The Dreamseller: The Calling (8 page)

This time I couldn’t hold back.

“Shut up,
Trashmouth,
” I shouted.

“Trashmouth? You second-rate snob!” he shouted and struck a karate pose. This would be the first of many arguments among the dreamseller’s ragtag band of disciples.

The dreamseller gently corrected me, that warm smile and calm demeanor more effective than any physical punishment.

“Julio, you’re a smart man, so you know that no artist owns his work. It’s he who interprets the art who gives it meaning. If
Bartholomew thinks I’m the leader of an alien race, so be it. You shouldn’t worry. Generosity, not obedience, is what I want. Be generous to yourself.”

Back then, I thought he misspoke and meant that I should be generous to Bartholomew. But during this journey I would discover that a man who isn’t generous to himself can never be generous to others. One who demands much of himself is a tyrant to others.

Generosity was one of the most important dreams that he wanted to share with the world. The “normals” living in their cages, isolated in their own little worlds, had lost the indescribable joy that comes from giving, embracing, offering a second chance. Generosity was a word found in dictionaries but rarely in mankind. I knew how to compete but not how to be generous. I knew how to point out the ignorance and shortcomings of others, but not how to accept them. Seeing others fail pleased me more than my own successes. I was no different from politician who wanted to see the ruling party fail.

After that careful lesson, I calmed down. But there was still the question of where we would be staying. Then the dreamseller pointed to the shade beneath the bridge and said, “This is our home.”

I felt dizzy. Suddenly I began to miss the San Pablo Building. There were several torn mattresses strewn under the overpass and only filthy rags to cover us. There was one jug of water and we all would have to drink straight from the bottle. I had never seen such poverty. I thought, “This is the man who saved me?”

It all looked so destitute that even Bartholomew protested. Now I was starting to like the guy. He scratched his head, rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating and said, “Chief, you sure this is your house?”

The alcohol was wearing off and Bartholomew had begun to see reality. Even he had slept in better places. He slept in a friend’s tiny
efficiency, in the back of bars and even in homeless shelters, but never under a bridge.

“Yes, Bartholomew, this is my house. And we have a long night ahead of us.”

Because everything the dreamseller said had another meaning, he wasn’t predicting a bad night’s sleep. We were in for more of the dreamseller’s eye-opening world.

For dinner there was some stale bread and old crackers. I had hated fast-food hamburgers, but now I started to fantasize about them. After taking a few bites of the crackers, I decided to lie down. Maybe tomorrow I would wake up and find it was all a nightmare. I lay down on the lumpy mattress, rolled a piece of cardboard into a pillow, and rested my head—but not my racing mind.

Trying to relax, I told myself, “OK, stay calm. You’re a sociologist. You
like
to study eccentric groups, don’t you? Now you’re part of one. It’ll be good for your academic career. At the very least, you’ll have one hell of a story to tell. Remember, ‘Victory without risk is a dream without value.’”

Still, I couldn’t imagine what I was getting myself into. I had left the safe microcosm of a college classroom to live in the underbelly of society, a place completely foreign to a theoretical sociologist like me. My spinning mind wouldn’t let me sleep.

But then I tried something else. I started remembering all the lessons I had learned next to the dreamseller, reliving each experience. I tried to think about everything that had happened hours earlier. The experience of following this stranger was so powerful that I thought less about the top of the building and more about my home under the bridge, less about suicide and more about my journey.

And then it hit me. Everyone should set out like this, without a goal or a destination, at least for a day, searching for the
lost pieces of themselves. These thoughts relaxed me, the anxiety passed and sleep approached.

I learned that night that what determines how soft a bed feels depends on the anxiety inside our heads. One only sleeps well when he can find peace within. I was beginning to think like the dreamseller. I ignored whatever worry lay ahead. For the moment, that tattered lump became the most comfortable of mattresses.

I
T WAS FOUR IN THE MORNING, COLD AND WINDY, WHEN I
awoke to a desperate cry.

“The bridge is gonna collapse! It’s gonna collapse!” Bartholomew screamed. He was panting, terrified.

My heart was racing. I had never been so afraid. I leaped up, trying to run.

But the dreamseller took my arm and urged me to stay calm.

“Calm, how? We could die!” I said, looking at the construction and seeing old cracks, in the darkness, as if they were new.

Calmly, he told me, “Bartholomew is going through alcohol withdrawal.”

My survival instinct had kicked in, even though a few hours earlier I had wanted to end my life. My drunken companion had led me to one of the greatest discoveries of my life: Even those who plan their death don’t want to die; they want to kill their pain. I took a deep breath, tried to relax, but my heart was racing. I looked at Bartholomew, who was in a state of terror.

He was in a state of delirium tremens. Because he was addicted, and his body craved alcohol, he was suffering shortness of breath, accelerated heart rate and excessive sweating. The worst part was that his already confused mind shut down, and he was starting to hallucinate.

After imagining that the bridge was falling, he started having other wild visions. He saw spiders and rats the size of automobiles scurrying along the ground, threatening to devour him. His face was dripping with sweat, his hands shaking. His entire body was hot with fever. As the dreamseller always said, you can run from the monsters outside but not those within. And it’s incredible how the human mind tries to create phantoms to frighten away those demons. Even in our digital world, these primitive feelings still exist.

Bartholomew tried to fight the beasts attacking him from within. He screamed in agony, “Chief, help me! Help me!”

We tried to calm him and sat him down on an old crate. But he jumped to his feet with a new nightmare, and, another time, he ran down the street in fear. There were millions of alcoholics in this country, but I never imagined how much they suffered. I just thought they were happy drunks. Fearing Bartholomew would be run over, the dreamseller suggested we take him to a public hospital three blocks away.

That’s the day I began to give a little of myself to others without asking anything in return. Of course, there’s always self-interest in the things we do, but as the dreamseller said, there are interests that go beyond financial gain and public recognition, such as those linked to the fulfillment of contributing to the well-being of others. It was a system of trade unforeseen by capitalism or socialism, a world alien to me.

I began to understand that selfish people live in a prison of their worries. But those who work to ease the pain of others ease their own pain. I don’t know if I’ll regret taking this path, I don’t know what awaits me, but selling dreams, even with its risks, is an excellent “business” in the marketplace of emotion. Bartholomew’s suffering was so great that, at least for the time being, it made the countless issues in my life, the worry in my mind, seem smaller.

I thought of all the trouble the dreamseller went through to rescue me. He hadn’t asked for money, recognition or praise, afterward. But what he received was an immeasurable dose of joy. He was so happy that he danced in public. All he asked of me was that I do the same.

Helping Bartholomew was my first experience in contributing humbly to someone’s wellness. A difficult task for a selfish intellectual.

Getting Bartholomew admitted into the hospital was a struggle. We had to convince the night crew that our friend was in mortal danger. His raving alcohol-induced madness wasn’t enough to convince them immediately. General hospitals weren’t prepared for accidents involving the human psyche. The body they could deal with. But they either didn’t know or didn’t care about how to deal with an injured mind. By the time we succeeded in getting him admitted, Bartholomew was less agitated. They gave him a strong sedative and carried him, asleep, to his room.

We went to visit him in the afternoon. Bartholomew was much better. He was no longer having hallucinations and was released. He asked us to tell him everything that had happened and how we’d met. His memory was cloudy. The dreamseller signaled to me. I tried to explain the incomprehensible. When I began to speak, the dreamseller left. He didn’t like to be praised.

I spoke about the dreamseller, how I’d met him, how he’d helped save me, how we met at the foot of the building, the dancing, the question about Bartholomew’s great dream, how he’d called him, the bridge, the night terrors, everything. Bartholomew paid close attention and nodded his head, muttering, “hmm.” Everything seemed so unreal that I felt like a fool explaining something I didn’t even understand. The poor man was as good-natured as the dreamseller.

“You don’t know who he is or what his name is? Buddy, I think I need a drink to figure this all out,” he joked. “I’ve always wanted to follow somebody crazier than me.”

And that’s how I became part of this band of misfits. My sociological experiment was widening. I only hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I’d rather anyone from my former life think I was dead or had left the country. Bartholomew whistled in a carefree manner. The dreamseller walked beside us with unabashed joy. Suddenly, he started singing a beautiful and rousing song he had composed, with lyrics that portrayed the story of his life. Little by little, the song became the central theme of our journey.

I’m just a wanderer

Who lost the fear of getting lost

I’m certain of my own imperfection

You may say I’m crazy

You may mock my ideas

It doesn’t matter!

What matters is I’m a wanderer

Who sells dreams to passersby

I’ve no compass or appointment book

I have nothing, yet I have everything

I’m just a wanderer

In search of myself.

On the walk home, or rather, to the bridge, we ran into another strange character. His name was Dimas de Melo, nicknamed “Angel Hand.” His nickname should have been “Devil Hand,” because he was a con man and a thief. He was twenty-eight with blond hair that fell over his brow, a long, pointed nose and Asian features.

Angel Hand was caught stealing a portable DVD player
from a department store. He had already stolen countless other more valuable things without getting caught. But this time a camera had filmed him in the act. Of course he had slyly checked out all the cameras when he placed the machine in his large bag, but hadn’t seen there was a hidden one, and he landed in jail.

At the police station, he asked for a lawyer before detectives could question him. He told his lawyer he didn’t have money for bail. The lawyer said, “No money; no freedom.”

Whenever the thief felt nervous, he began to stutter badly. He argued, “Hold on a minute . . . I’m, I’m gonna get out of this without pa . . . paying a thing. Just f . . . follow my lead.” The lawyer didn’t understand what he had in mind. They went into the office of the impatient police chief.

When the chief asked the prisoner’s name, Dimas, acting like he had mental problems, twiddled his lips with his index finger and smacked his forehead three times. The chief got mad and again asked his name. And Dimas repeated the gesture.

“Are you playing with me, son? Because I’ll lock you in that holding cell and throw away the key.”

The chief tried asking for Dimas’s address and employer, but Dimas just repeated the same gesture, twiddling his lips like a monkey and slapping his forehead three times. He wanted to look like someone out of his mind, someone who couldn’t possibly have known what he was doing when he put that DVD player into his bag. The chief insisted on asking more questions and Dimas just deflected them like an imbecile. The chief cursed, banged the table, threatened, but Dimas wouldn’t break. He should’ve won an Academy Award for his acting. The lawyer was enjoying his client’s cleverness.

“There’s no use. This guy’s nuts!” the chief shouted.

The lawyer took over and told him, “Sir, I didn’t say anything about my client’s mental handicap because I knew you
wouldn’t believe me. But you can see for yourself he has no idea what he’s doing.”