by Charlotte Rutty

 

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     The day after the first dream, I meet Jeremy. In this dream, crocodiles are falling on me. I’m running—it must be through the woods because it’s dark and green all around me. Crocodiles seem to take shape out of this heavy greenness, as if perhaps they are made only of leaf and shadow.

     I know it’s stupid but when I wake up I check for claw marks on my back, for blood in my hair. I am clean. Still, I can’t shake the green haze it leaves me in, and before I know it it’s five in the afternoon. I let myself in after work and find a boy in my living room, in banana-patterned boxers, waiting for my roommate to wake up.

     I want to talk about my dream. “I dreamt of crocodiles last night,” I tell him.

     “Okay,” he says.

     “I have this theory,” I say, by way of explanation, “that dreams just circulate the city, and if you’re sleeping close enough to someone you can swap. Where were you sleeping last night?”

     “Uh,” he says, with an uncomfortable glance at my roommate’s door. “Not here.”

     “I know,” I say. “Lena never brings boys home at night.”

     He clears his throat. “Does Lena bring a lot of boys home?”

     I look at him with a little pity. “Yes.” I don’t tell him that every afternoon, I come home to find another of Lena’s lovers in his boxer shorts, whiling away the hours until Lena wakes up and looks at him again with that silver glow of hers. Nor do I tell him that when she does wake up, she will not be looking at him like that again.

     Instead I tell him that he can stay for dinner if he wants, but that since we are not the sort of roommates who share food, he’ll have to settle for granola and skim milk. This seems to be the only thing that Lena eats.

     “Do you think I could go and get my clothes first, if I’m really quiet?” he asks, and because he looks so sad, I ready his granola for him while he slinks off to Lena’s room like an abused cat. Scraggly and unimpressive, he is one of the many lovers of Lena who are nowhere near her league. I think that his confidence in his own sex appeal has been badly inflated and then popped in the space of about five hours. Still, I reason, he’s not so bad looking. His eyes are dark and his cheekbones are high.

    â€œShe sleeps like an angel,” he says when he returns. I’m surprised to see that he’s wearing glasses now. They give him an elevated look, accentuating the cheekbones rather than hiding them.

    â€œAn angel?” I say. “Lena sleeps more like a vampire.” Every morning at three she comes home from her night shift at the hotel. The door unlocks and then locks again, the hall light outside my bedroom switches on and then off again. And then she paces and paces, up and down the creaky floorboards of her bedroom. She haunts our apartment like a murdered woman. When I wake up she is always in the shower singing gospel songs. I don’t know what she does all day, after padding out of the bathroom with her streaming silver hair and shutting herself back in her bedroom.

    â€œWhat’s your name?” I ask. I make a gesture for him to eat his granola, even though I’m still standing at the stove watching him.

    â€œJeremy.”

    He doesn’t ask for my name so I tell him. “It’s April.”

    He looks confused again. “It’s January.”

    â€œMy name,” I clarify.  â€œApril is my name.”

    â€œOh. Right. I get it.”

    â€œWhere do you work, Jeremy?”

    â€œThe library,” he says absently. “On March Street. I hope I don’t get fired. I didn’t go back after my lunch break.”

    Lena’s lovers usually don’t. Today is Wednesday but Lena is beautiful, and when she touches your arm in the line at Subway, the library is not the place you want to go back to.

    â€œI work for a Russian guy,” I offer. “Mr. Mikhalev. Do you speak Russian, Jeremy?”

    â€œNo,” he says. “Lena told me her mother was Russian.”

    â€œSometimes I wish I spoke Russian, so I could understand the things Mr. Mikhalev mutters about his clients. When they’re rude to us he calls them names after they leave, but when I ask him what he’s saying he can never find the words in English. You should eat your granola—it’s awful when it’s soggy.”

    He takes a bite and gives me a milky smile. “You’re right, it is. What do you do for this Russian guy?”

    â€œLots of things,” I shrug. “I’m his personal assistant.”

    â€œHi Lena!” Jeremy says, jumping to his feet.

    I turn and see Lena in the doorway, wrestling her long white-blond hair into a bun. She’s dressed for work in the coarse navy polo, its Best Western logo perched over her heart. Her name tag glints silverly. LENA.

    â€œI’m running late,” she says brusquely.

    Lena’s an art school dropout who seems to have chosen the life she lives with some amount of purpose. She requested the overnight shift. She requested me, too, in a way—after my former roommate’s mental breakdown she responded to my classified.

    â€œWhere are you going?” Jeremy asks, but she’s already gliding out the door and clicking it closed behind her.

    Jeremy turns to me. “Maybe you could give me her phone number? She forgot to give it to me.”

    I just shake my head no. After Jeremy leaves, I find his number pinned to the fridge.

                                             ***

In the warm but feeble winter-morning light, I eat breakfast alone. I savor the steam over my mug and the sounds of Lena showering, singing gospel music as the water thrums around her. You may slip, you may slide. Lena’s voice is viscous like honey. Stumble and fall by the roadside.

     Apparently she likes h
er showers scalding, because when she opens the bathroom door the steam billows around her like  a white dress. Still, Lena’s skin remains as pale as ever; not a tinge of pink betrays the temperature. She is so white as to appear silver—white-blond hair, pale skin, luminous gray eyes—and she gives off a sort of lunar glow as she pads down the hallway to her bedroom. Don’t ever let nobody drag your spirit down.

     Her lover for the day is a boy in blue striped boxers. When I get home from Mr. Mikhalev’s that afternoon, he doesn’t greet me. He looks at me haughtily from beneath a pronounced brow line.

     I go to the fridge and take down Jeremy’s phone number, twirling it with my fingers until it’s curled up like a little wisp of smoke. It’s a tenuous connection, I know.

    â€œShould I call Jeremy?” I ask the striped lover, taking a seat beside him on the couch.

    He folds his arms across his bare chest. “Is there any food in this house?” he says.

    I pull out my telephone and call Jeremy. “You’ve reached Jeremy!” the phone chirps. “Leave me a message!”

    â€œIt’s April,” I tell my telephone. “Lena is not going to call you.”

                                             ***

In the second dream, I am not running from crocodiles, but eating them. It leaves me in a better mood than the first one, but with a funnier taste in my mouth. For some reason in the dream I expected them to taste like lettuce; instead, they had a thick, leathery flavor. It has persisted all day and through an entire pack of chewing gum.

                                             ***

     The dreams trouble me. I feel hazy again, like something green is haunting me, and I dread having a third dream of crocodiles. I stop at the library on the way home and find myself in the 612s: human physiology. I select a big, somnolent-looking book called The Science of Sleep, by S.W. Miles, which hasn’t been checked out since 1983.

     Jeremy’s at the circulation desk when I get there. He looks quite librarial with his glasses and his high cheekbones, stamping book after book for the man in front of me.

     “May,” he greets me.

     “April,” I say.

     “April. Nice to see you again.”

     Thinking that maybe he believes my coming to the library was a pretense to see him again, all I say is, “I guess you didn’t lose your job.”

     “I told them my cat had to go to the ER,” he says. “I felt bad about it.”

      I shrug. “You couldn’t help it.” Poor Jeremy—boys like him are helpless.

     “The Science of Sleep,” he says. “Still investigating that theory of yours?”

     “I keep dreaming of crocodiles, Jeremy,” I confide in him. “I don’t know what it means.”

     He shrugs. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Have you been watching a lot of Steve Irwin lately?”

     “You think it’s stupid,” I say. “But it’s frightening, Jeremy, it really is. They’re not like regular dreams. I’ve had two now and I don’t want to have a third.”

                                             ***             

A week later, I have a third. It’s the day I come home and find Franklin on the couch in his tartan boxers. Unlike Jeremy, he doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed about it. He is more muscular than Jeremy, which might have something to do with it.

     “Hey,” he says to me. He’s picking at what seems to be my guitar and he lifts some of the fingers on his right hand in greeting.

     “What did you dream about last night?” I ask him.

     “Nothing,” he says. “I don’t dream. Haven’t in seven months.”

     “That’s terrible,” I say.

     “I remember the very last dream I ever had. I was in a red latex balloon and when I poked the inside it popped. Outside, everything was yellow and I was falling.”

     “What a fascinating dream,” I say. “I bet that means something.”

     Franklin shrugs. “Nah, I’m not superstitious like that. When I was little my ma used to make me take a bath in saltwater on the first day of every month, for good luck. I got enough superstition from her.”

     “I’m not superstitious either,” I clarify.

     “Actually, my ma died last week,” says Franklin, his voice like a little boy’s, and puts down the guitar. I offer him some granola.

     There’s a banging at the door. It’s Jeremy, and when he comes in, wild-faced and out of breath, he doesn’t seem to notice Franklin.

     “You’ve got to help me, April,” he pants. “I ran here all the way from March Street.”

     “Jeremy? What’s wrong?” I say. He doesn’t look hurt. “Are you hurt?”

     “Yes,” he says. “I mean I’m hurt in my heart. April, I’m in love with Lena. I don’t know what to do. You’ve got to help me.”

     “Jeremy, I want to help you.” I want to help him. Like I want to help Franklin. But it’s out of my hands. Lena doesn’t love anyone. She’s just not that kind of girl.”

      He shakes his head forcefully. “You don’t know her like I do. She’ll change her mind, I know she will. You just need to talk to her. Sheâ
€™ll listen to you, April.”

     Lena has never listened to me in her life, but I want to help Jeremy, and besides, I like the way he says my name. I like the way he says Lena’s name, and I want him to say my name like that. “Okay,” I concede, “I’ll talk to her, but I can’t guarantee anything. And remember that I’m only trying to help you, so if it doesn’t work out you have to promise not to be hurt.”

      He beams at me with his milky teeth. “I promise. You’re a real friend, April.”

     That night, I set my alarm clock for three in case I fall asleep before Lena gets home. I don’t. Instead I lie awake thinking about Lena’s teeth and Jeremy’s teeth, and his teeth on her teeth. When I hear the door unlock I can’t believe that I’ve spent four hours this way.

      I creep to her room on ghost toes and find her combing her silvery, waist-length hair. This is something that I never knew she did, for it always looks uncombed, like a plant reaching its untidy roots toward the floor.

     “Hey Lena,” I whisper, my voice no more than a little exhale in a cold room.

     She doesn’t like me to be in here. “What is it, April?” she asks smoothly, suspiciously.

     I perch on the edge of her bed but feel like I suddenly don’t know what to do with my legs. “Um. You know that boy who was here a few weeks ago? Jeremy?”

     Her big gray eyes are completely empty. “Jeremy?”

     “Yeah. With the banana boxers? Dark hair? High cheekbones?”

     “Oh yes,” she murmurs. “I remember the cheekbones.”

     Her skin is so silvery I want to touch it to see if it’s hard. I take her hand in mine, as if we’re friends and I’m helping her through a tough time. Her palm is smooth.

     “I saw him at the library last week,” I tell her.

     “Okay, April. I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” She pulls her hand away.

     “Just that,” I say, and withdraw to my room, where I dream that tiny crocodiles are crawling across my skin like ants.

                                             ***

I go back to the library to tell Jeremy the bad news. “It’s not going to work out, Jeremy. It’s just not.”

     “It’s just not? Why not?”

     “She’s not right for you. Trust me.”

     “Did she tell you that?”

     “Of course she did. We’re roommates.”

     Jeremy chews on his lip as if it’s nourishing him. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

     “Oh Jeremy.” I slide my new book across the circulation desk toward him. Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. S.W. Miles isn’t giving me any of the answers I’m looking for—all he’s taught me is that my entire pons shuts off when I sleep. That’s part of my brainstem and it shuts off so I don’t actually do the things I’m dreaming I’m doing. So I don’t run and kick and claw. So I wake up clean.

     Jeremy stamps it without looking at the title. “I don’t get it,” he says. “She seemed to really like me.”

                                             ***               

In the fourth dream, the crocodiles are coming out of my eyes, like in the urban legend about the baby spiders that hatch from your cousin’s daughter’s friend’s cheek. It doesn’t hurt—the crocodiles are still just made of leaf and shadow, so it is more like crying than like giving birth. But it makes me want to throw up, and when I wake up, I do.

     The day after this dream, Jeremy kisses me. He’s shown up out of the blue again. Banging on the door again. But this time, he’s calm.

     “April, great news,” he tells me. “I made a mistake. I don’t care about Lena, and I’m not sure I ever did. April, it’s you I care about.”

     “Me?” It’s not that I think Jeremy has ever lied to me, but something doesn’t let me believe him. “That’s called displacement,” I want to tell him. Instead, I keep quiet, maybe because I think I can hide it from myself that way. That’s called denial.

     Because I like it when Jeremy kisses me. His lips are sugary and they help to take that persistent taste of leather out of my mouth. And I’m eager for him to share my bed, for it will give me the perfect chance to test my dream-swapping theory. I will take anybody’s dreams in exchange for these crocodile ones.

                                             ***          

I stop dreaming. I stop sleeping. Instead, Jeremy and I lie side by side and listen to Lena pace. The sound soothes us; we can see each footfall in our minds’ eyes, the slender gray foot, a hand through the uncombed hair. While she is at work we listen to each other’s wakeful breathing as we wait impatiently for the pacing to begin. We don’t need Dr. Miles to teach us what insomnia sounds like. We are shamed insomniacs: we pretend to sleep, for each other’s benefit, and it makes our breathing shallow but measured, distinctive.

     As dawn rises bluely outside my window, we stare at the ceiling with our ringed eyes, watching it become gray. One room over we can hear Lena’s dripping voice, far clearer than it ever reaches the kitchen table. Don’t let nobody drag your spirit down… We stop eating breakfast so that we can lie here longer and listen before we have to put our feet on the cold hardwood floor and traipse to work. Jeremy and I now live in a shared haze of fatigue, like some foggy dream that we have both stepped into.

    We eat our dinners with Lena’s lovers and talk with them about Lena. About her hair, her eyes, her soft padding feet. I can see that her room still tugs at Jeremy with some invisible string. He can’t keep his eye
s off of its flaking white door, which seems like an impassable barrier though it is made of cheap and flimsy wood.

     “Don’t you want to know what Lena’s thinking?” Jeremy asks me. “Like if she’s thinking about us?”

     But I’m no good at finding answers. I finished Freud and moved on to Sheila Meyers, Ph.D., whose book—The Midnight Journey: A Spiritual Guide to Dream Interpretation—told me I was not sufficiently earthbound. But nothing helps. What doesn’t haunt me by night haunts me by day.

     One night I fall into a deep sleep around midnight. A fifth dream of crocodiles is starting—in it, I am finding that I myself am made of leaf and shadow and have sprung claws; I myself am a crocodile—when it is interrupted. Jeremy is shaking me awake.

     “April,” he whispers. “April.”

     For a moment I think he is going to scold me for breaking our unspoken insomnia pact, but he doesn’t. He says, “I need your help. Come to Lena’s room with me.”

     “What?” I say with sleepy stupidity. “Lena’s room? Why? She isn’t there.”

     “I know, that’s why we have to go now. I need to take something. A picture.”

     “Steal something? When she’s not there? Jeremy, I’m a good roommate.”

     “Not steal. It’s mine. Well, it’s of me. Listen, I just need to see this portrait she drew of me. She never showed me.”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “You know the day we met?” He doesn’t say, “the day I slept with Lena” because he thinks I believe he loves me.

     “The day you slept with Lena.”

     “Slept with Lena?” Poor Jeremy. He is too often confused. “I never slept with Lena, April.”

     “What? You didn’t?” I think about this, the parade of boys in their underwear. Blowing off their jobs to not sleep with Lena while Lena sleeps alone.

     “Never. You think she has sex with all those guys?” He sat up in bed and moonlight spills across his small chest so that it glows silvery. His words tumble out one on top of another. “She took me into her room and told me to take off my clothes. Which of course I did. It was the middle of the day. She made me sit on the bed while she drew my portrait. I had exquisite cheekbones, she said—that’s exactly what she said—and she wanted to capture them. I was happy just to watch her draw, you know. If I could only have a drawing of that.”

     “She drew your portrait?”

     “April, I need to see that drawing. I was starting to fall asleep, asleep for real—like a really deep sleep. And then it just hit me, this—this need. I have to find it.”

     We slip out of the envelope of my bed and it’s cold in the apartment. I don’t blame him for not wanting to venture alone to Lena’s bedroom. We’re both a little afraid of it, as if it really were haunted by a murdered woman. Inside it feels distinctly off-limits.

     Jeremy flicks on the light and we squint like blind little voles. “Here,” he says, moving toward the closet.

     “I don’t know, Jeremy, this feels wrong,” I say. My voice sounds so feeble in this room.

     “I just need to find this one picture,” he says, opening the closet and rifling around in the shelves. “Here.”

     He pulls down a big portfolio of papers, and as he opens it they tumble to the floor. Dozens of pencil drawings skitter about the room; in a moment they have all landed and a sort of paper-white silence falls over the apartment. The drawings are all of men, maybe a hundred—naked, covered, awake, asleep, close up, from afar. Jeremy’s has fallen at his feet, and he picks it up to study it.

     It shows only his face, unbespectacled, the cheekbones shown to full advantage. But though the features are Jeremy’s the face is not. It is cold and hard in a way that only Lena’s face could be. I shiver.

     I toe the papers gingerly. “Well,” I want to say, “well…well…”—lump in my throat, words leaping hurdles to pass through my lips—“Well, where’s mine?”

     I’m on my hands and knees, rifling. I’m a good roommate. The other drawings show exquisite collarbones, exquisite jawlines, exquisite noses. Heaped on Lena’s floor is a collection of exquisite bones. We grow icy looking at it—our hair feels silver; our eyes feel gray.

     “You’ve been in love with Lena the whole time,” I tell Jeremy, folding my legs and sighing on the floor. “Just don’t think I never knew.”

     “You can talk,” he says. “You’re in love with Lena.”

     We can’t defend ourselves. We are helpless and small, and no good at finding answers. There’s nothing for us to do now but give the portraits one last gentle kick, turn around, and switch off the light in that cold silver room.

Charlotte Rutty is a student at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where she studies English and environmental science.

 

Photo credit: African Dwarf Crocodile. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Retrieved 17 Jun 2015, from

http://quest.eb.com/search/139_2011459/1/139_2011459/cite