The usual for me, as I suspect is the case for most people, is that I lose my dreams upon awakening, sometimes instantly, sometimes grasping slippery fragments that slide away even as I try to hold on to them, with only the mood of them, their ambience, hanging on, particularly the unpleasant dreams, lingering like a bad taste in the brain, though nice dreams could, on rare occasions, wake you with a smile.
In this dream, I saw someone or something hovering over me, haloed in light, fuzzy and yet distinct, appearing from utter darkness, a small pale person with a big head and big eyes and a silver suit, his features childlike, his mouth tiny but smiling, his speech precise and strangely accented, his words soothing, though later the words were the one thing I could not recall, only that the man-I thought of him as a man, not a monster (or, for that matter, a woman)-was a kind presence, a friendly presence, an unthreatening presence, a real presence, not an imagined one, not some mortician’s dream, not my nurse’s nightmare, not a disgruntled soon-to-be-ex- employee’s wild yarn, and yet at the same time it was all of those, and when that strange thumbless hand with the suction-cup fingertips touched my brow, it was as if a cool cloth had caressed my skin….
When I awoke with a smile, in a bed, in cool sheets, in a cool, dark room, my first thoughts were of this dream, of the strange kind creature and its comforting presence, and I lay staring at the ceiling, fully awake and yet not really aware, luxuriating in the dream’s afterglow, like the moments after sex, or a junkie coming slowly down.
And when the thought, the memory, finally broke through-
Head clear, body sluggish, my mouth thick with sleep and a brackish medicinal aftertaste-from the chloroform?-I made my way to a window where a fan was whirring … not just a fan, but the boxy structure of an evaporation-type air cooler taking up the lower half of the bedroom’s only window. Above it were blinds, which I drew open, and the night sky revealed itself. Stars and a full moon, too, the latter joining with outdoor electric lighting to illuminate the landscape of what was obviously a part of Walker Air Force Base.
My bare feet were on pile carpeting, and the moonlight revealed the shape of furnishings, a dresser, a few chairs, the bed, of course-and night-stand, with phone and lamp….
I switched the lamp on; its blue parchment shade suffused the room with a gentle pastel glow. As for the phone, it was deader than Roosevelt. Despite that ominous note, I seemed to be in a nicely if modestly appointed bedroom, and the man in the mirror over the dresser seemed to be me, in shorts, looking confused but none the worse for wear. The walls were pale plaster, decorated here and there with framed prints of Southwestern vistas- not unlike the one in the hotel room I’d been snatched from.
This bedroom was, in fact, like a hotel or motel room; if I was a captive, this was an oddly benign prison cell, with any number of objects presenting themselves as the makings of makeshift weapons-mirror-shard knives, chair-leg billy clubs, phone-receiver sap, torn-bedsheet garrotes …
Was I in a deluxe jail cell? The window above the air-conditioner unit was fixed in place, unopenable; but that might have been a function of the unit’s installation, not an attempt to keep me in. This left me with the room’s three doors to try….
The first one led to an empty closet; the second to a bathroom, which had a ventilation fan in the ceiling but no window, and no sign of toiletries on the sink, the cabinet over which was empty. But I did suddenly realize I had to pee, so I took the time to do that, and ponder my situation.
How long had I been here? Since I’d been grabbed virtually stepping out of the shower, I hadn’t been wearing a watch; and the one common household item not present in that bedroom was a clock. Rubbing my face with one hand, I felt what I guessed was a day’s growth of beard; this indicated I’d been here at least several hours, but- unless they’d taken the time to shave me-the night out that window was the same night I’d been snatched.
How long had I been unconscious, and dreaming that pleasant, weird, possibly drug-induced dream? Did that space creature in the dream represent someone who’d been questioning me, perhaps under sodium pentothal or some other truth-inducing drug?
I flushed the toilet, washed my hands-soap was provided, and a terry towel-and examined my arms and legs and between fingers and toes for needle marks; didn’t see anything. The angle was wrong to check my ass out in the mirror, but there was no soreness in either cheek, from an intrusive needle.
Back out in the almost chilly bedroom-the desert air the window unit was churning up was already cool-I went to that final door, put my ear to it, heard nothing, and with a what-the-hell shrug tried the knob, expecting it to be locked.
It wasn’t. I entered another darkened room, but light spilling in from the bedroom led me to a standing lamp that I switched on, imbuing a modest living-room-cum-kitchenette with a golden glow. Next to the lamp was an easy chair and, man of the house that I was, I sat down, my legs a little rubbery, the alertness of my mind still outdistancing my body, as if below the neck I hadn’t quite woken up all the way.
My easy chair matched the frayed blue cotton cushions of the davenport; the furnishings were maple-finish Early American, very homey in a spare modern way, scuffed and nicked from use, maybe even secondhand. Over the davenport, which had the look of a daybed, was a bigger Southwestern landscape, this print depicting a sunset almost as beautiful as the one I’d witnessed from Kaufmann’s jeep. A coffee table, scarred with cigarette burns, was littered with a few dog-eared magazines-
The only windows in the room were just behind my easy chair, double blinds drawn tight. Opposite the bedroom door was what I assumed to be the front door, to my right from where I sat. Low ceiling, creamy pebble- plaster walls; interestingly, no overhead lighting. This seemed to be that guest cottage Deputy Reynolds had referred to, where Mac Brazel and Sheriff Wilcox and God knew how many other witnesses of the saucer incident had been detained for “unofficial questioning.”
So I sat there in my boxer shorts like Dagwood waiting for Blondie to bring him a sandwich and breathed slow and deep and took stock of my situation and myself; the oddly agreeable dream waved at me amiably from the back of my mind, though another part was already wondering why my subconscious found the notion of a space creature pleasing. I rotated my shoulders, rolled my neck, worked my joints, getting the juices going, the blood flowing, like an athlete prepping for the big game.
Then I got up and prowled some more. The drawers in the kitchenette were empty; no spoons or forks, certainly not knives. The cupboards had a few glasses and coffee cups but no supplies; the refrigerator was empty but for a few bottles of Coca-Cola and Canada Dry. I plucked one of the cold Cokes from its shelf and, using a drawer handle for a church key, opened it.
Sipping the soda, I walked to what I took to be double windows, raised the blinds, exposing instead a picture window, unopenable; I touched fingertips to the thing and it was some kind of clear plastic, possibly like what they used in aircraft cockpit windshields-toss a chair at this baby and it would toss the chair back at you. Beyond the plastic picture window were the low-slung barracks-style clapboard buildings of the base, interspersed with trees and bushes; not so much moonlight filtered in as yellow light from a streetlamp on the blacktop artery this cottage was perched along.
I closed the blinds.
Chugging my Coke, puzzling out my predicament, I went to the front door; a man’s home was his castle, after all-if he wanted to lower the drawbridge and go out for a midnight pillage, who was to stop him?
“Who” was standing on my front stoop, his back to me: the brawny white-helmeted Negro MP from the jeep, blocking the way like the sentry he was. He glanced over his shoulder at me, like a bull acknowledging a buzzing fly. His face was a beautifully carved tribal mask, his eyes brown and placid and yet very, very hard.
“Can I help you?” He had an intimidating, lower-register Paul Robeson resonance.
“Yeah, how ’bout some clothes and a lawyer … oh, and a car.”
The helmeted head shook. “I can’t let you pass, mister. You’re a guest of Colonel Blanchard.”
“Swell. I’d like to talk to Colonel Blanchard.”
“Colonel’s gone for the day. Please move back inside.”
And the MP, unblinking eyes fixed upon me, reached out and pulled the door shut.
I backed up a step, grunted, “Huh,” took another swig of the Coke, considered my lot in life, and tried the door again-which still wasn’t locked.
