someone is trying to kill me, they’d know about that. No, I think I’d rather spend some time in the lockup.”
“ It doesn’t seem right, a man like you in jail,” Walker said.
“ A few days behind bars isn’t going to bother me much. For a man like me it would almost be like a resort hotel. I’ll be safe from whoever is trying to kill me. I’ll be able to think. I’ll be able to grieve, alone. I need the solitude.”
“ There’s no solitude in our jail, Mr. Monday. It’s full of drunks, drug addicts and punks.”
“ That’s okay, Walker, for me that would be solitude. I don’t want any favors, except one.”
“ What’s that?”
“ Forget about me. Pretend we never had this conversation. Just book me like you would anybody else. In forty-eight hours the public defender will come to see me and find out I’m not a charity case. Then I’ll make bail. That’s all I ask.”
“ That’s what you want, you got it,” Walker said.
“ Don’t sound right to me,” Washington said, “but if you want us to forget about you, well then I already forgot.”
Chapter Two
Donna Tuhiwai opened her eyes and lay still. She was back in the dream. This time she didn’t ask questions. She didn’t want to be forced away. She would keep her thoughts to herself. She would observe, nothing more. She would watch the dream like a television. She would be good. Then maybe the dream would let her go and she could wake up.
She studied the man on the bench in front of her. Rumpled clothes, like they had been slept in. Unshaven face, deep hooded eyes, weak chin, thick mustache, hollow cheeks, balding head with a scabbing cut over the right ear, like he’d fallen down recently. Not a nice face.
His clothes were spotty and stained, dark pants, open flannel shirt and a black tee shirt underneath. On the front of the tee shirt, sticking out and glaring at her through the open flannel, was the caricature of a one-eyed pirate and the word, Raiders.
“ That’s one of those American football teams,” she thought aloud.
“ Who said that?” She heard a man’s voice, but didn’t answer.
“ I didn’t say nothing, buddy,” the rumpled man said.
“ Then who did?” The man’s voice again.
“ Just you and me in here and I didn’t say nothing.” The rumpled man scratched under his left arm.
“ You sure?” the man’s voice said.
“ You hard of hearing? I told you, I didn’t say nothing.”
“ Okay, sorry, I must have imagined it. I’ve had a bad night and I’m having an even worse morning.”
“ I’m not exactly having a picnic here myself.”
“ What did you do?” the man’s voice asked.
“ So now you’re talking to me. All night you been sitting there staring off into space. People coming and going and you don’t say a word and now you want to talk? Well la-de-da Mr. Big Shot, maybe I don’t want to talk to you.”
“ Then don’t.”
“ I know who you are, Mr. Monday, Mr. Jim Monday. I know who you are and I know what you did.”
The rumpled man was looking right at her, but he called her Jim Monday. “Why?”
“ What?”
“ I said, I know who you are.”
“ I thought you said something else.”
“ Well I didn’t. I said, I know who you are. You’re a rich bastard. You’re in deep trouble and I’m glad.”
“ Why, what did I ever do to you?”
“ You made your money off the backs of the working class. You keep your workers down by paying low wages, so you can sit in your big house and drive hundred thousand dollar cars, while your employees can barely afford twenty-year-old Chevys.”
“ I live in a rather small house, I drive a five-year-old Ford and I don’t have any employees.”
“ You’re a millionaire big shot.”
“ I may be wealthy, but I’m no big shot.”
“ Oh, yes you are. The way people talk about you, you’d think you shit gold.”
“ Think what you want, I don’t need the conversation anyway.” Donna felt herself lean back and then it went dark.
“ Don’t turn out the lights!” She screamed the thought and instantly it was light again and she saw the rumpled man glaring at her. Then her eyes involuntarily roamed around the room. She saw benches, a toilet without a seat, a sink, bars. She was in a jail somewhere. She was dreaming that she was in jail.
“ Voices, I’m hearing voices.” She instinctively knew she was hearing the man who had been talking with the rumpled man, only now he wasn’t talking, she was hearing him in her head.
“ Me, you’re hearing me!” It was her dream. If the voice could hear her, then she could talk to it. Maybe it wouldn’t send her away this time.
Jim closed his eyes and tried to clear his head.
“ No, please don’t send me away again. Please don’t turn out the lights.”
He opened his eyes.
“ Thank you.”
“ Something wrong?” the drunk sitting across from him said.
“ You ought to try minding your own business.” Jim had had just about all he could take from the man.
“ Big man.”
Jim stood.
“ Sorry.” The drunk cowered back, pushing himself against the wall.
“ That’s your last word.” Jim stared down at him. He wasn’t usually like this. He’d spent the better part of his life learning to roll with the punches. It was like all the years since Vietnam were being washed away.
The drunk nodded, fear in his eyes.
“ Did you have to talk to him that way? It wasn’t very nice.”
Jim tried to clear his head.
“ No, I’ll be good. Please don’t send me away.”
He stopped trying to fight the voice. “Who are you?” he thought.
“ I am Donna Tuhiwai. I am asleep in the Park Side Motel, in Fungarei and this is all a bad dream.”
“ Great, I’m going crazy,” he said.
The drunk started to say something, but checked himself. Apparently he had no desire to tangle with a crazy man.
“ It’s my dream. I can hear you fine if you just think the words.”
“ This is not happening,” Jim thought. He knocked on his cast, heard and felt the knock, therefore this was happening. It was real.
“ I am Donna Tuhiwai, I am asleep in the Park Side Motel, in Fungarei and I am dreaming,” the voice repeated.
“ Where is Fungarei.”
“ Come on, it’s the biggest city in the North.”
“ Never heard of it.”
“ What pakeha doesn’t know that we pronounce “w-h” with an “f-u” sound. Whangarei then, now don’t tell me you don’t know where that is.”
“ No, I don’t.”
“ Who are you, Jim Monday?”
