Nightmare Man (9 page)

The sheets look clean. I sniff them, and they smell like bleach. No hint of BO. If a porno director had the room last, he probably never pulled down the comforter and I’d bet the staff wouldn’t change the sheets in that situation, but I doubt the fluids could soak down that far.

I flop onto the bed like I’d jump into a chill pool, getting it over at once. I’m covered in crusty jizz flakes, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, so my mind can go on to other matters.

A thought buzzes around my consciousness. I pretend to swat it away, but also pat my right front pocket.

I think of the conversation I had with Shannon. It wasn’t hard to convince her I should spend nights out of the house for a while. She suggested we consider strapping me to the bed. I said it was a good idea, but it needed research. I wasn’t going to sleep with my hands tied with the old nylon camping rope from the garage. We’d have to look into cuffs, maybe a different bed.

I didn’t mention I have a strong feeling the nightmare man would prefer me tied down, unable to interrupt his plans for Logan.

The nightmare man is after my son, as the killer of my dreams. The nightmare man is born from my mind every night. The only way to keep Logan safe is to sleep away from home.

So after putting the kids to bed, I headed out for the E-Z Inn, where the rooms are only thirty bucks and the dried jizz is complimentary.

It’s usually a toss-up as to whether I manage to stay up later than Logan, so I could barely keep my eyes open on the drive here. Of course, now I’m wide-awake.

The television hunkers atop the dresser like an ancient gargoyle. It’s an honest-to-God tube TV with probably twenty-four inches of bulging screen. Glancing around the room, I can’t see a remote.

Really? No remote?

My messenger bag leans against the nightstand, and I pull out a solid stack of comics.
Legionnaires
, a relatively short run of
Legion of Super Heroes
written by an amazing husband-and-wife team and drawn with a beautiful, graceful style not common in an era known for bulging muscles clustered in imaginary groups, enormous, rock-solid breasts and a complete lack of pupils.

God, what if Shannon and I had found something like the writers of
Legionnaires
did, some shared creative passion, some interest other than the children?

The understanding that I really do blame Logan for killing my dreams crushes me down onto the bed. I quickly crack open a comic and lose myself.

When I look at the clock, it’s almost 11:00 and I’m still not tired. This is crazy.

The thought from earlier flies back around and buzzes in my ear. I reach into my right front pocket and pull out my phone. Okay, so it’s not a smartphone. I also don’t spend a hundred bucks a month on the contract. And it’s pretty cool, all silver and slim.

I turn it on (buzz buzz). It’s got a pretty slick interface, with a swirling red graphical flourish. Flipping through the menu, I see that it does have a music player. Maybe I’ll load it up tomorrow.

So it’s got a music player, a calendar, a calculator, a voice memo recorder, hell, this thing was the stuff of science fiction when I was a kid. It’s got a contact book (buzz buzz buzz). I remember when you had to memorize the numbers you might need when you were out. I click the book. Not a lot of entries. Scroll down. Leslie.

I stare at her number for a while, then click the phone off and toss it on the bed. I open the next issue of
Legionnaires
, but soon find that I’m staring at the first page, and have been for several minutes.

It’s odd how rarely I text. I only use the phone to talk to Shannon and my parents. People my age text.

I slowly tap out W
HAT ARE YOU UP TO?
then toss the phone back down and pick the comic back up.

After less than a minute of holding but not reading a comic, I reach for my buzzing phone.

N
OT MUCH.
Y
OU?

Laboriously, I type out, S
ITTING IN A HOTEL READING COMICS.

R
EALLY?
A
LONE?

Y
EAH.
I briefly consider using a frowny-face symbol, something I’ve also never done, and though I send the one-word message without it, I berate myself for having even considered it.

Then the phone doesn’t buzz. It rings. It’s Leslie. My heart ricochets around my chest, and my thumb hovers over the answer button, but I can’t not answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jessie. You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I was just looking at my phone and thought about how you made fun of me for not texting. It does have a music player, by the way.”

“Well, that’s stellar, but why are you alone in a hotel? Did you go somewhere?”

So she thought this was a cry for help.

“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry. We just decided it’d be best if I sleep away from the house until we get the night terrors figured out. I’ll go back home in the morning.”

“I see. So where are you staying?”

“The E-Z Inn.”

“Seriously? Gross! I used to prostitute out of there all the time.”

“Really?”

“No, asshole. Oh man, there’s this amazing bar across the street. It’s from a different world.”

“How so?”

“You’ll see.”

“Ummm, I don’t think I will.”

“Yes you will. In twenty minutes, when we’re getting a drink and you’re telling me about the problems that have you drowning your sorrows in comic books way past your bedtime.”

“I don’t—” A short, high-pitched tone cuts me off. I look at the phone. She hung up.

* * *

For a moment I consider sitting at the bar, but I need some time to absorb the Purple Moon Lounge, so I take my beer to a corner booth where I can see everything.

The place is amazing. Despite the name, when I saw the dilapidated exterior, I expected your standard American dive bar. I expected rough-drinking regulars slumped over their drinks like they’d collapse if you took the table out from under them. I expected glazed eyes glued to a television. Beer posters. A juke box that only played Bob Seger. Scarred wood, split vinyl, and dim, sourceless lighting.

I expected a bar where people knew they were done for. The kind of place wounded animals crawled in to die.

Apparently, no one told the patrons of the Purple Moon Lounge their time had passed. The bar isn’t stuck against a wall, but bulges obscenely out into the room, a semicircular command station. Around it, a crowd of people of an age I didn’t know went to bars to flirt shamelessly. A couple of women who appear to be in their forties are the hot young stuff the guys are sniffing around so you’d think they were girls who’d been let in despite obviously fake IDs.

But while I’m kind of laughing at them, I’m kind of shamed by them, too. They’re wearing nice clothing. The women in dresses, the men in dress shirts and slacks. Chatting and dancing on the small dance floor, they seem to have much more energy and life than I do.

The plastic ferns “planted” around the top of the booth part, and Leslie’s face appears. Her eyes slide back and forth like she’s on a jungle expedition and is scanning the area for predators, which is exactly how I’ve felt sitting here alone.

“I told you this place is awesome,” she says, coming around and sitting opposite me.

“It is.” I touch the seat with a fingertip. “How do they get plastic furry?”

“It’s a lost art, for sure.”

“How did you find this place?”

“A friend knew about it and gave me the gift, and now I’m paying it forward. Let me give you some advice, though: don’t stare. Don’t take this place as a joke. This crowd isn’t the best at sensing irony, because they’re genuine people, but they pretty much know when they’re being made fun of, and they expect it from people like us. I try not to be sincere too often, but for real, these people kick ass, and once you’ve earned their trust they will wrap you up in their warm embraces and share whatever
Cocoon
-type energy allows them to laugh and dance into the small hours.”

She looks into my eyes as if to confirm that I’ve absorbed her words, then says, “You need another. What are you drinking?”

“Bud Light.”

“Piss water.”

At the bar, she receives one hug and kiss on the cheek after the other. She joins in their laughter, then nods her head back at me, and several men and women wave. I wave back, glad to see they don’t seem to be trying to wave me over, though they do look very nice.

The bar still feels like the place where swingers meet for the first time to get to know each other and lay out the ground rules for an orgy over at the E-Z Inn, but I can also see what Leslie likes about the place. She even kneels on a stool to lean across the bar and hug the bartender.

As she returns with a beer and a low-ball glass, several people wave at me again.

“Your piss water, sir.”

“Thank you. You’re very popular.”

She shrugs. “Scoot over. I like to be able to see the room.”

I slide around the table until I’m seated just past the point farthest from a way out. Sliding across the crushed-velvet-like plastic actually heats up the seat of my jeans.

Leslie slides around until she’s directly beside me. My heart thumps. I breathe and force it to slow down. She just likes to watch the room.

“So tell me what’s up.”

I start haltingly, but each word is like another leak in a cracking dam, carrying away a bit more concrete until the whole thing comes down and everything pours out.

Leslie goes to the bar and returns with drinks several times over the course of my epic tale. As I watch her get me another piss water, I realize I’d been waiting for someone who I wasn’t paying to say the words, “So tell me what’s up.” Leslie, the girl I barely knew, who I’d thought of as a somewhat self-absorbed child, was the first to do so.

She returns, using considerably more concentration not to spill the drinks than the first time, then slides around to me. I slide a bit into her, and she leans into me.

“So you really think the nightmare man has his own existence?”

“God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I do. And I think I’ve made him. I’m not sure he has his own body. Maybe Shannon is right and I’m the one doing this. His personality is separate from mine, but maybe he uses my body. All I know is that he has his own motivations I’m only just starting to figure out.”

We talk, but I’m paying less attention to what I’m saying than to my thigh pressed against hers. The drinks seem to empty themselves, and this time I go to get the next round, finally having enough liquid courage to walk into this group who know Leslie and now probably want to know me.

There are greetings and names and handshakes from all around. My head swims, and I float through all the social interaction like I’m bobbing in the warm Pacific, something not at all possible when I’m sober.

Someone pinches my butt. I try to see who, but an entire cluster of women start giggling when I look over at them.

The bartender slides me my drinks and tells me I’m a lucky guy.

“Oh, we’re just friends.”

He only bounces his eyebrows once, an expression that is somehow disbelieving, apathetic and lascivious all at the same time. Such economy.

I slide around the booth and right against Leslie. My hand is on her thigh for a moment before I notice her posture and energy have changed. She’s not leaning into me. I knead her leg once more, pat it, then remove my hand.

“I’ve been thinking about your story. You drew this comic where the nightmare man goes after people who kill other people’s dreams?”

“Yeah. The shrink was trying to help me turn this negative figure into a positive one.”

“I get that. But you think he’s going after your son for that reason?”

“Yeah. I know it sounds weird, but that’s my theory.”

“I was trying to process all this, and then I put something together. You said that you think the nightmare man is part of you.”

“Yeah.” I can see she’s going someplace serious, but through the five beers I’m having trouble following her there. I take a long slurp of the sixth.

“So that means some part of you blames your son for your giving up art.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Jessie, that’s fucked up. He had no say in the matter.”

I inch away from her. Our thighs no longer touch. “I know that. It’s, like, subconscious.”

“My mom and dad met after one of my dad’s rock shows. He’s a drummer. In pictures, he’s always shirtless and sweaty and kinetic. It sicks me out to think about it, but I can understand why my mom liked him. Anyway, they dated, she went to all his shows, they got married, and then they had me. Then he couldn’t be out late, not every night, and the other bandmates weren’t going to limit themselves to the occasional Friday or Saturday show, so they kicked him out. He never played another live show, and he hasn’t played the drums for as long as I can remember. We didn’t have a huge house. You know what he used to say?”