The Little Sleep

by Paul Tremblay

  The line moves with its regimented torpor, like all lines do, and my wait won’t be long, but my lights are dimming a bit already, an encroaching numbness to the excitement and bustle around me. Thoughts about what I’m going to say to Times can’t seem to find a foothold. I cradle the coffees in the crook of an arm, reach inside a pocket, and pinch my thigh. Then I regroup, shake my head, and take another sip of the ’nut. All keep-me-awake tricks that sometimes work and sometimes don’t.

  I scan the crowd, trying to find a focus. If I lock eyes with someone, they look away quick. Folks around me are thinking, If he really got her coffee, why is he waiting in line at all? It’s too late for any kind of revolt, and I’m next. Two bodyguards, each with heads the size of Easter Island statues, flank Times, though they’re set back a lunge or two. The background distance is there to encourage a ten-second intimate moment with every fan.

  My turn. Maybe she’ll John Hancock the brim of my hat, or my hand. I’ll never wash it again.

  Times sits at a table with stacks of glossy head shots, blue Sharpie in hand, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, showing off the crabapple cheekbones. She wears jeans, a long-sleeve Red Sox shirt, and very little makeup. All hints of sexuality have been neutralized; a nonthreatening just-a-sweet-young-American-girl-in-a-mall look.

  She’s probably not going to be wild about seeing me here. No probably about it. And I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to come out of this impromptu tête-à-tête in a positive light. She is my employer and I’ll be admitting, in not so many words, that I was asleep on the job before it even started.

  I step up to the plate and extend the candy coffee out to her, a gift from one of the magi, the defective one, the one who’s broken. No frankincense or myrrh from this guy.

  I say, “Thought you might need a coffee.” A good opener for the uncomfortable revelations to come, and it reinforces that I’m willing to work for her.

  She opens the curtain on her practiced, polished smile. One thousand watts. It’s an egalitarian smile too. Everyone has been getting that flash of teeth and gums. There’s not a hint of recognition in her face. Her smile says I’m faceless, like everyone else. She’s already a pro at this. I’m the one who’s amateur hour.

  She says, “I don’t drink coffee, but thank you, that’s so nice.” One of the Easter Island statues moves in and takes the coffee. Maybe he’ll analyze it, afraid of death by hazelnut and cream and sugar. I can’t think of a worse way to go.

  I try to be quiet and discreet, but my voice doesn’t have those settings. Check the manual. “Sorry to do this here, you as conquering local hero and all that stuff, but I dropped by because I need your direct phone line. Your agency treated me like a refugee when I tried to call earlier.” It isn’t smooth. It’s bumpy and full of potholes, but I’ll explain if she asks.

  “Why were you calling my agency?” She looks over both her shoulders. That twin-generator smile has gone, replaced with a help-me look. The giant heads stir, angry pagan gods, awake and looking to smite somebody’s ass. They exchange nonverbal communication cues, signs that the muscle-bound and intellectually challenged understand by instinct: puffed-out chests, clenched jaws, tightened fists.

  Is Times serious or putting on a public show, acting like she doesn’t know me because she’s not supposed to know me? Either way, this isn’t good. This is already going worse than I imagined.

  My head sweats under the hat. Beard and hazelnut mustache itch. Being stressed out won’t exactly help me avoid some of my condition’s less pleasant symptoms. But I sally forth.

  I say, “I was trying to call you because I had some questions about your case, Ms. Times.” I use her name in a formal but familiar way, reassuring and reestablishing my professional status.

  “Case?”

  “Yeah, the case. Your case.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  I lean in to try a conspiratorial whisper, but she slides back in her seat, and it’s too loud in here anyway, with all the chattering and screaming. Can’t say I practice our culture’s celebrity worship, and it’s downright inconvenient right now. This place is the monkey house. I lose my cool. “Christ. You know, what was inside that manila envelope you left me certainly wasn’t a set of Christmas cards.”

  All right, I’m not doing well here. Wrong line of questions, no tact. Okay, she clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, or talk to me in public. I should’ve known that.

  She says, “I don’t understand.”

  I’ve been standing here too long. Everyone is staring at us, at me. Nothing is right. We’re failing to communicate. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes over to break up our verbal clinch.

  “Fine. Just sign me a picture,” I say, and pause, waiting to see if my pointed word has any effect on her. Nothing. She appears to be confused. She appears to be sincere in not knowing who I am. I add, “And I’ll leave.” It’s weak. An after-afterthought.

  Her mouth is open and she shrinks into a tightened defensive posture. She looks scared. She looks like the girl in the first photo, the clothed girl. Does she still have those bruises and scabs on her knees?

  “My mistake. Sorry to bother you,” I say, and reach into my coat for a business card. I’ll just leave it on the table and walk away. Yeah, she contacted me first, which means she likely has my number, but I have to do something to save face, to make me feel like something other than a stalker.

  I pull out the card between two nicotine-stained fingers and drop it on the table. The statues animate and land their heavy hands on each of my shoulders. There’s too much weight and pressure, underlining the banner headline I’M ALREADY FUCKING THIS UP COMPLETELY. I’ve angered the pagan gods with my ineptitude. I don’t blame them.

  I guess I’m leaving now, and without an autograph. As the statues escort me toward one of Copley’s many exits, I have enough leisure time to consider the case and what comes next. A cab ride to my office, more phone calls to Jennifer’s agency, Internet searches. A multimedia plan B, whatever that is.

  FOUR

  Chapter 147: Section 24. Applications; qualifications of applicants

  An application for a license to engage in the private detective business or a license to engage in the business of watch, guard, or patrol agency shall be filed with the colonel of the state police on forms furnished by him, and statements of fact therein shall be under oath of the applicant.

  George and I dropped out of Curry College together, each with three semesters of criminal justice under our belts. We didn’t like where it was going. We spent our last weekend in the dorm skimming the yellow pages, fishing for do-it-yourself career advice. At the end of the weekend, we closed our eyes and made our choices.

  I picked private investigation. I figured my mother, Ellen, who would not be pleased about my dropping out, might eventually be receptive given that a PI was somewhat related to my brief collegiate studies. I was right.

  Eight years ago I got my license. According to Massachusetts law, having fulfilled the outlined requirements and submitted the fifty-dollar application fee makes me, officially, Mark Genevich, Private Detective.

  Such application shall include a certification by each of three reputable citizens of the commonwealth residing in the community in which the applicant resides or has a place of business, or in which the applicant proposes to conduct his business—

  Eight years ago I was sitting in the passenger seat of George’s van, hurtling back to South Boston from Foxwoods, one of the Connecticut reservation casinos.

  George was an upper-middle-class black kid from suburban New Jersey, but he pretended to be from Boston. He wore a Sox hat and talked with a fake accent when we were out at a bar. He played Keno and bought scratch tickets. He told bar patrons that he was from Southie and he was Black Irish. More often than not, people believed him.

  George’s yellow-pages career was a start-up rug cleaning business. I cleaned rugs for him on the weekends. He had only one machine and
its exhaust smelled like wet dog. After getting my private detective’s license, I was going to share my Southie office and charge him a ridiculously small rent. I could do that because Ellen owned the building. Still does.

  The rug business name was Carpet Warriors. His white van had a pumped-up cartoon version of himself in standard superhero garb: tight red spandex, muscles bulging over other muscles, CW on his chest plate, and a yellow cape. Our buddy Juan-Miguel did the stenciling. George was not really a superhero. He was tall and lanky, his limbs like thin tree branches, always swaying in some breeze. Before getting into his Carpet Warrior van, George would strike a pose in front of his buff superhero doppelgänger and announce, “Never fear, the Carpet Warrior is here,” reveling in the innuendo.

  George was twenty-two years old. I was twenty-one. At Fox-woods, I played roulette and he played at the tables: blackjack and poker. We lost a shitload of money. In the van, we didn’t talk until he said, “We blew ten rugs’ worth.” We laughed. His laugh was always louder than mine and more infectious. We might’ve been drunk, we might’ve been fine.

  A tire blew out. I heard it go and felt the sudden drop. The van careened into a drainage ditch and rolled around like a dog trying to pick up a dead squirrel’s musk. Everything was dark. I don’t remember seeing anything. The seat belt wasn’t tight against my chest because I wasn’t wearing one. My face broke the passenger’s side window and was messed up worse than a Picasso, everything exaggerated and in the wrong spots. Nose and septum pulverized, my flesh as remolded clay that didn’t set where it was supposed to.

  I broke the window but my body stayed in the van. George’s didn’t. He went out the windshield, ahead of the van, but he didn’t fly far. Like I said, he wasn’t a superhero. The van fishtailed sideways, then rolled right over him. George died. I miss him.

  —that he has personally known the applicant for at least three years, that he has read the application and believes each of the statements made therein to be true, that he is not related to the applicant by blood or marriage—

  After the accident and the surgeries, I grew a beard to hide my damaged face. My left eye is now a little lower than my right, and smaller. I’m always winking at you, but you don’t know why. Too bad the beard never covers my eyes. The fedora—I wear it low—comes close.

  Postrecovery, I lived with Juan-Miguel and another college buddy in the Southie apartment above my office. My narcolepsy symptoms started as soon as I got back from the hospital, a creeping crawling terror from a bad horror flick. I was Michael Landon turning into the teenage werewolf. I was always tired and had no energy, and I fell asleep while working on the computer or watching TV or eating breakfast or on the phone with potential clients. So I rarely answered the phone and tried to communicate solely by e-mail. I stopped going out unless it was to drink, which made everything worse. I know, hard to believe alcohol didn’t make it all better.

  Juan-Miguel came home one night to find me half inside the tub, pants down around my ankles, hairy ass in the air. I’d fallen asleep on the toilet and pitched into the tub. I told him I was passed out drunk. Might’ve been true.

  When I was supposed to be sleeping, I didn’t sleep well. I had paralyzing nightmares and waking dreams, or I wandered the apartment like the Phantom of the Opera, man turned monster. I emptied the fridge and lit cigarettes I didn’t smoke. They left their marks.

  Worst of all, I somnambulated into the TV room, freed myself from pants and underwear, lifted up a couch cushion, and let the urine flow. Apparently I wasn’t even considerate enough to put the seat down after. I pissed on our couch every other week. I was worse than a goddamn cat.

  —and that the applicant is honest and of good moral character.

  I denied it all, of course. I wasn’t asleep on the couch. If I was, it was because I drank too much. I wasn’t doing any of those horrible, crazy things. It wasn’t possible. That wasn’t me even if my roommates saw me. They were lying to me. They were pulling cruel practical jokes that weren’t at all practical. They were leaving lit cigarettes on the kitchen table and on my bedspread. One of them had a cat and they weren’t admitting it. The cat was pissing on the couch, not me. I wasn’t some animal that wasn’t house trained, for chrissakes.

  The kicker was that I believed my own denials. The truth was too embarrassing and devastating. I argued with my roommates all the time. Argument became part of my character. Nothing they said was true or right, even the mundane proclamations that had nothing to do with me or my narcoleptic actions. The only way I could consistently deny my new symptoms and odd behavior was to deny everything. I became even more of a recluse, holed up in my room until the asleep me would unleash himself, a midnight, couch-pissin’ Kraken. My roommates moved out within the year.

  Narcolepsy is not a behavioral disorder. It’s neurological. It’s physical. Routine helps, but it’s no cure. Nothing is. There’s no pattern to the symptoms. I tried prescription drugs, but the chemical stimulants resulted in paranoia and wild mood swings. My heart raced like a hummingbird’s, and the insomnia worsened. So I stopped. Other than the coffee I’m not supposed to drink and the cigarettes I’m not supposed to smoke, I’m au naturel.

  Eight years ago I got my private detective’s license and narcolepsy. I now live alone with both.

  That said, I’m waking up, and there’s someone in my apartment, and that someone is yelling at me.

  FIVE

  Sleep is heavy. It has mass. Sometimes it has supreme mass. Sleep as a singularity. There’s no moving or denying or escaping. Sometimes sleep is light too. I’ve been able to walk under its weight. It can be light enough to dream through, but more often than not it’s the heavy kind. It’s the ocean and you’re pinned to the bottom of the seafloor.

  “. . . on fire? Jesus Christ! Wake the hell up, Mark!”

  The impossible weight lifts away. I resurface too fast and get the bends. Muscles twitch and my heart pushes past my throat and into my head where it doesn’t belong, making everything hurt.

  It’s Ellen, my mother. She stands in the doorway of the living room, wearing frilly blue oversized clown pants and a T that reads LITHUANIA. The shirt is an old favorite of hers, something she wears too often. The clown pants I’ve never seen before. I hope this means I’m having another hypnogogic hallucination.

  I’m sitting on the couch. My mouth is still open because I was asleep with it that way. I blink and mash the back of my hand into my eyes, pushing and squeezing the sleep out. I have my cell phone in my right hand. On my left side is smoke and heat.

  The couch is smoking, cigarette and everything. It’s a nasty habit the couch can’t seem to break. The couch doesn’t heed surgeon generals’ warnings. Maybe it should try the patch.

  I lift my left leg and twist away from the smoke, but the cigarette butt rolls after me, leaving a trail of red ash. In the cushion there’s a dime-sized hole, the circumference red and still burning. I’d say it’s just one blemish, but the reality is my couch has acne.

  I pick up the butt. It’s too hot and I drop it on the floor. I pat the couch cushion. Red ashes go black and there’s more smoke.

  I say, “I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t smoking.” Ellen knows what I mean when I’m lying: I don’t want to talk about it, and even if I did want to talk about it nothing would change.

  She shakes her head and says, “You’re gonna burn yourself up one of these days, Mark. I don’t know why I bother.” Her admonishment is by rote, perfunctory. We can get on with our day, now that it’s out of the way.

  I make my greeting a subtle dig at her for no good reason other than I’m embarrassed. “Good to see you too, Ellen. Shut the door on the way out.” At least this time she didn’t find me asleep with my pants around my ankles and an Edward Penishands porno on the TV.

  Ellen stays at my apartment a couple of nights a week. If pressed, she maintains she stays here because she wants to play Keno and eat at the Italian American and L Street Diner with her sister and friends. Sh
e won’t admit to being my de facto caregiver. She’s the underwriter of my less-than-successful private detecting business and the landlord who doesn’t want her property, the brownstone she inherited from her parents, to burn to the ground. I can’t blame her.

  Ellen is Southie born and bred and, like every other lifelong resident, she knows everything about everybody. Gentrification has toned down the small-town we-are-Southie vibe a bit, but it’s still here. She starts right in on some local dirt, mid-story, assuming I know what she’s talking about when I don’t.

  “Davy T said he knew she was lying the whole time. He told me weeks ago. He could just tell she was lying. Do you know when someone’s lying, Mark? They say you watch the eyes. Up and left means recall, down and right means they’re making stuff up. Or it’s the other way around. I don’t know. You should take a class in that. You could find a class online, I bet.”

  Davy T is the centuries-old Greek who owns the pizza joint next door. That’s the only part of her monologue that registers with me. I check my cell phone, no messages. It has been a full day since Jennifer’s mall appearance.

  Ellen says, “Anyway, Davy T knew. It’ll be all over the news tonight. They found her out. She was making it all up: the cancer, her foundation, everything. What kind of person does that?” Ellen crosses the room as she talks, her clown pants merrily swishing away. She opens my windows and waves her hands. The smoke obeys and swirls in the fresh air. Magic. Must be the pants. “Maybe you should’ve been on that case, Mark. You could’ve solved that, don’t you think? You could’ve saved folks a lot of money and aggravation.”

  To avoid discussing my condition or me burning up with the apartment, Ellen defaults into details of already solved cases that presumably I could’ve tackled; as if I’ve ever worked on a case that involved anything more than tapping keys in front of my computer or being a ghost at a library or a town hall registrar.