To Dream

by James C. G. Shirk

conclusion

“She opens the guitar case and says ‘Look’, and I hesitate. It’s like if I do, I know something will happen, something bad, something good, hell I don’t know, but it scares me. Bad. I want to look inside... look in there just to please her,” his voice softened as he talked, “but before I can decide what to do, the opportunity is gone. I’ve waited too long. The car, the guitar case, her, everything gets fuzzy, snowy, just like the picture on the television in Jake’s station.”

Rodney looked up at the doctor. He felt hot tears crowding the corners of his eyes, so he pushed them back with the heel of his hand. “The next thing I know, I’m looking at the books in my locker at school again. I’m right back where I started, and the dream repeats. I’m powerless to stop it until... until I’m aware I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and it’s morning. But I feel like crap — like I didn’t sleep at all.”

There was a long and uncomfortable pause — the only sound, the ticking of the grandfather clock. “Well, Mr. Sumpter,” Handshoe finally sai, “we have significantly more detail this time around.” He closed the file. “I’m beginning to develop a theory behind what’s driving your dream.”

“Really? What is it?” Maybe this guy isn’t just an asshole after all, Rodney thought.

The doctor rose, put the file back on his desk, and clasped his hands in front of him. Rodney felt like he was going to pontificate now, but that was okay, as long as he came up with something useful.

“Mr. Sumpter, I believe you’ve buried something in your past, something that is truly painful or distasteful — a memory that your conscious mind refuses to acknowledge. Furthermore, I think that the accident in the river shook the memory from its hiding place. The feelings you expressed at the end of your account just now revealed that. You said it was cold, but you felt both hot and sweaty and shivering. Water runs down your face. It ties together.”

The doctor reflected for a few seconds and then smiled at Rodney. “The good news is that I don’t think you have PTSD. The struggle in your dream and the reason for its recurrence is your not wanting to deal with a hidden event — the details of which are contained in that beaten-up guitar case, but you won’t look in there Mr. Sumpter, will you? You’d rather relive the dream again and again rather than deal with whatever truth is hiding in there.”

Rodney shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t feel that way to him, the idea that his own mind was hiding something seemed illogical. But, what the hell did he know?

The doctor glanced at the grandfather clock. “We have extra time today, so with your permission, I’d like to use a new drug to help with our hypnosis session. It might help us uncover the truths locked away in that guitar case. Would you be amenable to that?”

Rodney’s eyes shifted about. Could he be right? Maybe there was a logical reason for all this; maybe if he found out what it was, then things in the real world would be better. Hell, his life, as it was, couldn’t be much more miserable.

“Okay, Doc. I’m in.”

After administering the drug, Handshoe drew the shades, further darkening the room from the overcast and snowy day. He lit the single candle on the small table in front of Rodney’s chair and told him to sit back in the chair and relax. “Focus on the flame,” he said and then began talking. His voice was soothing, soft and so easy to...

* * *

Rodney was staring at the books in the locker again. Only this time, he was also aware that he was still sitting in the doctor’s office. The dream scene felt real, crazy real. The new drug must be really good. He looked up, thinking he might see himself floating in the air overhead.

“Hey man.” The slap on the shoulder came a second later. “You going tonight?”

He turned. Beneath a shock of red hair, freckles, and dark black glasses was his best friend, Jimmy, smiling at him with that familiar big, dopey grin. God, he wondered what ever happened to him; they lost touch after high school, at least in the dream.

“What year is it?” he heard himself say. He hadn’t thought about asking the question. It just came out. It came out, because the voice in his head told him to ask the question. The voice belonged to the doctor. Weird.

“Hey man, what are you talking about?” Jimmy asked. “What year is it? That’s a good one.”

“No, I’m serious, Jimmy, what year is it?”

“You okay?” Jimmy asked, looking deep into Rodney’s eyes. “Been smoking or something?”

He grabbed Jimmy’s shoulders. “Just tell me.”

“Okay, okay, don’t have a cow. It’s ’67 man. You know that. C’mon let’s get to Civics before the bell rings or Mr. Guthrie will keep us over again.”

Rodney smiled. They weren’t going by the script in his dream now. He could hear himself talking to Handshoe, explaining what he was seeing, what he was feeling in the dream, but that didn’t matter. He was here, and as far as he was concerned, it was real.

The Civics class rushed by, Rodney paid little attention; he mostly gawked at how young everyone looked. The thought made him want to go look at himself in a mirror. After class, Jimmy dropped him off at his house. Jimmy had his own car. It was a piece of crap, a blue ’62 Falcon, but it ran, which was a good thing, since Rodney didn’t have a clue where his house was.

At home, he met his mother and father. They seemed vaguely familiar and nice. He wasn’t uncomfortable around them at all, especially his Mom, but they acted as though they thought he was behaving a little strange. Who wouldn’t be in his situation, right? All of it mattered little. He was only interested in one thing: Serpina.

At seven o’clock, he got his father’s car and drove to the Standard station. He checked along the avenue as he drove. She wasn’t anywhere in sight. The scene inside the station was the same as before, and he heard himself telling Handshoe so. LBJ was on the fuzzy black and white television, the red Coke cooler was still in the corner, and bags of peanuts were still under the glass counter. He checked outside, but Serpina hadn’t shown up yet.

Rodney grabbed a Coke, chugged a couple of mouthfuls, and dumped the peanuts inside before taking another swig — the sweet and salty taste so familiar; God he hadn’t experienced that for a long time.

He paid Jake when he came in from the pumps, and Jake asked him if he could work Saturday washing cars. Rodney said he didn’t think he could, and he quickly went back outside.

In his head, Handshoe was urging him on, wanting him to get with Serpina as soon as he could. Lulu was singing “To Sir with Love” on the radio, but there was no Serpina hitch-hiking on the avenue. He told Handshoe that, and the doctor told him to hang around the station for a while. Rodney disagreed.

He jumped in the car and peeled out, looking back at Jake in the doorway who just shook his head. As he turned onto the avenue, he saw someone sitting beneath the large Standard sign on the roadside — a guitar case leaned against the sign next to the person. He pulled over. “Need a ride?” he asked the girl sitting there.

“You know I do, Wyatt.” She pulled herself up and dusted off the seat of her jeans before grabbing the guitar case. Pitching it into the back seat of the convertible, she crawled in beside him and sat close.

“Should I take you to the dance?” he asked.

“Is that really where you want to go?” she replied, her blue eyes dewy and moist.

“No.” It was the only answer that made sense.

He pointed the nose of the car west and pushed down on the accelerator. At that moment, he knew he’d never see the town or the people in it ever again.

They drove in silence for a long while into a waning sunlight that colored the sky with deep yellows and fiery oranges. In the background, Handshoe kept asking him what he was doing, and he kept responding he was just driving.

The thing was, he was really here now, inside his own dream, and it felt every bit as much a fairy tale as a Walt Disney movie. He half-expected a twelve-string orchestra to build a crescendo and credits to roll across the sky in front of them as they drove into the dusk. But, that didn’t happen.

After several miles, Serpina put her hand on his arm — her touch warm and electric. “Pull over at that little rest stop ahead.”

He did.

As he parked beneath a large White Oak tree, she reached into the back seat and pulled the guitar case onto her lap. A cool westerly breeze played around her pretty face, and she brushed wisps of blonde hair away from her mouth where it had caught.

She smiled at him. “Wyatt, destiny is always a result of choices. For you, one of those choices is about ‘when’. Look.”

He watched her open the case, and this time he didn’t hesitate.

* * *

“Dr. Handshoe?” The voice said. “Doctor?”

Elias lifted his head from his chest, startled by the intrusion. “Wh... what?” he asked.

“You are Doctor Handshoe, correct?”

Elias shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. He looked around the room. He was sitting in the leather chair, alone except for the stranger standing in the doorway. Where was Rodney Sumpter?

“Am I disturbing you? The receptionist wasn’t at her desk, so I just came in,” the stranger said.

The man in the doorway wasn’t Sumpter. This man had silver gray hair, sported a hellacious tan, and looked to be at least in his late fifties, maybe early sixties. He was also dressed in an expensive suit. However, something about him seemed so familiar.

Elias stood up, trying to collect himself. He must have finished with Mr. Sumpter and then dozed off for a minute. Funny, he couldn’t remember actually closing the session. He looked down at his hands, expecting to see the file there — it wasn’t. Maybe he took it back to the cabinet and put it away. He’d have to catch up on the session notes later. Damn, he hoped he wasn’t contracting whatever it was Margo had.

“And you are?” Elias said to the stranger.

“I’m Don Chambers. Margo said I could have a few minutes of your time today. Is that still okay?”

“Certainly, come in, come in,” he said, remembering that she had set up the appointment. He motioned at him to take the chair in front of his desk. The man did so, putting his coat on the back and shaking his hand before he sat down. His grip was as firm as the steely set in his eyes.

This is a person used to getting what he wants, Elias thought, sizing him up. A man of means and consequence.

“What can I do for you?” Elias asked as he sat at the desk.

“You look younger than I remembered,” the man said smiling. His teeth were perfect. “But then again, I’m a lot older.”

Elias cocked his head. “Do I know you?”

“Now that is an interesting question. Before coming here, I thought about the question you might first ask, but I’ll have to admit that wasn’t it.” The man chuckled.

“I’m sorry; you seem to have me at a disadvantage. Please tell me what it is I can do for you.”

“Do you like what you do?”

“Like what I do? I don’t understand wh—.”

“Really, it’s a simple question,” the man interrupted. “Do you like being a psychiatrist?”

“Yes, I do. My career is most rewarding, and if I might be a bit immodest, beneficial to my clients.”

The man nodded in agreement as he idly rubbed his finger across his chin. Elias noticed the Rolex on his wrist, and while that was noteworthy, of more interest was the feeling he got about the act of the chin rub itself — it seemed agonizingly familiar. Maybe he did know him from somewhere. Perhaps they’d met at a convention or a retreat or something.

“Are you in the profession?” Elias asked.

“Me? Mercy no. I’m involved in several different fields of enterprise, but psychiatry isn’t one of them.”

“Then please, and I don’t mean to offend, but I don’t remember you. How do you know me?”

The man stood and walked over to the window. He pulled the curtain aside and looked down on the street below. “You helped me a long time ago, forty years to the day to be exact. It was snowing then too; but of course, it would be.”

“Forty years!” Elias exclaimed. “I’m sorry sir, but you must be mistaken. Forty years ago I was only... five years old.” The man turned away from the window. The shadowy light, flowing around him made him appear almost ethereal.

“Nevertheless, it’s true,” the man said. “And I’ve come today to thank you. At the time, I thought you were nothing but a pompous asshole, and to some extent, maybe you were, or are...” He shook his head. “Tough to get my tenses straight talking to you again after all these years, but that aside, if it wasn’t for your help, I wouldn’t have become who I am today. And, for that, I thank you.”

There was a soft rap at the door, and a stunning blonde-haired woman stuck her head through the opening. “The chauffeur just told me with the late afternoon traffic and the snow, we’d better get going. Our jet is waiting on the tarmac now.”

“This is my wife, Serpina,” the man said to Elias and then looked toward her. “I’ll be right with you, dear.”

Elias felt his jaw drop. “Serpina?” A knot formed in his gut. This wasn’t possible; someone must be playing a joke on him. “You, you can’t be...”

“I was worried about you, Elias, this being the day it happened and all,” the man said as he surveyed the room. “It doesn’t seem possible that forty years ago, from my perspective, I was in this very room.

“A lot’s changed since then, at least for me. Back then, I mattered more in my own mind than anyone else’s — that’s not true now. Lots of people care about me, but maybe being ungodly wealthy has something to do with that too. Knowing what’s going to happen in the world before it actually occurs sure gives a guy a leg up. Of course, from this point forward, it will all be new to me.”

He winked. “But I think I’m well prepared for anything that comes.” And then he smiled at Elias. “I just wanted to tell you not to worry about what happened today. Everything worked out fine, even if it doesn’t fit your frame of reality. Just accept it for what it was. Know this: The man you knew as Rodney Sumpter ceased to exist,” he checked his Rolex, “about fifteen minutes ago — your time.”

This can’t be, Elias thought. “You... you’re Rodney Sumpter?”

“No. Not now. When you put me under hypnosis that day, and I got the chance to change not only who I was, but when I was. I chose to become Don Chambers. Been him ever since, and if you check some back issues of Time or Fortune magazine, you’ll find my photo there every once in a while; even though I’ve tried to keep a low profile that way. Indeed, life’s been good to me.”

Elias felt goose bumps prickling along his arms, and his legs suddenly wobbled beneath him. He collapsed into his chair. “It was the dream, wasn’t it? You went back. Back in time and started living the life you dreamt about. More than once you told me you felt like you were living in the wrong time. How is that possible?”

The man, Rodney Sumpter / Don Chambers, picked up his coat from the chair and joined his wife at the office door. She pushed an errant strand of his gray hair away from his cheek and said, “Time to mount up, Wyatt.”

He turned and smiled at Elias. “Anything’s possible, Doc, if you’re patient and work at it, right? Tell Margo that I hope her cold gets better. I appreciate what you did for me, and take care of yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll see me again in your dreams one day.”

The door clicked softly behind them as a fresh gust of snow swirled against the office window. Elias swiveled around in the leather chair and let his tired, unblinking eyes gaze through the window at the storm building outside the glass, and somehow, he couldn’t help but wonder: Am I dreaming?