My eyes open to the thick morning fog oozing from the nearby ocean and onto my street as if from an open wound. A man dressed in an EMT uniform—navy-blue collared shirt, yellow trim—holds a plastic oxygen mask over my mouth. The sun pierces through the fog, its bright rays screaming that it’s time for my head to ache and ache like a motherfucker.
“Sir—can you hear me?”
I’m lying in the middle of my street—black asphalt marred with tire tracks from burnouts and car crashes. Sneakers shuffle and drag pebbles against concrete. Forming a sparse crowd, my neighbors circle me and the medic. Behind them is a parked ambulance—its red lights still flashing. Its siren muted.
Frankie, who lives in the house across the street, catches my attention first. He’s an unemployed single father, old enough to have a sprinkling of gray hair on his head. Next to Frankie are twin sisters, Emily and Veronica—roommates and rivals—short and slender, matching brunette hair, bangs running parallel to their pronounced eyebrows. They each fold their arms across their respective chests and look down at me, which is usually the vibe they give off whenever we cross paths in the parking lot or near our front doors. There’s a cluster of six or seven others. My eyes throb within my skull. If you’re going to sleep, you better really sleep. Otherwise, without a deep REM cycle, insomnia becomes the clenched fist wrapped around your brain.
“Sir—are you okay?” The medic braces the back of my skull with his hands.
And then the last thing I can remember surges through me like a gasp of air. This isn’t an insomnia crash. This is about the man from the dealership. The gun.
Everything changes. The gray-and-gold sky, the street, the crowd—it all starts to rumble with my panic. My esophagus closes.
It’s the gun.
It’s the man.
It’s the fact that the man with the gun pointed it at me, and the last thing I remember is hearing it go off. The wound. I’ve been shot. I know I’ve been shot. Where is the wound?
“Please breathe!” The medic presses down on my shoulders, pinning me to the concrete. “Breathe in and out, sir. I need you to stay calm. Breathe and talk to yourself right now!”
I do as I’m told, still writhing from the unknown wound, the large-caliber hole somewhere in my body.
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
This is as much control as you’ll ever have.
“Breathe!”
I’m a gasp machine. Air goes in. A guttural gasp escapes. Faster and faster. I must be bleeding out—the slow pour of my insides onto the asphalt. Now I feel cold. It’s happening. By this afternoon, the only reminder of me on this planet will be the cherry-red stains across the black pavement. Maybe a chalk outline of my body.
Air goes in. Gasp goes out.
Faster and faster.
The medic is yelling at me to calm down and he’s yelling at me to breathe and he’s asking for the other medic to help.
There’s another medic.
It’s a woman. Blonde hair curling down her shoulders. She rushes over. Pulls her hair back tight and clips it into a bun. Before I can heave air one more time, they restrain my body. Their fingertips are digging into calves and chest and cranium.
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
This is your life. Bleeding out one moment at a time.
Air goes in. Gasp goes out.
“Where did he get me?” I yell.
They both look at each other and not me. “Hey! Where did he get me? Where am I hit?” They’re doing their best to pretend like this will soon be over and there is no need to waste time answering my unimportant questions.
The convulsing begins.
My gut sucks in hard, collapsing before expanding rapidly. Veins in my neck and arms pop out, the outlines starting to harden through the skin. My throat narrows and chokes. I try to scream, but I can’t get it out.
“We gotta move him out of here,” the woman says to her partner in a flat tone.
They lift me onto a stretcher and carry me into the back of the ambulance. The last thing I see before the back doors close is Emily and Veronica and their unaffected faces.
The vehicle’s sudden torque jostles me from side to side. A black duffel bag topples over, equipment rolling out and banging on the floor.
My insides boil as my heart pumps adrenaline and fear. Air does not go in. The exhales do not get out.
The ambulance’s interior comes undone—its chrome compartments springing open as the vehicle bounds down the street and onto the freeway. A defibrillator falls to the floor, but the medic is unfazed.
“You’re going to be okay.”
She holds a thin flashlight above my eyes. I suck air one more time and my throat relents, opening wide enough for a thin burst of oxygen to scurry into my lungs. One breath begets two, soon four and five.
“Where am I shot?”
“Nobody has been shot. Just focus on your breathing.”
I scan my body, running radar over my limbs, torso, back, and every vulnerable inch.
And then I understand.
My body starts to relax, and my heart slows from its hellacious rate. My back muscles no longer strain, and I am in no pain.
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
Was there ever a real you, anyway?
“Feeling better?”
There is no wound.
“Yes,” I say, steadily working big waves of air back into my system.
“How is he?” the other medic asks from the front seat.
“He’s coming back.” She turns to me and a strand of blonde hair breaks away from her bun. “Quite a scare,” she says. “What brought that on?”
* * *
All hospitals smell the same. Chilled whiffs of steel bed rails. Stale rubber from gloves and tubes and shoes. Cleaning products and all their chemicals. These are the ingredients of despair, life’s worst perfume.
Doctors, nurses, and an occasional janitor pass by as I lay on this hospital bed propped up at forty-five degrees. I’m wearing this paper-thin hospital gown, its cloth tie preventing it from splitting down to my butt crack. Circulated air pours down from a vent located directly above me and tickles my neck, causing goosebumps. After waiting for an hour, I got all of ten minutes or so with a doctor who reached into six or seven years of med school and residencies and board exams to declare that a lack of sleep caused me severe issues. Expert diagnosis, doc.
And here I am, resting in the ER’s hallway that doubles as a holding cell for the overflow of patients, waiting to be cleared by a nurse who disappeared ages ago, all the while my daytime responsibilities are lingering in the back of my mind. My job at the paper. The job I’m several hours late to now. But in the front of my mind is something else.
Dreams.
They used to be so simple. So abstract and weird. Even the nightmares—so straightforward. Watch a horror movie, meet the monster in your sleep. Wake up with your sweat pasting the bedsheet to your back and try to stay awake so you don’t see that monster anytime soon.
But now, those monsters are long gone. Instead, something more familiar has replaced them all. Something less formulaic. Now when I reluctantly fall asleep, just like a few hours ago, it’s memories that open my sweat pores.
More reason to follow through with Rocket and his group and perform whatever duties are required to receive that which they promise—a way to forget everything.
To start over.
My eyes are still burning red from my brief stint in REM. That latest dream lingers. The bunk bed. The game of chess. My father.
I try to think of something else. Anything. I hold my gaze on an older man wearing a cardigan and khaki pants that tell the whole world he plays bingo every Tuesday at the rec center. His wrinkled arms push a wheelchair occupied by an equally ancient wife. Like me, her gown splits down her back. I imagine what their life is like together. The quiet nights at home. Supper at five. Local news at six. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! The prime entertainment before the meds kick in and they face their own dreams. Any memories their unconscious minds won’t allow them to forget.
And then I think about the man with the gun.
I play it back to myself and try to make sense of it all. The weapon pointed at me. The flashlight blinding my vision. The dizzy sensations—just like at the warehouse. Head pulling back. My eyes close. I hear the explosion from the gun, and it all goes black.
Was it real?
A nurse glides down the hall saturated with overhead florescent lighting. “Dash—correct?” she asks, now standing bedside with a clipboard in her hands.
“That’s me.”
“Funny, you don’t look like a Dash.” I grow tired of this observation. I obviously didn’t give myself this name. Why do we have to stand trial for so many decisions that others make for us? “Doctor Wilson says you’re good to go home now. We reached out to your emergency contact since we can’t release someone in your condition alone.”
“My emergency contact?”
“Dash!” His voice booms from behind. I see the nurse look up, her pouty lips giving off a flirty smirk. Not to me. But to Cal. “How are you feeling, buddy?” Cal holds the bed’s silver railing and hovers over me. His white dress shirt forms to his chest. He shoots me a restrained and caring smile. Unassumingly good-looking—tall, broad-shouldered, strong. When he speaks, it’s always in a measured and mild-mannered tone, deep and steady. I have no idea what I’m going to say to him. I should probably feel embarrassed about the situation, but right now, his presence calms me. I don’t remember listing him as an emergency contact, but it makes sense. Cal is as good a friend as I have. I see him nearly every day at work. Sometimes on the weekends for a drink. He texted me multiple times since I last saw him a few days ago, but I was a little too busy with Rocket’s homework to respond.
“How much did they tell you?” I ask.
“Fair amount.” He pauses and places his hand on my shoulder. “But we don’t need to get into any of it, buddy.”
“Terry is going to eat me alive.”
“Don’t worry. I made sure he knows we’ll be in later.”
“Was he pissed?”
“He was his usual self.”
By “usual self,” Cal means Terry was an asshole. He’s our boss. The editor in chief at the paper. He demonstrates as much care and compassion for his reporters as a rattlesnake with its prey.
The nurse starts to fidget and it’s clear she’s looking for a way into the conversation.
“Given your account of last night—the guy you encountered—we are mandated to contact the police. They want to take your statement before you go.”
Two officers arrive several minutes later, looming over me, mouths broken by grimaces. They sport mildly plain faces with mildly impressive physiques with an air about them that assumes their presence evokes intimidation, which is mildly accurate. The Monterey PD version of Affleck and Damon. Tall and short. Brown and blond. The taller one begins with the standard line of questioning—my name, date of birth, and the last thing I can remember. Cal just stays quiet and observes. A steady stream of blue scrubs passes us in both directions.
“The man with the gun was waiting for me, and I noticed him too late.” They both tilt their heads simultaneously and take a step forward. “I briefly tried to reason with him and before I could do anything else, he fired the gun. I think.”
Matt Damon scratches the side of his face while maintaining the best poker face he can muster. He asks what I remember about his appearance.
“Not a lot. Sweatpants and a white shirt. Blue or green sweatpants—hard to be sure. His flashlight looked like it could have been one of those big ones you guys always carry.”
They immediately jump into the follow-ups. Did he say anything to you? Would anyone have any reason to hurt you? Why were you out and about at such an odd hour? I think through the answers.
No.
No.
Um.
The last question makes me nervous. I think about Enzo. About the warehouse. About Rocket.
“I just couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk.”
They stare at their notepads. Cro-Magnon eyebrows holding a rising boil of sweat. I’ve done something to trigger it. Even Cal looks bound by discomfort.
“We understand you’re suffering from exhaustion—how sure are you about all of this?”
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
All the darkness you dream of will meet you halfway.
“Pretty sure.”
“Had you ever seen him before?” Affleck asks.
“I didn’t get a good look at his face. I first saw him at the used car lot in Seaside about an hour or two before it happened. I caught him staring at me.”
They both scribble notes furiously. I’ve tripped a sensor.
They finish it off by double-checking my contact information and tell me they’ll be in touch. Before I can thank them, they turn and leave.
Cal keeps his eyes on the doors, as if the cops are about to come back. He bites his bottom lip.
“What’s your deal?” I ask.
Cal talks in a volume just above a whisper. “This man—where did you say you first saw him?”
“The car dealership on Del Monte and Munras Ave.”
“That’s the one near the bike path and dunes, right?”
“I guess so.”
Cal scratches the back of his neck and shakes his head.
“Why?”
“Well, this is going to sound crazy,” Cal’s voice destabilizes with nerves. “I think I know who it was.”
The Next Chapter Begins in 3, 2, 1 . . .