Dreamthorp

by Williamson, Chet

  He should have known all along that his daddy could save him.

  His mother had told him, years before, that "the bastard" had run off to Chicago, and he could go and damn him anyway. Gilbert decided then that he would go and visit his father when he was older, go and listen to him play his saxophone again, and maybe his father would teach him to play, to make the kind of sounds that drove people not crazy, but wonderful crazy.

  But then he became a motherfucker. He fucked his father's wife, and that was wrong because they told him so. He could prove it was wrong because his mother had died from it, hadn't she? After that, he knew he could not face his father, not ever again, and whenever his wanderings took him through Illinois, he always stayed away from Chicago. He thought about Chicago as the ancient explorers thought about the places on the map that said, Here There Be Dragons.

  But things were different now. What had gotten him into trouble in the first place was gone. The Lesser Bitch had taken it, destroyed it forever, so that he could never betray his father with it again. So couldn't he talk to him now? Couldn't everything be forgotten and forgiven, now that he had paid so great a price?

  His mouth was dry, so he finished his beer and ordered another while the quartet played "Lady Be Good." They segued into "Moon Rays," and then took a break. When his father and his golden saxophone disappeared behind a curtain at the left of the stage, Gilbert finally looked around the club.

  It was racially split between blacks and whites, though most people sat with those of their own race. The crowd was quiet and older. Gilbert thought he might be the youngest person there, though he did see one table of yuppies in their late twenties, whose too-studied dress and loud manner suggested to Gilbert that they were slumming or at least not regulars. The crowd seemed to be there for the music, not the drinking, for there was a sense of quiet waiting as they sat and sipped their drinks, most of them beers or tall cocktails.

  No one spoke to Gilbert except the bartender and then only to ask him if he was ready for another beer. As he sat, he eavesdropped on the conversations around him and found that they were either about women or music. But it was mostly music, and the music was jazz. He caught the names of Coleman and Coltrane, Gillespie, Miles, and Bird, along with mentions of more recent artists—Weather Report, Oregon, Stanley Jordan—the list of musicians under discussion was encyclopedic. He thought of joining in but felt unaccountably shy, so he drank his beer and waited, like the others.

  Five minutes later his father and the bass player came out from backstage and walked up to the bar. His father was wearing a pale blue shirt with a frayed collar and no tie, a blue blazer with shiny elbows, and dark slacks that looked as if they'd been slept in too many nights. There were more lines in his face than there had been before, but Gilbert could not remember his father ever looking young. His hair was even more impressive up close. The only other man Gilbert had ever seen wear his hair like that was Don King, the fight promoter, and he was black. His father must have had it permed, and then set it every day. A hell of a lot of work, Gilbert thought, but the effect was certainly impressive. The two men stood ten feet away from where Gilbert sat on his stool. He cleared his throat and said in a voice he loped his father would not recognize, "I liked your music a lot. Can I buy you a drink?"

  The bass man smiled broadly with yellow teeth, but his father, with the old aloofness that had always awed and frightened Gilbert, only looked at him straight-faced and nodded. "Usual, Billy," he told the bartender.

  "Same here," the bass man said, and walked over to Gilbert. "Like jazz, huh?"

  "Sure do. You guys play nice. That was a terrific 'Moon Rays.'"

  "Well, at least you know its name," Gilbert's father said, accepting the CC and water the bartender handed him and sitting on the stool next to Gilbert. "You know who wrote it?"

  "Horace Silver," Gilbert immediately answered.

  "Good for you," his father said dryly in a voice that held the black accents of the street.

  "What's your name, son?" the bass man asked.

  He couldn't tell him it was Gilbert. "John Rodman. Johnny."

  "Johnny. I'm Freddy, and this's Danny. You from around here?"

  "No," Gilbert said. "Down south, originally."

  "You don't sound like no Southern boy."

  "I left pretty young. Guess the dialect didn't have a chance to rub off on me."

  "Whereabouts down South?" Danny said. He didn't look at Gilbert. He sat with his elbows on the bar, staring at the array of bottles on the glass shelves.

  "Louisiana. New Orleans."

  Gilbert held his breath but needn't have worried. There was not the slightest note of recognition in Danny's soft, slurring voice. "I worked in Orleans for a while. Years ago. Great town for jazz."

  "Hey . . ." Gilbert said slowly, as if the truth was dawning. "You're Danny Vernon!"

  His father nodded.

  "I've got your record—the one you did with Hampton Hawes on Prestige?"

  "Holy shit," Danny said. "That's gotta be thirty years ago." The hint of a smile touched his lips.

  "It's a classic," Gilbert said. "I wore one copy of it out, had to buy another."

  The pianist appeared from behind the curtain and waved to Danny and Freddy, who finished their drinks and stood up. "Okay, kid," Danny said. "It's time for the next set. You bought us a drink, so you got a request?"

  Gilbert thought for a moment. "How about 'Groovin' High?'" He remembered his father practicing the Parker riffs over and over again, cursing savagely when the subtle licks defeated him, cheering exultantly when he got through it flawlessly.

  Now Danny grinned for the first time. "I love that fucker," he said. "We'll do it good for you, kid." He started toward the stage, then turned back. "You gonna be here after, hang around. We'll have a drink. Talk."

  Danny didn't lie. "Groovin' High" was good all right, the best Gilbert had ever heard. Gilbert hung around, and Danny and Freddy joined him afterwards, while the piano man and drummer went home to their wives. They drank a lot and talked more, and when they parted, Gilbert told them that he would come back and hear them play again.

  As he lay in his spongy hotel room bed, his head woozy from the beer, Gilbert told himself that the business he had in Pennsylvania could wait for a while. Laura would be there when he was ready for her. After all, he was dead. She wasn't going anywhere. Laura would wait for him. Laura would wait.

  July

  Usually one has less occupation in summer than in winter, and the surplusage of summer light, a stage too large for the play, wearies, oppresses, sometimes appalls…. We see too much of the sky, and the long, lovely, pathetic, lingering evening light, with its suggestions of eternity and death, which one cannot for the soul of one put into words, is somewhat too much for the comfort of a sensitive human mortal. The day dies, and makes no apology for being such an unconscionable time in dying; and all the while it colours our thoughts with its own solemnity. There is no relief from this kind of thing at midsummer.

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  "Children are afraid even of those they love best, and are best acquainted with, when disguised in a vizor. . . ."

  —Montaigne, quoted in Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  The picnic at Dreamthorp that Fourth of July was not the cheeriest the community had ever seen. The recent deaths hung a pall of depression over the picnic grounds. Attendance was limited to Dreamthorp residents and their invited guests, and the crowd numbered less than two hundred. Faces smiled, and laughter was heard, but they were the smiles and laughter of frightened people.

  "Look at everyone," Laura said quietly to Tom as she took a hamburger from the grill and slipped it into a bun. "They look like the crew of the Titanic waiting for the iceberg."

  "They are a grim lot, aren't they?" he said, taking the sandwich and putting it on the large plate with the others. He looked around the shady grove at the dozens of picnic tables, like islands in a brown sea, the individual grills beside each. T
hen he looked at their own table a few yards away, at the faces of his mother and father, vacant and bored, at the stolid and unsmiling face of his son, who was looking at a magazine, aloof from the activities, even from the food on his plate.

  "Anyone else want another hamburger?" Laura asked. Josh did not respond. Ed shook his head and mumbled, "No thank you." Frances only smiled and began to pick up the paper plates and cups and carry them to the trash can. "Mom, I'll do that. Sit down," Tom said.

  "It's all right; it's no trouble," Frances answered, snatching up soiled paper like a gull swooping down on bread crusts thrown from the backs of boats. "I can clean this all up. Why don't you two go for a walk or something?"

  Tom sighed and glanced at Laura, who was looking at his mother benignly, almost patronizingly. "Want to go for a walk?" he asked her.

  "Sure. Josh want to join us?"

  "Josh?" Tom said. "Want to come down to the lake?"

  Josh looked up and actually seemed to think about it but shook his head. "No thanks," he said, and turned back to his magazine. Tom shrugged, and he and Laura began to walk toward the lake, several hundred yards away.

  "Almost had him that time," Tom said when they were out of earshot. "I actually thought he was going to go with us."

  "He'd have been welcome to," Laura said.

  "I think he knew that." They walked for a while. When they reached the path to the lake, Tom said, "I believe he likes you."

  "He's pretty quiet about it."

  "If he didn't like you, he'd be noisy about it."

  "Really?"

  "I know from experience." Tom told Laura about Karen then, and of Josh's vocal disapproval of the match. "But now that it's over, he still hasn't eased up."

  "May I . . . make an observation?" she said tentatively.

  "Sure."

  "You may not want to hear it."

  "It's all right."

  "I haven't known Josh for long. You told me about him, but today's the first day that I've really come in contact with him, so maybe it's out of place for me to say this . . ." She hesitated.

  "No, go ahead, please."

  "I think . . . that Josh is very disturbed. Much more than he appears to be."

  Tom took a deep breath. "What makes you think that?"

  "A lot of things. The way he moves. The way he looks at people when he thinks no one is watching him. When he was reading that magazine . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "He didn't turn the page. Not once in twenty minutes. I looked over his shoulder. There was a page of text—something about the stock market—and an ad. That was it. He wasn't in that magazine at all. He was somewhere else entirely, thinking about something completely different for all that time. That doesn't seem normal, to be that wrapped up your own thoughts, even when you're that age."

  They were at the lake now, and sat down on the low stone wall that marked the edge of the beach. "I know that he's been upset ever since his mother's death," Tom said. "But I don't know what to do about it. I thought maybe that my folks being here would pick him up—he's always gotten along well with them. But he ignores them just as much as he does me. I thought maybe a job would be good for him, and he's doing well, but it still hasn't brought him out of himself." Tom shook his head. "I don't know, Laura. I really don't know what to do next."

  Laura took a deep breath. "Have you thought about psychiatric help for him?"

  "I . . . I have. Yes."

  "But you haven't done anything about it."

  "No. It's always seemed like a last resort."

  "It shouldn't. It's just a tool. Something to help."

  "My parents will be leaving in a couple of weeks. I'll set up an appointment for then."

  "Not before?"

  Torn gave a bitter smile. "You don't know my mother very well. I'd never hear the end of it, turning Josh over to the headshrinkers. It's the stigma, you see. God help the family if anyone ever learned that one of us had to seek psychiatric help. Me, she might accept—she's convinced that I'm screwed up past all hope. But Josh? Never."

  Laura pushed herself to her feet and dug the toes of her right sneaker into the sand. "Tom, I didn't mean to sound pushy. I hate it when—"

  "You don't sound pushy. I've known that he needs help, but I guess I just needed someone else to tell me. Charlie Lewis might have been trying to, but psychiatric help isn't something that his generation might think of right away. I . . . appreciate your candor. Really. Thank you."

  "Just don't let it happen again, right?"

  Tom laughed, then sobered. "Maybe I need a little . . . analysis myself, come to think of it."

  "You seem to be pretty well-adjusted—from a layman's point of view, anyway."

  "Nothing fatal, I guess." He stood up next to her, and they started walking down the beach, pausing only to remove their shoes and socks. "But enough about my problems. How's your business going?"

  "Busy. Too busy, really. We've got a new account in Philly. Renco Auto Parts?"

  "Sure. There's one over in Lebanon. Pretty big chain, isn't it?"

  "Twenty-three stores in the state and five in Jersey. We were lucky to get it. But it's kept me busy every damn day. I don't get home until dark, and my weekends are full of it too. I really didn't even have time for the picnic today, but I thought the hell with it. I'll be ready by Monday."

  "What's Monday?" They arrived at the playground, and Tom sat on a swing. Laura took the one next to him and they swung gently, pushing at the bare earth with bare feet.

  "We're starting the taping for a commercial. Down in Philly."

  "Starting? How long is it going to take?"

  "Three days. I hope no longer, or we'll bust the hell out of the budget. It's that clay animation stuff. I wouldn't have to be there until Wednesday for the edit, but it's the first time we've ever tried anything like this and I want to see how it's done, find out what the limitations are."

  "When are you leaving?"

  "Tomorrow afternoon. We start in the studio first thing Monday morning."

  "When are you coming back?"

  "Thursday, if everything goes well."

  "How about dinner Thursday then? To celebrate a successful . . . what do you call it, a shoot?"

  "Shoot." She nodded. "Sounds great. But can we make it Friday instead? Just in case we go over?"

  "Fine. We can have dinner, then go to the show afterwards."

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Dutch?"

  "If you like, you can pick up the whole tab."

  Laura laughed. "It's a deal. I'll call you when I get home." They walked on to the ruins of the playhouse. The roof had been dismantled and carried away, but the broken posts and splintered benches still lay there, surrounded by a yellow police line. The investigation was not over. There were still too many unanswered questions, unexplained deaths.

  "I wish they'd clean it up," Tom said, "and be done with it."

  "I know," said Laura. "I do too. But it takes time, I guess. Something that mysterious. It takes time to find out everything." Then she added, "If they ever can."

  Dreamthorp's weekend passed in safety and silence. There were no hideous deaths, no reports of strangers lurking in bushes. The security team hired by the residents patrolled the streets faithfully, carrying dimly glowing lanterns after dark so no one would think they were prowlers. Still, everyone was uneasy.

  Sunday evening, Tom suggested to his parents that, in light of the danger that had come to Dreamthorp, they might want to cut short their visit and return to the relative safety of Miami. But Frances said they would not even consider leaving now. A few more weeks, and this maniac would be found out sure enough—people like that always make a stupid mistake. Although Tom had the feeling that his father was only too anxious to get back to Florida, Ed said nothing, leaving the decision in Frances's hands, as always.

  On Monday, Josh worked all day at Ted's Mobil, and when he came home at five o'clock, he went upstairs and into his room. When Tom called him for dinner there was
no answer, and he found the boy sleeping crosswise on his bed.

  "Josh?" Tom said, then shook him gently.

  Josh awoke with a start, and Tom saw fear in his eyes, fear that did not disappear when he saw who stood over him.

  "What is it?" Tom asked him. "What's wrong, Josh?"

  The boy shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing."

  "You tired?"

  "Yeah."

  "Is it your work? Do want to cut back on the hours?"

  "No, the work's okay."

  Tom sat down on the bed but didn't touch his son. He remembered when Josh had been younger, when he tucked him in at night, resting a hand on his forehead or his shoulder, kissing that impossibly soft cheek. How many years ago had that been? It couldn't have been more than four or five, but now it seemed as though a lifetime separated them. Or a life, he thought sadly.

  "What is it then, Josh?" Tom spoke quietly, wanting the boy to hear the compassion, the concern, the love he felt for him.

  "Nothing." Josh's voice was distant but not hostile.

  "Why are you so tired? You can tell me, really. It doesn't matter what it is, I'll try to help." Drugs? Tom wondered, almost hoping it was, hoping for an external reason for the boy's attitude and lassitude. External things could be dealt with, separated from the person. But how could you separate someone from their own mind? "I know you've been depressed. I have too."

  Josh looked at him with a trace of anger.

  "I loved her, Josh. She was my life."

  The anger faded slowly, and the boy turned his face to the wall.

  "I miss her as much as you do. You can believe that or not. But it doesn't make it any less true." Tom sighed. "If there's anything I can do, Josh . . . anything, let me know. You're my son and I love you. Maybe I can help." Very lightly, he let his hand rest on the boy's arm. "Maybe you can help me too."

  Josh turned, and Tom saw tears in his eyes. "Dad," he said, "I . . . I want to tell you . . . something that I—"