Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  Megan clucked her tongue. “Maybe Ackerman’s jealous because you’ll get his tenure. You are now unofficially a threat to the assholes-that-be.”

  But Paula couldn’t keep her eyes off her subject. What had been going on behind those eyes? “Just look,” she said, nodding toward the glass.

  “I’m looking, I’m looking. It’s something. I just don’t know what. How long ago did you interview him?”

  ‘Ten minutes. Another Ken Russell movie. Lots of breasts and penises and acid flashbacks and no sense whatsoever. But there’re things emerging—in the dreams. Like the blank spot. The girl. Some girl. I knew there’d be a pattern if I interviewed him often enough. That trauma to his head—he was in an accident as a teenager. So it’s some kind of seizure, the scar showed up on the scan, but it’s like he’s always dreaming.”

  Megan looked at her with skepticism. “Dreaming? Or hallucinating? You sure there’s no history of drug abuse?”

  Paula shrugged. “I believe him when he says no. Marijuana and speed in his teens, and beer now and then. I think he’s being honest with me, too. I think he’s trying to fill in the blanks. Think of what this could mean. Think of it.”

  “Yeah, now millions of people can lose more sleep.”

  “You heard the tape. It’s like he dreams when he’s awake and when he closes his eyes…”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, but how can there be nothing? No brain waves, no REM. It’s like downtime on a computer. He just isn’t there, but it’s not sleep...”

  “And it’s not insomnia. And it has nothing to do with Jett-Gerrish, you ask me.”

  “No, it does, and it is some kind of insomnia. You don’t just shut down to go to sleep.”

  “Maybe some people do, and nobody’s slept with them enough to know it.”

  Paula felt her face go red. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. And I haven’t, not that it’s any of your business, anyway.”

  “I just want to prepare you for what they’re already starting to say behind your back. And if I were you, I wouldn’t keep throwing around Jett-Gerrish, because she was a nut and they’ll lump you in there, too. You’re swimming with sharks now.”

  “As if I care,” Paula said. “This guy is all mine, and I’m going to show Ackerman and his goons for the stuffed shirts they are. This guy’s dreams are going to make mine come true.”

  3

  Transcript from the taped interview Subject 08, SR—36, Paula Quinn.

  Q: Describe for me what you’re seeing now.

  A: Lizards running, they’ve got paws like a lion’s...and great cones and pyramids rising out of bubbling mud pots, the sky is so yellow, and smoky, like a sulphur fog, and there’s a house over there, just beyond that ridge, a hand, a hand is coming up from the swampy ground, pushing through these wriggling masses of… what? Mosquito larvae? Frog’s eggs? I can’t tell, but the fingers are coming up. But the swamp—frozen—it’s frozen solid, a sheet of ice, all around me, ice, and the fingers still groping, trying to break the ice, and children are skating over there beyond the trees, but the running lizards have them, grasping the kids as they try to skate away, and they’re not lizards anymore, they’re, oh my God, dragons, and they’re devouring the kids. But no, they’re not, I can’t see them now because the fingers keep wriggling.

  Q: Can you smell anything?

  A: Rotten eggs. Like it just rained rotten eggs.

  Q: You see rotten eggs?

  A: No, I just smell them. It’s like a bad fart.

  Q: Great. Can you touch anything?

  A: No. It’s more like a movie.

  Q: Does the hand frighten you?

  A: Not really. It’s disgusting, with all that gunky stuff hanging from the fingers.

  Q: What do you make of what you’re seeing?

  A: It’s just a dream.

  Q: Do you believe that?

  A: Why not? I know it’s crazy. I’m surprised you haven’t locked me up yet.

  Q: You mean for what you did?

  A: Well, I attacked the guy.

  Q: He wasn’t hurt too badly.

  A: Lady, you must have a pretty damn good lawyer.

  Q: Best in town.

  A: Well, dream’s over. Is that recorder on?

  Q: Does it bother you?

  A: I guess not. It can’t be used as evidence, can it?

  Q: No.

  A: And you’re not a doctor so you can’t put me away.

  Q: Right.

  A: You got plans for tonight?

  Q: No, Charles, I don’t.

  A: Charles sounds snooty. My friends call me Charlie. You up for maybe dinner or something?

  Q: Now who’s asking the questions?

  4

  Charlie Urquart at thirty-six was almost completely bald, but had a disarming smile and deep blue eyes that were both compelling and distant—a lethal combination for Paula Quinn. You always go for men who are enigmas, she thought the evening when she sat across from him at Café Bonnelle.

  He drank hot chocolate, rubbing his hands against the warm mug.

  “I love cocoa,” he told her. “Always have. This chocolate truffle cake is a killer. You sure you got enough money for this?”

  “Yes, Charlie.” Paula had trouble looking him in the eyes—he had such a direct gaze. She felt self-conscious, and wondered if she’d crossed the border between helping a patient and using him. The table was a small square of bleached wood; her side was neat and tidy, and his side already had a thin layer of crumbs and spilled cocoa over it. The waitresses wanted to close up the place—it was getting late—but they would have to wait. Paula wanted to see if he would open up to her on his own.

  He smiled. His whole face lit up with that smile, so that he looked almost like a kid getting his first car, “Well, I mean, it’s been an expensive evening. I don’t usually go to nice restaurants, and I never go somewhere else for dessert. Pardon me for saying it, but you’ve got nice legs. I know that some women don’t like getting that kind of compliment, but I’ve got to say it. I see women get in and out of my cab all day and night, and I notice things like legs.”

  Paula blushed. She returned her glance to the crumbs around his plate; she was afraid he’d be able to see right through her, and she wasn’t even sure what she was feeling. Ten minutes before, she might’ve confessed that she was going to develop a friendship with this man in order to study him, but now she wondered if she didn’t just like him. She was so bad at making friends—they had only come through work. “How long have you been driving your taxi?” He dropped his fork onto the plate, startling her. But he didn’t sound angry when he said, “More interview. Why don’t I ask you some things, okay?”

  She nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Is this your usual technique? Look at me, please?”

  Paula steeled herself for his intense gaze. It frightened her a little, because there was so much power behind those eyes. But when she looked at him, he was grinning like a puppy. She giggled nervously. “What?”

  He rubbed the palms of his hands together just like he was scheming. “Well, okay, you know, here’s this guy, a cabbie, beats some old man up on the corner of Thirty-third and Third, lands in court, you come down and psychoanalyze him and then take him out on a date, and then you both end up right around the corner from, as they say, the scene of the crime. If there’re things you want to know, just be direct. Okay?”

  “Oh, Charlie,” she sighed, wondering if he could read her thoughts as well as it seemed. “I’m not really psychoanalyzing you, but otherwise I guess you’ve summed me up.” She took a sip of cappuccino. She put the cup down nervously, certain that he would notice that her hand was shaking ever so slightly.

  He saw the shiver in her hand, and reached over to steady it. His hands were warm. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “I’m not afraid of that.” She felt his warmth. She was more afraid of herself than she was of him.

  “I still can’t believe I hurt that old guy. I mean, I kne
w I was doing it, but I thought it was a dream.” He took his hand off hers and wiped perspiration from his forehead. “Maybe I need a shrink, I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong. It’s okay what you’re doing. All this interview garbage. I don’t exactly have a full schedule.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Why, you want to take notes or something? Got that tape recorder?” He peered around the table. “Got a video camera in that monstrous purse of yours?”

  “No cameras. But I could jot something down. If it’s all right with you?”

  “Whatever.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a notepad and pen. She flipped back the cover of the pad and jotted down the date. “What would you usually do on a Tuesday night?”

  “Back to the interview. Okay. Well, usually I would just drive around all night, you know, for fares. I read, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like ‘read any good ones lately?’ Okay. Let’s see, I read a little Nietzsche last night.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “Huh? No—what do you—you think a cab driver in New York’s going to be illiterate? I don’t have the best education in the world, but I’ve been making sure I read a book a week for at least, oh, the last ten, twelve years.”

  “Did you really read Nietzsche?”

  “You bet. I think a lot of what he says is crap, but it’s got its fascination for me. Like horror stories.”

  “Why horror stories?”

  He sighed, exasperated. Paula wondered if she was being tedious. Was she treating him like an idiot? “Well, you know, the old ones like Dracula. It’s got what you’d call a hidden agenda. At least for me. It’s about fighting the unknown. Like if Dracula was cancer and I had cancer, it’s about fighting cancer. But it’s also about wondering if cancer is all that unnatural a thing. Is cancer, or Dracula, really evil? Sounds crazy, and I know I’m not saying exactly what I mean to say—it’s the chocolate rush. And don’t look at me funny, because I don’t have cancer. No wait, I don’t mean that. It’s like my theory about Adam and Eve, you know how in the Garden they’re not supposed to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and they go for it. Well, most people, whether they look at that story symbolically or literally—most people agree it’s about this act that explains why, you know, say the world isn’t always a great place to be. But the way I see it—and this may sound crazy—what the story is telling you is that definite boundaries of good and evil exist for us only when we chomp down on that fruit, but the real thing is that things are things, they are what they are, they aren’t evil or good, they just are. It’s Popeye saying ‘I yam what I yam,’ and it’s like none of us has to bite into that apple, but when we do, expect the world to go haywire. God, how the hell do I bring this back around to Dracula?”

  “Maybe by saying that vampires aren’t evil?”

  “I don’t quite mean that. I mean, I guess, that like Popeye, they are what they are. In Dracula, the vampire’s the enemy, but one of the women in it becomes the enemy, and then her friends have to kill her. Because, you know, she’s not one of our crowd, anymore, she doesn’t play by our rules. She’s just changed, she’s just gone from one form of existence into another—that is if you haven’t bitten into that apple, to mess some metaphors together. Hey, I’m just a cabbie, so what the hell do I know?” Charlie grinned broadly and glanced around the cafe to make sure he hadn’t been speaking too loudly.

  Paula grinned too. “Usually when I have dinner with a man, we don’t end up talking about Dracula and the Garden of Eden and Nietzsche.”

  “What do you end up doing?” His gaze came back and locked into hers, and was so direct and honest it made her flinch. He had asked it as if he were quite innocent about what went on between men and women.

  Paula had to look down at her cup again. “So you read and you drive. Do you have family around here?”

  “No, but you know what they say: Manhattan is the island of orphans.”

  “Your parents are dead?”

  He closed his eyes, tensing, then opened them again. “I should never have mentioned your legs; the conversation’s gotten way too personal. So you want me for your study? You’ve got me on tape and I’ve seen that sloppy notebook of yours. Is that really a professional sleep researcher’s yellow pad?”

  “These are my rough notes. I filter them through academic and scientific sensibilities only after I’ve figured them out for my own satisfaction. Sounds like good BS, doesn’t it? Look, I won’t make you do anything you don’t want, it’s only if you’re interested. I think you’d benefit, too.”

  “So you want to turn me into a lab rat. Do I get paid?”

  “Until a grant comes through I don’t have a lot, just what my family’ll help out with. If I can convince someone in the department, maybe...”

  “I was joking. I don’t need to get paid. I can still drive? Good. There’s something about driving around New York all night long that makes me feel glad to be alive. You think you’ll cure me?”

  “Do you think you’re ill, Charlie?”

  He looked down at the table. Like he was collecting his thoughts. Like he was withdrawing from the real world. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I’m ill. But I do know what I am.”

  “Quit being so harsh on yourself. Whatever this disorder is, it probably can be worked out.”

  “I know what I am,” Charlie Urquart repeated. “I’m cursed.”

  5

  Paula Quinn/Notes on Charles Geoffrey Urquart, III

  Two weeks and already great strides. No biological irregularities, nothing organic to indicate tissue damage. Sleep center completely destroyed?

  Is this a hoax just to get out of an assault charge? But how the hell does someone stay up for six days in a row and then shut down for four hours with no REM, none of the usual phenomena associated with sleep, and then go on for another four days before shutting down again? No stimulants. Boredom not even a factor.

  Is he beyond psychotic? Am I in over my head? If I can just keep this a secret from Ackerman and Milton, and if Megan’ll keep her mouth shut, maybe I can come up with something. This may be out of my league. Like I’m blindfolded, but I can’t let the department in on this completely. Fudged some reports, but what did Ackerman ever do for me? He would take this over and take all the credit like every other academic in this place.

  Already changed advisers twice, never get my Ph.D. before I’m thirty if I don’t get this show on the road.

  Come on, Charlie, let’s get to the bottom of this! Subject responds to affection, simple kindness, like he’d never received it before. Rode with him in his cab last night and he said nothing the whole time.

  Ended up in the Village, through Hell’s Kitchen, all these places, but no talk. Has something in his moneybox, talks about it, but won’t show me. Must be a gun— talks about his protection. But not much. Scared me a little, but I don’t think, if he has a gun, that it’s loaded.

  Started (finally!) talking nonstop from 2 a.m. to 7 p.m.—manic? Rambles on and on about books and theories about existence. Concerned with mortality, thoughts always turning to death, illness and cures, laying on of hands, casting out demons, forms of existence. Sex, too, but not as sex, per se, but as a cataclysm, as a destroyer of personality. Joked about the Big Orgasm at the end of the universe. The way teenagers talk.

  Conflict between good and evil—doesn’t think there’s a difference, he says, because it is all relative. Something is only evil to us (humans) if it puts us lower on the food chain, but, he asks, is it really evil? Is disease evil? or death? or man-eating sharks? or demons? (Why demons? why does he keep saying demons, and yet he also professes that he doesn’t believe in them?)

  Waking dreams, his hallucinations while he’s conscious (but this study may turn our normal thoughts on consciousness upside down), seem to be heavily influenced by surrealistic art and poetry. Yeats, even a Prufrockism (the scuttling crab in the dream of 10-11—see dr
eam notes, as well as the singing mermaids) so Eliot gets thrown in, Goya’s witches, Dali’s melting watches and ants crawling, some Lewis Carroll (dream notes 10-13: baby turning into pig), some classical literature (dream note 10-16: Dido’s self-immolation before Aeneas, although maybe I’m into it). Sexuality heavily emphasized, as evidenced by as evidenced by his physiological response to the waking dreams (rapid heartbeat, facial blushing, penile tumescence).

  Horny for hours immediately after dreams.

  God, if Ackerman ever got a hold of these he’d have my head. Teenage boys figure in these dreams, too, as well as humiliation before group like some fraternity initiation. Blind spot in his dreams—unwilling to tell me everything he’s seeing. Something there. Maybe an area of his brain destroyed, but undetected by current testing procedures. What is the blind spot? What is he not telling me from the waking dreams?

  6

  Charles Urquart in his own words, on tape:

  Paula, so I brought this thing home and now I’m talking into it. I’m not currently dreaming. You want to know more about me. Fine. I came to New York when I was twenty-three. I had gotten involved in some things out West when I was a teenager that I’m not too proud of, and I ended up in a sort of work camp and then a detention home and then a foster home and finally just moved on, and then I decided to get as far away from all that as possible as soon as I could. Don’t ask me about that time, I don’t even pretend it was real. Hitchhiked across country, doing odd jobs on the road, and sleeping in horse-trailers—it was better than the foster home I’d been in. Arrived in Port Authority with about ten bucks, slept in the streets that summer, but was smart enough to go to the Upper West Side, where people threw couches out onto the sidewalks. Had my driver’s license, and started working for this guy with a gypsy cab outfit. New York’s the right place for me, most of the time. I guess you could say I was shell-shocked and I wanted to be somewhere where everything was controlled and artificial and manmade, and what better place than here?