Dream Sweet

by Terence Matedero

  “Now, now, Mr. Cushman. Temper, temper. You would think that you might want to know what is going on with you considering your daughter was raped, your son was murdered, and your wife just ran off with another man.”

  I was appalled at what he just said. “How does he know all of that? And what about Donna?” I asked myself.

  “What do you know about my wife, Gerald?”

  “Oh, Mr. Cushman, I thought you knew. I won’t spoil it for you, though. Your wife can tell you all about it.”

  “Why, you fucking bastard.”

  “There’s that temper again, Mr. Cushman. I only called you to tell you that you failed in taking my advice. You took a sleeping pill with alcohol and now you only have yourself to blame for the consequences. How long you want those consequences to go on is also up to you.”

  “What? Who the fuck are you? You can’t just go around and…” The phone went dead.

  “Fuck, motherfucking goddamn son of a bitch,” I screamed, as I stood up and then actually did throw the phone against the wall. Which made me feel slightly better, but not by much.

  “Whoa, Howard, be cool. What’s going on? What’d he say?”

  I sat down, grabbed the back of my neck, pulled my head forward, and started to hyperventilate.

  “Hey, Howard,” Frank said, as I heard him get out of his chair and walk around the desk. “You okay, man? What’d he say?”

  I started to shake my head over and over again. “Give me some fucking space, would you, man?” I spat at Frank.

  “Whoa, sorry. I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know. I’m just trying to hold it together.”

  “Okay, then, I will just sit back down over here and be all quiet and when you’re ready to tell me what happened, I’ll be right here, okay.”

  “Hrummph.”

  ~

  “Well, we must be on the right track then, with the alcohol theory, you know?” Frank said, after I told him what Gerald had said on the phone.

  “Well, yeah, the dreams that had bordered somewhat on reality, and vice versa, I had them after I drank.”

  “Like one drink or many?” Frank asked.

  “Well, enough to get a good buzz on and relax, you know?”

  “Then, that must be it. Don’t drink any more until we figure out how to find this Gerald and ask him how to stop it or until we figure out how to stop it ourselves.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” I said as I looked down at my drink that was mostly gone. I could feel a buzz coming on and the one thing that I didn’t want to do at that moment was quit drinking. “I really need another drink, man.”

  “It’s your dreams, man. And your life. But, hey, what if you fall asleep and you dream of me in some fucked up situation? Or, what if you dream about yourself? I don’t really think you can risk it anyway you look at it, Howard.”

  I picked up the glass on the desk, powered down the last bit in the glass and got up. “Since you put it so personally, I’ll have to agree with you. I’m done. Do you want me to top yours off?”

  Frank shook his head and I took my glass to the counter above the fridge and grabbed me a cold ginger ale out of it.

  “Let’s Google up some shit on the net, then, shall we?” I asked, as I went back to my chair.

  28

  Frank and I gave up the search around 2:00 AM. He decided to crash in the guest room instead of running across town so late.

  I was exhausted but my mind was moving in circles. There was no way that I was going to fall asleep the way I felt. I went to the master bath and looked in Donna’s med cabinet to see if she had anything to relax with.

  I picked up a prescription bottle and read the label. “Why the hell does she have a Valium prescription? I asked myself.

  “She never mentioned it to me, but I’m sure glad she does. Definitely works for me,” I thought as I popped open the bottle and shook two out into my hand and washed them down with a squirt of water.

  I undressed and slid between the cool sheets. Donna’s scent was wafting from her side of the bed as it always did and it made me contemplate the events of the past week with a saddened heart.

  Donna seemed so well-adjusted to me. I had always thought that our marriage was one of the ones that were going to last forever, no matter what. But then, Gerald told me that she was seeing someone else, and I found a prescription of Valium in her medicine cabinet that had a fill date of over a year ago with 3 refills left. “What the hell has been going on with her?”I asked myself.

  “You get a prescription for Valium for stress, right? I suppose that her work would be very stressful, but she always purported to be happy with what she did. But, then again, you can like something that causes you stress, I suppose.

  “But another man? When did this happen? She works almost every day I do. She gets off of work at least 30 minutes before I do and almost always has a good start on dinner before I get home to help. She’s been going to her Pilates class three times a week, her book club once a week, and she usually does something with her girlfriends most weeks. Nothing has changed in her schedule in I don’t know how long. When does she have time for an affair?

  “Maybe I haven’t exactly been paying enough attention to what’s going on in her life. Whether I have or not, it’s a moot point right about now, but how can someone throw away 25 years of marriage? I don’t get it.”

  ~

  I heard an owl hoot in one of the neighboring trees as I cut through the park on my way back to the house. A mist was rising off the grass as it did when the nights were cool and the days were hot and humid. I was out walking Kate’s dog, Charlie, and had no idea how long I’d been gone because the last time I checked my pocket, my cell phone was not in it.

  I approached the last stop light before the street turned into the residential neighborhood where the house was. The light was red, so I made sure that there was nothing coming down the road before I jogged across the median. It was a two- lane divided highway with a speed limit of 55, so I wanted to be careful. I just made it to the other side before a car turned from my street a block away, sped recklessly to the corner, and screeched to a halt next to me at the intersection.

  The car looked eerily familiar and I was trying to figure out where I had last seen it when I noticed that the passenger was leaning over onto the lap of the driver and her head was moving up and down. The driver looked up at me and my heart stopped as I recognized him as the man that raped my daughter.

  “Oh my God,” I said, as I realized that the woman could very well be my daughter.

  The man tapped the woman on the back of her head and said something to her. I couldn’t hear what was said over the thumping of the bass speaker in the trunk, but when the woman turned her head to face me I threw myself on the side of the car and started to pound on the roof while screaming, “You God damn son of a bitch! That’s my wife!”

  The car started to move as I kept pounding and yelling and I realized, just as I had slipped off the roof, bounced onto the trunk, and nearly fell onto the pavement, that the sound of something big was coming in our direction at quite a clip.

  I came just short of finishing my scream of “Stop, look out!” when a horn blew and I heard the sound of metal crushing plastic, metal, and glass, and caught, out of the corner of my eye, the car that my wife was in disintegrating into thousands of pieces, as the truck screeched to a halt dragging bits and pieces of the car for at least a hundred yards before coming to a stop.

  “Donna!” I screamed, and sat up in my bed.

  ~

  My bedside table light was on, as it was before I drifted off to sleep. Once again, the line between awake and sleep was blurred so much that I couldn’t remember the last moment I was awake and the first moment I was asleep. The dream felt so real. “But, could this be one of the ones that were actually reality-based?” I asked myself. I hadn’t had anything to drink for hours before I went to bed. It couldn’t possibly be something that…

  I
grabbed my cell phone and dialed Donna’s.

  After the third ring, I heard loud music in the earpiece but she didn’t say hello. I tried a few times to get her attention, but she must have inadvertently answered it when she was trying to silence it.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s it, baby. Suck me faster,” I heard above the music.

  “Faster, faster, oh baby, I’m comin’, I’m…”

  A loud deafening horn blew just before the line went dead.

  “Hello, Donna.” I tried a few more times.

  Nothing.

  I dropped the phone onto the floor. My body followed shortly afterward, as I sat down on the carpet and dropped my head between my knees, grabbing it with both hands. I began to rock back and forth as the noise coming from me varied from moaning, to screaming, to snorting, to howling, and the sound of deep body shudders.

  ~

  An hour and a half later, the phone rang. It had that ring of tragedy. The one where you’re not quite sure who is calling, but you know it’s bad. I knew who it was and I knew what they were going to say, so I let it ring. The machine picked it up.

  ~

  A half hour later, I heard a car pull up to the house, two car doors slammed, two sets of footsteps walked up the front sidewalk, the mouths belonging to the feet mumbled on their way, and eventually stopped and rang the doorbell.

  29

  I was sitting at the breakfast counter nursing a cup of coffee when Kate came into the kitchen. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face was puffy, and her hair was disheveled. After the police came and informed us of Donna’s accident, Kate went to her room and cried the night away. I didn’t sleep at all. I tried a couple of time to get her to let me in her room so I could comfort her or do anything else to help her, but she refused.

  “Can I have some coffee, Dad?” she asked as she attempted to smile at me.

  “Sure, Kate, I just made it about 30 minutes ago. There’s creamer in the fridge if you want.”

  She nodded and went about getting a cup down from the cupboard. “Can I ask you a question, Dad?”

  “Sure, honey, anything,” I replied.

  “Well, did they mention to you who was in the car with Mom? I mean, I ran to my room the minute I heard the police telling you that Mom was killed in an accident with another man driving, so I didn’t hear if they told you who the guy was.”

  I knew who it was because I dreamed the whole thing, but the police didn’t tell me because the parents of the fucking idiot hadn’t been notified yet, and, and, this was the kicker, the kid was still a fucking minor.

  “No, Kate, they couldn’t. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing really,” she replied.

  But, I knew my daughter well enough to know that she was hiding something from me. I bet she had some idea about her mother’s affair with what she thought was her boyfriend. As it sat, right then, it was a very good thing that the young man was killed because I would have beat him to a pulp. No wonder Donna defended him. She didn’t want him to go to jail, she was doing him.

  “Fuck,” I mumbled.

  “What, Dad?”

  I made eye contact with Kate and shook my head.

  “Dad? I was thinking last night that it might be good for me, and for you, too, I think, if I went to stay with Aunt Karen for a while, you know? Quite honestly, I don’t think I can handle much more of walking around this house that only a few days ago had my brother and my mother in it, and I know that they will never be here again. Everywhere I turn, I see them in everything I look at, and it just makes me want to fall to my knees and cry. And, well, you might need some time.” She hesitated. “Ah shit, I don’t know, I guess I’m just trying to come up with extra reasons why I should go.”

  “That’s okay, Kate. Sit down.” I patted the chair next to me. “It probably would be better for you to go to Karen’s than it would be hanging around here by yourself while I’m out making arrangements and stuff. I’m sure you don’t want to go with me, and I really don’t want you to. Karen lost a sister and a nephew, too, you know. Did you call her and ask her if it was all right?”

  “No, not yet. I thought I would get your opinion on the idea before I did.”

  “Thanks, Kate. That is very thoughtful of you,” I half-winked, half-smiled at her.

  She looked at me and a tear started to run down her cheek. “Oh, Daddy,” she cried as she wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Daddy.”

  I hugged her tight and asked, “What are you sorry about, Kate? You have no reason to be sorry.”

  “Yes, I do. I blamed you for Brandon’s death, and I’ve been mean to you the last couple of days, and I’ve…”

  “No, Kate, no. Don’t. You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s okay. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to lose a brother at age 16. And, now, you’ve lost your mother, too, in the same week. I am the one that is sorry, Kate. I failed you. I failed to protect your brother, and I failed to protect your mother. I failed...”

  I couldn’t say anymore. I cried along with Kate, and we held each other until the pain dissipated enough to allow us to stop, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before the pain overwhelmed us again and we couldn’t help but to cry once more.

  Not even a week before, I thought my life was perfect. I had a wife that loved me, or so I thought, I had a son and a daughter, the other two joys of my life, and we had no want of anything. I felt very blessed. Is that what people got from being happy? A truckload of misery? Was I being punished for killing Janie even though it wasn’t my fault? I had somewhat of an understanding of why those things happened to me, but I was a man who believed in fate. What did I ever do to deserve to be driving home on a rainy Tuesday evening, just trying to get home safe to my loving family, and end up accidentally killing the daughter of a psychopathic Satan worshipper, whatever he was? Or, did God just want to fuck with me because my life was going too well? Either way of looking at it was very disturbing to me.

  “What kind of sick fucking joke are you playing on me?” I screamed and shook my fists at the ceiling. I had forgotten for a moment that I was not alone in the kitchen.

  I looked at Kate and mumbled something to the effect of “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head and replied, “That’s okay, Dad, really. I feel the same way. I’m just going to go into the living room and call Aunt Karen, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

  30

  Brandon, my son, was dead. Donna, my wife of 25 years, was dead. Kate, my daughter, had gone to live with her Aunt. She even took her dog. There was not another living soul in the house and I was searching my soul for a reason not to just end it all. Put a gun to my head. I hadn’t seen Frank in two days, I hadn’t heard from my daughter in as many. I had been making funeral arrangements and talking to lawyers and police and I just wanted to sit downstairs in my chair and nurse a fifth of Seagram’s until I was completely oblivious of this pile of shit that I had been living, that just so happens to go by the name of “my life.”

  The phone rang.

  It rang again.

  I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. G Sloan. It was Donna’s sister. Gary Sloan was her husband. I answered it.

  “Hi, Karen.”

  “You know, Howard, I’ll never get used to that caller ID. It still freaks me out when people know it’s me calling even though I know that practically every phone in the world has caller ID.”

  “Yeah, sorry. How are you? How’s Kate?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Howard.”

  “Uh-huh. You or Kate. I’m guessing Kate, but?” Karen wasn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box. Kate loved her and she was a wonderful person, but she just didn’t always get it.

  “Oh, wow, yeah, I mean, I want to talk to you about Kate,” she replied with a nervous laugh.

  “Not until you tell me how you are?”

  “Oh, sure, I’m good, I guess, Howard. How about yourself?”

  “Well, I do have a lot of things to complain
about, in fact, I have more things to complain about than I have ever had in my life, but, yet, I find it extremely difficult to find anyone at the moment willing to listen to my ranting.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Howard. Really, I am.”

  She just doesn’t get it. I thought to myself.

  “Is Kate okay?”

  “Uh, yes, she’s doing pretty good. We had a long talk this afternoon and she thinks that it would be good for her to stay here for the rest of the school year. She didn’t want to talk to you about it because she isn’t too sure if you’re handling things very good right now.”

  “What do you mean, Karen? What did you girls talk about?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Well, you actually rather should before I start to get a little peeved and come right over there with the sheriff and take my daughter home.”

  Silence, then, “Now, see, Howard, that’s just it. That wouldn’t be the best thing for Kate, would it? I don’t think you’re handling things very well either, really. Gary and I think that...”

  “Damn it. Are you trying to piss me off? What the fuck does Gary have to do with anything?”

  “Well, Howard. Whether you think so or not, he cares about Kate, too.”

  “The fuck he does!” I snapped at her.

  “Should I call back later? Perhaps when you’re feeling better.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Karen. Do whatever the fuck you want. You seem to have this all figured out, or should I say that Gary has been telling you how to think again. Just remember that I could make your life miserable with one phone call, but I won’t.” I took a deep breath and held it for a moment.