Aftermath of Dreaming Chapter One I've been waking up screaming for the past three months. Not every night, God, no. Probably just three or four times a week. Three or four times a week in the middle of the night, I find myself sitting straight up in bed, eyes wide open, screaming from the depth of my being a sound so loud I never would have thought I could make, then suddenly it all stops. The screaming stops, what I was seeing stops, and a void is left, a hollow, like that vacuum thing they talk about nature abhorring, but here it is in my apartment, alive and full of air, sucking all the images and dreams out of me and all I am left with is wondering what it is and why don't my neighbors ever do anything? Because I really have been screaming—out loud. I mean, I know how confusing it can be when you sleep—there's that whole falling down dream where you'd swear you're flying hard and fast through the air, then when you land, you've been in your bed the whole time, haven't moved at all. But these screams are real. So real they wake me up every time—still screaming. I keep thinking maybe I will mention it to my neighbors when I pass them in the courtyard or see them at the mailbox. "By the way," I could say. "Have you been hearing screams coming from my apartment on a regular basis for a few months now? Just in case you've been wondering about it, maybe waiting to see if it continues before you do anything—don't worry, it's only my dreams." In the repeated fantasies I have of this exchange, it always ends in an empty, silent stare from them. Particularly from Gloria, the was-prostitute now-seamstress, whose apartment shares a staircase with mine. Not that she dresses like a prostitute, or that we live on or near Selma, the purportedly high traffic street for that sort of thing in Hollywood, though I think her business was more a call-and-come-over kind. And I don't even know why she had to tell me about that part of her past. She's the last person I ever would have suspected, though she does keep her red hair Playboy-esque long, falling around her face and softening the lines from her eyes that are obvious when the sun hits her dead on. Was-prostitute, near-fifty, now-alone. There's a terrifying denouement. One afternoon last year right after I moved in, I accepted her invitation for a cup of coffee which is when she immediately began confiding in me her long sordid tale. As I sat on her couch feeling rather trapped frankly and listening to her cataloguing the men and their particular predilections, her apartment's abundantly girlish, old-fashioned floral decor shifted in my mind from kitsch-y pleasant to purely depressing, as if it was meant to be protection somehow from her remembering what she had done. More protection would have been for her to not tell me at all. Now that the knowledge rested also in me, it felt like my unfortunately spontaneous thoughts of it added even more ghosts to the memories she had of her "visitors" as she called them, the men who traipsed up and down the stairs before the landlord finally put a stop to them. He had heard about and hadn't liked her "visitors." The other night after the screaming happened—it was twice in a row this week, usually I get a night off in between—as I was lying back down—I drank some water and was lying back down—it occurred to me that maybe I should be worried about this. I mean, things in my life are wonderful. I'm twenty-nine, single and living in LA. I'm happy and all that stuff. I'm fine. I'm just screaming on a regular basis with no discernable effect at all. Which is kind of like living in the South, actually, where there are lots of big, dramatic actions full of urgency and despair which finally may as well not have even happened for all the consequence they have. You can exhibit all sorts of peculiar behavior where I'm from, just don't expect your neighbors to talk to you about it, that's all. Probably because they are all too busy being peculiar themselves to notice or even care about anyone else. I grew up on the Gulf Coast in Pass Christian, Mississippi (pronounced pass-chris-tchan-miss-sippy with the syllables folding into and on top of each other. It's a slow-hurry sound like your first two sips of a good drink), just east of New Orleans which is where both my parent's grew up in families going back many generations in Louisiana. My grandfather's secretary, Miss Plauché, used to walk to work through the New Orleans business district every day facing backwards and would return home the same way, just facing the other... You get the picture. No one ever said a word. Not to her, not to anybody. But as Momma always said, "Well, it's not like she's hurting anyone." Of course, it did give new meaning to the expression, "You know, I bumped into Miss Plauche today." One early summer morning when I was young, my grandfather, in a gesture weighted with importance for its rarity, let me accompany him to his office. We sat in the serious-business air-conditioned quiet, he at his massive desk solidly engaged in the Wall Street Journal, and I on the thick, plush carpet, stomach-side-down, head resting on my hands, close as I could get to peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows way high above the city. The people far below, so many dark-suited men among brightly-clothed women, moved in chaotic order like a game of marbles expertly won, until the flow was broken and a parting occurred, then I saw Miss Plauche walking backwards towards the big bank building. Her silver-haired head bobbed along like a sleepwalker meandering undisturbed towards her dream's destination. As I lay there watching her peculiar backwards stride, I wondered what it was that she was leaving behind in her past that she still needed so badly to see. And why didn't anyone ever ask her? * * * * The theatre in Santa Monica is a mob scene when I arrive. I am surprised at how momentous her opening night is, but I guess Sydney's film career distinguishes this from the normally-ignored LA theatre event. A local news crew is creating a vortex of hierarchy for everyone trying to get inside. The famous are stopped to comment towards the camera and smile, while the rest are passed over, our bodies so much scenery for the finery going by. The crowd conveys me into the auditorium and I quickly jump out as it passes my seat's aisle. The chair beside mine is one of the few empty and the blankness of its space exudes a loud silence into the noisy air informing everyone of the ticket left unfilled. As people keep pouring in, I pick up the program to kill the remaining minutes before the show begins. I read Sydney's bio and the director's, glance at the credits of the musicians whom I know, then notice a list of people thanked for their help in making possible this show and am surprised to see my name on it—that was nice of her—near the top since they are alphabetically arranged. A woman jostles my leg as she sidles past me to reach her seat. The audience is mostly settled, just a few stragglers are wandering in. I turn back to the list to see if I know any other names on it when suddenly I get a strange sensation behind me like the building's about to explode, so I turn and in is walking Andrew Madden, my ex- never-thought-I-could-breathe-without, whom I have not laid eyes on in almost four and a half years. Oh my God. I immediately throw my program onto the floor so I can duck down to retrieve it, as chaotic gushing explodes in the theatre. Andrew Madden is one of those particular people this town breeds who become internationally well-known is one way to say it, and in his case, he has been for almost four decades as a movie star, director, producer, studio head, and basic all-around grand Pooh-Bah of La-La land. I keep my head down near my feet in hopes that Andrew won't see me as he walks on by. Please dear God. Audible commotion is erupting row by row, giving me a kind of auditory tracking system of Andrew's procession down the aisle, so I wait until it moves forward a safe distance before I finally peek my head up to look cautiously around. The back of Andrew's perfect head—and how is it possible for the back of a head to be so perfect?—is moving elegantly away from me, so I sit back in my seat, but hunched down low. Thank you God. Okay, I'll be fine. He didn't see me, didn't even notice me. Now just stay down in the seat and pray that this horrible fiasco, all from helping a friend with her goddamn show, quickly ends—which it will—then I'll go home, fine and alone. Okay, just breathe. I'm alright—it's fine. Andrew didn't even notice me. What is his fucking problem? No, wrong reaction. Thank God he didn't notice me, is how I feel. I don't want him to—here, crowded; me, alone—it's good that he walked on by. But why couldn't Michael be with me? Damn his stupid radio shows. He should be here with his arm around me, all Mediterranean husband—I mean, handsome—next to Andrew's golden incredibly fucking gorgeous-beyond-words looks. Michael, who? Fuck, that is not the right attitude. Not even how I really feel inside. It isn't? Alright, stop. This is insanity. Big deal—Andrew's here. Who cares? Only every single other person in this theatre, but not I. Andrew Madden—whoop-de-do. So he's here. I could care less. Here and with Holly. His wife. On the one hand, that pretty much says everything. On the other, this is the second time I have seen Holly, in person and live. I met her once years ago on the subway in New York, not very long before I moved to California. I was with Tim, the man I was living with at that time and she was with her husband—her first—and a female friend she would not stop hugging as the train rattled and swooped, stations passing by. It was quite late at night, and the subway car was almost empty so her husband easily spotted Tim when we boarded from the Houston Street stop. They had grown up together in the city; introductions were made all around. Holly lifted her head from the friend's shoulder, blonde hair only then not hiding her face, and gave Tim and me a glance of a hello before returning to her place. She had clearly been crying, but laughed for most of the ride, always on her friend's body, as if clinging to the last known vestige of joy. "She's drunk," Holly's husband mouthed to us as he stood above her, his hand on the rail steadying him. "Karen here is leaving tomorrow for a year in Australia," he went on in full voice. Tim nodded as if that explained all, and smiled. Then the two of them caught up on each other's lives while I watched Holly cleave onto Karen. I don't think she was aware I was there, but I knew who she was from the local news stories she did, mostly movie premieres, fashion stuff, and celebrity interviews. Our exit came before theirs. We said our good-byes; Tim and Holly's husband promised to have lunch, Karen shook my hand, and Holly lolled against her more firmly as if the parting of total strangers was too much a foreboding of what tomorrow held in store. When Tim and I were halfway across the platform, I heard through the still open train doors a long trill of Holly's laughter descend into a distinctive wail, then the subway bell rang its two-note tone, the doors slid shut and the train carried them off. The reverberation of that cry left me unsettled for days. Her husband had seemed like a nice man. I wondered what he was like inside. Anyway. Andrew and Holly have settled into their seats at the theatre just a few rows in front of me and a little to the right which is closer than I'd like, but safe, I decide, because I am completely out of their (Andrew's) view. Okay, so I just need to make it through to the lights going down which should be any minute now, then the show will distract me, I hope, or at least keep me under cover of the dark until the minute it ends when I can get out and run. I have immediate gratitude to Sydney for not having an intermission, at least I'm saved from that hellish interval of milling around. The outburst over Andrew has declined to a low thrilling roar of whispers and nudges from an audience completely flustered since the most famous and talented performer is sitting among them and won't be onstage. The lights flicker once, then go back up, then flicker again like some Chinese water torture, illumination-style. Just go down, lights, please, and plunge us into wonderful concealing darkness so I can't see Andrew and he can't see me and I don't have to look at Holly and suddenly, as if my thoughts were his cue, Andrew turns around and looks at me. Just looks at me. Like he used to gaze across his bed. Then he waves. A fingers-up-and-down wave. Which I find odd and wonder if it is a habit he picked up from his kids. And still he is looking at me. A time-has-stopped look. A no-one-else-is-here look. Then he waves again. But I still haven't responded to his first wave, other than the fact that my eyes are unable to leave his. Unable to leave his like the earth is unable to leave the sun. My hands feel glued to my lap and I am suddenly finding it very hard to get the muscles of my mouth to smile, and what exact size smile do you use for an ex- never-thought-you-could-breathe-without anyway? I cannot figure this out, so I just kind of half-wave, half-cover my sort-of-smiling mouth and look away. The house lights suddenly go down as if they were timed for him. Then Sydney comes on stage singing a big grand song and I try to stay focused on her, but I can't stop looking at Andrew. The patter Sydney does between the songs helps a bit, and her jokes are distracting to an extent, except that all I do during each one is compare when I laugh to when Holly does and try to figure out which one of us is more in sync with him. Then during what I guess would be called a "romantic number," Andrew and Holly's heads lean towards each other in an aren't-we-enjoying-this-the-most-since-we're-married sort of way, which I have a strong little feeling is for my benefit. At least from him. I have no doubt she doesn't even know who I am much less that I am here. Mercifully, the lights fall to complete darkness, signaling the show's end, then they come up bright, brighter, brightest for Sydney to receive her applause. The crowd is on its feet, clapping and whooping, and the audience between Andrew and me conveniently blocks my view of him, so him of me. The irritated looks I get from the people on my row as I trip and push past them to get out to the aisle as they try to keep applauding are worth the freedom I gain as I use this perfect chaotic moment to slip out. The second I am outside the theatre, I break into a run to my truck like I am being chased by banshees, then I quick get in, even locking the door behind me as if that will keep Andrew from seeing me from all the way inside. And Holly. That's an introduction I have no desire to re-make. Not that she'd remember me. Or that Andrew would even greet me in front of her with an introduction to ensue. Though actually he might. With him, who knows? He might think it'd be fine, no reason in the world not to. Hightailing it out of the parking lot, thank you Chevy engine, I remember that I was supposed to go to the opening night party afterwards, so I leave a "loved your show; can't—cough, cough—make the party" message at Sydney's home, so she'll know how urgent and sincere I am. When I reach a secure distance from the theatre in that barren part of the 10 near Centinela, I pull over to the shoulder, put my truck into park, and lift my hands to cover my face. I thought tears would come, but they don't. I am in too much shock. There are moments right after something has happened to me, catalytic or catastrophic, when I am truly amazed that the physical objects in my life continue to look the same as they did before. Like when I was in the waiting room, right after the doctor told me and Suzanne that Momma had died, I could not believe that the hospital I was sitting in was still standing, hadn't shattered and crumbled to the ground, no longer able to hold itself up. "My entire world has just changed," I thought. "How can this physical object still be the same?" I figured maybe I had stumbled on a koan, one of those Zen-Buddhist mysteries you meditate on and supposedly after sitting still long enough, it reveals itself to you. The emptiness is revealed. You can finally see past the illusion into the truth. But I didn't know—I had never tried one. Sitting here on the side of the freeway with every privately held image of Andrew streaming through my brain, I'm just grateful my truck didn't explode because it sure feels like my heart is going to. © DeLauné Michel Order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or BookSense.