Series of Dreams
On meeting at the crossroads at midnight
I. I N O N E T H E S U R F A C E W A S F R O Z E N
The officer responded to the call at the 9700 row of houses on the far end of Deal, near where the sand merges into Asbury. A 435, which wasn’t atypical for late September, especially with the weather staying warm as it had been.
The old man was leaning against the back of a car. His unsteadiness betrayed a line the officer first clocked as intoxication. You’re not arrested, he said. Just detained. He flipped open a pocket notebook and took a pen from the spiral. Your name?
The man muttered something. The officer wrote it down.
What are you doing here, Bobby?
Oh, it’s almost that time again.
He looked old and indistinguishable in the way men do near the end of their life, when once distinctive features start to melt into a jowly whole. The hoodie, straps pulled tight around his neckline, didn’t help.
What time is that, sir?
Time to sit at the table. Renew the deal. Contract terms.
I don’t know about all that. But I do know why I’m here. Someone called us. Said a man was wandering down the alley between the houses. Didn’t make them feel safe, as I’m sure you can imagine.
The old man mumbled something.
What’s that?
Didn’t mean to frighten.
Can you tell me what you’re doing here?
Like I said. Came out here for the deal. We had a show earlier. Slick crowd. But afterward, I came out here for the deal.
You mean you came out here to Deal?
The old man grinned. His teeth were well-weathered. I catch the irony, he said. Never count on him not to joke around. But no. I came out to Deal for the deal.
Can you tell me about this deal?
The old man lit a cigarette and puffed. His fingernails were long and yellow. The fingers themselves appeared calloused but delicate.
I remember the first time like a dream I had this morning. He was crimson. He isn’t always. He told me his name, but I didn’t believe him so he took me to the surface, all the way up. It was a long ladder. Longer than you can imagine, long as only God can imagine. He showed me what lies after, what lies above, but the divider was so cold, it hadn’t even started to thaw. The old man exhaled a long mist of white. He took me back and that’s when it went down.
The officer felt a test on his patience, but he practiced the breath reliance from training and got ahead of it. Okay, but my concern now is identifying you. Can I have your ID?
Don’t have it.
Where is it?
On the bus.
Can you get someone to bring it here? Like I said, you’re not arrested, but I can’t let you leave until I verify who you are.
The old man nodded. Let me call Al. He’ll bring it. He took out a fancy electronic phone, punched a few buttons, and spoke. He nodded, said something else, and hung up. Al’s coming by. Should be here in ten.
I I. I N A N O T H E R I W I T N E S S E D A C R I M E
But fifteen minutes later, Al still hadn’t arrived. The officer came out of his car, where he’d run the man’s information, and asked if there was any update on the ID.
The old man fidgeted, shrugged. Be here soon, he said. That’s all I know.
Can you call him again?
Tried. Didn’t answer.
The officer pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going to be a pain to write up.
I’m sorry. Can you tell me again why you’re here? What was it? To make some kind of deal?
The old man tapped a packet of cigarettes. Looked like unfiltered Winstons. He pulled one out and lit it.
Not to make a deal. To underline it. Third time. Tablet number three, as they say.
I don’t understsand.
People think it’s one meeting. And it is, the first time. But one of the first things he tells you—
Who is he?
Uhhh, Mr. D. You know, the chief commander. Lay of the land type lord. He tells you at the first one, what they call the crossroads, he lays it out. Three meetings. Spread a bunch of years apart. For the purpose of a check and call. Like any good partnership. And this is a good partnership, even where it’s bad.
Three meetings?
Three meetings. The smoke rose around the old man’s face. The first was just past Hoboken. Like I said, a ladder to the frozen top, and when I came down I could see things in that way that to write ‘em means you’d feel ‘em, you know? Well, you know even if you don’t know.
Where was the second meeting? Weehawken?
The man didn’t smile. No, not Weehawken. Not America, even. It was in Rome. 1978. I musta been uhhh… thirty-seven. Mr. uh, Mr. D., he showed me the sigils on the canvas and took me to the place of the skull. At the moment it went down. I know this sounds strange to hear, but I saw it. I saw it with my own eyes. Golgotha. The second of great pause. I saw them carry him around.
He pulled out a necklace from within his hoodie. Light from the overhead glinted on it. A small silver cross.
He showed me his pain and I saw it and felt it and wrote it and when I came back they called it a period. I don’t know anything about that. I saw a god killed and a son altered. Or is it altared? The old man smiled. You know, with an a.
And what about the third meeting?
That’s why I’m here. Was supposed to be tonight. Right around these parts.
But your friend — Mr. D. — he what? Never showed?
Apparently not, the old man said. And I gotta say I’m surprised as you.
I I I. I N O N E I W A S R U N N I N G
There was a noise from the direction of the house. Both men turned.
A bald man in a robe and slippers approached. You guys are still here. Is everything okay?
Who are you? The officer asked.
I live there. I made the call. What’s going on?
Hold on a moment, the officer told the old man. Stay here. To the homeowner he said, can you come with me? I want to ask a few questions. Get your info.
The two walked a little down the road, keeping their eyes on the old man, who was still leaning against the parked car. The officer explained the situation. The homeowner listened, nodded, shook his head, and retreated into his house.
The old man was speaking into his phone when the officer returned. Uh huh, he said. That’s right. Okay. He hung up. Two minutes. He’ll be here in two minutes.
Perfect.
There was a silence broken only by static from the officer’s radio.
The old man lit another cigarette. You probably don’t believe a word I’m saying, and that’s okay. It’s a relief to think I’m wrong. If I’m wrong about tonight… He sipped on his smoke and stared off at the distance. Except I’m not. I know I’m not. I’ve had dreams, man. Ever since that first meeting. I’ve had enough dreams to convince me.
The officer didn’t say anything. Didn’t take the bait. He bet it wouldn’t matter, and he was right.
Did you ever have a dream that you couldn’t explain?
The officer shrugged. He pulled his notepad back out, more to have something to do than for utility.
Some are more like visions. They’re awful, all of them. Destruction, blindness, death, that sort of thing. They’ve slowed now, and I know better how to dull them, but they still come. Just about one every other month. Slow murder of the master.
The officer clicked his pen cap on and off, on and off. Sounds more like nightmares.
They are.
Tell me about them.
The man’s gaze was shrewd enough to shave off a decade. You wanna hear this shit?
The officer nodded. For the first time, he noticed just how blue the man’s eyes were, electric blue, and bright in a way that seemed confined to occurences in nature, most commonly the buildup and discharge of electrical energy in the atmosphere.
Well, okay. Sometimes I’m on a stage, feet stuck to the wood. The audience is all skeletons. The sockets of their eyes watch me like hawks of the valley. My fingers bleed, my voice breaks, my heart gives out, my God crumbles. It doesn’t matter. I keep playing. I got to. The debt is so long.
He lit another cigarette, There’s one where everyone I’ve known faces me in the same room. They’re all dressed like me. They all act like me. They talk like me. Hell, they fuck like me. And then their words turn into, what-do-you-call-em, sheathes and they pull out these knives and throw them at the tree. Suddenly I’m the tree. And the knives hurt, I gotta tell you.
Sometimes I’m running. Just running. I’m wearing good sneakers and trendy clothes and I’m in good shape and all that, but it’s a nightmare. I fucking hate running, man. My version of hell.
Then there’s the apocalypse shit. Torrents of the Book of Revelations. That’s awful for the same reason God is. It’s the same — oh hey, is it him? Looks like Al.
The officer turned. A beam of headlights cut across the road. A car was pulling up, red and low and expensive-looking enough to concretize this experience.
The officer waved it over and approached.
I V.a n di n an ot h e rA L L I S E E M E D T O B E D O I N W A S C L I M B
The driver wore sunglasses and smiled in a way that betrayed great affluence and even greater boredom. The officer asked him to roll down the window all the way. He decided, for the time being, to let the tints go.
Are you Al?
Who’s Al? I’m Jerry.
The officer looked up from his notepad. Are you here to help with the guy?
Bobby? Yeah, I’m here to bail him out. Said he needed his ID. The driver held up a passport.
The officer took it to his car. He went through it, confirmed it, called it in to dispatch, and felt greatly relieved. Not only was it now official and also cool as hell, a story to tell at dinner parties for years to come, but it significantly lightened his workload.
He got out of his car, returned the passport to the driver, and waved the old man over.
The old man shuffled near. When he reached the driver’s side, he smiled. Hi, Al.
I’m not Al. I’m Jerry.
Right. Jerry. Hi, Jerry. Good to see you. The old man’s smile was genuine.
Celebrities are known eccentrics, as the officer would later recount at this part in his telling of the story. That was his only explanation. It seemed as if the two men had never met and yet were old friends. The officer asked for an autograph and a handshake. The old man obliged, not taking his eyes off the driver once. The officer was surprised at the famous singer’s limp noodle grip.
The old man walked around the vehicle and got into the passenger seat. In silence, the two watched the officer enter his own car, turn his lights off, beep lightly in parting, and peel away.
The driver smiled. He no longer appeared as human. It’s nice to see you, dear. It was never about horns or hooves. H and H, or 8 and 8. It was and it is and it was and it wasn’t.
You too, buddy.
It’s nice to see you, dear. But if you don’t mind.
What? Oh, sorry. The old man tucked his necklace under his hoodie.
Thank you. It’s nice to see you, dear. It’s been so long. You’ve added years, friend.
You haven’t. You look mellow like wine. Must be nice, Johann. And then a sound near incomprehensible.
Hoofy laughter. You’ve added years, but you’re still you. The driver put the car in drive and then they were moving.
The two chatted like old friends off into the unseasonably warm Jersey night. Only it was no longer night. And it was no longer Jersey.
They were rungs now, the two of them, rungs on a ladder, rising and rising, up to the place above the waters that separate this from that. And the old man, the poet, the Faustian clown, designeé of a delivered deal, wore his ascent, his revelation as rung, as well as both times before. The two wrung upward the ladder until they were the ladder and the ladder was everything, climbing up to forever, itself a part of everything:
a ladder to Thee.
