The Beautiful Dream of Life

by Domingo Zapata

  I had been reborn—and now I was ready to sleep.

  11

  MEETING OF LESSER MINDS

  I am walking down Via Cavour toward Carlotta’s apartment with unparalleled excitement. I can’t wait for her to see my new works. To keep Carlotta from seeing the paintings before they are ready, I have been visiting her rather than having her come to my studio. She says she has not seen anything of mine in a while, only in some magazine before we ever met. So I have asked her to wait and not Google anything. I don’t want her to see my old canvases. I’d like her to see only the new ones now, especially since they depict our vacation in Cala de Deià. They will be like giant postcards, a gift to ourselves that we can privately share. Later I will show her the old pieces, perhaps, so that she may see the progression—but only if she asks to. I want her to appreciate my work. I want her to be proud of me. More than anything, that is what is important to me.

  In the front entrance of her building, I ring the buzzer to her family’s apartment; she lives there alone when she is in the city, and is staying another night before heading back to the vineyard in Gaiole. Her parents rarely visit the city anymore, as they are semi-retired and for the most part have left the business in the very capable hands of Carlotta. My Carlotta. She runs the family winery now—a business well known for making some of the finest Chianti in Tuscany—as the chief manager and sommelier.

  I text her, but she does not respond. A neighbor who has seen me there before and recognizes me as Carlotta’s friend opens his own door.

  “Have you seen Carlotta?” I ask, likely too animated.

  “I haven’t seen her today,” he says, but he opens the door to the lobby for me anyway. I climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, too antsy to wait for it to return to the ground floor. I am huffing and puffing as I knock on her apartment door, and I place my other hand on my heart to calm the pounding in my rib cage.

  “Rodrigo!” someone calls out, and there is more knocking. But I realize I am not doing the knocking. Is someone else knocking on a door down the hallway? Who is calling me?

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  “Rodrigo! Open the door!”

  “What? Who are you?” I am disoriented.

  “It’s Rafaela!”

  “Rafaela? What are you talking about? I’m traveling!”

  “Please open up!”

  “I am in Florence! Go away!”

  What the hell is going on? I blinked and looked around, struggling to wake up, and saw The Parallel Universe paintings. Apparently, I passed out on the couch after working all night. The Universe informed me that I was in my studio in the loft in SoHo. I recognized the furniture and saw my New York mobile phone on the table. But I still wouldn’t let anyone in. The studio was off limits now.

  “Rodrigo! Open up!”

  “Rafaela! Go away! I want to be left alone!”

  “It’s important!”

  There was no way I was coming out. “What I’m doing in here is important! More important!”

  “Please, this is very important!”

  “You can’t come in here!”

  “I don’t want to come in there! I just need to talk to you!”

  “Yeah—what about?”

  “Rodrigo!” she yelled, and Rafaela rarely did that.

  “What do you want from me? I’m retired!”

  She hesitated a moment. Then she said it earnestly, her voice now controlled and calm. “You haven’t paid me in weeks. I’m sorry. But I need the money.”

  It was just about the only thing she could say to get me to come to the door. Appealing to my sense of honor. Dammitall!

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s nine.”

  “It’s too early.”

  “Nine in the evening.”

  I’d slept through the day. But so what? I didn’t give a flying fuck. I’d given birth, and that takes a while. And I needed to recharge for the next installment.

  “And it’s Thursday. You’ve been in the studio for three days . . .”

  Thursday, I thought. That’s impossible. But then I gazed around the studio and saw about twenty canvases. It must have been three days. I couldn’t have done all this in one night. Holy shit!

  “Rodrigo . . .”

  Whatever. I needed to do what I had to do. I didn’t feel guilty in the least.

  I rolled off the couch and stumbled across the floor in my jeans and socks, no shirt. At the door, I turned and rested against it and gave another look to the freshly blossomed series. It filled me with happiness. Even the Eagle was eyeballing me from atop the Monkey Business mast to remind me of my connection to the divine. I put my finger to my lips and said to my new family, to all my little brothers, “Sssssshhhh. Our secret.”

  I unlatched the chain and twisted the double locks. I opened the door about four inches. Rafaela’s face appeared in the crack.

  “Go write yourself a check, bring it to me, and I’ll sign it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t? Why not? I give you authorization—”

  “Your checks are in the safe.”

  “Porca miseria!” I cursed in Italian. “Here, let me give you the combination.”

  “You made me vow to never let you do that. Please—”

  “Do it!”

  “I won’t!”

  It was a stalemate, but Rafaela had been good to me. Even now she was showing me her uncompromising fidelity. I remembered, too, that I had my stash of tranquilizers, sedatives, baby Adderalls, and other assorted “vitamins” no one knew about hidden in there. Rafaela would surely throw them out if she saw them. I had to comply.

  I released the latch and stepped out and quickly double-locked the studio door behind me. I hurried past her. I was going to be quick—I needed to get back to the studio.

  I burst through the door to the study and there they were, seated in a semicircle, looking up at me. I was in absolute shock. Rafaela followed me in and closed the door, locking it behind her.

  I knew instantly what this little congregation was about. They had come to confront me. All of them. My attorney, Alan Steinberg, was there. Jean Paul was there. Alfonso, of course. My general practitioner, Dr. Sands. Tex—Tex, of all people!—was seated next to him. Even Rachel, my PR gal, was there. Rafaela settled herself in one of the two remaining chairs. The last one was poised opposite the semicircle, reserved for me.

  My eyes fixated on the table before them and a pile of apples in a bowl. “How about them apples,” I said.

  Dr. Sands disregarded my attempt at hollow charm and spoke first. “Rodrigo, we’ve come here together for one reason, and one reason only. Because we care—”

  “I know why you’re here,” I said. I was about to call them out and tell them that I knew they were fearful I’d lose myself to my true art, the one that turned off the money tap. Their money tap. But I held my tongue, for one reason and one reason only. To bide my time. I knew where I had to go and what I had to do. I had places to be and a Universe to create, and I would not let them interfere with my travel or work schedule. But what they had going for them was numbers. So I had to play it cool and smooth and gay and breezy and yes the fuck out of them all.

  And that’s exactly what I did.

  “So, okay, cherished friends and confidants. I realize I’ve been acting somewhat erratically, if not recklessly, but you’re not here to play Pictionary, so bring it on.”

  They hurled it at me. Each one took a turn to explain how I had disappointed them, hurt them, or showed behavior that worried, even scared, them. One right after the other. Even Tex. If anyone needed an intervention, it was him. But when you have that kind of money, no one ever tells you the truth. On some level, I should know.

  The sum of it all was that I showed a great deal of restraint and concurred with everything they said. I admitted that I was wrong—dead wrong—and they were right. I agreed that they were completely justified in their concern for me. I confessed that I’d become wo
rried for myself, worried that my faculties were in disarray, my world had lost its axis, and I needed help—and would seek it. I thanked the good Lord for them, these wonderful, spiritually connected, high-minded peeps, and, man, did I feel fortunate to have them in my life. I even agreed to see a professional colleague of Dr. Sands at Cornell Medical the following morning so that he could conduct tests and perform a psychiatric evaluation.

  I was A-OK with everything. If they’d asked me to bend over so they could shove a red-hot poker up my ass, I would have flashed cheeks with a gracious grin.

  There would be no need to strap me to a gurney, no rags stuffed down my throat so I wouldn’t swallow my tongue, no burly orderlies to manhandle me, no needles to the arm to make me a docile chimp, no IV units, and no physical restraints while I violently fought them off in a kicking, screaming fit. There would be none of that. I took it nice and slow and easy and tame, with the resistance of a teacup Maltese.

  Those pricks.

  I simply asked Rafaela to get me a shirt to cover myself while I opened the safe and took out my checkbook. I scratched off checks to my staff and gave them raises on the spot. I asked everyone else if our accounts were up to date. Jean Paul, of course, asked for five grand. Though the oily son of a bitch still owed me a fistful of euros, I gave it to him without protest, to boost my profile, to display a hint of magnanimity and psychological balance. If I’d had some chocolates from the holiday sampler series, I would have passed them around on a plate of my finest china.

  I made only one request, which was more of a proclamation. “I was up late last night, and I’d like to be of clear mind for tomorrow’s evaluation, so if you will forgive me, I’m going to retire and get some rest.”

  I thanked them all for coming, for having had the courage to come forward; I admitted that their actions did in fact show the deepest form of love, and I expressed how much the little gathering meant to me. I told them I loved them all, and I hugged each and every one of them, surviving even a cheek brush with Tex’s spray-tanned face and atrocious cologne. When I waved good-bye with a hearty big-toothed Mallorcan dazzler, I think my gold molar cap glinted in their direction with a ding!, little darlings that they were.

  With that I sauntered peacefully to my bedroom, like a model patient embracing the notion that knowing you have a problem is three quarters of the battle—and I had articulated it just like that to serve as my final gesture of sportsmanship as well as my parting words.

  When I reached my bedroom, I wanted to puke. But my state of perturbation did not last. I was already starting to pack, and thinking about my future and what I must do to get from here to there. Without this infestation, without these blockers, without the people I’d just left downstairs. And with my new family, my new universe, my Parallel Universe. And with Carlotta.

  I’d never looked so forward to the future, regardless of where it might take me.

  12

  TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH

  The clock hadn’t even struck midnight when I rocketed out of the SoHo loft. I didn’t have much of a plan other than to escape its confines after making a quick revisit to my combination safe for some essential traveling gear—most important, my baggie of vitamins. I had already packed my passport. I was paranoid, I admit, but I was trying to think two steps ahead of them. If they confiscated it, I would be locked in their world, and I might never be able to get back to my parallel universe and Carlotta’s world again. I could never finish painting my Parallel Universe series. Because this psychological evaluation stuff could undo me. Because it would give them an accredited professional opinion. And therefore grounds. The beginning of the end. Of my end, too.

  I hit the money machine and withdrew a lot. I needed cash—nothing that could be traced to my movements or whereabouts.

  And then I just moved. Onward. By foot. Without a care in the world. I’d made a good stand against my overpaid staff and their intervention team. I had won my freedom, and now I would blow with the wind.

  I decided against a cab. Again, I didn’t want anyone to have a track on me. I turned off my phone, too, hoping to thwart any geolocational attempts, in case Rafaela got chummy with some surveillance folk.

  I avoided all the known hangouts and boîtes. I would go where no one knew me and no one could find me. I was taking a me holiday and didn’t plan on it ending too soon. I just needed a proper hole in the wall, I thought, a crack of daylight. In this universe, it was all about me, in the now, and no one else.

  I marched uptown as far as Washington Square Park. I lit up a cigarette and moseyed around the big arch. There were clusters of night crawlers, as usual. I took a seat on one of the benches and contemplated the galaxy.

  I was looking to achieve liftoff, to travel and see the world and the woman I loved. It was as easy as one, two, three. The first guy came and went, and I let him. He tossed me some lures but seemed too sketchy. A second street urchin came around; he seemed like a guy I could work with, but he didn’t have what I was looking for. The fact is I didn’t know what I was looking for, just where I wanted to be. It was the third one who was giving off the proper pulsations. Now all he needed to be was holding—whatever it was I needed.

  “Hey, want Molly?” he sent my way.

  “No, no Molly.” I checked him out and liked his vibe; I thought our sensibilities could be in alignment. It was the only test, and I’d gotten pretty good at it. “What else do you have?”

  “Got evathin’, brother. K, pot, coke, meth, too, got some rockin’ meth—”

  “Anything else?” I said with intent. “I want liftoff.”

  “Ah, I got you. You’re a high roller. Don’t got none here, but I can take you—”

  “Take me—”

  “For commission and cab fare back.”

  “Done.”

  We hopped in a cab and arched over the Brooklyn Bridge soon afterward. His name was Jesus, and he told me he had about sixteen nationalities in his DNA. “I’m an ambassador to the world, brother. A United Nations all-star.”

  “Good on you.”

  We pulled up in an industrial section of Greenpoint, all warehouses, some already converted to private residences. We got out of the cab after I paid the fare, and the Ambassador rapped on a warehouse door. I saw a panel in the door slide back, a window peeper. Not long after, locks unsnapped, and a big guy with an automatic rifle opened it up.

  “Jesus, what we got here?”

  “Yo, Disco,” the Ambassador said, “we got a high roller.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, yeah. We grew up together. Shared the same crib.”

  Disco smiled with a twist. “It’s your funeral.”

  “No, man, he’s cool. Like the summer breeze.”

  The Ambassador tapped me then, and I gave him two hundred-dollar bills. “Pleasure doing business with you, brother.”

  “And you.”

  The Ambassador disappeared into the night, and I was on my own. I stepped inside, and as the big guy held the gun, another wiry sort stepped from the shadows and frisked me. When he finished, he offered a short nod of approval to his armed colleague.

  The three of us walked through an enormous space that was so dark I could barely see. We arrived at an old elevator. The door opened, and the wiry guy and I stepped in. Then we went down, way down. At least a few floors. I could hear noise; music, actually.

  A couple more doors were unlocked, and I entered the subterranean paradise. The decor was somewhat Oriental, somewhat Parisian, like some kind of fantasy place. Red velvet was everywhere, even on the walls. A few lamps with red shades and red lightbulbs gave the entire space an otherworldly hue. There were lounge beds and club chairs and tables scattered in groupings around the large room, softly lit by a sea of candles. Asian girls were everywhere. Beautiful ones, too. The high end. People on beds were kissing, snorting, fingering, shooting. I opted for a more private affair.

  An exotic cocktail was passed to me from a tray, and I was escorted by a b
eauty in heels to a room. My room. For me—only me—and any company I wanted. The room was furnished with the same kind of table, chairs, and bed that I had seen in the public room, plus a minibar with spirits. My personal valet was an elegant Indonesian beauty who introduced herself as Akira. She was dressed in maroon satin, her lips and nails painted to match her dress. She poured me a double Scotch and gave me a kiss that tasted sweet. She let the kiss linger, but when I didn’t reciprocate, she stepped back and bowed deferentially. “Call me if you need something,” she said in a soft, silky voice that was as sexy as the rest of her.

  “What do you have that’s good for me?”

  “Everything, sir.”

  “Like—?”

  “Cocaine. Crack. Heroin. Propofol.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It makes you sleep. You don’t sleep?”

  “I sleep. My trouble is when I wake up.” Unsurprisingly, I decided on the propofol. Akira left the room and came back soon after with another woman, named Melanie, who was perhaps Filipino, Malaysian, or Eurasian—I couldn’t tell. Melanie rolled the IV unit into the room, and I stretched out on the bed before exposing my right arm. Melanie tied the tourniquet and gave me the stick, and I watched my veins swell as the milky substance began dripping like honey.

  13

  DREAM PLAYERS

  Carlotta is waiting upon my answer. Back, back, back . . . I’m going way back . . . all the way to when I was a schoolboy in Mallorca . . . We are sitting in the hot tub on the terrace of her apartment, with a glorious sweeping view of the Duomo and Brunelleschi’s dome. It’s a starry Florentine night, not a cloud in the sky to veil the crescent moon. I can almost make out a face on it, with its crater eye and long protruding chin.