Do dreams really serve a function . . .

 . . . or are they just a waste product? Your brain taking a dump. Because that night I eliminated a lot of crap from my brain. But it didn’t exactly make me feel any better, like waking up and discovering you’d shit your pants wouldn’t make you feel better even though the crap needed to come out.

In my dream, Heather was yelling at me. At me! And then Mom walked in and let her have it before she started laying into me herself. I was chasing Alana down an alley that looked a lot like the alley near her house, the one where Jennifer got his paws muddy. And then Alana disappeared, but all of a sudden there was Mr. Pirkle walking Jennifer. And I knew they were lost, but when he asked me how to get home, I couldn’t explain it even though I knew the way home. It started raining and my clothes clung to me, freezing cold and dripping wet. I ran to get home before Pirkle got there. When I woke, I was breathing hard, my heart pounding, drenched in sweat as if I’d been running in real life. It was nearly dawn by then, so I laid in bed and waited for the sun to come up.

>>>

The retreat was nice since I was spending time with Fritzy. It was a church event, and I wasn’t a church person, but I envied her community. The ability to focus on something bigger than yourself. To believe in a greater purpose, because I couldn’t be sure everything wasn’t just one crazy accident. Fritzy wasn’t looking for a convert, she just wanted my company. And after two days with Alana, that was enough for me.

When I dropped Fritzy off at her house, I knew I had a boat load of homework waiting for me, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Pirkle’s house. Even though I’d gotten no calls that weekend, part of me felt I’d abandoned him. And my day at the retreat was still speaking to the nobler part of myself, so I decided to check up on him.

“Want me to go with you?” Fritzy asked. “He knows me now. Even said Hi, to me the other day and asked how you were doing.”

“Nah, I’m not staying. I’ll just knock on the door and let him know I’m around if he needs anything. It’s smart business to check in with your clients every once in a while. Otherwise they might wonder why they’re paying you.”

“Thanks for the tip, Uncle Pennybags.”

“Uncle Pennybags?”

“You know…the Monopoly dude.”

I didn’t tell Fritzy about the dream I had where Pirkle was wandering around with Jennifer, the two of them hopelessly lost.

>>>

Pirkle was happy to see me. “Hudson!” he bellowed. “Come in. Good to see you, son.”

I don’t think I’d ever seen him in such a good mood.

“I was just in the neighborhood . . .”

“Of course you were. Calling on your lady.” He stepped aside to let me in, closing the door behind us.

“Well, she’s not really . . .” I trailed off. What was the point of denial? He was convinced Fritzy and I were having a thing (I was “sweet on her,” he had once said). Let him think what he wants.

“She’s quite a gal,” he went on. “Very nice. We’ve spoken a few times out front.”

Even though it was as far as possible from the truth, I admit to a thrill from his assumption Fritzy was my girlfriend. I’d never had a girlfriend, so no one had ever talked to me that way before. I was waiting for the wink, thump on the back, and congratulations for a job well done.

“I admire a man who’s not afraid of a little height differential,” he said. “You’ll catch up with her one day. I can tell from the size of your hands and feet.”

That was the nicest thing anyone had said to me all weekend, and I wondered if there was any truth to it. I stretched out the fingers of my right hand and did a quick, non-scientific comparison between my hand and Pirkle’s.

“Did you have a nice Thanksgiving, Mr. Pirkle?”

“It was nice enough. At my age these things don’t matter as much anymore. One day’s the same as the next.”

But I didn’t think that was true. My grandparents loved Thanksgiving. And all the other holidays too.

“I went to the Senior Center,” he added as if to appease me. “They did it up real nice.”

“Mrs. Dickinson’s been asking about you. Says she never sees you there anymore.”

“I don’t go often. Sometimes, when I’m in the mood. But enough about me. What brings you here today, Hudson? Am I behind on a payment?” he chuckled.

“No, nothing like that.” I was going to say something about checking up on him but he seemed so . . . normal. And so grandfatherly. Who was I to be checking up on him?

“I was wondering when you might have some free time to finish our interview. The one for my government class.”

“Ah, yes, the interview.” He ducked his head and stared into my skull. “You sure they’d be interested in what I have to say? There are so many books written about it. People who’ve said it much better than I ever could.”

“My teacher wants a personal perspective.”

“In that case, let’s go out back. We still have another hour of daylight, and it’s a nice day.”

I followed him out to the small cement patio. We sat in plastic molded lawn chairs, a beer bottle on the table in front of him, a glass of water for me.

“Where did we leave off?” he asked.

I scrambled to remember.

“You had a friend named Chuck who persuaded you to join the Marines. You fought in the Pacific.” I glanced at the round second-story window of the neighboring house. Mr. Scolari’s house.

“How old were you when you lost your father, Hudson?”

“I was ten.”

“That’s rough,” he shook his head. “War is rough. It’s a nasty business.”

“How bad is it?” I asked. “Were you . . . were you scared?”

“Of course I was scared.”

“All the time?” I thought about my father. It was a question that still haunted me.

“In the beginning, all the time. Towards the middle I was sure I was going to die, so I wasn’t scared anymore. But when they told me I’d be going home, I got scared again. I had something to lose at that point, you understand.”

“I think so.”

“No, you don’t. That was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh,” I said meekly.

“In Iwo Jima. That’s when I knew I was a dead man. A ghost soldier. That’s what protected me, I think. I had no fear so I made no false moves. When you want to live, that’s when you do stupid things. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of.”

“No. How could it? You’d have to be there. You’d have to experience it for yourself, otherwise it makes no sense at all.”

He took a swallow of beer that must have gone down the wrong way because he went into a spasm of coughing that turned his face as pink as the sky had turned with the setting sun. When he was done, he set the bottle down and looked at me.

“Fear made me vulnerable,” he said. “Life made me vulnerable.”

“Is that a bad thing, sir?”

“You tell me, Hudson. What do you think? You’re . . . seventeen years old?”

“Eighteen,” I corrected him.

“Eighteen. I was two years older than you back then. Is there something you’d be willing to die for? Someone? Someone you’d be willing to fight for?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You never know until you’re in that situation. For me . . . I lived for the friends fighting next to me. And I lived to get back to my family. That’s what I lived for. I died for nothing. Because I did die, you know. A part of me did die over there. For nothing.”

I didn’t know how you could die and live. How you could die and still continue to fight on. How you became a ghost soldier. A profound sadness came over me.

“Your friend, Chuck. What happened to him?”

“He didn’t make it back. He died in my arms on that rotten little island, Iwo Jima. You’ve heard people say the ones who don’t make it back are the heroes? Well that’s the truth, Hudson. Your dad. Chuck. They’re the real heroes.”

I felt a lump swell in my throat.

“What was it really like? The fighting.”

“You sure you want to hear all this?”

I nodded my head.

“Well, you’re old enough. Old enough to fight in a war, so you’re old enough to know. When people say war is hell, it’s more than a cliché. It’s a shabby attempt to describe something that can’t be described to anyone who hasn’t been through it. People ask what it’s like, but they don’t really want to know. It’s an unspoken pact. Those of us who’ve been through it protect the rest of you from the reality of war. You don’t want to hear about it, son. It’s not all this Hollywood stuff you see in the movies. You smell the blood. The smoke. Death. That horrible stench of death you can’t get out of your head. But your training takes over, and you do what you have to. Only when it’s over do you stop to think about it. And if you’re lucky enough, you learn to stop thinking about it so you can go on living.”

Without meaning to, I glanced up at the round window again. Pirkle looked curiously at me for a moment before gazing at the window himself.

“What’s it like to get old, Mr. Pirkle?”

“It’s not too bad, Hudson. You get used to it. Slowly, over time.”

“Are you scared of dying?”

He picked up the nearly empty bottle of beer and swallowed its remaining contents in two gulps.

“A little. But none of us own our time on earth. We’re all just renters.”

“Where’s your daughter now?”

He gave me a look that told me I’d pushed too far.

“She grew up,” he said quietly.

He rose from his chair and looked up at the darkening sky. He glanced at the circular window again before speaking.

“It’s getting late, and I’m a little cold. You think you have enough material for your government project?” I knew he was annoyed with me for my last question. I could hear it in his voice.

“Thanks, Mr. Pirkle. I really appreciate it.”

“You didn’t take any notes. Think you’ll remember everything?”

Stupid! Why didn’t I ask for a paper and pen?

“I’m going to go home and write everything down before I forget.” I picked up my empty glass and followed him inside the house.

“Thanks for stopping by,” he said after showing me to the door.

His happy mood had slipped away.

What had I just done?

>>>

When Fritzy called that night, I wasn’t surprised.

“Listen, Wheeler. My dad was just outside and heard a bunch of yelling coming from Pirkle’s house. He was going to call the police, but I told him not to call before talking to you.”

“Tell your dad I’ve got it under control. I’ll be right over.”

“Okay,” Fritzy sounded doubtful.

“Don’t let him call the police. Promise me you won’t.”

“Okay, I got your back. You want me to go over there until you get here?”

“No, better not. I’ll be there in ten.”

“Ten’s kind of fast.”

“Let me get going. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Those days my car was on auto-pilot to the Fritzy/Pirkle zone. I parked in front of Fritzy’s house because . . . well, because I didn’t want to park in front of Pirkle’s. As long as I was on Fritzy’s side of the street, I felt the safety and strength of her nearness. Not that I was scared of Pirkle, just that he made me somewhat nervous during his evening Jekyll to Hyde transformations. Parking in front of his house made me a little less brave. A little more isolated. Funny the difference twenty or thirty feet of asphalt can make.

Fritzy was waiting outside, just like I knew she would be. She was wearing a long pink bathrobe which seemed excessively girly for her. Freed from its normal braid, her thick chocolate-colored hair flowed softly down her back, nearly to the middle. She looked amazing.

“I think he’s calmed down,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything for the last five minutes.” Her breath smelled like toothpaste.

“Might be my fault. I was asking him a bunch of questions about fighting in the war and about his daughter, too. Probably shouldn’t have done that.”

Our voices were soft, whispers really. I’m not sure if we were trying to be discreet or if we were just afraid of the sound of our voices discussing things we didn’t understand.

“Something’s gotta give, Wheeler. My dad says he can’t be living there on his own if he’s losing it.”

“Losing it? Who told your dad he was losing it?”

Fritzy looked down at the ground and kicked the curb. She was wearing fluffy pink slippers that made her feet look twice their normal size. I leaned against my car.

“Maybe I did,” she said.

“I told you stuff in confidence. And then only because you were part of the business. You weren’t supposed to say anything to anyone.”

“You’re right, I apologize. But isn’t it better he knows? The man’s safety might be at stake. Why should we keep it a secret?”

The grass, black and damp with dew, glistened under the moon. A celestial reflection nestled in the corner of Fritzy’s eye. Nothing in that beautiful night or that beautiful girl fit with the reality of why I was there.

“Never mind. Your dad’s right. My mom says the same thing.”

“So what’re we going to do?”

“We . . . I’m going to go over there and talk him down. I think I know how to do that now. It’s mainly just listening and staying calm until something inside him clicks. Anyway, thanks for calling.”

“What about next time? You know it’s going to happen again.”

“I’m going to talk about it. I just have to be straight up with him, but not tonight. I’ll do it during the day.”

“Sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

“No. He’s used to me so it’s better if I’m alone.”

>>>

I put my ear to his front door but heard nothing. I knocked and then rang the doorbell. What if he’d managed to fall asleep? All the lights were on, but that wasn’t unusual. I waited. Fritzy was sitting on the hood of my car, so I waved her away and motioned I was going around to the back. I wasn’t so sure about using the key again, remembering the last time when Pirkle had been waiting inside with a baseball bat. I wondered if he kept a gun in the house.

I knocked on the kitchen door but he didn’t come to open it. I peeked through the sliding glass door that opened onto the backyard but saw no movement in that room or the hallway beyond. Then I backed up until I could see the rearward facing bedroom window on the second floor, the only one that wasn’t lit up. Sure enough, I could make out Pirkle’s silhouette framed by the curtains. I waved both hands back and forth above my head but he didn’t move. I imagined the binoculars pulled close to his face; the circular window facing him, the subject of his focus. I pulled out my cell phone and called his number. It rang a few times before his shadow disappeared from the window. Then a few more times until I was sure it would go to voice mail. Then silence on the other end.

“Hello?” I said to the space on the other end.

Nothing.

“Hello,” I said again. It wasn’t dead space. I knew he was listening. His silhouette reappeared in the window.

“Chuck?” His voice was tenuous, incredulous.

“It’s Hudson, sir. I’m down here on the lawn.”

“Chuck,” he stated it that time like it was no longer subject to negotiation.

“I told you, sir. It’s Hudson. Hudson Wheeler. I’m outside in your backyard. Can I use the emergency key to come in?”

“Hudson Wheeler. What do you know about war, Hudson Wheeler? A mollycoddled, pimple-faced kid like you?”

I have to admit I took a little offense despite the fact I knew I wasn’t talking to a man in his right mind. I wasn’t sure what “mollycoddled” meant, but it didn’t sound good. And I’d always taken pride in my best feature, which was an acne-free complexion at the age of eighteen.

“I know nothing about war, sir. Nothing at all.”

“You’re damned right you don’t.”

I took a seat on the molded plastic chair I’d sat on earlier in the day. For the first time it occurred to me to check out the round window of Scolari’s house. The light was on but no signs of life.

“Can I come in, sir?” I asked again.

“Permission denied.”

That wasn’t at all ambiguous. I waited for him to hang up on me but he didn’t. We were two shadows conversing via radio frequency signals.

“Are you looking at the round window again?” I asked after a few minutes.

No response. He stood as straight and still as a sentry guard at the gates of a fortress.

“Mr. Pirkle, sir?”

No answer.

“Why did you think I was Chuck? He was your best friend, right?”

“A man couldn’t ask for a better friend,” he mumbled into the phone and for the first time I detected a slur like he’d been drinking. Maybe he had. Maybe that’s what this was about.

“Could you tell me a little about him? What was he like?”

“You want to know about Chuck, Hudson Wheeler, if you really are who you say you are? I’ll tell you about Chuck. I heard him call out my name that day so I crawled on my stomach and elbows to get to him. Bullets flew over my head, hitting the dirt to the right of me, to the left of me, in front of me. Everywhere but right at me. When I finally got to Chuck, he was in a bad way. I can’t move, he said. Put your arms around my neck, and I’ll carry you on my back, I told him. I could crawl back the way I came with him on my back. I could get him to a safe spot until a medic could treat him. But Chuck couldn’t move because his legs were blown off. Both of them. He died in my arms about a minute later.”

“I’m real sorry, Mr. Pirkle, sir.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are. Sorry you asked. You think your government teacher will like that story?” His voice was gravelly and choked.

“I’m sorry, sir,” was all I could think of to say, and I truly was.

We resumed our silent communication and then I heard a beep. I cursed my discharging phone battery.

“What was that?” Pirkle asked.

“My battery,” I said. “It’s dying.”

“Dying,” he repeated, and I wished I’d chosen a different word.

“Mr. Pirkle,” I said. “There’s something I want you to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Fritzy . . . your neighbor. She isn’t my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”

“And why’s that? Afraid you’re not man enough to handle a big girl like her?”

“Not at all.”

“Why then?”

His voice was smoothing out. The words were flowing again instead of sputtering. I thought he might be back in a world where anything was possible. Where love was possible.

“I’m in love with someone else.”

“Love, hah!”

“But she doesn’t love me back.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not what she’s looking for. What she wants.”

“Then cut your losses and move on.”

“How do I do that?”

“You just do it. It’s part of learning how to be a man. You just do it.”

“Mr. Pirkle, sir?”

“I’m still here.”

My phone beeped again. It seemed like time was always running out.

“When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me if I could put salt on a bird’s tail, I’d be able to catch it.”

Pirkle chuckled.

“So I was always trying to get close enough to a bird to put salt on its tail, but it flew away when I got too close.”

The shadow in the window shifted. I knew he was looking down at me.

“Then I tried throwing salt at them, hoping enough of it would land on their tails to keep them from flying off. But it never worked.”

“You know why he said that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I finally figured it out. If I got close enough to a bird to put salt on its tail, I’d be close enough to reach out and grab it. But that could never happen because a bird would never let me get that close.”

The phone beeped one final time and then nothing but dead space.

“And that’s the way it is with Alana,” I said to no one but myself. “Whenever I get close enough, she just flies away.”

I glanced at his window but Pirkle was gone. I turned and looked at Mr. Scolari’s round window. The light was off. When I got back to my car, Fritzy was nowhere to be seen, and her house was dark. I drove home and fell into a deep dreamless sleep, interrupted only by my alarm the next morning.