Nightmare Man (7 page)

When we finally got back home and got the kids to sleep, we had a long “talk,” another shouting match at talking volume. She explained that I was traumatizing our kids with my problem, that Logan had picked up on my nightmare man and had turned him into his own boogey man, and that my nightly thrashings were setting him off.

But I had knocked down the door because he was freaking out, not the other way around. I couldn’t explain that I knew he was freaking out because I caught the nightmare man slipping under the door.

She pointed out that in the throes of a night terror, my confused mind could easily switch around cause and effect.

I couldn’t argue with that. It happened all the time. My brain did its best to unify real sensory stimulation with hallucination.

She pointed out that it was probably me looming over Logan in his dark room that had him seeing a man in black.

But I wasn’t in his room, last night. Yes, the night before, but last night I’d been frozen in the doorway.

Then she said something that knocked the tiny stable surface I’d created right out from under me. “You were in farther than you think. You were right at the foot of his bed.”

And I thought back to her tackle, and it would have been quite a drive to knock me into his dresser from the doorway.

But I remembered standing frozen, unable to help him, unable to move.

But I remember so many things incorrectly.

Am I his nightmare man?

Staring at the iron sky, I droop. No amount of extra smoke breaks will help.

“Damn, you look terrible.”

I turn to see Leslie tapping a cig out of her pack. I stick mine in my mouth. Good hand free, I light her up and say, “Why do women get to say that to men? Can you imagine it going down the other way?”

“Well, a woman would murder a man for saying that. There are no consequences for the reverse. You need to set a precedent if that’s something you feel strongly about.”

I snort.

She says, “Seriously though, what happened to you? You look exhausted, and then there’s that.” She points to the wrist brace. “And I watched you limp over here.”

“Sleep problems.” After a moment. “Family problems. It’s too much to get into right now.”

“You’ve got my number. Call me.”

I want to tell her that she couldn’t possibly understand. I want to tell her that she doesn’t even rank on the list of things I’m concerned with right now. It’s a lie, somehow she’s ranked way too high, but I want to tell her because I want to make it true. I also want to let happen whatever she wants to happen, if that means we move from break-time buds to actual friends, to fuck buddies, to lovers. Any. All. She’s the only thing I can think about right now that doesn’t make me feel helpless and hopeless and worthless and every other “-less.” I’d love to feel less, actually.

I glance at her, taking in her dyed black hair, her nose, her big eyes, her slight build. Shannon used to be built like that. A couple of kids and a decade on the couch later and she can tackle like a linebacker.

I nod. She puts a hand on my shoulder. Squeezes. Lets it linger a moment too long. Slides it down my arm and away.

“If you need an ear, we could go get coffee or a beer or something. You can’t lose yourself in all this. You need your own space.”

What the hell does this poser art kid know about adult life? Who is she to comment? How does she understand? Work. Home. Nightmare. Work. Home. Nightmare. I can’t take it.

I say, “Maybe. Thanks,” and stub out my cigarette and go back inside instead of exploding. Not shouting, but literally detonating into fiery shrapnel.

* * *

Once again, I’m explaining to Dr. Turner why I’m quitting the project.

“It’s affecting my son. My night terrors are getting crazier, and they seem to have made Logan’s emerge.”

“Jessie, night terrors aren’t contagious. They are genetic, though. Your son probably is developing them. Many young children have them and grow out of them. How old is Logan?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Nine.”

“At that age, the night terrors he’s experiencing are probably the beginning of a chronic condition.”

The hope goes out of me, taking with it my will to stay upright. I slump into my seat, but I really want to sprawl on the examination table.

“The work you’re helping us with could also help him. Night terrors have caused people to throw themselves out of tenth-floor windows, to kill their spouses, to never get a restful night of sleep, but the medical establishment has never seriously looked for a treatment. Your son doesn’t have to go through this.”

“So how is what you’re doing going to help more than the benzos everyone else prescribes? At least those worked a little. These seem to be making things worse.”

“What we found is there’s a place in the brain that’s inactive during the first hour of sleep in people who suffer from night terrors that is active in the average person. The opposite of what you’d expect, huh? You’d think your brain would be
overactive
.”

“And what does your drug do to that part of the brain?”

“That I can’t go into. But personally, I think targeting this directly is the only hope for a treatment. Tranquilizers work around the problem. We’re staring the problem straight in the face, and we’re the only researchers doing so.”

He hands me the little green pill and the little cup of water.

I swallow it down.

* * *

Sometimes a smoke break seems to do more harm for my mood than good. Sometimes, seeing the open world, the huge sky, seeing the mountains, all that beauty and space and variety, sometimes it agitates me more than it calms me. It’s too jarring a contrast to the dimly-lit cubicle maze, to the flavorless sameness of miles of gray Berber and gray half-walls and seemingly endless hours of phone work ahead of me.

It’s sick, wishing for the day to go more quickly. We only have so many hours, and there’s such a huge, interesting world to explore, filled with people to meet, foods to eat, sights to see, both natural and man-made, that will snatch the breath right from your chest. I should be wishing for endless time, for every minute to last as long as possible. Instead I spend every second of my workday waiting for the clock to finally hit 3:00, waiting all week for Friday, waiting all year for my two weeks of vacation. TGIF means I’d give away half of my waking hours. It should be, like, TGIOWCttWEotG. Thank God I’m One Week Closer to the Warm Embrace of the Grave. I get one turn at all this, and my mind can’t look at it as a gift, only a trial to be waited out, to be gotten through. It’s so obviously sick, but I don’t know what to do about it.

Needless to say, I didn’t return to my desk and my calls in the best of moods.

“Mr. Galloway, I’m glad I caught you.” The word “caught” is actually encouraged. We want people making rash decisions. We don’t want people to stop and think about how likely we are to take them to court over a few thousand dollars. What we want to do is freak them out, make them feel trapped and overwhelmed, and get them to give us a credit card number right during that first call. “I’m Carlton with Kirkland Collections, and we’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while.”

“Goddamn it. Why can’t you guys just leave me alone?”

“We will leave you alone, as soon as you pay your bill. Give me the number of a credit card that can cover $4,321.98 today and you won’t hear from us again.”

“Do you really think I have access to that kind of money?”

“Well, we always hope you’re still a ways up your downward spiral into financial destruction.” I shouldn’t have said that, but I’m in a bad mood and this guy sounds like an idiot. He sounds like the kind of guy who got in trouble refinancing his house to pay for new jet skis.

“That’s so not cool. How do you do this? How do you live with yourself? This shit will catch up with you.”

This shit will catch up with me? My problems stem from being attentive to my responsibilities over everything else.

“You know how I do this? Because it’s this job that lets me be a man and pay my bills. You want me to feel sorry for you and feel like the bad guy? How about you go get a job you hate and take care of your fucking responsibilities and then you’d never hear from me?”

“Are you serious? Haven’t you been watching the news? Don’t you know about the unemployment? And I don’t think you should be talking to me like—”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about the unemployment rate, and then my bosses tell me about the bonus we’ll get if we refer an employee who lasts six months. A bonus! Because people would rather complain that there are no opportunities than take one they don’t like. So when you tell me you can’t get a job and pay your bills, I know you’re a liar, and that puts you on a whole different level. I can at least respect the guy who admits it’s a choice he’s making, that he’d rather go on buying stupid shit and maybe work part-time down at the video game store and eventually claim bankruptcy when things get bad enough, but don’t lie to me. Don’t sit here and run a sob story past me. You just want someone else to take care of your responsibilities. But you probably don’t even know you’re lying. That’s the thing. People lie to themselves. Look at your situation, really look at it, and tell me it’s not a choice, that there isn’t some part of yourself you could sell to get five thousand measly dollars. Dig deep, and you’ll find you’re making the choice to be a loser.” I stop for a moment to catch my breath, and I realize what I’ve done. “Hello?”

“Jessie, this is QA. We cut you off a while ago but wanted to see where this was going. Why don’t you go take a break and we’ll page you when we’re ready for you.”

I don’t feel like taking another break. Instead, I go to the copy room and find an empty box, bring it back to my desk and start loading my things into it. By the time they page me, I’m all packed up and ready to get fired.

Everyone stands when I walk into the meeting room. There’s Scott, my supervisor, Greg, a management dude I haven’t seen in forever, and a woman, I’m assuming from HR, I’ve never seen before.

“It’s been a while, Jessie.”

I shake Greg’s hand. “It sure has.”

“This is Felicity from HR.”

Her grip is feeble, and I feel awkward, like I might have hurt her with my normal handshake.

Felicity says, “So, in looking at your file, I see that you’ve basically been on the phones for longer than anyone else and in that time you’ve pretty much been a model employee until the last couple of weeks, when we’ve had some problems with our customer relations.”

“We” and “our.” Yeah.

“But, I also see that you’ve recently used some sick leave. You’re having sleep issues?”

I blink. My lids drag across my tacky, bloodshot eyeballs. I remember how I looked this morning in the mirror, and I’m sure I look worse now. “Yeah, I’ve been having trouble with my sleep.”

“Do you want to tell us about that?” she asks.

I sigh. Tap my fingers on the desk. I might as well. “I have night terrors. Very, very bad night terrors. I’m trying a new medication and I’m not sleeping very well.”

“Night terrors?” Scott says. He looks up at the ceiling, apparently trying to remember something. “Like that guy on the news who threw his baby out the window of his fourth-floor condo and they let him off. Said he had a history of night terrors.”

The HR woman—Stephanie? No, Felicity—glares at Scott. But Scott’s a good guy and I say, “Yeah, like that,” and hold up my braced, sprained wrist.

“You’ve been a very good employee,” Greg says, “and we want to help you get through this so you can continue to be a good employee. We can’t have you doing what you’ve been doing on the phones, though. So here’s the deal: we’re going to give you some time off. You’ve got short-term disability, and we think you should use it to get through this and come back your old self.”

Stunned, I don’t say anything for a minute. And apparently I’m staring, because I notice Scott beginning to squirm beneath my red gaze.

I say, “Okay.”

Felicity has some paperwork for me to sign. Greg leaves, but Scott waits to walk back with me.

“I told them this isn’t like you,” Scott says. “I told them it didn’t make sense to let go the best collector we have over something like this. Even if you weren’t having the sleep problem. I remember how it is. Sometimes it gets to be too much, dealing with these scumbags. You can be normal one second and a switch flips and you’re a monster the next. But as long as that’s the exception. I mean, some of these people need a little knocking around, and it can get hard to see the line.”

We’re walking and talking. He’s talking. We arrive at my cubicle, and there’s my box full of possessions.

“Oh shit, you were ready for the gallows, huh? Nope. Go get better.” He claps me on the back. “Short-term disability, lucky bastard.”

The box has to wait. I slide it beneath my desk, put on my jacket and go.

I can’t deal with going home right now. Instead, I hang out at the library until it’s time to report to Conway Medical Research Center. The library has a decent selection of graphic novels, mostly collected storylines of some of the popular Marvel and DC titles, and I settle in with some
Sandman
. Every library with a comic collection has the
Sandman
trade paperbacks. They were like, the first respectable comic. I’ve got them all at home, but it’s been a long time.