Little Dreamers - Tommy
This is part of a series of stories I'm doing that are dreams and reality all mixed up. Whether or not they make any sense is up for debate, but I like writing them. Like all of my stories in general, it has some stuff that I've dreamed in them. If nothing else, they prove what a narcissist I am.
The movie was on but neither Randi nor I were really watching it. It was barely after midnight, but both of us were already drowsy. She kept insisting that I should go along to bed, but I didn't want to leave her lonely in the living room all night. I put on the movie - The Celery Fixation - mainly to distract us, give us some amusement, but it wasn't exactly working. Our eyes were fixed to the screen and our minds were on something else.
Tommy was in the hospital again. Heather and Mike had gone over to his place and found him passed out on the floor, predictable paraphernalia all around him. They'd called the ambulance, and Heather tagged along with them, Mike following in his car. He'd called us on his cell phone, using the speakerphone that attached to the radio. We could hear the sound of other cars on the freeway whirring by, and the siren of the ambulance.
The movie was supposed to be funny, and we laughed at the appropriate moments automatically. Randi sat in the green recliner, wrapped up tightly in a flannel blanket. The chair screeched disconcertingly at any slight movement. I had settled myself into the armchair with the high back, thinking being upright would keep me from falling asleep.
The last thing I remember from the movie was the blue-eyed hero slamming his fist into the face of the handsome antagonist. A naked blonde munching on celery waited nearby, ready to have sex with the victor. Then I was drifting, floating, flying, burning...
Randi and I were visiting our high school. We graduated three years ago and went back fairly often. From the style of the room, I knew we were in the east wing, but it was in the wrong place. Looking out the windows, we should have been able to see the cafeteria and auditorium across the street. Instead, we gazed upon a row of houses that I recognized as Williams Road. The road where Tommy lived.
He was in front of his house - an orange, peeling split-level. He looked younger, maybe fifteen. It was May but he wore the black, puffy jacket that was his winter uniform. He stood with two other boys who were older: one dressed all in blue, the other one bald. I knew but couldn't place them. Despite their being thirty feet away, I could hear them clearly.
"You have to do it," the one in the blue said.
"You have to stop it," the bald one said.
"Decide," Blue said, and he pulled a shiny butter knife out of one pocket.
Tommy didn't say a thing, just looked over at us. At me.
I picked up the receiver of a rotary phone next to the chalkboard and dialed 911. I got in touch with a woman who kept saying, "You have to dial 9 first."
"I did," I said, before realizing what she meant.
"They're going to kill him," I told an unconcerned Randi, spinning 9-911 around the wheel. The other end picked up as I saw the knife shimmer in the sunlight and poke itself into the puffiness of Tommy's jacket. He still didn't make a sound.
"You have to do it," Blue said, looking right at me.
"You have to stop it," the bald one agreed.
"I don't know what to do," I explained to the person on the phone.
"The bus is outside," the voice said. "Is this the right house number?"
"WHAT?" I screamed. "What did you say?"
"Thank you," the voice said, and the line clicked.
Still holding the phone, I looked over at Tommy. The knife was now sunk all the way into his chest, one inch of the handle still visible. Finally he opened his mouth and screamed - except he sounded like a cat howling in rage. Randi grunted in surprise and I looked over at
her. She was stumbling out of the chair (the howling had been the chair being pulled up too fast), eyes rolling back in their sockets, legs twisting together. She was urinating in her white pajama pants, and it trickled down onto the floor. Her arms twitched and her mouth was open, moaning.
"I… got… burned… alive," she whimpered.
I was tangled up in my blanket and fell at her feet trying to get up. Struggling, I managed to stand, and gripped her shoulders, shaking them hard. "Wake up!" I said.
"Car… fell… lilies," she said, still shaking.
Grimacing, I pulled a hand back and slapped her across the face. Her eyes stopped their wild fluttering and blinked slowly. Her muscles relaxed and she looked down at her pants. The flow had stopped there but now tears were dropping slowly from her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said, and began to sob.
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