The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams (27 page)

“But you were sad. I
remember—you were sad when you said that to him.”

Georgiana waved a
hand—what can you do? “It’s always sad when you send a man to his
death, no matter who he is. Still, let’s look on the bright side.
You realize, of course, that my faux prediction in fact came
true?”

“How so?”

“I said he’d die when the
sun’s rays were at their most powerful, at their strongest. I
haven’t been out today, but what was the temperature?”

“It hit 103.”

“A record-setting
temperature, I believe? The hottest day of the year? I rest my
case.”

The outside light was
fading and she only had the one shaded desk lamp on. The air in the
room was just green haze.

“So you drove him to his
death?”

“He set the directions,
but I was happy to serve as chauffeur.” Still grinning—she was
rather amused. “I told you once, the dead haunt us. And that’s true
even when the dead, like myself, are still alive.”

“Why? Why try to kill
him?”

“Simple, really. I just
didn’t like him. Not at all. I just hated him. Nothing more
complicated than that. I just hated him.”

“That’s pathetic. That’s
as pathetic as his suicide.”

“I don’t catch
you.”

“They’re both too
easy.”

“There’s nothing easy
about hate.”

“Bullshit. What could be
easier than hate? It’s the easiest emotion in the world. You don’t
have to think about it, you don’t have to work at it. It’s just
there, waiting for you to wallow in it. It’s just
lazy
, when you come
right down to it.”

Her stretched smile
faltered a bit. Our little conversation seemed to be sapping her,
making it harder to hold a grin.

“One thing is beyond
dispute, Mr. McShane. He made life hell for many
people.”

“Hell.”

“A living
hell.”

“You believe life and
death are the same? Light and dark?”

“Both ends of the same
pole, yes.”

“Then heaven and hell are
the same place, aren’t they? It’s all a matter of
interpretation.”

Her eyes never followed me
as I got up. They stayed set on the chair. Maybe they couldn’t move
all that well. There was a film in them now that I could only see
standing up. The smile was still there—count on that—but her eyes
were dim and gauzy and as motionless as glass. Her life was already
starting to cancel out.

>>>>>>

THE GLASS IS
HALF-FULL

It was like some arcadian
vision, half-remembered from childhood. Sixty or so people gathered
in the back world of the Paumanok, sheltered by oaks and pines and
cedars, huddled close together to make ourselves feel a little less
alone. Just about everybody was here. The entire staff of Material
Witness. Farooq, the manager. Paulita, the woman who’d told Wooly
she wasn’t bothered by the 6,500-watt xenon arc lights. Alex
Tarkashian, acting I guess as the official rep for the town, crying
with the best of them. Genevieve’s family. Wooly’s brother and
sister, both big hairy people. The brother had a bushy beard and
spent a lot of his time furiously trying to blow something out of
his nose. The sister had somehow managed to squeeze into a tight
white pullover top, a denim miniskirt and a pair of pink cowboy
boots. There’s a genetic pool that makes for some tough
swimming.

We were all gathered
around the 100-ton boulder, all feeling the deep pull of its force,
the sweet slow music of it seeping into our blood. We were all
hooked into that centuries-old high. How did Wooly put it that
first day he brought me out here?
I think
there’s a kind of ancienty here, you know?

One piece of bad news:
Wooly’s last wish, to be buried under the dolmen, couldn’t be
granted. He was too fat to fit in the crawlspace. The Algonquins,
presumably, had never matched his girth. But Genevieve had come up
with a solution. She’d had him cremated and was going to scatter
his ashes under and around the rock.

The minister from the
local A.M.E. Pentecostal church had been tapped to preside over the
ceremony. He was speaking now, telling a story about a cave in the
woods, a sacred place, talking his heaventalk. I glanced around,
caught sight of Nickie. She wasn’t aware of me staring at her. She
was listening to the minister, looking like she was about to
cry.

I never noticed it before,
but it struck me now. She almost always looked like she was about
to cry. She really was one of those sad-eyed ladies of the
lowlands.

Stirring in the crowd. The
minister had wrapped things up and now Farooq was standing in front
of the rock. He started with an announcement: He wanted to assure
everyone that Material Witness wasn’t going to close its doors.
Genevieve had promised him the lab would stay open to carry on
Wooly’s work. There was much applause. Farooq went on to praise
Wooly’s contributions to the testing profession, and he was just
starting to explain his importance to the industry when I spotted
something at the far edge of the crowd. A headful of long
reddish-blond hair.

Jen, shyly keeping her
distance from everyone else.

I made my way
over.

“I heard about the
funeral,” she said. “I thought maybe you’d be here.”

“Where’ve you been? I’ve
been trying to get in touch.”

“My prepaid. My minutes
ran out. I’ve got to get another one.”

“So you’re
okay.”

“Sure.”

“You had me
worried.”

“Sorry.”

“I wanted to… Long as
you’re here, I have something for you.”

She stared at the 20. “You
don’t have to. That’s not why I came.”

I put it in her hand. “You
earned it. You were a big help.”

“That was some night.” She
pocketed the money. “I heard about what happened. I don’t think I’m
ever going to forget that night.”

“Why didn’t you call me
after? Use a pay phone or something?”

“I didn’t want to bother
you.”

“Bother
me? You weren’t gonna bother me. I was
worried
about
you.”

These fucking
kids.

Farooq was going on about
the high testing standards Wooly maintained, the tremendous impact
he’d had, the innovation and inspiration he’d brought to the
business.

“So everything’s all
right?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“How long you gonna keep
doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“This life. Living like
this.”

Jen replied with one of
those slouched-shoulder teen shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know
how I feel about it anymore. I don’t even know what I’m
supposed
to be feeling.
I know it’s supposed to be something, but I’m not sure what it
is.”

“You still have my
number?”

“Yes.”

“You stay in touch, okay?
When you get a new number, let me know what it is.”

“Okay.”

“You have any family left?
Anybody?”

She fingered her hair,
gathered it in a handful and gave it a deep sniff. “Couple aunts,
uncles.”

“Why don’t you give them a
call. Just let them know you’re all right.”

“I don’t know. My dad
didn’t get along too much with them.”

“Just call. I’m sure
they’ll be glad to hear from you.”

“I don’t know. I might
need some time on that one. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Farooq was finishing up
his remarks, thanking Wooly for what he’d done.

“I’ve gotta get going,”
said Jen. “I’ve got some pick-ups to make. I just wanted to say
goodbye.”

“You take care, you
understand?”

She leaned forward, gave
me a small kiss on the cheek, then turned away and drifted back
into the woods.

Of course I thought about
my daughter. Of course I saw my daughter walking away.

Genevieve was getting
ready to speak. She was still drained with aftershock but smiling
at the crowd, holding the urn with the fresh ashes in her hands.
She started talking about their wedding, about the mousse-less
mousse cake and what a falling-apart disaster the whole ceremony
had been. It was the same story she’d told that morning in the
kitchen, so far away, so long ago—Wooly throwing the cake at the
caterer, the caterer calling the cops, Wooly fighting with the
waiters, her family and the cops, Genevieve driving off in her
wedding dress with Wooly straddling the hood of the car. It took
her a couple of minutes, but soon she was getting laughs, the crowd
reaching for the relief of laughter.

It was a good day for
laughing. Sunny morning, the woods in full green bloom. The air was
clear and the dead were finally at rest.

Somebody touched my arm. I
turned to see big smoky brown eyes and a cheek webbed with double
scars.

Nickie smiled. “I wanted
to talk to you. I just wanted to say something before we said
goodbye.”

We stepped away from the
others, backed into the edge of the woods.

Genevieve had shifted
gears and was talking about the last few years. “I don’t know what
happened to him. He was never an easy person, you all know that.
But those last years, I guess something just got a hold to him.
That’s all I can say. Something got a hold to him.”

Nickie’s shoulders raised
up as she took a let-it-all-out breath. “I’m sorry about what
happened. I asked you not to ask about my past. And when I asked
you, when I
told
you, I meant it.”

“I know. I’m
sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, and when
you did it anyway, I went off. I went off my own wall. I felt bad,
then I started feeling bad about feeling bad.”

“I know the
sequence.”

“I just wanted to say I’m
sorry.”

“That’s what I wanted to
say too. That’s exactly what I wanted to say.”

Genevieve was looking at
the urn in her hands. “I got to see him just before they, just
before they brought him to the furnace. He looked so peaceful lying
there. I almost didn’t recognize him. He finally looked
peaceful.”

Nickie suddenly lunged at
me and gave me a full open-mouth kiss. It took us right back there.
It took us right back to where we were, and in one more moment my
heart would’ve blown through the top of my head.

But it ended. She pulled
away. It was over.

Genevieve was sobbing. “I
loved him. I loved him so much. No, that’s not it. That’s not true.
I
love
him.
I
love
him so
much.”

I took Nickie’s hand. She
squeezed it, but let

it go.

“I’m going to go back,”
she said. “I think I should. But maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe I could call you
some time.”

“Maybe you
could.”

I watched her walk away,
watched her walk back to the others. A moment later, I returned to
where I’d been standing before.

We were all the same, all
of us. Each of us was carrying around our own world of
hurt.

Farooq and the minister
were helping Genevieve open the urn. She was getting ready to
scatter the ashes.

The glass is
half-
full
,
motherfucker.

They turned to the old
stone. Genevieve looked up at the sky and blinked. The minister
said something to her, but the breeze carried the words away,
whatever they were.

There
was
a breeze. It carried the
honey-smell of flowering bushes, it made the air go fluid. But the
trees, they weren’t moving. The trees were absolutely
still.

The great spiritual
leaders all had one thing in common. They were all madly in love
with life, with the world, the universe, God. Eventually, of
course, the fine-print explainers and doctrinal politicians came
along and put conditions on that unconditional love. But before
that happened, the message was always the same: Be in love with
life. Because this is life, right now. This is the life of life.
And if we don’t always realize that, then maybe Jen was right. We
might need some time on that one.

###

WHO THE HELL WROTE
THIS?

I worked as an Executive
Editor at
Entertainment Weekly
for 11 years and (in two separate stints)
at
People
magazine and people.com for 12 years. I often speak to young
journalists and try to use myself as an example for inspiration—a
guy who spent time in jail, rehab and a psych ward and somehow
become a successful editor at Time Inc. and managed to stay sane
and alive. I’ve tried to reflect those experiences in this
book.