“I think maybe I’d been shot,” Viola said.
“Honey,” Terri comforted her, “when’s the last time you had a dream come true?”
“I guess never,” Viola said.
“Then I wouldn’t worry about this one.”
“Best I can remember,” Viola said, “I’ve never before seen myself face-on in a dream.”
Even in my nightmares, which sometimes do come true, I’ve never glimpsed my face, either.
“I had a hole in my forehead,” she repeated, “and my face was ... spooky, all out of kilter.”
A high-powered round of significant caliber, upon puncturing the forehead, would release tremendous energy that might distort the structure of the entire skull, resulting in a subtle but disturbing new arrangement of the features.
“My right eye,” Viola added, “was bloodshot and seemed to ... to swell half out of the socket.”
In our dreams, we are not detached observers, as are the characters who dream in movies. These internal dramas are usually seen strictly from the dreamer’s point of view. In nightmares, we can’t look into our own eyes except by indirection, perhaps because we fear discovering that therein lie the worst monsters plaguing us.
Viola’s face, sweet as milk chocolate, was now distorted by a beseeching expression. “Tell me the truth, Odd. Do you see death in me?”
I didn’t say to her that death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.
Although not one small detail of Viola’s future, whether grim or bright, had been revealed to me, the delicious aroma of my untouched cheeseburger induced me to lie in order to get on with lunch: “You’ll live a long happy life and pass away in your sleep, of old age.”
“Really?”
Smiling and nodding, I was unashamed of this deception. For one thing, it might be true. I see no real harm in giving people hope. Besides, I had not sought to be her oracle.
In a better mood than she’d arrived, Viola departed, returning to the paying customers.
Picking up my cheeseburger, I said to Terri, “October 23, 1958.”
“Elvis was in the army then,” she said, hesitating only to chew a bite of her grilled-cheese sandwich. “He was stationed in Germany.”
“That’s not very specific.”
“The evening of the twenty-third, he went into Frankfurt to attend a Bill Haley concert.”
“You could be making this up.”
“You know I’m not.” Her crisp dill pickle crunched audibly when she bit it. “Backstage, he met Haley and a Swedish rock-’n’-roll star named Little Gerhard.”
“Little Gerhard? That can’t be true.”
“Inspired, I guess, by Little Richard. I don’t know for sure. I never heard Little Gerhard sing. Is Viola going to be shot in the head?”
“I don’t know.” Juicy and cooked medium-well, the meat in the cheeseburger had been enhanced with a perfect pinch of seasoned salt. Poke was a contender. “Like you said, dreams are just dreams.”
“She’s had things hard. She doesn’t need this.”
“Shot in the head? Who does need it?”
“Will you look after her?” Terri asked.
“How would I do that?”
“Put out your psychic feelers. Maybe you can stop the thing before it happens.”
“I don’t have psychic feelers.”
“Then ask one of your dead friends. They sometimes know things that are going to happen, don’t they?”
“They’re generally not friends. Just passing acquaintances. Anyway, they’re helpful only when they want to be helpful.”
“If I was dead, I’d help you,” Terri assured me.
“You’re sweet. I almost wish you were dead.” I put down the cheeseburger and licked my fingers. “If somebody in Pico Mundo is going to start shooting people, it’ll be Fungus Man.”
“Who’s he?”
“Sat at the counter a while ago. Ordered enough food for three people. Ate like a ravenous swine.”
“That’s my kind of customer. But I didn’t see him.”
“You were in the kitchen. He was pale, soft, with all rounded edges, like something that would grow in Hannibal Lecter’s cellar.”
“He put off bad vibes?”
“By the time he left, Fungus Man had an entourage of bodachs.”
Terri stiffened and looked warily around the restaurant. “Any of them here now?”
“Nope. The worst thing on the premises at the moment is Bob Sphincter.”
The real name of the pinchpenny in question was Spinker, but he earned the secret name we gave him. Regardless of the total of his bill, he always tipped a quarter.
Bob Sphincter fancied himself to be two and a half times more generous than John D. Rockefeller, the oil billionaire. According to legend, even in the elegant restaurants of Manhattan, Rockefeller had routinely tipped a dime.
Of course in John D’s day, which included the Great Depression, a dime would purchase a newspaper and lunch at an Automat. Currently, a quarter will get you just a newspaper, and you won’t want to read anything in it unless you’re a sadist, a masochist, or a suicidally lonely wretch desperate to find true love in the personal ads.
Terri said, “Maybe this Fungus Man was just passing through town, and he hit the highway as soon as he cleaned his plate.”
“Got a hunch he’s still hanging around.”
“You gonna check him out?”
“If I can find him.”
“You need to borrow my car?” she asked.
“Maybe for a couple hours.”
I walk to and from work. For longer trips, I have a bicycle. In special cases, I use Stormy Llewellyn’s car, or Terri’s.
So many things are beyond my control: the endless dead with all their requests, the bodachs, the prophetic dreams. I’d probably long ago have gone seven kinds of crazy, one for each day of the week, if I didn’t simplify my life in every area where I do have some control. These are my defensive strategies: no car, no life insurance, no more clothes than I absolutely need—mostly T-shirts, chinos, and jeans—no vacations to exotic places, no grand ambitions.
Terri slid her car keys across the table.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Just don’t haul any dead people around in it. Okay?”
“The dead don’t need a ride. They can appear when they want, where they want. They walk through air. They fly.”
“All I’m saying is, if you tell me some dead person was sitting in my car, I’ll waste a whole day scrubbing the upholstery. It creeps me out.”
“What if it’s Elvis?”
“That’s different.” She finished her dill pickle. “How was Rosalia this morning?” she asked, meaning Rosalia Sanchez, my landlady.
“Visible,” I said.
“Good for her.”