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Sleeping Without Dreams
by Jim Gish
Winner of the 2010
Nisqually Prize for
Fiction
Final Judge, Pia
Ehrhardt
I
was coming up out of the
woods with Buster
back near that giant
squirrel tree my Daddy
used to guard with such
vigilance. First I
heard the brakes begin
to squeal, and I stopped
in my tracks and said a
quick prayer.
“Dear Jesus, save ‘em,”
is about all I could get
out before the sound got
even more metallic, and
then there was that
awful thud which I did
not have to be told was
the sound of a speeding
automobile hitting
something it was not
likely to move, one of
them giant oak trees
down there in that
S-shaped curve which
leads down toward that
bridge over Turtle
Creek.
Then I was running
as fast as an old, fat
man can run. Buster was
scampering right along
with me, like maybe he
thought I had recovered
some of my old fire and
we were racing for the
barn the way we may have
done when he was a pup.
I cut straight across
that dry slough bed and
then hit the blacktop
just where it goes into
the beginning of the
curve and zigzags down
hill toward the bridge.
That was where I saw the
start of the black
traces where somebody
had jammed on the
brakes.
It is called the
Widow’s Curve by all the
old timers because
between 1940 when cars
finally got common
around Barlow and the
end of the ’70s, this
hill and curve and
bridge claimed fourteen
lives. The county
engineers have done
everything short of
putting up flashing
signs that say “Don’t
die here, idiot,” but it
has not helped. Most
folks here abouts
understand how it
happens since Widow’s
Curve is at the end of a
long stretch of open
pavement that begs
teenage boys and drunks
and fools of every
stripe to “Try their
wheels” or “Get top end”
as we said in the ’60s
when I drove these
roads.
“You fall in love
with the speed so much,”
Billy McCorkle used to
say, “and by the time
you see the start of the
curve , you are nearly
half way to the morgue
before you can think to
brake.”
When I cleared the
first curve, sweating
like a pig, hearing my
breath wheezing like
billows, I saw the black
marks headed off the
road. The tar bubbles
were popping under my
feet. The August air
smelled alternately
sweet with honeysuckle
and then rank with the
foulness of road kill.
“Oh God , Buster,”
I whispered when I saw
that little red Mustang
all piled into a rubble
against that giant sweet
gum tree that has been
there since I was a
child.
When I was within a
hundred feet, I smelled
the gasoline, and I
heard somebody crying,
moaning inside. I
tried to put on a burst
of speed, but then I
felt my heart in my
throat and thought I
won't be helping anybody
by dying before I get
there, some blubbery
whale of a man with wild
white hair and a florid
face lying there,
staring up from the mud
and weeds.
I heard a truck
coming up behind me, and
I angled over into the
ditch, watching out for
Buster who had run ahead
now and was standing
next to that bright
chrome bumper with a
sticker which said Pearl
Jam.
“Mama,” someone
called from inside the
wrecked auto.
“I’m coming!” I
called out, even
realizing then how empty
that was to whatever
poor soul was wrestled
together in those struts
of steel and glass.
“Lester!” I heard
someone behind me.
I turned as I ran
and saw Misty Ann
Wallace four steps
behind me, her new Dodge
Ram parked sideways in a
turn off which led into
my bottoms corn field.
“It just happened,
Misty Ann. You got one
of them cell phones?
I’ll see what I can do.”
I glanced back and
she was running back for
her truck to call the
highway patrol or the
sheriff. I was within
five feet of that car,
and then I was upon it,
looking into that
accordionized smash up,
smelling the beer
already along with the
gasoline.
There was a boy no
more than nineteen, his
head at an odd angle.
It looked like the
Heppler boy, Donnie, the
one they said was going
to UK on a full baseball
scholarship before he
dived off that barge
drunker than a hoot owl
and ruined all them
chances with a broken
arm and a dislocated
shoulder and maybe one
fourth of his IQ left on
that rock he hit in
eight feet of green,
muddy water.
Then I heard Misty
Ann’s footsteps close by
and saw her in my
peripheral vision as I
stood there, looking in,
like some voyeur of
grief and pain,
worthless as a pup.
“That’s Donnie,”
Misty Ann said. “And I
bet that other slash of
color over there is
Theresa Morton. I know
they been dating.”
Slash of color was
what she was, okay.
Orange fabric and dark
hair all jammed down
into a spot under that
crushed roof no bigger
than a laundry basket.
Blood everywhere like a
slaughter house.
“You called?” I
looked at Misty.
She nodded yes and
then got down on her
knees and was talking to
Theresa Morton who was
gibbering something that
sounded like a prayer,
what better be a prayer
I thought, considering
how much time she might
have.
I knew if it was my
own kin, I would have
tried to pull them out,
and I hated that I
cowered there, the
product of
tv’s vivid
imagination, that in
moving these nearly dead
children, I might pinch
some spine or do some
damage so that six
months from now my house
and farm would be gone
while I fought a law
suit and looked at some
wheelchair-bound
creature, all dark eyes
and glare.
I finally wedged my
hands under Donnie
Heppler’s shoulders and
pulled a little, but he
was stuck tight, what
with the metal frame and
the steering wheel and
the motor all trying to
converge there in his
lap. I heard the whine
of the siren and knew
that the rescue unit was
not five minutes away.
Then I saw that damn
pint whiskey bottle, one
of them little plastic
pints they have started
selling since I quit
drinking my own self. I
glanced once at Misty
Ann and reached back,
grabbed that pint still
half full and slid it
down into my baggy pants
pocket.
What I was thinking
is that this child has
gone and bought himself
enough sorrow for most
of a lifetime just with
what you could see. He
doesn’t need any more
nails in this cross
right now.
Then I sauntered
back up the road, my
eyes down like I was
inspecting the tire
tracks again, and one
hundred yards back I
tossed that bottle down
a trash embankment where
the trailer park people
throw their Hefty bags
late at night when their
garbage cans are full or
else somebody’s
mother-in-law is coming
to visit and they aim to
hide all the beer
bottles. Tricks of the
trade which I am
familiar with, sad to
say.
Forty minutes later, the
rescue unit was gone.
Maynard Ultley said the
boy was stone cold dead,
and the girl was dying.
“It don’t make
sense, Maynard,” I said,
“old stupid, useless
farts like us still
sucking wind when we
spent half our foolish
lives drinking and
driving. And these two
kids with everything
there in front of them,
all of it canceled in
half a minute.”
He looked at me and
agreed.
“It ain’t fair,
Lester. I guess we was
just lucky, or maybe it
was Miss Mary’s prayers
all these years later,
hanging in the air over
us like some kind of
blinders she put on God
so he’d just keep taking
people to the left and
right but never us.”
“Maybe so,” I told
him.
I hugged Misty Ann
while she cried. She
knew the Morton girl
through church and the
Heppler boy’s mother was
a third cousin.
“I am going home,”
she told me, pulling
loose, patting my arm
the way I think you do
when there are no more
words.
Northrup Layton,
that big Swede of a
state patrolman, parked
his car sideways and
called in his tech
people. They crawled
around everywhere,
measuring things. Bo
Evers came out with his
wrecker and loaded that
Mustang onto a flat bed
and told Northrup he’d
leave it there behind
his place until all the
evidence had been
collected.
By the time I was
ready to go home and lay
down in my hammock and
start in trying to
forget it, I saw Glenn
Heppler’s black Ford
pickup. He pulled into a
ditch and walked the
road back and forth
three times, right past
me without a word. Then
as he stood there by
that sweet gum tree with
that fresh cut where the
sap ran, he lifted his
head and let out a cry
which was half sorrow
and half rage, like he
had seen enough sad,
dreary things to get his
fill. Like he might
kill anybody that said
“Boo” or maybe just kill
himself and get that
thing done so he
wouldn’t have to get any
more phone calls like
this one today.
I guessed that
Wanda, his wife, was at
the hospital, laying
over on that gurney,
crying and praying and
pleading for her child
to rise and walk. But
he wasn’t never going to
do that anymore, not
until Judgment Day, and
the way I read the book
then it would be more
like a joyful jig.
“Glenn,” I said
when he walked past me,
but he held up one hand
for a second and never
looked at me. Just
didn’t want a word, and
I understood that
nothing I said or did
not say was going to
multiply or subtract
from the sorrow that was
throttling him with
dark, hard waves.
When I
walked back up the road,
meaning to cross the
slough and go home, I
found Buster waiting for
me beside a dead stump.
It was like he had taken
up a vigil and knew to
stay out of the way.
Then I saw that plastic
bottle of whiskey on the
ground in front of him.
I leaned down and picked
it up and slipped it in
my pocket. I glanced
back to see the
troopers, but they were
knotted together,
working on the whole
damn thing just like it
was a geometry problem.
That was okay, I
guessed. If you were a
man who made his living
cleaning up after other
people’s bad mistakes,
making it a geometry
problem was just a way
to distance yourself so
you couldn’t take it
home every day like a
big bag of rocks which
just got bigger and
bigger until there was
no way to drag them an
inch further.
I went inside and put
that whiskey bottle up
on a shelf behind some
cans of tuna fish. Then
I took me a glass of
lemonade out to my
hammock and lay there
for a couple of hours,
talking to Louella, dead
now these five years. I
told her what I had
found, and I told her
what I had hidden in the
cabinet. She seemed to
think that was all
right. Buster came to
lick my hand once, and
then he went to lay
under that shrub next to
the hose roped around
that metal spool.
I never meant to
nap, and it ain’t
something I do much.
Most nights I am in bed
and sawing logs by
nine-thirty and then up
again by five-thirty. I
just got in a habit when
I was farming and
working full time for
the state, driving the
tractor to mow the right
of way on the
interstates. But that
evening, I slipped right
away in between a couple
of thoughts I had. I
dreamed that Donnie
Heppler came to me, and
he seemed reluctant,
timid, not the way you
would expect Donnie
Heppler to be, since I
don’t remember him that
way at all. Still, he
came walking out from
around the house, his
face all hang dog, and
he looked like a man who
was going to ask you for
a giant favor that he
already knew he did not
deserve.
“Lester?” He spoke
like he knew he was
waking me up.
“Yes, sir,” I said
to him, looking up from
where I lay.
“Can you do
something for me?” he
asked, and it sounded
like a simple request,
maybe make a phone call,
lend him a dollar for
gas.
“I might could
try,” I told him.
“It is something
you won’t want to do,”
he warned me.
“I could still hear
about it,” I said. “I
might not do it,
anyway.”
“Could you take a
post hole digger and
hide that whiskey
forever?”
“It might not be
forever,” I told him.
“But I will do it if you
say so.”
“Then would you go
down to that tree and
pray?”
“I don't pray
much,” I told him. “I
sort of give up on
prayer when my girl
died.”
He stood there like
the asking had weighted
him down. And I lay
there, like I was
waiting to wake up or
waiting for his request
to make sense. I thought
of Louella and how she
would maybe want me to
do it.
My daughter, Martha
Fay, drowned twenty
years ago in Barker’s
Eddy. Just her and six
girls out on a Sunday
swim, listening to the
radio and giggling and
teasing each other.
Martha Fay could swim
like an eel, but
Barker’s Eddy is a
vicious, old fisherman,
and it took her down,
never mind all her
friends crying and
screaming on the shore.
When Louella died, she
was no more than a husk,
and that left me a dry
bone of an old man going
through the motions.
“Who will that
help?” I finally asked
him.
“It might help
her,” Donnie said. “She
is still hanging on.”
When I woke up, that
dream was so real that I
twisted my neck trying
to find Donnie Heppler
somewhere so I could
talk to him about it.
But he wasn't there, of
course, or not there
anymore. I went in and
drank a cup of coffee,
and I went out and sat
on my porch, watched
those people come by,
curious, looking at that
damn tree like that
would explain something
to them.
Donnie Heppler was
right there in my brain,
his voice just as
ordinary as old paint,
still telling me.
Then I was on my
feet, and a second
later, I was taking that
whiskey bottle down and
wondering to myself why
I had picked it up and
why Buster had retrieved
it if it was not for
this. Even while I was
digging that hole, I was
marveling over my
foolishness and
wondering why I needed
to do this to make the
equation come out even.
Feed the doom
beast, Lester, my
brain told me. Do it
and don't analyze it.
You was never any good
at that.
I finished burying
that pint right there
next to the chicken
house, and then I tamped
the dirt down with a
hoe. I walked back in
the house and stood
there by that open
window, looking out to
where the sky had gone
pearly gray with dusk.
I didn't feel like
praying. Didn’t think I
would know what to say.
Who cared? I was just a
crazy old man who
decided to believe in
his dreams. If I went to
bed now and lay up
there, talking to
myself, I could call it
the same thing.
“But it ain’t the
same, Lester,” Louella
said, her voice stern
like the Sunday school
teacher she was for
twenty-seven years.
“No,” I admitted.
I fumbled my keys
out of that old cracked
blue cup with the pink
rose on it, and then I
thought that was silly
to drive down there to
that gum tree when I
could walk down just as
easy. I went out the
back door, heard that
screen door slam behind
me, flat and certain.
I went like I had
gone earlier in the day,
down across the field
and through the dry
slough and then along
the margin of the road.
I half expected Billy
Heppler to be there
waiting, his eyes full
of gravity and some kind
of clear understanding I
had never seen in them
while he lived.
I knelt down in
front of that tree and I
hunted for the words.
If I was going to
do it, I wanted it to be
fine words that summed
up the blasted dreams
she would take with her
if she died. I wanted to
tell God that it wasn’t
fair to cut that boy off
in the bloom of youth. I
wanted it to be a poem,
but it never came out
that way.
“Help that little
girl,” I strangled out.
“She never asked for
this.”
Aware even when I
said it that most of us
don’t ask for what we
get, and the wind blows,
and we are lashed to the
mast, taking what comes,
trying to juggle it out
into some kind of sense.
I got up and walked
back toward my house in
the darkness. A couple
of cars passed, and two
of them blew their
horns. I waved, although
I couldn’t tell who it
was. One hit his brake
lights, and I knew
somebody was going to
come back and ask me how
it happened, so I walked
down through the ditch
and was lost in those
trees by the time they
backed up to find me.
In bed that night,
half a minute from
sleep, Louella came to
me and said, “It was
good. You done what was
needed.”
I nodded to her,
and she kissed her hand
and put it on my head.
“You might be a
whole man yet,” she told
me with a smile.
“Don’t hold your
breath, old woman,” I
said.
“No, I won’t do
that,” she told me.
Then she faded out,
and I was just in that
empty room. And I slept
without dreams.
Judge's comments:
“I
chose Sleeping Without
Dreams because it's flat
out great storytelling.
The story starts with a
bang. The writer gives
us a car wreck, a
bruised narrator with an
authentic voice, a
problem that insists he
look it in the eye, and
a decision that will
live on even after the
story's over. The work's
got gravity, moral
complexity, decency and
heart. I loved it.”
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