Fade to Black - Proof

by Jeffrey Wilson

  “Yeah, I remember,” McIver answered. “That Yankee will eat any goddamn thing.”

  “Captain’s Chicken is ok,” Simmons defended, “You guys just don’t crush up the crackers and add hot sauce.”

  “Captain’s Chicken don’t come with friggin’ crackers,” an unknown voice said.

  “Bullshit it don’t,” Simmons answered.

  “Hey, Rich if you’ll eat anything, why don’t you crawl over here and eat me?”

  “Fuck off, Tex,” Simmons laughed. “Anyway, I’m too hungry for that little snack.”

  They all laughed.

  “Noise discipline, guys,” a familiar voice said. Then Jack caught his breath as he realized why it was familiar. It was his voice.

  “Sorry, Sar’n,” Simmons said, his voice now a lower whisper. “Casey, don’t that chicken thing come with crackers?”

  “Shit, Rich, I don’t know,” Stillman answered in Jack’s voice. “But I’ll tell you guys one thing.” There was a pause.

  “What’s that, Sar’n?” Kindrich asked with his Tennessee accent.

  “Simmons will eat about any goddamn thing!”

  And they all laughed in hushed giggles.

  Jack listened as his men continued to tease each other, smoking in the moonlight—except Simmons who was still eating, and McIver who was dipping Skoal and spitting onto the sand berm. He still felt pretty content, if anything.

  “Good bunch of kids,” a voice said behind him. Jack didn’t jump. He had expected the voice. Why not? It was just a dream, right? His dream. And he felt, for the first time, very much in control.

  “Yeah, they are,” he answered and turned slowly to look over his shoulder, already knowing that Commander Hoag would be there. “I think I love them all,” he said. Then he considered the statement and added, “Or I would, if they were real.”

  Commander Hoag sported his clean digital desert cammies and dirty desert boots again. He sat down beside Jack in the dirt, groaning as he did, like all middle-aged men eventually come to do. He looked at Jack in the moonlight.

  “What makes you think they aren’t real?” Hoag asked with a patience that reminded Jack of Dr. Lewellyn. Jack smiled. Not this time. He was in control here. It was his mind who created Hoag, and his decision to summon him here for some reason.

  Listen to what your mind is asking you.

  “Well,” he said leaning in towards the Navy chaplain, “For one thing, I’m dreaming.”

  “I see,” Hoag answered, looking up at the moon, as if he were thinking that one over. “And because you are dreaming, this can’t be real?”

  “Well, it’s real in one sense, I guess,” Jack answered. He leaned back now on his outstretched arm, content to play the game. “I mean, my mind is real, my thoughts are real. I came here to this place in my mind, this dream, to find some answers, I suppose. Answers to some real questions about some real problems I’m having. Those guys,” Jack gestured in the direction of Casey Stillman and his squad of Marines, “are from my nightmares. They’re real to me, I guess. Sometimes too fucking real,” he laughed. “But they exist only here, in my mind.” He tapped his temple like Pam had done and felt very satisfied with the answer.

  “You’re sure?” Hoag asked quietly. “Sure that this place is the dream?”

  Jack felt anxious at that question. Wasn’t that the real question he had been asking himself all along? Wasn’t that the crux of his deepest fear, that this was real and his home, his life and job, his girls, were the dream? “I’m sure,” he lied.

  Hoag shifted in the sand, lying back against the berm, and gazed up at the moon. “Then what are you doing here?” he asked.

  Jack thought a long moment before answering. The question implied he came here of his own free will; that his nightmares and hallucinations were things he had created on purpose. Was that true? He supposed that in a sense it had to be. His mind created them somehow, to force him to face something that bothered him, something that frightened him terribly. But what?

  “I’m looking for some answers, I guess,” he said, watching the commander carefully. For a long time the chaplain said nothing, just stared at the sky and the bright half‐moon overhead.

  “Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions,” he said simply.

  Jack said nothing. But the simple statement bothered the shit out of him, though he didn’t know why. What was the question he was asking? He just wanted to know he wasn’t crazy, he thought. And to try and figure out what was haunting his mind so viciously that he could have created such horrible visions in his dreams. What connected him to these Marines, these young men who stretched out now in the sand, resting up to go into battle in a dusty little city, thousands of miles from their homes? Some of them would die there tomorrow, at least in his nightmare. He didn’t know how to feel about that, or if he should feel anything. His mind was telling him a story, and he was just following along, trying to catch the hidden meaning. Wasn’t that what Dr. Lewellyn wanted him to believe? Jack lay back in the sand beside the Navy chaplain, another creation of his troubled mind. He felt very tired now. He was done with this dream.

  Time to go home.

  “I’d love to stay and chat, sir,” Jack said, turning to the chaplain in the sand beside him, “but I think I’m done for tonight.” He yawned and closed his eyes.

  “Did you find any answers here?” Commander Hoag asked softly.

  “Not yet,” Jack answered tiredly.

  “Tomorrow I think we should talk about death, Casey. I think we should start asking the questions that will unlock your fears, okay?”

  “My name is Jack,” Jack answered without knowing why.

  * * *

  He didn’t start awake. He didn’t scream or tear at his throat. He actually felt kind of peaceful. He simply opened his eyes and found himself looking at the ceiling of their bedroom, the fan turning slowly in the moonlight from the window, without much surprise.

  Jack let his mind wander over the conversation with Hoag, and searched for the deeper meaning that his inner voice must be trying to help him find. It no longer seemed that finding out whether Casey Stillman and his Marines had ever been real was the most important thing. There was something else. Something those nightmares represented.

  Jack rolled over and wrapped his arms around Pam, hugging her tightly. He hoped tomorrow that Lewellyn would help him find the questions. Then maybe he could work on the answers.

  He kissed Pam’s hair, closed his eyes, and slipped into a dreamless sleep.

  Finally the damn medicine was starting to work.

  Chapter

  17

  Jack woke up feeling a lot more rested. At first he didn’t remember his dream and lay in bed with a contented smirk; again the medicine had beat out his sanity. Then slowly he felt the dream rematerialize. He watched the ceiling fan turn and wondered what it meant.

  Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions…

  Maybe. Hell, probably. He had to admit he had given up any belief that he had a clue what the hell was going on. What were the right questions?

  Are you sure this isn’t the dream?

  Jack shuddered a bit, and then forced the thoughts from his head and swung his legs out of bed. There would be plenty of time for this horseshit when he got to Lewellyn’s office. He shuffled to the bathroom slowly on stiff legs and saw a yellow Post-it note with Pam’s handwriting pasted to the mirror. He squinted his tired eyes and then reached behind him to turn on the light as he pulled the note down.

  Jack,

  I decided to let you sleep in ‘cause you looked so peaceful. I have taken Claire to her playgroup at Melissa’s. I am running to the store and then I will be home. Call me after your meeting if you want and maybe we can meet somewhere for lunch.

  Love you.

  –Pam

  Jack felt a terrible disappointment that he wouldn’t see his girls before his meeting. Is that what it was, a meeting? Not her style to call it a head-shrinking session, Jack supposed.
Then he realized he had no idea what time it was and dashed into the bedroom to look at the clock.

  Nine fifteen? Oh, shit!

  Jack took a very quick shower and then pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt. No reason to get all dressed up for Lewellyn anymore. They were way past any first impression bullshit. He dashed out the door, hoping for time to get coffee on the way. By nine thirty-five he was warming the Volvo in the driveway.

  As Jack flipped through his CD case looking for a Kenny Chesney disc, he saw the newspaper he had left in the passenger seat. Marine Corps Times it announced in bold red script. Jack wondered why he had impulsively grabbed that paper. He started to reach for it, but then realized he was still running late. What could he hope to find in there anyway? He popped in the CD and backed out of the drive.

  Twenty minutes later he was parked in the same spot he had left from the day before, feeling almost as nervous. Without much thought he grabbed the little paper off the passenger seat as he got out and tucked it under his arm as he locked the Volvo’s doors with his fob, a satisfying chirp-chirp announcing his success. Maybe he would flip through the paper in the waiting room. There might be something about the 3/1 and the action in Fallujah.

  Jack arrived at the glass receptionist window at nine fifty-eight, Citgo coffee in hand (black) and smiled at the receptionist, a flash of embarrassment as he recalled his last encounter with her in the waiting room.

  “Good morning, Jack,” she said, no hint that she remembered how crazy he had seemed just twenty-four hours earlier. “How are you this morning?”

  “Feeling much better, thanks,” he answered with a charming smile.

  No dead guys in the waiting room today are there?

  “Good.” She smiled back. “Dr. Lewellyn is ready for you, so you can go right back if you like.”

  “Great,” he said, though he felt more anxious than great. He headed for the hall, then turned and hesitated. “Could I leave my paper with you until I’m done? I’d rather not take it back,” he said to the girl behind the clean glass. Why had he brought it with him? The last thing he wanted was for Lewellyn to see it. Why stir the pot?

  “Sure, Jack,” she answered and took the paper from him, setting it on the desk beside her.

  “Thanks,” Jack said with a little wave and then headed for the dark door at the end of the hall.

  The psychologist greeted him warmly and offered to freshen his coffee, which Jack accepted, and then they both took their now expected seats. Jack crossed his legs and sipped his coffee, waiting for the inevitable question so he could begin recounting his day after their last session and his dream from last night. But Lewellyn had other plans.

  “I want to start a bit differently today, Jack,” he said, opening his little leather‐bound notebook and clicking his pen. “I think today we should talk a little bit about death. I think we should start to ask the questions that may unlock your fears, okay?”

  Jack felt his mouth go dry and his pulse quicken at the words. What the hell? Lewellyn couldn’t possibly know about his conversation with Hoag in last night’s dream. He felt a panic growing in the middle of his chest and set his coffee on the end table with a trembling hand.

  “Jack?” Lewellyn sounded concerned, but maybe it was his imagination. “Jack, are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Jack answered. “Just a little early for such a heady conversation. I was sound asleep less than an hour ago.” His attempt at sounding casual failed miserably and he felt the psychologist’s dissecting eyes on him. Jack could feel a sense of surrealism creep into his already jumbled mood. Was this the dream after all? Wouldn’t that explain Lewellyn tossing back his own mind’s (Hoag’s) words at him?

  “Are you uncomfortable talking about death, Jack?” he asked.

  Jack’s mind reeled and he forced himself to calm down. He was overreacting. Lewellyn was asking the inevitable question that Jack had somehow known he would ask. That was where his dream had come from.

  “No,” Jack lied. “No, not at all. Just a little surprised. I thought we might start with things that happened yesterday.” He hoped he could intrigue the doctor to a more comfortable conversation, but Lewellyn wasn’t biting.

  “We’ll come back to all that, Jack,” he said softly. He sat motionless, and Jack felt he was studying him. “I’d like to start with this, okay? It seems to be a relevant theme for us.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. He succeeded a little better at sounding casual this time. “Shoot.”

  “Well, let’s start with the basics.” Lewellyn scribbled in his book now. “What do you think death is, Jack?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he answered, “but who does, right? We all find out, I guess, but no one is talking.”

  At least not to everyone else.

  They spent the next quarter hour talking in generalities about death. Jack was very uncomfortable talking about something he felt he knew so little about, especially now that he felt his views might be changing with all that was going on in his mind. They discussed, briefly, his beliefs about death from a religious standpoint.

  “I was brought up believing that death isn’t the end,” he said, “that God has something else in store for us when we leave here.”

  “Do you still believe that?” Lewellyn asked.

  “I think so,” Jack answered. In fact he wasn’t at all sure what he believed. His nightmares and hallucinations had him thinking a lot about the moment of death. Especially the violent and grotesque death he had seen not just in his dreams, but on the television news. He had not given much new thought to what came next.

  “Are you afraid of death, Jack?” Lewellyn asked. He looked at him patiently and seemed quite comfortable with this very uncomfortable topic.

  “Isn’t everyone?” Jack asked, evading the question a bit.

  “I don’t know, Jack.” Lewellyn answered. “I’m most interested in how you feel, though.”

  “At least during my billable session,” Jack joked, vying for more time. He regretted it immediately, though the psychologist seemed unruffled.

  “Right,” he said easily, okay with the joke apparently.

  There was a long pause during which Lewellyn watched him impassively and Jack fidgeted uncomfortably. After a few moments his doctor spoke.

  “Well?” Lewellyn said.

  “Well, what?” Jack asked innocently.

  Lewellyn uncrossed his legs and leaned forward like he always did when Jack squirmed. His attempt at being more personal, Jack thought.

  “You haven’t answered the question, Jack. But I’m sure you know that.”

  Jack sighed heavily. He wasn’t going to get out of this conversation.

  “Sure,” he answered. Then looked up and held Lewellyn’s gaze. “Yeah, I’m scared of death. Isn’t everybody, at least a little? Who knows what it really is, right? I mean, I think we all harbor fear of the unknown.” There. That should do it.

  “What scares you the most about dying, Jack,” Lewellyn asked, not at all content to leave well enough alone.

  “I’m most afraid of having to leave my girls—to be without Pam and Claire,” Jack answered without a second thought. Then he leaned back against the thick leather cushion. That was true, wasn’t it? Leaving his life with his family unfinished was what he feared the most.

  “Okay,” Lewellyn said and reassumed his cross-legged position of interrogation, scribbling again in his notebook. Then he took a moment and reviewed a few notes from farther back in his notebook. “What do you think the Navy chaplain represents in all this, Jack?” He flipped a few more pages. “Commander Hoag,” he said, finding his name in his notes.

  Jack thought about that a moment. Who was the chaplain to him? He was an irritating son of a bitch, that was for sure.

  “He asks me questions,” Jack answered simply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Jack thought carefully. “When I’m thinking about things, he seems to sort of show up and ask questions.�
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  “What kind of questions?” Lewellyn asked, intrigued.

  “He asks things that sort of, I don’t know, get me thinking in a different way. Sort of like you do.”

  “Well that’s interesting,” Lewellyn said. “What do you make of that?”

  Jack was determined to give the psychologist a good answer.

  “I think that Hoag is really coming from a part of my mind that stimulates me to think and analyze things in a different way,” he said. Yeah, that sounded good. “He is sort of the rational part of me. He separates me from the emotional impact of the nightmares and stuff, and lets me think more critically, I think.”

  “So he’s your own voice?”

  “My own thoughts,” Jack corrected.

  Lewellyn put down his pen and seemed quite satisfied.

  “That’s very good, Jack.” He got up and crossed over to the couch, taking up a seat next to him. “Very good.” He patted Jack lightly on the leg. “So what do you make of that?”

  Jack felt more relaxed. He felt like he had made some breakthrough, but was remarkably unconcerned that he had no idea what the hell it was.

  “Well, I guess I’m listening to him a bit more,” Jack laughed and held up a hand, “in my mind, not in a crowded restaurant, but we’ll get to that. I guess listening to my own rational and unemotional side,” he corrected, “will help me look at things differently and get to the answers I need.”

  “I think so, too, Jack.” Lewellyn patted him on the leg again.

  There’s a good boy.

  “Well, this makes a nice transition into my day yesterday after I left you,” Jack said.

  Lewellyn rose, crossing back over to his driver’s seat and opening his little book, pen again at the ready.