Happy Slumbers, Page 5

  "Did you see Sapphire too?" Argus asked with a sudden seriousness in his voice. Alex shook his head.

  "She must still be inside," he said, "or maybe she's dead too. Who can tell?"

  "I think she's okay," Argus said. "I hear it, you know." Alex looked up at him, bewildered

  "It's true," Argus said, "I've always been able to hear it, to see it, at least the way it shows itself to me. I understand that it's different for everyone. How is it for you?"

  Alex shrugged.

  "It isn't," he said. Argus nodded.

  "Maybe not, or maybe just not yet," he replied. "I see it there now. It's calling me again. Do you see?" he pointed out into the park, and Alex followed with his eyes but saw nothing but the grass and the occasional oak tree. He shook his head.

  "I don't see anything."

  "It's just for me," Argus said. "The palace of my heart. It's like a Grecian rotunda, very high, very orange, pillars and temple and all, with a moat all around, and four swans. It knows I would like that. Funny thing."

  "Lobster cages," Alex murmured and Argus asked him to repeat it.

  "Henrietta called them lobster cages. It goes fishing, that's what it does. We're its food, or something like that. Candy, she said. Like a tootsie pop. It sucks on our dreams."

  "On our dreams," Argus echoed. "So that's what it is."

  The two fell silent for several minutes, Argus apparently admiring the architecture displayed only for him by the great interstellar sea dragon.

  "I always say no," Argus said when he spoke up at last. "I've wondered for years what it wants. Now I know, but the answer's the same."

  "She was so happy," Alex repeated. "You should have seen the look on her face. So at peace. Such bliss. Those were her words."

  "I don't want it," Argus said. "The world as it is, that's good enough for me. I have my work, my family, my friends. Sure, I'm not blissfully happy every minute every day. I don't want to be, either. Might as well end your days in an opium den."

  "Happiness is for moments," he went on, "Not forever."

  "Maybe it could be," Alex said. "I'm no expert, that's for sure."

  Argus looked closely at his brother, understanding his meaning. Alex had never been the bouncy, joyful type. Always taciturn, passive to extremes, he'd merely let his life happen, every step of the way, not taking control, not willing his way, not demanding a life pre-defined. Could he even be happy, Argus had wondered more than once. His own joys were small and quiet enough, he knew well, but he savored them all nonetheless. He had learned what to value and since that time had never once underestimated their gifts.

  "Things can change," Argus said, standing up. "There's always hope," he added.

  "But for right now," he continued, "I think you could use some sleep. You look like you've been up for days."

  Alex nodded and got to his feet.

  "You can come home with me," Argus said. "My car is right over there. I miss Margaret and Arvid. I shouldn't have left the way I did, but I was tempted. This time, truly I was. The thing almost got me once and for all. If you hadn't been here," he shook his head. "I don't know what I might have done."

  "Glad to be of service," Alex mumbled, "but no thanks. I've got a room over there, in that little motel."

  "Happy Slumbers?" Argus laughed. "Is that place for real? It looks like a dump."

  "It looks good to me," Alex said. He paused to give his little brother a hug.

  "Go on home now," he told him. "They'll be happy to see you. And you're right. I do need some rest. If I'm lucky I'll sleep for a week."

  Argus gave his brother one more pat on the back, and then left him alone once again in the park.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alex watched long enough until he was sure that Argus had gotten into his car and had it pull out and drive away, and then he waited a little bit longer. Daylight was coming on full and it didn't feel right to be going inside to sleep at that time, no matter how weary he was. Besides, he couldn't face Josefa, not yet. He knew how upset she would be, saddened and angry, and perhaps mad at him most of all. It seemed like he'd made it all happen, or at least that Josefa would see it that way, as the cops seemed to do too. He tried to convince himself that he'd done nothing wrong, that all he had done was show up in this place, and then stay, and come back, and then stay a little more, and then come back again.

  "All I wanted to do," he pleaded his case to the park, "was to hear whatever it was that she had to say, and I heard. Did she really have to die?"

  Deep down he already knew the answer, that by rights she should have been dead long ago, that only the thing, whatever it was, had preserved her as long as it had. Sea Dragons, he thought, without oceans or wings but still breathing fire and scorching the ground. This park, that looked so peaceful now, had seen many changes over the years. He hoped that it was as tranquil as it seemed, that the days of upheaval were over.

  "I want to go in," he said, and he walked back to the bench and sat down. In the daylight the silence was even stronger than it had been in the dark.

  "I want to," he said once again, and he knew in his heart that he meant it. "How much am I willing to pay? Everything. All of it. All of my life. What is my life anyway? A series of episodes strung together by time, each one all its own, with its version of me and its versions of the others involved. You can take them apart, one by one, and put them under the most intense scrutiny. They stand on their own, my various scenes. Each with its start and its end, each with its own set of rules, with its knowns and unknowns, with its questions and answers and unanswered questions. Why do I not know my own children? I knew them both once, why not now? Why am I all alone? I wasn't before, not always before. Where did Gwendolyn go? Where's Carmela? Where did my old bosses go, those Anthonies and Carolines and Samuels and Dans? Where are those jobs I once had, those tracks I once crossed, those homes that used to be my home?"

  "I've lived many lives and each little one had its duration, its boundaries. Outside of those lines those lives don't exist, they're all gone. So what can I do? Read some more books? I've read enough books. Watch another movie? How many movies do I have to see? Meet someone new, fall in love, yet again? How much do you need? How much are you willing to pay?"

  "I don't want to go back," Alex said to the sky, to the grass, to the bench, to all things existing around him. He had nowhere to go back to. Home was Tucson those days, but just an address, an apartment, a stupid and boring routine. To trade it all in, now that would be nice, to trade it all in for 'such bliss', like she said.

  "I want to go in," he repeated out loud, and he strained his eyes for any indication, anything shimmering, glowing or new, but there was only the grass and the plants and the trees. "What would it look like for me?" he wondered. "It was a garden for Etta, a bus for Uncle Charlie, that castle for Argus, a jungle for Sapphire. What is my trap? What is my place? What is my key?"

  There wasn't an answer, and in the silence, he knew. It wasn't for him. His brother could hear it, calling to him. Sapphire must have been able to too.

  "I don't have it," he thought. "It isn't for me. I don't know why, but it isn't."

  The realization brought tears to his eyes, but they couldn't emerge and flow down. He even started to laugh just a bit, and that was the moment he knew it for certain. Alex stood up and slowly walked off. He turned back one more time and saw that the bench was only a bench, just a plain old park bench in this loneliest of places. He felt sorry for it, and then he quickened his pace, to go see Josefa, to tell her what happened, and to offer her whatever comfort he could give.