The Sleep Garden

by Jim Krusoe

  Madeline: Yes, that’s it? Somewhere there must be an extra door, maybe one that’s hidden. That’s what we have to find!

  Heather: But where do we start to look? It can’t be in one of our rooms, or someone would have noticed people coming and going. Can anyone think of a place where there isn’t someone hanging around 24/7, a place where a person could enter and exit unnoticed?

  Everyone looks at one another, each coming to the exact same conclusion.

  All: The kitchen.

  The Captain stands in his kitchen, preparing a fruit smoothie with some bran for extra fiber to help regulate his bowels, when suddenly the image of that young man in the lumberjack shirt, the one who brought up that stupid Mellow Valley incident, pops unbidden into his mind—Plaidman. What is his game? The Captain wonders. The man looked familiar in a way. Could he be the son of some old shipmate, or possibly the jealous boyfriend of one of those women who were having such a pleasant time taking a shower together on that day until the rest of the cast and the police with their unnecessarily wailing sirens burst into that idyllic moment? Did Heather have a boyfriend he hadn’t heard about? Could such a person still be out for revenge after all those years? If so, why hasn’t the man surfaced earlier? Is it possible that he has become permanently unhinged by grief after being spurned by Heather, and this is his pathetic attempt to worm his way back into her favor? Or, deranged from the very beginning, the man’s mental illness had been held in check by one or more stays in a hospital for the criminally insane and liberal doses of psychotropic medication, but now that he’s been released, he is out for blood and he doesn’t care whom he strikes?

  On the other hand, could this young-appearing man be part of the same plot that was set in motion by those unnamed intelligence agencies so long ago, the ones bent on embarrassing him regarding the women, the same ones who might well be digging holes in his front lawn? Is Plaidman as young as he seems, or has his appearance been altered through cosmetic surgery—and actual cosmetics as well—to throw the Captain off his guard? Is the beard part of a disguise? Damage Control, he remembers they called it back in the days of tradecraft. Is the man an agent? Or, for that matter, suppose the man is the son of one of his old enemies, possibly the Swede, or the Ukrainian, who, disposed of long ago off Trieste, now seeks to avenge his father?

  The Captain feels his Death Quotient rising again, and in a way, it feels good.

  Episode One, The Burrow, Scene Eight

  EVERYONE is gathered in the kitchen once again, but this time no one is sitting; no one is fidgeting. They stand in a rough circle around the kitchen table.

  Madeline: So here we are. Where do we start?

  Jeffery: Well, I’ve never been in a situation like this, but why don’t we all start looking for a secret door or passage. Okay, everybody start by checking the cabinets. Maybe one of them has a door or hallway behind it that leads to the outside world.

  There is a flurry of door openings and closings, and often the same door is opened and shut two or three times, as people forget what’s been checked and what hasn’t. In the midst of all of this, RAYMOND stands unmoving.

  Viktor: Nothing. Not a thing.

  RAYMOND walks absently to the stove and turns on the burners.

  Viktor: There won’t be anything there, for Christ’s sake. That’s a stove. Why are you turning on the stove? What the fuck are you doing, Duck Man? Have you lost your mind?

  Madeline: Duck Man? Is that what you think? You watch yourself, Viktor.

  RAYMOND stands where he is and begins to open and close the oven door of the stove, as if listening for something. He repeats this several times.

  Viktor: For Christ’s sake.

  Raymond: There’s a draft.

  Heather: A what?

  Raymond: A draft. There’s a draft coming from the stove.

  Jeffery: Let’s see.

  JEFFERY walks to the stove and feels above and below it. Then he puts his fingers to the side of the mirror above and behind the stove, and the mirror swings open, on hinges like a door’s, exposing a large hole in the wall behind it. The hole is about two feet high, and maybe three feet wide.

  Jeffery: Mystery solved.

  Madeline: So what do you want to do?

  Jeffery: What do you mean? I’d say we don’t have a choice. Obviously this tunnel, or whatever it is, leads somewhere. Even if we decide to come back, we’d better see where it goes before we figure out for sure if we’re trapped or not. This could be a dead end.

  Viktor: Maybe one of you should explore it.

  Madeline: What do you mean, “one of you”? I say we all stick together. It’s our only chance.

  Viktor: I meant one of you. Listen, I don’t need to explain myself to you, and I’m certainly not afraid, or anything like that. I just changed my mind, that’s all. I’m staying. Whatever you find out has nothing to do with me. I have my work to do; unlike the rest of you, I have a business to maintain.

  VIKTOR begins to stuff his hands into his pockets, then thinks better of it.

  Viktor: You all can do what you want. I’m not going anywhere. That’s it. It’s final. I’m staying here.

  Jeffery: Suit yourself. Are you still in, Madeline?

  MADELINE nods.

  Jeffery: I’ll lead, and the rest of you can follow one by one. Raymond, you go last, just in case anybody tries to stop us. See you around, Viktor.

  Heather: But suppose it’s dangerous? Suppose something happens?

  Jeffery: What could happen? Anyway, remember to prop the door open, and we can always come back here again.

  Raymond: Don’t worry, Heather. I’ll be right there behind you.

  Meanwhile, it so happens that Junior’s old theatrical agent, a man of dubious character whom Junior hasn’t seen in years, has sent him a letter now resting in the young actor-turned-psycho’s mailbox, waiting to be read. In this letter his agent says that amazingly, against all odds, Mellow Valley has finally been picked up as a rerun in one of those ex-republics of the former Soviet Union. There will be translation issues, of course, he adds, but it’s a sign of how desperate for new material the networks are these days. In any case, Junior will be receiving at least a little money for this, minus, of course, the twenty percent that he, as Junior’s agent, will be taking. Oh, and beyond all these matters concerning business, he hopes Junior is well and prospering in whatever new career he’s found for himself. Yours truly, etc. etc.

  But Junior isn’t near his mailbox, or even at home right now. He’s doing something else.

  Reruns. That’s a good one. Ha ha ha.

  Junior crouches behind the rosebush, watching the window of the luxurious home, practically a mansion he guesses you could call it. Soon it will be dark, and then . . .

  But wait! Is there something there? He thinks there could be, so he gets Old Stag Killer ready. It was no problem at all getting over the wall, and then finding the perfect place to hide was easy too. He laughs—ha, ha—because now he is no more than thirty yards from the house. Does the man have dogs? He could take them out, but it seems there are no dogs. Excellent. Better yet.

  Then there is a movement at the window, and is it? Yes . . . it’s his father . . . no, the Captain . . . no, his father . . . no, the Captain . . . but who cares, really? This is who he came for, and anyway, father or not, this is the man who has come to assume the role of father, or close enough, in Junior’s tortured and confused mind, the same man who used to call him Junior on the set of Mellow Valley as if it wasn’t his real name but a joke, so that even as far back as the days of Mellow Valley this strange ironic vibe had been set in place, and anytime anybody anywhere said “Junior” they were referring not only to him, Junior, but at the same time making a sinister inference about his television character as well, and also to the Captain’s being Senior, which could not help but make a complete mockery of his position in the hierarchy of the production so after that there was no way in a thousand years he could have asked Heather for a date, which
was what he had been planning to do before the old shithead snuck up on her and Judy and got some kind of eyeful. It made him glad that he had switched those signs around.

  “I hate you,” Junior says under his breath. He raises Old Stag Killer to his shoulder and looks through the crossbow’s sight.

  Now the man is outside, and holding something, possibly a cup of coffee in a grayish mug, peering out at his lawn, not seeing Junior at all, not having the remotest idea of what’s in store for him, but admiring, no doubt, the perfection of his stupid perfect grass. My fucking father, he thinks, lost in admiration for his lawn and not for his son, who deserves it. It isn’t fair at all. He cocks Old Stag Killer, but wait—the man has turned away and—Junior’s sight line is blocked by a bush—seems to be heading back inside, maybe to get something he’s forgotten.

  Come back, Junior thinks. And soon.

  To touch.

  And so they know this much: that there is a tunnel, and that they are in it, but nothing more than that: not what will become of them, nor where they are headed—only that in the distance there is—what?—a light, and then perhaps a dark, and then possibly a light, and so on, but still they are there, wherever there is, and possessing a being that is theirs nonetheless, a being with no name and that has no reason, nor can it make any clear distinction between what is and what is not—a being, if it can even be called such, that sees only chance and dimness and regret, a something that hears only the muffled sounds of wave after wave, the grinding sounds of pebbles on a beach; an unnameable sound; an unnameable taste; a soul—well, who knows, and who can say?—but if there is one, it is—whatever it is—half-formed, unshapely, half-light, half-dark— as if, it thinks, if I only had the chance to learn a little more, to study a little more, had time enough to prepare, to brace myself, then—each of these things, whatever we may call them, thinks—if only just a little—then I would have understood whatever it was I needed to know, the part that was to be found in me, the part that I could never quite encompass, before the light goes completely out.

  It’s totally amazing, Madeline thinks as she’s standing there waiting her turn to crawl into the hole that will take them out of there, or somewhere: all this time she’s been considering Jeffery pretty much a loser (and he is a loser), and yet he’s the one who came up with this plan to get them out of there. And even though earlier she hadn’t been so sure she really wanted to go outdoors—because what is out there except the clouds and a lot of nameless trees?—now that it’s so close, so nearly happening, she’s excited.

  And Madeline can just about taste it: first a little restaurant with cheap rent because it’s off the beaten path somewhere, then a couple of excellent reviews from food critics, one, two, three stars, long lines, guest appearances on television, her own show, a book—or maybe the book will come earlier, when she still will have the time in her schedule to write one and every spare minute isn’t taken up by the demands of celebrity because who needs Viktor?

  She gets up on the stove, scraping her knee on one of the burners, and crawls into the dark. Cooking with Madeline. Here she comes.

  Raymond is still holding his decoy, which is impossible to see in the dark, but feels safe and friendly, like a real duck, almost.

  But come to think of it, Jeffery thinks, this Burrow script doesn’t sound like a first episode at all. It sounds like a last one.

  Heather, sensing the dark shape of Raymond behind her, relaxes.

  And between having touched without knowing it, and thinking you have touched but having not touched at all, what is the difference?

  It’s twilight and the Captain hears outside his window the slow grinding of machinery, but when he looks it’s impossible to see a thing. Still he hears it. Something must be there, he thinks—so he steps outside the house onto his beautiful lawn, where he still sees nothing, but now that he’s outdoors he can feel the low vibration of the earth beneath his feet. And then all at once, it becomes clear to him; he puts two and two together. He knows exactly what’s about to happen. He returns to the house, picks up his old pistol, the faithful, blue-black Walther, right where he left it, and, pulling a chair up to his window, rests the pistol’s butt on the windowsill to steady it and waits for the first movement on the surface of his yet unbroken lawn. He remembers something an old Malaysian hunter once told him: “When you take aim, you must not see the tiger you are shooting, or the deer, or the bear, because to take the life of a living thing is difficult. Instead you must imagine that the tiger, or the deer, or whatever” (the hunter didn’t say “whatever,” of course) “does not exist at all, but in its place is only a single burning candle, and it is your task, and yours alone, to direct your bullet safely through its flame to the other side.”

  The hunter’s name was Old Robert, or something that sounded like that. It will come back to him, he’s sure, but all at once and out of nowhere he’s suddenly become very sleepy.

  He yawns and touches the anchor-shaped birthmark above his left eye for good luck. That’s better. A Quotient of eighty-five, maybe ninety. The Captain is all together ready for whatever is going to pop out of his lawn—a gopher, bear, or who-knows-what.

  And everything does come back.

  Now at the far end of the lawn, over by the wall that Junior found so easy to climb over, patient tendrils of plants push out of the soil like fingers, each searching for a grasp, a hold, a thing to cling to, to pull themselves up, for the hundredth, for the thousandth, for the millionth time, toward the light.

  And it does come back, doesn’t it?

  That is: Not the thing, but the representation of the thing. Not the passion, but passion’s show; not emotion, but the memory of once having experienced the emotion; not life, but a half-life, a representation of a life, one set out by someone or something, possibly higher, probably not, but certainly other, though for what purpose it’s not possible to name, not possible to summarize—only that intention does not count, or desire, or tragedy, or comedy, but instead some unnameable other, some word still unspoken, unthought of by anyone since the very beginning of words, the most important word of all, which is, at the same time, perfectly and totally irrelevant to anything that ever was thought, or could be thought, no matter when.

  And why, if the dead only dream that they are living, should they want to wake? Why should they want to come back, to spread out once again, like a stain?

  To rerun.

  Which is not the correct word at all, by the way.

  To touch.

  To participate.

  But in what?

  Not that it matters.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the early readers of this book: Lee Montgomery, Janice Shapiro, Dylan Landis, Monona Wali, and also to my wife, Jenny, and our son, Henry, all of whose responses were invaluable. I am amazingly fortunate to have Meg Storey as my editor; her care and thoughtful annotations to each draft are reflected on every page. Special gratitude to Julie Starrett for her permission to use Michael Woodcock’s painting St. Joseph’s Day for this book’s cover.

  PRAISE FOR THE SLEEP GARDEN

  “The Sleep Garden is Jim Krusoe’s looniest and most satisfying book. Inane and trivial questions are given close consideration, while questions of life and death (and the differences between life and death) are intimated and then suspended.

  Only a special kind of genius (or an idiot savant, as the book suggests) could dream this stuff up. I have no idea how he does it, but do it he does, and no one else can blur stupidity and significance with such sublime, funny, and human results.”

  —MICHAEL SILVERBLATT, Bookworm KCRW

  PRAISE FOR JIM KRUSOE

  “Krusoe’s sure and subtle imaginings of such characters—yearning, isolated and finally enigmatic—place him among the foremost creators of surreal Americana.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Krusoe’s latest is a self-reflective coming-of-age story wrapped in a fable and sprinkled with wry observations .
. . Parsifal becomes a piquant commentary on tensions between nostalgia and reality, the past and the present, and humanity’s need for myths.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Jim Krusoe is the mad scientist, the man behind the curtain . . . Krusoe does something magical with regular words and regular life. His adjectives glow with possibility . . . like an alien presence with a new language that sounds enough like our own to make us strain to uncover its meaning.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Jim Krusoe’s work is full of the most curious urgency: I love to keep reading, and I don’t know what I’m waiting for, exactly, but I know whatever I find will hover in my peripheral vision for a while after I’m done.”

  —AIMEE BENDER, author of The Color Master

  JIM KRUSOE is the author of the novels Parsifal, Toward You, Erased, Girl Factory, and Iceland; two collections of stories; and five books of poetry. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund. He teaches at Santa Monica College and lives in Los Angeles.