Dream a Little Dream (16 page)

“So it seems I’m just in time for dinner!” He lifted the lid that covered the sauce. “You made this? Smells good. You always were a good cook.”

He took a seat next to Mich and served himself some spaghetti. He watched Nola out of the corner of his eye with an intensity that made her want to excuse herself and run into the bathroom. She was afraid he might be thinking of her as a potential employee.

Tina must have been thinking the same thing. Tina checked her watch as if she had just noticed what time it was. “Would you look
at that! It’s already ten-thirty.” She looked at Nola as if she was disappointed. “It’s time for us to go. Maybe I can get us a ticket to your friend’s house, uh, Lori,” she finished. Nola had mentioned her friend, Lori, so that was where that name came from. Tina must figure that they needed all the concealment they could get.

Tina looked expectantly at Nola, praying that she had caught on and would not give her away. She didn’t. “Oh, that’s right! I almost forgot. We’d better get going, Mich.”

Mich looked up from his plate. “Huh? I thought—” Nola nudged his arm. “Oh, yeah! Lori! We are already late; we better get to the bus house, uh, station,” he said quickly and started for the door.

Johnboy rose and slid his dark glasses down his nose so that he could see Mich’s eyes clearly. His own eyes were bloodshot. “There’s no reason to take the bus.” He smiled, showing uneven teeth. “I got a perfectly good Cadillac downstairs. I’ll drive you.”

His tone deepened with his last words. It was obvious that he suspected something. It was also obvious that if they refused, they might never get back to Kafka.

Nola didn’t see any reason why they should not go with him. He seemed nice enough, on the surface. Her years of life had instilled in her the principle never to trust a stranger, but she had never been betrayed by one. It was always those who knew one best who hurt one most. However, she was afraid of him and it was that fear that decided her. Better to play along than to risk giving herself away and ending up on the streets like Tina.

Tina noted her hesitation and said, “It’s okay, Nola.” She hugged the man. “He’s as sweet as a teddy bear. He won’t hurt ya if you don’t want him to.”

Johnboy laughed and Tina was smiling. Nola knew that Tina’s smiles were genuine. It seemed as if she had no choice. Still the doubt nagged at her. There was something phony about this situation, and
Tina had given her warning in her fashion. She looked to Mich, who just shrugged. This was her world, not his.

“Okay,” she said a bit uneasily.

Johnboy took a step toward the door. As soon as his fingers touched the knob, there was a loud crash and the door flung open, throwing Johnboy back onto the glass coffee table, shattering it.

Tina screamed, but the scream went unheard. Both Nola and Mich were staring, disbelieving, frozen with fear.

Johnboy looked around, dazed. “What the hell?” he said as he tried to sit up.

“Click” went the hammer on the revolver that was now held between Johnboy’s eyes. “You move, boy, and you die.”

Three men had broken in the door and were standing in the foyer. One man held the gun at Johnboy’s forehead while the other two stood by and watched.

Johnboy cringed and cowered beneath the weight of what, he felt sure, was death’s hand. All his pride, fearlessness and strength could not help him now.
They
had found him. In seconds, his tall, portly body was reduced to a shriveling mass of sweat and tears. He was afraid that this would be the end of him. He hoped Tina would escape. The only thing he could do was buy some time.

Johnboy tried to inch away from the barrel of the gun, but it only pressed harder, cutting his flesh. “Look, man, I don’t know what you want,” Johnboy said, quailing.

“You know exactly why we're here, boy.”

The two men grabbed Johnboy’s arms and lifted him up. “We're here to collect.”

Tina gasped. She could see from behind that Johnboy’s arms and back had several cuts from the glass of the table and were bleeding. She knew why the men were here. Johnboy had some kind of partnership going with these men. They imported several types of drugs.

Johnboy distributed them to dealers. But he made the biggest mistake a distributor could ever make: to get hooked on the drugs he sold. Now Johnboy owed money. A lot of money. He was her friend and she had tried hard to help him come up with the cash, but he just popped, snorted, shot, drank or smoked it up, along with the rest of his money.

Nola’s mind was spinning. She had never gotten hooked on drugs, but she had seen enough to have a fair notion of Johnboy’s situation. He had been looking for more girls to pimp for, because he had heavy debts to pay off. Nola might have found it very difficult to get out of that Cadillac without having something addictive forced into her, and Mich might have left it dead. But that was no longer the real threat. All of her conscious thoughts were blinded by fear. Her eyes were fixed past Johnboy’s bloody back, fixed beyond the gun, fixed beyond the men, fixed beyond the open door. She was praying that someone, anyone, would walk by and offer some kind of help. She kept trying to scream, but her throat was blocked by her heart.

Mich stared in disbelief at Johnboy and the men. He was well aware that a life was about to be taken right here in front of him. He too kept glancing at the door, though not for help, but escape. If only he were offered a chance, just one second of distraction. The doorway was so close.

“You choose. Pay up or say your prayers,” the man said calmly.

There was a look of sheer terror in Johnboy’s eyes. He did not have one cent to give, but he did not want to die. Not like this. There was too much left for him to do. He wanted to die a clean man, not a broken one. He scraped the deep recesses of his brain for an answer, any answer. Anything to get that gun barrel away from his head. Deep within, he found a way out, but it was an evil way. It was a way that would save his life but, later, would take it from him in another way.

“I don’t have the money.”

“Then you die.” The man cocked the hammer.

“Wait! You guys got me wrong! I can pay!”

The armed man turned and looked at his comrades, then back at the beaten dog that was Johnboy. He was smiling wryly. “Whatchoo got, then?”

“Your boss, Charlie, he likes girls, don’t he?” he stammered.

The man laughed. “Yeah, so?”

“So I got girls for him! Nice girls, beautiful girls!”

“You mean her?” the man asked, gesturing with the gun at Tina. “She don’t look like much to me.”

Tina was horrified. “Johnboy, how could you?” she pleaded.

Nola saw a tear run down her face for the first time. It was quickly wiped away and her stricken face was replaced by one of terrible anger, bordering on madness. Nola could see Tina as she fought herself to keep from doing something foolish. She wanted to give Johnboy the beating of his life, because it seemed that the man had sold them out to the trolls of Earth. Maybe even the Fren of Earth.

It was odd how Tina had deceived herself about what her pimp would do when hard pressed. It had been clear to Nola in an instant that this was what it was all about. But probably her friend, Lori, could say the same about Nola’s own relationship with John. It was hard to see clearly when encumbered by one’s own emotions.

“You know, this one here ain’t such a bad deal,” the man said, looking Nola up and down. “Maybe he’d take her as payment.” He paused and seemed thoughtful for a second. “But there’s no ac-countin’ for taste. We’ll take both of them.”

“Johnboy!” Tina screamed again.

In that instant, while the man was distracted by Tina’s scream, Johnboy knocked the gun from the man’s hand and lunged for him.

Mich saw his chance. He made a mad dash for the door. He whizzed right by the startled men and down the stairwell. Nola
screamed after him and tried to follow but one of the men caught her and held her fast. She could do nothing but submit to the brute. The other man went after Mich.

Meanwhile, Johnboy had scored on the gunman’s stomach with his head. He lifted his head and drew back his fist. The gunman recovered at the last moment and stuck out his free hand. The hand grasped Johnboy’s throat like an iron vise and it held him fast. Johnboy struggled and grappled with the hand; he couldn’t breathe.

“Let’s tie up the bitches,” the man said to his friend while smirking at Johnboy. He let Johnboy go. Johnboy collapsed to the floor, coughing and sputtering, grasping his neck.

Tina tried to run, but did not get one step. The man who held Nola pointed a gun at her. The other man retrieved a telephone and removed the cords. He wrapped the cords around Tina’s wrists so tightly that her hands turned purple.

“Owww, you bastard!” she said and spit at him.

He grabbed the hair on the back of her head and pulled it back. When her mouth opened to yell, he stuffed in a handkerchief.

He turned to Nola and bound her as well. “Maybe we should give this one a strip search!” he said, smiling.

He put his hand on her neck and ran it down to her blouse. Nola would rather have been fondled by a worm’s tongue, slime and all. But that wasn’t an option. She brought up her knee, but, sadly, not fast enough. He caught it, and fondled her thigh.

“Oooh, she’s a dangerous one, fellas! Look out for her!” he said mockingly and jerked her roughly out the door. The other man bound Johnboy as well and dragged him at gunpoint through the door while pushing Tina.

A station wagon waited on the street outside. Nola was still kicking and trying to slow the man down. She didn’t like the way he was holding her. It was as if he had her in a love embrace. He held her much too close to his own body, still trying to sneak in some good
feels. She braced her feet against the car door. That caused him to release his hug so that he could deal with her feet. She knew why he didn’t simply club her halfway senseless, so she couldn’t resist: bruised goods didn’t make a good impression on the boss. She tried to push against him and make him lose his balance, but he was too strong and he shoved her into the backseat.

Tina put up a fight as well. Her feet were flailing and kicking at the car and at the man who held her. But his friend aided him, and soon both women were in the car, sitting close to each other for what comfort they could get. Johnboy was shoved in behind Tina and the door was slammed shut.

The two men sat in the front and waited. Soon, the big one became impatient and honked the horn. The third man appeared. His clothes were torn and he suffered a busted lip and swollen cheek. He walked to the car and got in.

“Well, where is he?” asked the driver, irritated.

“I’m sorry, boss, but he got away from me. He got my gun too.”

Nola could hear the driver sigh deeply. He reached over and struck the man several times with a rolled-up magazine. “You stupid jerk!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” the man yelled. “I shot him in the gut. He was bleedin’ pretty bad; he won’t live too long.”

Tina’s gaze locked on Nola’s and showed genuine concern. Nola’s own eyes clouded over and filled with brine. She felt a stab in her chest, and she cried.

The car moved off down the street, away from town.

Johnboy reached up with his teeth and removed the handkerchief from Tina’s mouth. He looked at her apologetically. There was hate in her soft brown eyes. He knew to speak an apology to her would only make her angrier, but he wished he hadn’t done what he had. He wished he knew something to say that would make it all right, but he knew there was not. Tina looked as if she wanted to kill him. How
could he apologize for what he had done to her and her friend? Now his life was being destroyed; he had lost his only friend. He felt the tears coming and had to turn away.

Nola, Tina and Johnboy sat silently as the car sped down the street. It bore them on through the city. An hour later they were in the suburbs and, an hour after that, in the country.

Nola could think only of Mich. She hoped that he would be okay. She was just getting to know him. She was even beginning to feel that this was not a dream. Maybe it was all real and she just couldn’t see it. If that was the case, then she must be torturing him by withholding her love. But as long as one tiny doubt remained, she would not commit her heart to him and his world. She wouldn’t walk into the same trap twice. If she did, she would die. With such thoughts of Mich in her mind, she fell asleep and dreamed.

She dreamed of Kafka. The land was black and charred. It was being overrun by the Fren. They were killing people and burning the land, laughing all the while. They taunted and teased her for not knowing the secret to destroy them.

The survivors of the raids yelled at her and shook their angry fists and screamed, “Why are you letting this happen to us? Why are you just standing there, letting them destroy our land? It’s all your fault!”

Nola ran away. She ran past the villagers, past the stench of death to the river. The river’s splendid colors were gone, replaced by a murky black water that smelled of rotting sulfur. She ran on until she found a patch of green grass on a hilltop, far away from the commotion. The last small piece of life left in the ruined land.

In a moment, she saw Spirit emerge from the thick, dark smoke that was the sky, winging his way down to her hilltop. He landed beside her and looked down disapprovingly.

Why do you sit here, when you are needed down there?
he asked.

Nola burst into tears. “I can’t do anything about it!” she sobbed. “I don’t know the secret!”

Do you realize that if you do not learn the secret, Earth will die too? The secret lies within you.

“Earth too?” she asked, appalled.

Earth without dreams.

Now she understood, in the intuitive way of dreams. “Yes! I know. All human life on Earth will be managed by people with no dreams. We will lose hope and love and we will kill each other and ourselves—become extinct.”

Nola stood up and hugged Spirit’s muscular neck. His hide smelled like smoke. She suddenly felt so ashamed that she wished she were dead. She cried and Spirit’s neck became moist and salty.

I feel your sorrow. It is painful,
he said, blinking tears from his green eyes.

Nola realized it was true. They shared their souls and shared their emotions as well. He felt her pain, and she could feel his stubbornness. She released him and composed herself.

You know the secret, you need only apply it. Look,
he said, gesturing with a toss of his head.

She looked down and out onto the blackened field below the hill. The Fren had surrounded a group of fairies. Nola winced, as she expected them to be killed, but the Fren just stood there. The fairies collapsed into a heap.

Nola tried to turn away, but she felt Spirit’s mind watching intently. She was compelled to watch also.

Slowly, she saw the fairies change color, turning light brown, then dark brown, then black. Their bodies changed also. In a matter of moments, they were completely different creatures. The fairies got up and joined the Fren, for that was what they had become.

Nola looked up at Spirit with sudden realization.

“The Fren, they didn’t kill them. They didn’t even touch them! The good dreams, they became bad, became Fren. The Creators of fairies, their dreams were crushed. Esprit, people like me are destroying Kafka by giving up hope!”

Suddenly, the whole hilltop was lifted and tilted, causing Nola to be thrown to the side. She woke.