These Dreams

“Two thirty-nine AM” glared the clock on his night stand as Sean pulled on pants and a t-shirt. Waking just moments earlier to icy fingers of a cold sweat, a sour stomach and achy left leg, he stumped into the kitchen. The water pipes in his third floor walk-up in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood clanged as he filled his cleanest dirty styrofoam cup. Pivoting to the microwave he dropped it on the turntable and hit the timer for two minutes.While the cup rotated he grabbed his cell phone, opening the Duck Duck Go browser and typing in: Grandwood Lake, Maine.

Why do we dream? Scientists will debate. But, the one thing we know for sure is dreams are private, occurring in solitude among the billions of cells in that personal galaxy we each possess: our brains. Dreaming of a gruesome end to a picky boss or taking indecent liberties with a neighbor’s spouse? Go ahead. No one will ever know. Unless, of course, your brain gets a visit from Sean Baxter.

Sean’s first clear memory of being involved in someone else’s dream occurred when he was seven. He’d gone to his friend Noel’s birthday party for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. That evening Noel’s mother called asking if he knew anything about a missing envelope containing $20, a gift from the birthday boy’s grandmother. That night in a dream Sean saw, as clearly as if it were occurring right then, the envelope fall off the back of the living room couch.

Calling his friend the next morning Sean told him to look behind the sofa, and, sure enough, the envelope was there, as Sean knew it would be. Noel’s thanks were effusive and he said that he’d dreamed about losing the gift the night before. Sean knew this, too. He’d been there. For the first time, he was involved in someone else’s dream.

This experience taught him a couple of important lessons about his ability.

First, in someone else’s dream he was an unseen observer, not an active participant. While he could see everyone and everything that occurred, he was invisible to the dreamer. He couldn’t communicate or influence them, he could only observe.

Second, and equally important, if the dreamer was replaying an event, Sean could see everything the dreamer saw when the event actually happened, even if they didn’t remember seeing it. His friend had actually seen the envelope fall behind the couch and that memory, no matter how faint, was there. It was all Sean needed.

Finally, Sean had absolutely no choice over whose dreams he was involved with, or how often. Neighbor down the street, or total stranger, once or on an annoying repeat cycle, control rested elsewhere.

-0-

Gina had met Mark Bancroft a year before. After wandering from one job to another for nearly five years after high school she was taking the Certified Nurses Aide course at Oklahoma Community College’s Stillwater campus where Mark was enrolled in the diesel mechanic program. They hit it off almost immediately, and as soon as Gina graduated and got her first job they moved in together. Things went well at first and Gina began to let herself think that after Mark got his diesel certificate there might be a wedding.

Three months into the one year apartment lease everything changed. Mark started skipping classes, staying out late with new ‘friends’ Gina never met, before finally quitting school all together. What scared Gina the most was Mark never seemed to be at a loss for money, at least when it came to going out at night.

At first Gina tried to make the best of it. If she complained about Mark’s hours he just blamed her because she “left him alone every night, so what was he supposed to do?” When she explained her job was at night, and she had to work to pay for the apartment Mark just called it an “excuse”.

The couple limped along for another few months until the afternoon Gina came home from buying groceries to find Mark with two other men she didn’t know sitting in the kitchen, the table littered with full ash trays, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, a scale, a bag of white powder, and several stacks of cash.

Exploding out of his chair Mark shouted, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Struggling with her composure Gina finally said, “Ah, Mark, ah… I always shop on Tuesday’s before work. You know that.”

A few seconds of silence elapsed before the larger of the two strangers reached behind his back, pulled out a Colt .357 pistol, handed it to Mark, saying only, “Take care of this.”

Grabbing Gina roughly by the arm Mark growled “Dumb bitch!” before rocking her with a backhanded slap across the face, hustling her down the stairs, into the driveway and shoving her through the passenger’s door of a steel-grey SUV. While Gina begged Mark to explain he just drove in stony silence, arriving finally at a gravel pit outside of town. Jamming on the brakes and slamming the vehicle in park he got out, steamed around to the passengers side, pulled Gina out, the force making her stumble to the ground. Tossing a few crumpled hundred dollar bills at her he hissed, “Nobody better ever hear from you again! EVER! Or I’ll have to do what they wanted!”

-0-

The 2003 Ford Focus struggled to generate forward momentum as Sean washed down a couple of Black Beauties with a swig of Red Bull as he made the left hand turn out of the Durham Get-n-Go. An 18+ year career with the Chicago Police Department came in handy for a trip like this…he still knew people that could get him the kind of “supplies” he needed, including a ziplock bag full of amphetamines, and a 9 millimeter CZ pistol with no discernible serial number. He’d been on the road for nearly two days, getting closer with every mile to Grandwood Lake, but with every minute feeling like he was going to be too late.

-0-

“Portland, Maine everyone! Portland, Maine” the bus driver sing-singed, “Last stop. Portland, Maine!”

As Greyhound stations went, Portland wasn’t very big, but after the better part of a day-and-a-half on one faux-leather bus seat or another, Gina was glad to see it. This was as close to Grandwood Lake as public transportation would take her. Dropping the final step off the bus she collected her meager belongings and scanned the faces.

“Gina! Gina! Over here. Gina!” Marcy waved her hands over her head, her voice echoing off the tile and concrete.

Marcy Colbert, a friend of Gina’s from high school, had moved to Grandwood Lake with her new husband and a rescue dog of indeterminate breeding named Bella, opening, a small restaurant and sandwich shop called The Scarlet Raven. The new husband disappeared, but The Scarlet Raven and Bella remained. When she got the call from Gina that she needed a place about as far as she could get from Stillwater Marcy offered to pick her up at the bus station in Portland and let her use a couple of rooms in the back of the restaurant where she could stay in until she “got settled”.

“Gina!” Marcy said, while wrapping her friend in a warm embrace. “It’s so good to see you again. Let me look at…” it was then she noticed the swollen lip and deep purple bruise on her friends face. “Gina. What happened? Who did this?”

“There’s a lot to tell, Marcy” Gina confided “But right now what I could really use is some coffee…and a good friend.”

-0-

$25,000.00 was more money than Toby McLeash had ever seen in his entire 31 years. He hadn’t really wanted to put two bullets in the back of Mark Bancroft’s head, but, what the heck, it wasn’t like he knew the guy or anything. It was business. He’d crossed his boss, and that’s how the boss dealt with things. Besides, Toby’d just finished a three year stretch as a guest of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for car jacking, so employers in the real world weren’t exactly beating down his door with job offers.

Collecting his money for the Bancroft “job” Toby got an offer to handle another “problem”. At first he’d balked at the idea of killing Gina. “I mean, it’s a WOMAN for Christ sake.” he thought. It was then the pot got sweetened to $50,000.00, and he was reminded that he’d taken the boss’s money once before and, as Toby knew “the boss didn’t like being disappointed”. It didn’t take him long to figure out that being another fifty grand richer, and alive to spend it, worked out best for him.

Driving the blue SUV, the former property of one Mark Bancroft, Toby did his best to dodge the pot holes and frost heaves on Maine Route 17, now no more than 50 miles outside Grandwood. Glancing down at the picture on the seat next to him Toby studied Gina’s features. Before dumping Mark’s body in the same gravel pit where Gina had been abandoned, Toby had taken his phone and made copies of several showing Gina face forward and profile.

“Gonna be a shame” he mused. “She sure is pretty, and looks like a nice girl. Yep, it’s gonna be a real shame.”

-0-

Mark hadn’t seen any dreams for five nights now. The last two because he hadn’t slept, but the bits and pieces of Ambien fueled REM he’d gotten the few nights before had shaken him to the bone. They involved a man and a blue SUV. A man who set off every alarm in Seans cx-cop brain. A man driving to Grandwood Lake. A very bad man.

-0-

Grandwood Lake, sat in a deep cleft of the Mahoosic mountains in western Maine. Mid-September was about as beautiful a time of year as anyone could possibly want and the businesses along Lake Street, the town’s main thoroughfare were bustling with the years crop of “leaf peepers” and fishermen on this Friday evening, and no place more so than the Scarlet Raven.

After a week getting used to the idea she had actually escaped her nightmare, Gina began to help out around the Raven, waiting tables and, occasionally lending a hand in the kitchen.

Not a “late place” the Scarlett Raven closed it’s doors to customers nightly at 9:00. Because she still lived in the spare rooms behind the restaurant Gina usually volunteered to do the close; stocking supplies, cleaning tables and taking out the trash.

Slipping on her fleece jacket Gina grabbed the evening’s last two bags of trash and opened the kitchen’s screen door. Taking the few steps across the grass, she opened the lid on the dumpster and tossed the bags inside. It was then she felt a hard pressure in the small of her back.

“Don’t move. Don’t yell. Do any of those things and I kill you right here.”

Toby McLeash had arrived in Grandwood earlier in the day and it hadn’t taken him long to find the Scarlet Raven. Sitting on a park bench just across the street in Lake Side Park he waited for the chance to get inside for a look around. His opportunity came when a bus unloaded 22 senior citizens from Portland and they all headed into the restaurant for lunch. Amid the hubbub Toby entered, feigning a fruitless search for a table. Later he’d snuck behind the building, finding the kitchen exit, dumpsters and most importantly, a seldom used path to the lake.

Half-whispering into Gina’s ear, Toby rasped. “OK, here’s how this is gonna to go. You and I are taking a little walk by the lake. You’re going to be real quite. If try anything, I’ll kill you, just like I killed Mark Bancroft. Nod if you understand me.”

“They found me! Somehow they found me! The killed Mark, and they found me!” Gina was edging on full fledged panic now. This man had murdered Mark, and now he had her!

-0-

“God Damn, piece of crap, for shit, cell phone!” Sean roared as he rolled down the last steep hill on the south end of Lake Street. Winding through the mountains had earned him a dropped cell connection and a wrong turn that sent him around the long route to Grandwood.

It was after dark and the activity in town, except for Ben’s Irish Cafe, the local watering hole, was rapidly winding down. Creeping slowly along the street, head on a swivel Sean scanned left and right before he saw in a public parking lot, damn…a blue SUV! In the faint light from the Information Booth he could just makeout a pair of figures, and then heard the unmistakeable report of two gunshots!

The last time Sean had been in a gunfight was nearly 10 years before on a chase of a suspect in a convenience store robbery. Running down a blind alley Sean thought he had cornered the perp until he spun and began firing. Fortunately, the would be “gansta”had gotten his firearms training from rap videos, not the NRA, but the slug he did take in the thigh gave Sean a pronounced limp.

Jumping from his car he ran as fast as he could toward the now just one standing figure. Wrestling to get the pistol out of his waist band he saw the shooter square-up and fire.

“Sorry Gina. Too late.” He thought, just before hitting the ground..

-0-

‘Sorry I’m late.” Gina said, sliding into her seat at Sean’s waterside table at DiMillo’s..

“That’s OK” Sean smiled ”But you’re one behind” he said, hoisting his second pint of Murphy’s Irish stout.

“She looks terrific” Sean thought as Gina took her seat. “If I were only 20 years younger…OK, maybe 25.”

What Toby McLeash didn’t know that night eight years before was that, at the insistence of Marcy, Gina had bought a hand gun and taken shooter training. That gun was tucked in the pocket of Gina’s jacket while going out with the trash that night. When she felt she didn’t have any further choice, she acted.

The story had made state-wide news. “Waitress Stops Hitman!” headlined the Portland Press Herald. The investigation was high profile, but once it was learned that the man Gina. shot was the hired assassin who had killed her abusive former boyfriend the Attorney General’s Office lost any interest in prosecution.

Sean had explained his involvement as just being an ex-cop in the wrong place at the wrong time. A tourist who’d come to see the leaves and taken a wrong turn due to faulty GPS. His refusal to press any charges put a lid on the situation.

“That’s new.” Gina said, nodding at the cane leaning against the window next to Seans chair.

“Yeah” he replied, taking a sip of his Murphy’s before cracking another grin “It happens when you hit 60 and you’ve been shot…a couple of times!”

Sean was lucky that while Gina had fired twice, only one of the slugs made impact, in his right shoulder. By that time the patrons at Ben’s Irish Cafe had heard the gun shots and a local Game Warden arrived on-scene moments later, followed quickly by the Kennebago Volunteer Rescue Service.

“Speaking of new. What’s that?”

“I said I was going to do it, Sean.”

“And I hoped you wouldn’t” he replied.

Since their last meeting Gina had gotten a steam punk stylized pocket watch tattooed to the inside of her left forearm, 9:17 reading on the face. The time representing that date in Grandwood Lake.

“You’ll never forget now. It will always be right there.”

“What makes you think I want to, Sean?” Gina replied. “Good or bad, that night has made me who I am today, and in may ways I’m better. Stronger. More fearless. After what I’ve been through it’ll be a long time before I can fully trust anyone, so I’ve got to plan on a solo journey. That night has me ready for anything the world can throw at me.”

Sean took a deep breath. In two decades as a cop he’d seen so many young woman like Gina crushed in the gears of an oftentimes heartless society. He hoped Gina would be different.

“And besides” she added, “if not for that night, I never would have learned who you were.”

Sean, stunned, sat back in his chair.

“Yes, Sean, I’d known someone was there in my dreams for a long time. I could never tell who, but I knew it was someone. When I saw you lying in the parking lot it was all clear, you were the one.”

“Just wish you’d noticed a minute or two sooner” Sean playfully jibed, gesturing too his shoulder.

The couple spent a pleasant few hours eating and talking, sometimes with smiles, others with tears, before Gina backed her chair away from the table..

“I’m afraid I’ve got to go, Sean. It’s been wonderful.”

Leaning heavily on the table Sean stood, “So soon?”

“Yes. My Uber’s waiting. Got to get to the airport. Same time next year?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Sean replied, before Gina kissed him on the cheek and headed to her waiting car. “I know you’ll remember the date.”

-0-

Sean had another tradition on September 17th, one Gina didn’t know. That night each year he would take a flask of Kentucky’s Finest and a lawn chair finding a spot to sit near the boat landing at the back of the information booth parking lot in Grandwood Lake, listening to the loons call and watching the sun set. When he got too cold, or ran out of bourbon, he headed back to the rooms he rented from Marcy in the back of the Scarlet Raven where he would, blissfully, fall asleep and not dream at all.