August's Eyes

by Glenn Rolfe

  He wondered if it would ever let him go.

  Chapter Eight

  Sitting in the small waiting room of the psychiatrist’s office, John wondered what could possibly come of this. Sarah had suggested he try a therapist and it irritated the shit out of him, at least at first. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t depressed. He was just sleeping like shit because his boss was an asshole and because of some weird dreams. After getting into an argument with Sarah and offending her about the type of people who go to therapy, he surrendered.

  Sarah had come to Dr. Soctomah a few years ago after the last time they tried getting pregnant.

  Thinking of what he’d said to her earlier, he felt like a complete dick all over again.

  “John?” A tall, older gentleman with tan skin, dressed in Levi’s, a Pink Floyd t-shirt and a plaid scarf, held out his hand.

  John rose and shook it.

  “Rik Soctomah. Come on in.”

  John stepped past him and into a cozy room with two couches, a desk piled with books, and numerous shelves filled with just as many ancient-looking artifacts. He knew shit about art and antiques, but the masks and statues were cool. There was also a little case filled with arrowheads and decorative bowls. It looked like something out of the Indiana Jones movies.

  Maybe he has the Ark of the Covenant in here somewhere.

  “Are these the real deal or replicas?” John asked, gesturing at the masks.

  Dr. Soctomah closed the door and stood next to him.

  “Mostly replicas. Are you into Native American art?”

  “No, no, I just…it looks great.” John looked around, placing his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  “Well, take a seat.” Dr. Soctomah motioned toward the couches.

  John hesitated to look from the cushy brown sofa to the brown leather one on the right.

  “Whichever one you like is fine,” Dr. Soctomah said. He walked past him and picked up a clipboard from his desk.

  John went with the comfy brown sofa. As soon as his ass hit the seat, he knew he’d chosen correctly.

  “So,” the doctor said, as he sat across from him on the other couch. “Let’s first touch on what’s brought you here. Then, if you feel comfortable, we’ll dive into your life history and get this thing going. Sound good?”

  Hell no.

  John nodded.

  After a few seconds of silence, John guessed it was time to talk.

  “Well, I’m here because…well, I’m….”

  “It’s okay, John,” Dr. Soctomah said. “There’s no judgment here. What’s going on?”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m having a lot of trouble getting good sleep. And…it’s…well, it’s probably nothing.” He leaned forward and scratched his temple. He waited a second for the doctor to cut in. When he didn’t, John continued. “I’ve been having these strange dreams.”

  The doctor scribbled something on his notebook and looked back up when he was done.

  “I think the dreams, well, they’re really more like…I don’t know, they’re not quite nightmares, but they are dark…bizarre.”

  “Are they related?”

  “Yeah, actually.”

  “Recurring people, places, anything like that?”

  “Yes.”

  John worked his hands together. His palms were sweating.

  The doctor scribbled a few more notes.

  “In the dreams, I’m a kid, eleven, maybe twelve, and we’re always in a graveyard. Like a whole community of graveyards and there’s…there’s these two kids I always find myself there with. I don’t know who they are, but they’re always there.”

  “And in the dreams,” Dr. Soctomah said, scratching more notes, “what are you and these two kids doing?”

  “It’s almost as if they’re my friends, I guess. They always seem nice enough…well, August is…different.”

  Dr. Soctomah stopped writing. His gaze met John’s. “August? You remember their names?”

  “Ah, yeah, well, there’s August and the other one, a short scrawny kid’s name is…. One Eye. August called him by another name, a real name once, I think, but I don’t remember it.”

  “Is there anything specific you guys do in these dreams that makes you uncomfortable?”

  “Besides the fact that we’re always in a cemetery and that one kid has one eye and the other has none and can spit spiders out of his mouth, you mean?” John wiped his hand over his chin and sat back.

  “Okay, okay,” Dr. Soctomah said. “It sounds like there’s something your subconscious mind is trying to…sort through. It’s affecting your sleep, which is affecting your health, your stress levels, and your focus. I think I can help you.”

  John sighed. “You don’t think I’m losing my shit?”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  Over the next forty minutes, John surprised himself as he opened up to the man as if he’d been burning to speak to someone his entire life, confessing his shortcomings, his fears but also the things that gave him hope.

  “Time’s up. You’re a free man.”

  “Wow,” John shuddered a breath. “I didn’t expect to talk so much.”

  Dr. Soctomah smiled. “Sometimes, John, we just need someone to talk to.”

  John gave a nervous laugh as he stood.

  “I want you to come back next week. We’ll go over your life starting at your earliest memories and working as far as we can each session.”

  John smiled.

  “Thanks, Dr. Soctomah,” he said, as he stepped to the door.

  “Next week, same time?”

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you about that. I’m actually on a…vacation. Is there any way we can meet again this week?”

  “Oh,” the doctor said. “Ah, I’d have to look at my appointment book, but I bet we could figure something out.”

  “Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t sure what to expect here, no offense.”

  Dr. Soctomah waved him off, smiling.

  “I’ll call you,” the doc said. “It’ll probably be later this afternoon. Does that work?”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Please, and thank you.”

  “Okay, John, well two things,” Dr. Soctomah said as they stood at the door.

  “First off, these dreams really interest me. I think we definitely have something there to work through. I want you to pick up a notebook and write down your dreams when you wake up. It’s going to be your dream journal.”

  “Okay,” John said.

  “Secondly, have you ever thought about taking up running?”

  “Every now and then,” John said. “I used to run track.”

  “Running can be very therapeutic in itself. If I had to prescribe you anything today, that’d be it. Give it a shot. Try a run or two, nothing too long, maybe just an easy jog around the block, and see how you feel.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  John passed a young woman sitting in the waiting room with short blonde hair, dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, gnawing at her fingernails.

  “Georgia,” Dr. Soctomah said.

  The woman got up and followed the doctor into the room.

  * * *

  To be honest, John felt better telling someone else about his dreams. Sarah had listened to him, but it was nice to have an unbiased third party to speak with about it.

  Today was the start of his two-week vacation.

  Alison hadn’t been too excited by his request, but she didn’t have much choice. He enjoyed watching her squirm for once when he said he wanted to use all his vacation time and he wanted to start this Monday. She exclaimed there was no way to get coverage that fast, but he told her he already had it covered – Kaitlyn and Brandon, the new but totally capable guy who just moved here from Providence, had agreed to take on his caseload. Alison acquiesced
and here he was sitting outdoors at the Tap Room on a gorgeous summer afternoon drinking a cold beer and enjoying a haddock sandwich as he tried to figure out what to do next.

  John was finishing his pint of Shipyard Summer Ale when a green van caught his eye.

  An overwhelming sense of déjà vu tightened his flesh as his hands trembled. He stood and tried to get a look at the driver. When the figure behind the wheel turned to him, he saw the impossible.

  August?

  The pint glass slipped from his hands, shattering on the concrete patio.

  The van slowed; a whisper prickled his skin.

  Johhhhnnnnneeeee….

  “Sir,” the waitress said. “Are you okay?”

  He looked down at the broken glass and heard tires squeal as the van sped away. It was like the world was in slow motion.

  Turning left, he saw his fellow patrons were staring at him.

  He gave an awkward smile, feeling like a dumbass as he crouched down to clean up his mess.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” the waitress said. “Let me.”

  He paid his bill and made his way to his car.

  With a cigarette in his mouth, his unease receding, he let his gaze wander down Water Street past the post office, and the consignment shop that now took up residency where Pop’s Collectable Sports Cards used to be. He’d lived here in Spears Corner his entire life. He once dreamed of getting out, moving to Seattle with his guitar and trying to join the ranks of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden – the closest he ever got was a major case of stage fright at their eighth grade talent show that saw him make it halfway through the first song before he fled and embarrassed himself in front of Julie Heath. The next year, his parents divorced and went their separate ways, moving to opposite ends of the state. He refused to leave his friends and ended up moving in with his brother, Scott. Scott being nineteen and John only fifteen at the time, it wasn’t the most ideal situation – food was scarce and so was his brother, who worked fifty hours a week at the Carlton Woolen Mill and disappeared on weekends to get blasted with their cousin Derek. It was a lonely six months before he walked in on his brother having sex with a girl on the couch. After that, Scott’s good grace ran out and John wound up staying with his best friend Ryan’s family. He stayed with them until he decided to drop out of school, at which point Ryan’s parents’ good grace ran out, and they told him he’d have to move out. He got a job as a dishwasher at a local diner and at almost seventeen, got his own apartment (taking over his brother’s place as Scott moved in with his new girlfriend two towns over), had his own light bill and bought his own groceries.

  There was no sense of freedom or accomplishment, only failure, abandonment, and the constant struggle of trying to survive.

  John watched as two boys on BMX bikes rolled by.

  He found himself scanning the vehicles along the street searching for something out of a nightmare he couldn’t quite remember.

  Chapter Nine

  “John,” Sarah said. She placed her hands on his shoulders and whispered in his ear.

  Normally, he found this to be an extreme turn-on but not tonight.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’ve been thinking. And I wondered if…if you ever thought of trying again.”

  Oh God, not this. Not now.

  His mind was all over the place as it was; the last thing he needed was the pressure or the hurt that came with them trying for a baby.

  “Listen,” she said, sliding next to him on the bed. She placed a hand on his thigh and looked into his eyes. John bowed his head. Sarah reached under his chin and gently brought his gaze back to meet hers. He felt like garbage for his brief irritation.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be.”

  “No, I just get so….”

  Her eyes should have matched his hurt and his hopelessness, yet there they were, beaming like they knew something he didn’t.

  “It sucks watching you…go through all that heartache,” he said. “I just don’t know if I’m ready to witness that again.”

  “Believe me,” Sarah said, “I know what’s at stake. I just feel like…like it could be different this time.”

  And there she goes. This was how it went each time they got on the same page and decided together that kids just weren’t in their cards. They agreed to enjoy each other and live their lives however they chose, not being tied to a school or busy with getting the kids to sports or dance. But then, that nagging need she had somewhere inside would make her forget all the frustration, all the grief and the disappointment.

  “I know,” she said. “It isn’t easy for either of us. I know what I’m asking you to do. What I’m asking you to chance.”

  “I thought we agreed it was just the way it was supposed to be. You and me and that’s it.”

  “I just feel like we can do it. We can will it to happen.”

  “Sarah,” he started.

  “Please, John, one more time, for me.”

  His sigh said it all. And he instantly wanted to take it back.

  Her hand slipped from his thigh – a wave withdrawing from the shore.

  “Sarah,” he tried.

  Her lips pressed tight, a slight quiver to her chin. Her eyes looked anywhere but toward his.

  He reached for her, but she held a palm out to him and walked to the bathroom. She closed the door and shut him out.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. He rose and left the room, taking his pillow with him.

  What had she thought he was going to say, ‘Yah! Let’s fuck and try for disappointment. I can’t wait to see you cry. I can’t wait to have to jerk off for the rest of the year because sex reminds you of our failure. Yippee fucking yah!

  He stopped in the darkness of the living room.

  He was an asshole.

  She was probably crying alone back there, and he was out here stomping around like a selfish prick.

  There were cool couples out there, like his friend Kris and his wife Betty, who had purposefully chosen not to have kids because the world was going to hell. Sarah’s cousin Virginia and her husband were doing the same thing. They just didn’t want to deal with kiddos and the unnecessary challenges they presented. Capable couples who were happy to abstain from the societal norm.

  Try as they might to be content without a family, John and Sarah would never be like their friends. He knew it. They had wanted kids. The dream of having a couple of mini-mes laughing and running around, playing with toys, and waking them up in the night was something they talked about soon after they began dating.

  He wanted to forget it, to let it go, but Sarah clearly had not.

  Deflated, sitting on the sofa in the dark with his face in his hands, John couldn’t hold back the tears.

  * * *

  At some point, he had downed a couple beers and passed out on the couch. That night, his dreams kept to themselves as if the boys from Graveyard Land had sensed his pain and given him a reprieve.

  John slept long and deep with teardrops in his eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  Sarah lay there alone in the dark, screaming at the world for the hand she was dealt. She hated herself as much as she hated John right now. He was right. Trying for a baby was asking for regret. It was chasing devastation. Masochistic and sick. Did she really think it would happen this time? That they could make it happen? Unanswered prayers were worth a pile of shit.

  No matter how much she tried to convince herself having children wasn’t in the cards, to give up, to move on, to live a life of freedom with John, she sensed something big for them in the future. They were a great couple, but they were destined to be an even better family.

  The worst part was that she couldn’t forgive him. Even though she understood what he was saying, how he was feeling about not only himself but her, she coul
dn’t quiet the hurt or the rage.

  She kicked the shit out of herself for bringing it back up.

  Tears stained her pillow as Sarah eventually cried herself to sleep.

  * * *

  She slept undisturbed until the sunlight bled through the blinds and cast the room in its annoying brightness. Rousing from a dream she couldn’t remember, Sarah sat up, rubbing the eye boogers away. She could feel the heavy bags beneath her eyes, two puckering leeches pulling her life force away like a couple of energy vampires.

  Checking the alarm clock, she saw it was eight seventeen.

  She rose begrudgingly from the warmth of her bed, shambled out of the room and down the hall to find the house empty. John’s fuzzy, blue blanket was scrunched up at the end of the sofa beside his pillow. A couple beer cans sat on the coffee table next to her stack of library books, and his dirty socks lay on the floor. He’d gotten up and gone out already.

  Good.

  Normally, their alternating schedules, him on days, her on nights, bothered her, but sometimes it was necessary. She was grateful for his absence this morning. He was on vacation, so she didn’t know where he’d gone, but she needed a little time to wallow in this pain and think about last night. She hoped wherever he was he was feeling like shit.

  What did he have to do? Have sex with her? That was it.

  She knew that wasn’t fair, but her selfishness was so damn loud right now.

  She wanted a baby. She wanted to try.

  Tears threatened her exhausted eyes, and she tried to keep them from bursting free.

  Shaking her head, Sarah went to the fridge and focused on anything else. Eggs, breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Protein. Energy. Yoga.

  As she exhaled sharply in the refrigerator light, she felt slightly better.

  “Namaste.” She breathed the Sanskrit word, bowing to the bigger picture.

  She refused to let her emotions wreak havoc on the rest of her day.

  She asked Alexa to play Taylor Swift as she whipped up some breakfast. Hauntingly beautiful piano accompanied the singer’s melodies. The combination trickled like a fresh spring stream. A line about a girl having a marvelous time ruining things made Sarah smile bitterly.