outraged, “Are you serious? He’s much older!” and the woman bursts into laughter.

  He realizes, “You’re having me on.” Maybe she knows he shaved four years off the bio he gave the record company. He calls to the bartender, “Jonesy!” with no reason to believe the bartender’s name is Jonesy, then turns to the young woman. “So, this the night then, Jaz?”

  She says, “Shut up.”

  “A tumble would inspire me for tomorrow’s session, yeah?”

  “We both know,” Jasmine answers, “that no tumble will inspire you all the more, don’t we?” Even by lead-singer standards, she thinks, Reg is lascivious; his songs are a nonstop orgy. The bartender brings another. “Dead night,” Reg says to him.

  “Monday,” the bartender says, “theatres are closed.”

  “Everyone’s at the Indica or Marquee,” says Jasmine.

  “Never heard of the Indica,” pouring the drink, “but then I’m new.”

  “Me too,” says Reg. “In town, I mean.”

  “Hear the Marquee lot used to come in straightaway after the shows.”

  She says, “Too late for the Marquee.”

  “Don’t know why they stopped. Coming after the shows, I mean.”

  “Soft Machine’s on the bill, yeah?” says Reg. “Should be a bit of a crowd, then.”

  “That’s Sunday night,” says Jasmine.

  “Never heard of the Indica,” the bartender says again.

  “Next to the Scotch, over on Mason’s Yard. It’s not a club, it’s a gallery. The Marquee moved.”

  “Yeah?”

  “From Oxford over to Wardour now.”

  “Jonesy . . . ” says Reg.

  “So if you’re waiting for the lot from the Marquee,” says Jasmine, “you’re going to wait awhile. Everyone heads for the Crom now, or the Ship a few doors down.”

  “Jonesy.”

  “But you got us, don’t you?”

  “Oh,” the bartender assures her, “I got more than you two—”

  “But Jonesy,” Reg finally says emphatically enough to stop the other conversation, lowering his voice and leaning across the bar, “who is that?” and points at the Yank across the room.

  When they reach his table, the Yank speaks first. “Are you a Beatle?” he asks Reg so abruptly it can’t help sounding accusatory.

  The young man and woman laugh. “No,” says Jasmine, “he’s Elvis Presley.”

  Bewilderment flits across the Yank’s face. He narrows his eyes, studying them on the other side of the ale he’s barely drunk. “You’re not Elvis Presley,” he decides; they laugh again. “I don’t think he’s in music, then,” Jasmine says to Reg, who worries, He’s much older than I. She was just winding me up. For a moment the other man seated at the table is uncomfortable, slightly irritated before he forces himself to laugh as well. “You’re not him,” he declares with more certainty.

  “Not Elvis, anyway,” Reg says.

  “Not the Presley part either,” says Jasmine.

  “Hey, you lot in management came up with that.”

  “If you’re not a Beatle, then you might as well not be anybody,” the Yank says, and it isn’t clear to Jasmine if he realizes or cares how rude it sounds, though he does feel bound to add, “What I mean is, you might as well be a Beatle, for all that I know.”

  He speaks in a whine. Over the gray noise from upstairs, the other two barely hear him. “Reg and Jasmine,” Reg tells him. He says the names like they go together but the woman decides to let it pass. There’s a slight hesitation from the Yank: “Bob,” he says as though giving an alias, or as though he’s got different names for different circumstances and has to decide which sort these are—circumstances, that is. He reaches out his hand. His handshake is almost woma
nly and Jasmine is put off by it.

  It’s a small hand like a child’s that barely reaches all the way around Reg’s. When he takes it back, Jasmine sees how it shakes. The Yank sees it too and tucks the hand under the other arm to hide it. Since it doesn’t seem to occur to him to invite them to sit, Jasmine does it on her own and Reg follows. “So, Bob,” Reg says, “not into the music then, are we?”

  “I, uh . . . ” the Yank begins and the other two have to strain to catch what he says, “like . . . the Broadway tunes . . . ” and smiles, “‘The Impossible Dream.’ Do you know that one?”

  “No,” Reg says, “who did it?”

  “As he said,” Jasmine answers, “it’s from a show. Broadway. Don Quixote, right?”

  “Yes,” says Bob.

  “Hey, it’s a groovy song,” Jasmine allows, “good message.”

  “I, uh, think you’re being polite,” the Yank says.

  He’s out of place. In the dark of the club, Jasmine still can’t place him; he looks like a fifty-year-old teenager but in fact has just turned forty, aging a decade in the last few years. With his rabbit’s teeth and long brown hair already turning gray, all of his features are too big for his head. He’s still growing into himself, still in the process of becoming who he’ll be, and he has a perpetually distracted quality that seems interrupted only by concentrated doses of discomfort, self-amusement, a secret. He takes everything personally.

  There’s a calm about him but it’s not the calm of sanguinity. It’s the calm of something too damaged to be grace, let alone peace; Jasmine already has decided he’s the most intense person she’s ever met. She says, “What are you in London for, then?”

  “Passing through,” Bob answers, voice dropping back to his nasal whisper, “here tonight, then leave tomorrow,” and adds, “I never sleep well so I . . . thought I would go out, not wake my wife . . . ”

  “Get a bit of time for yourself,” observes Reg.

  “Sometimes,” he says, “you’re most alone when you’re not.” Reg nods uncomprehendingly. “Where’s home, then?” asks Jasmine, and the man smiles his little-kid smile. “New York,” he says, “sometimes. Boston. Washington . . . no,” he shakes his head, “not Washington. Never Washington.”

  Pushing away from the table, he gets up. “I, uh, should head back. They’re looking for me by now.” He hesitates. “Want to walk?” No, Jasmine realizes, this isn’t a man who fancies being alone; when he can, he bullies his way through his reserve, when he gets through at all. She says to Reg, “You have your session tomorrow,” and looks for a clock on the wall but there is none. “Or today, I mean.”

  Reg answers, “Not till noon,” passing up the out she’s given him, or too dim, she thinks, to realize she’s given it. Bob gets up from the table and he’s small like his hands; inside his clothes, his small frame sinks with exhaustion. “Don’t fancy a taxi?” asks Jasmine.

  “No.”

  “Where you staying?” asks Reg.

  “Over near the park,” says Bob, and both Brits laugh again. In the dark of the club the Yank flushes again, and again has to compel himself to smile at whatever he’s said that they find so damned ridiculous. The three step outside the pub. In the late-night hours there’s still scattered traffic and taxis gliding by. “We’re in London,” says Jasmine, “more than a few parks. Not like New York where you might say ‘the park’ and everybody assumes you mean the big one.” Bob nods. “Right,” she says, “so you know which park?”

  “I can never remember the name,” says Bob.

  Reg says, “Hotel?”

  “I’m, uh, not at a hotel.”

  “Residence,” says Jasmine.

  “Yes.”

  “Hyde Park,” she says.

  “No.”

  “Green Park, over near the palace.”

  “No.”

  “St. James.”

  “No.”

  “Regent’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think it’s Regent’s?”

  “It’s Regent’s,” the Yank says.

  Outside the pub is another song from one of the city’s windows that are lit up like reverbed fireflies. Over, under, sideways down. Bob appraises the remnants of the midnight legion that cross the curbs and brush past; they wear lace and silver trench coats, brilliant-red braided Hussar coats and Moroccan boots. Their wide Edwardian ties have images of fish so radiated with color that all the people in the street appear to be aquariums. When will it end? Everyone in the world is young, suddenly.

  Each road is a vortex. In the wet nighttown gleam, there drifts past the three of them on the sidewalk a Rolls Royce the color of a prism, the aurora borealis on wheels. The window is down on the passenger’s side and they have a clear glimpse of who’s in back. “See who that was?” Jasmine says to Reg.

  “Bloody right,” Reg answers.

  “Who was it?” says Bob.

  “Who I’m not.”

  “Elvis Presley?”

  “Better.”

  “These days,” says Bob, walking now, “London isn’t the way I remember.”

  Jasmine says, “These days, London isn’t the way anyone remembers.”

  “Are you a Beatle too?” he says to her as they stroll, only because it’s a time when such a thing can be believed.

  “Assistant for the management of Reg’s band. Studying journalism at Kingston Hill.”

  This seems to interest the Yank. “What kind of journalism? Politics?”

  “Not politics,” she shakes her head. “Politics as it’s presently practiced doesn’t matter much these days, does it?” She’s aware this sounds pompous.

  “My brother considered journalism when he was young.”

  “What happened?”

  “He went into politics,” Bob laughs almost bitterly.

  “Sorry.”

  “You’ve been to London before, then,” says Reg.

  “I grew up in London,” says Bob.

  “Seriously?” she says.

  “Only a year or two. After the Blitz, before the war. I was twelve.” He shrugs. “The other war, of course. Not the one now, in Southeast Asia.”

  “Your war,” says Jasmine, “not ours.”

  Reg says, “I was four when the war ended. Think I remember listening on the radio, Churchill and the King waving to the crowd from some bloody balcony or other. The palace, I imagine.”

  “You, uh, wouldn’t remember the Blitz,” says Bob, “not if you were four. The Blitz was over by the summer of ’41.”

  “That’s when I was born,” and Reg immediately realizes he’s just blurted his real age. Missing nothing, Jasmine laughs. “Anyway,” he says, looking at her sheepishly, “I wasn’t in London. I’m from Andover, in Hampshire.”

  “So how is it you were living in London?” Jasmine asks the Yank, still laughing at Reg.

  Always uncertain what’s so damned funny, Bob answers, “My father worked here.”

  “What sort of work was that?” says Reg. He lights a cigarette and offers one to the other man, who waves it off. “Right,” says Jasmine, “it’s a bit of a walk from here to Regent’s,” and the three stop, gazing around. “Not really me town,” Reg explains to the Yank. “She’s the native.”

  “I’m not a native. I’m not even English.”

  “You’re English,” he puffs his cigarette, “you’ve been English since you were bloody two years old.”

  “Well,” says Bob, “I know I walked to the pub where I met you.”

  “Not saying it can’t be done,” she answers, “and, you know, the longest way round is the shortest way home, eh? Did you realize you had gone that far?”

  “I suppose not. I was looking for the theatre district.” He says, “I don’t mind the walk,” the three still stopped in the street. “I’ll, uh, be able to get some sleep when I get back. I won’t on the plane tomorrow. I understand if you two want to take off.”

  “Going back to New York, then,” says Jasmine.

  “N
o,” and Jasmine can see in the dark the provocation of the Yank’s blue eyes as they regard her, his hands in his pockets like it’s the most casual thing in the world—in some ways it’s the most casual he’s been all night—when he says, “South Africa.”

  As if he’s taunting her—and finally her ambivalence about him metastasizes to dislike. He’s trying to incite me and, jolted as much by the way he’s said it as what he’s said, she wants to walk away. His idea, she wonders, of taking the piss? Delivered with the same bullying bluntness as everything else he’s said tonight? An insensitive, even cruel retaliation for . . . what? good-natured teasing about not knowing who Elvis Presley is?

  Of course it can’t help feeling like a violation. She’s restrained from leaving only by the regret she’ll feel not having told him to sod off. “On business?” Reg says with an obliviousness that would infuriate her more if she weren’t so used to it: Jasmine may not be political but Reg is hopeless. He doesn’t know South Africa from South Antarctica and now she’s not sure which of them to be angrier at. “Yes,” Bob says, not taking his eyes from hers, still the taunt, “business,” and then turns to continue walking. Reg follows. She hangs back and Reg turns to look. “Can we leave?” she says.

  Reg insists, “Let’s walk a bit more.” In the early-morning hours the three make their way up Charing Cross along Soho’s eastern border. Looming before them is the head of an incandescent African woman, painted on the side of a seven-story building; she has crouching day-glo lions for eyes and, like Medusa, her skull flames with bright violet dreadlocks that glimmer from the rain and appear to slither up the street. The words Abyssinia and Queen Sheba wreathe the woman’s face like smoke. “Right,” Reg says, practically jaunty, “so what was it took you back to Leicester Square anyway this time of night, Bob? A little late for the theatre.” He glances up at the huge painting of the woman’s lysergic dreadlocks and peers back over his shoulder at Jasmine, who walks along behind glaring at the ground, arms folded.