The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams (19 page)

>>>>>>

WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 11:00
a.m.

THE DEAD ARE ALL AROUND
US

Marco put up resistance.
She had a lot of work to get done, a full schedule, she couldn’t
meet with anyone right now. I told him it was about her health.
After a two-minute interval he was back on the phone. Come by at
11.

The study was as barely
lit as ever. Georgiana looked tired, though I knew the weariness
was more than busy-fatigue. One of her photographs was propped up
on a chair across from the desk. Incredible image—cedar trees that
turned to mist as you looked at them.

She had a cell in her
hand. She’d just sold the photo, she said, and the client had asked
for some backstory to go with it. She was in the middle of taping
the narration.

I took a seat.
“
Is
there a
story?”

She nodded. “I remember
the day. I was very down, very depressed that day. I could hardly
shoot a thing. Everything I tried felt like utter garbage. Utter
useless garbage. But once the photos were printed, almost all of
them had this beautiful…
shimmer
. Marco said it was like a
glowing nebula, like a moving, mysterious fog.”

I looked at the photo
again. “What do you say the trick is? Capture nothing that isn’t
there, and the nothing that
is
there?”

She put the cell down on
the desk. “You wanted to talk?”

“I did.”

“About my
health
of all
things?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. I’m
busy.”

“I know. Your time is
short.”

She was curious. “Are we
talking about my day?”

“Your life.”

“And my time is
short.”

“Less than a year,
probably closer to six months.”

I was rewarded with a
brooding, Hamlet-like smile. “You’re turning psychic, Mr.
McShane?”

“Just doing a
job.”

“And you want, what,
confirmation? Is that why you’re here?”

“Something like
that.”

Georgiana shrugged—no
emotion whatsoever. “What can I tell you? It’s true. The tumor will
kill me in a matter of months.”

“I know it’s inoperable.
Can’t it be treated?”

“I’ve decided against it.
I won’t be able to work. I won’t do anything, even keep myself
alive, if it means losing the work.”

“I can
understand.”

“And please, don’t say
anything more about this to Marco. He knows I’m not well, but he
doesn’t know how much. I’ll find a way to tell him
myself.”

“You’ve got a brave
attitude.”

“Brave? No.” She leaned
back in her chair, casual, relaxed. “It’s simply a matter of
accepting fate. I’ve been able to accept death as a friend. Or at
least not as the stranger people take it to be.”

“Death is all around us?
Everywhere, always?”

“Exactly. All around.” The
way she was looking at me, it was almost like she was
looking
at me. “As are
the dead.”

“The dead?”

“The dead are all around
us, Mr. McShane. And they dream as well, just as we do. Their
dreams…
haunt
us.
Everywhere, always.”

The silence in the room
was so strong I could feel it weighing in my bones.

I had to break
it.

“The tumor,” I said. “Do
they know what caused it?”

“There’s
speculation.”

“Could it be
environmental?”

“Environmental?”

“Like the light from
Material Witness?”

Georgiana laughed—good
one. “You
still
suspect me, don’t you? You still think I’m after your
ridiculous friend.”

“The predictions are about
to kill him.”

“Not my problem. I simply
told him what I saw. I simply see what I see. There’s nothing
planned or calculated about the visions. I don’t even know where
they come from. Perhaps from the tumor, beginning in its early
stages. There may be a causal connection between the tumor and the
visions—I’ve considered that. Or perhaps it’s the dead, speaking to
us through dreams. Or perhaps it’s death itself. Death
is
all around us, as you
said. Every moment of our consciousness is ringed with death. It
always was, from the moment we were born, and it’s nothing to be
afraid of. Who were we before we were born? Who will we be after we
die? That’s where the answer lies.”

>>>>>>

\WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 2:00
p.m.

THIS GUY IN
MICHIGAN…

I needed to talk to
someone sane, and what does it say that the sanest person I knew
around here was a 15, 16-year-old girl who lived by herself in the
woods? I called Jen’s prepaid cell while I was finishing a
room-service lunch in the hotel, said I just wanted to see how she
was doing. She gave me directions to a break in the Paumanok about
a half-mile from Wooly’s house. Heavy clouds were moving in when I
got there. It was getting as dark as twilight, five hours ahead of
schedule.

I asked what she did when
it rained. No worries, she said. Her tent was totally waterproof.
Sealing the seams, getting plastic sheets for seepage—those were
some of the last things her father had done.

“I’ve been watching the
house,” she said, practically sticking her hair up her nose. “I
haven’t seen anybody. Nobody’s been hanging around.”

“Good.”

“But I know something
happened this morning. I saw you. You were running in like
something was wrong.”

I told her about Wooly
cutting himself—she had friends like that—and about the
predictions.

“That’s some bad
business,” she said.

“One more day to go.” I
slipped her another 20. “Stick around.”

“Still, what he did to
that boy, Ralphie? It’s hard to feel sorry for him.”

“Yeah, but you see
somebody acting like that, you’ve got to think the way they grew up
wasn’t so good.”

I told her about Wooly’s
past, his mother dying, his father ignoring it.

“Oh man that’s so
sad
,” she said, all
kinds of hairplay going on. “That makes me sad. It’s like, I don’t
know, it’s like there’s no comfort in this world at
all.”

“That’s not true. There’s
some. There’s always both.”

“It’s like that guy in
Michigan, came home and killed his whole family. His wife, two
children.”

“I don’t know about
that.”

“Happened last night. I
was redeeming my stuff in town today, I saw it on the
news.”

“What
happened?”

“This guy in Michigan, he
came home last night and shot his whole family. To
death.”

“Got it.”

“It’s like, maybe you’re
angry or something? Or you’re lonely or something? It’s still
better than doing something like that, putting people in the ground
forever.”

Truer words.

>>>>>>

WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 5:30
p.m.

SEVEN FINGERS ON ONE
HAND

The storm was so powerful
it was almost magical. Waves of water were sweeping through the
streets outside and smashing into car windshields. Winds had ripped
part of the Hidden Lake Hardware awning across from the hotel and
the canvas was flapping in the gusts like gunshots. It reminded me
of the day my wife and daughter left me. It was that
bad.

The storm noise was so
loud I could barely hear the phone ringing in my room. Nickie’s
cell. A make-up call? No.

They need you here. Can
you get over?

“What’d he do
now?”

Not him. HER.

They were all there, my
extended family, Wooly, Genevieve, Nickie, standing in the living
room by the front double doors. Along with a chaotic clutter of
shopping bags randomly stuffed with shoes, slippers, combs,
brushes, pants, shirts, a bathrobe, a travel iron, shampoo,
conditioner, prescription meds, toothpaste and a toothbrush. It
looked like someone had packed while sleepwalking in a
tsunami.

Wooly and Genevieve were
battling each other with high-pitched babble.

“Why’re you
fucking
with me like
this?” said Wooly.

“I can’t
take
this anymore!” said
Genevieve.

“What’s going on?” I
said.

“She’s leaving,” said
Nickie.

Genevieve concurred: “I’m
leaving.”

Wooly blew it out. “She
says she’s
leaving
!”

“What
happened?”

“I cannot
stand
another goddamn
minute of this,” said Genevieve. “I’m getting ready to fix dinner,
I say what do you want? What’re you in the mood for? He says oh I
don’t know—it could be my last meal. Or at least my last supper.
Well
fuck
all
that! I’ve
had
it!”

Wooly was pacing in broken
patterns, flailing his bandaged arms. “What am I
supposed
to do? I’m
supposed to sit there
alone
with my thoughts?”

“You’re giving me
the
shivers
with
your shit! All
over
my body!”

“Well what d’you think
it’s doing to
me
?
I don’t mean to upset you, but these death predictions have
done
something to
me!”

I looked at Nickie. She
looked away. She wasn’t interested in talking to me.

Almost on cue, as she
turned away, the walls of the living room went white with a
lightning flash outside. Thunder followed a moment
later.

“Where you gonna go?” said
Wooly.

“I don’t know. My
sister’s? The hotel?”

“I don’t know what to say.
This is fucking
outrageous
and I don’t know what else to say. How many times
did I ever walk out on you like this?”

“Plenty.”

“You can count them on the
fingers of one hand.”

“If you’ve got seven
fingers on that hand.”

“Really?” Wooly was
surprised. “Seven? Is that how many times it was?”

“That many.”

“I didn’t realize.
Sorry.”

Genevieve forced herself
to draw a medium-size breath. “Wooly, let me ask a
question.”

“Okay.”

“It might even be
construed as a
rational
question.”

“Shoot.”

“You think you’re going to
die tomorrow.
Here
. In this house.”

“Bet your ass.”

“Then why don’t you
leave
? Just
go
somewhere else for
the day. If you think something’s going to happen here, then why
stay?”

“Cause this is my
house
.”

“What kind of answer is
that from a person?”

“Cause this is my house
and nobody, nothing’s gonna drive me
out
of it. Whatever happens, I want
to stay here.”

“You’re one fat stubborn
fucker.”

He sidestepped a few of
the shopping bags and moved closer to her. “I want to stay here,
and I want you to stay with me. My house is your house. My house is
nothing without you. Please, I’m asking you to stay.”

“Don’t, okay?”

“I’m sorry to be giving
you so much trouble, but please. Please don’t leave. I need you
here.”

“Don’t talk that
way.”

He saw something in one of
the bags and reached in. Out came a jewelry case. He opened it: A
diamond tennis bracelet was inside.

“Remember I bought this
for you? You remember that day?” Tears were seeping into his
eyes.

“Wooly.”

He suddenly threw himself
down in front of her, thudding the whole floor as he landed on his
knees. “I know I make mistakes. I know I’m all tangled up in
error-roots, I know all that. But please, I’m begging you. Please
forgive me.”

“Get your ass
up.”

He grabbed her arms,
yanking on her so hard he nearly pulled her over. “I need you here.
Even if it’s just to clean, okay? Not asking for anything else.
Please. Nobody can do it like you. Just to keep the place clean,
please stay.”

She shook her head, but
not to say no. Mostly it was to shake the tears out of her
eyes.

“Nobody can clean like
you. You’re the cleanest person I know. If there’s a cleaner woman
in Suffolk County, well, shit, they’re gonna have to drag her here
in front of me, cause I don’t believe it.”