Orfyn

 

 

I’m standing in front of a nice-looking brick house along a quiet street lined with towering oaks, manicured lawns, and other nice-looking brick houses. Random cars slumber up the street while sprinklers spray lazy twists of water into the air. I look up, and the sun is directly overhead. It’s the middle of the day. Where is everyone? And, where am I? Three black crows fly past, cawing to each other, and a fat squirrel dashes across the traffic-less street.

It finally hits me that I must be dreaming, but it feels more real than any dream I’ve ever had.

The front door opens, and a guy sticks out his head, cautiously looking up and down the street. He carefully edges his way on to the stoop. “You coming?”

He’s all-over fat, and his scruffy beard looks more about being lazy than trendy. He’s wearing stained slippers and a spotless Rangers jersey. It’s his eyes that throw me. They contain the wits of ten men, the sereneness of five monks, and the detachment of an indie musician. I don’t know how I’d begin to paint them. He stretches, exposing a furry Buddha belly, and smiles to himself. Then he goes back inside, leaving the door wide open.

Normally, I’d never consider following a stranger into his house, but this is a dream. Nothing can hurt me for real. I think. Besides, he is a Rangers fan. Then I recall his eyes. Somehow, I know that everything will be okay as long as I follow those white orbs that seem to hold the secrets of the universe.

I go in and enter a living room with a sagging, threadbare couch; a scarred, wooden china cabinet crammed with dusty knickknacks; and a rocking chair with a clean, white doily on the headrest. Rose-colored wallpaper with yellow and blue flowers covers all four walls, and on the floor is dirt-brown carpet that looks more dirt than brown.

The guy calls out from somewhere, “Want a grape soda?”

“Uhm, no. I’m good.”

A cheesy photo of the guy when he was a chubby teenager hangs over the mantel. I always wanted to live in the kind of home where someone’s proud to show off a cheesy photo of me. There’s a framed photo on the fireplace mantle of a smiling woman. I’ve seen her before. Then it all snaps together.

“Bat?” I call out.

He rounds the corner. “Hey, Orfyn. Glad you made it.” He jerks his head toward the back of the house. “I want to show you something.” Bat lumbers down the dimly lit hall, opens a door, and disappears. When I finally get that he’s not returning, I follow and descend burnt-orange, shag carpeted stairs into what I expect to be a moldy smelling basement.

Instead, I enter Oz.

It’s awash with exploding colors and sharp-edged shapes. Dozens of paintings hang on the walls. Picasso, Ernst, and Klee. It feels like I’m seeing into multiple dimensions. I go over and take a closer look. They’re not prints! And they’re better lit than the ones in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Hidden in Bat’s basement.

I start to feel spinny. “I need to sit down.”

“Don’t worry about it. Everything is chill in the Bat Cave.”

He waves his hand to where two of the most comfortable-looking chairs I’ve ever seen wait in front of nine huge TV screens arranged in a square. He deflates himself into the left recliner. “Mozart, please.” Classical music fills the room, and the screens light up to display paintings I recognize—Titian, Warhol, Rubens, Hopper—and others that are new to me.

“You look pale.” Bat thrusts his can at me. “Here, have some grape soda.”

I sip the too-sweet drink and start feeling better.

He kicks off his slippers and drops his feet—his hairy, hobbit feet—onto the footrest. “What do you wanna do today?”