That night I dreamed.
I say that I never dream because it scares me to think about the implications. The idea that the subconscious is trying to tell me something I don’t know is unsettling. If you don’t know your own mind, doesn’t that make you insane? To me, dreaming is like finding yourself duct taped to a chair and being forced to watch an uncensored film of your life while someone beats the proverbial hell out of your intellect and ego in adjacent rooms. You know that they’re duct taped and gagged, but they’ve got their own problems and can ’t help you.
It’s like the subconscious firing off a slide show of every fear and regret at you without the conscious mind running defense. Or like riding a runaway roller coaster that keeps smashing through billboard after billboard of every protective facade and lie in your life until the ride finally flies off the rails into….
I am following my older brother in the Palisades block area where we grew up. We waded through the piles of stinking trash in front of the orange tenement we called home. Occasionally something shifted or squealed beneath the layers of ruined newsprint.
“Don’t look Mikey, or the piggy men will getcha! Squeee!Squeee!”. Jim taunted me like he always does to speed me up. I wish he wouldn’t do this. He knows that I don’t like pigs. I’m moving as fast as I can, but God didn’t give me long legs. I’m only five.
We wade through the moat of garbage and climb up into the stairwell. I carefully step over a junkie lying across a landing. Flies buzz above his yellowed skin and one lands on an unblinking eye. I fight the urge to vomit and hurry after my brother. He has vanished into the darkness above me, but I can still hear him taunting.
“Hurry up Mikey, the Piggy man’s coming for you! Snort! Snort!”
I run…
I’m eight.
I’m standing in the apartment looking at the shell of the woman I call “Mom”. She is mumbling, stretched out on the sofa with the empty syringe in her loose fist. The needle must have torn something and she’s bleeding freely from her elbow across her sundress. A mixture of pity, hate, and her betrayal ran through my mind. I decide that I’m not going to staunch the flow, the bitch can die. She relieves her bladder and bowels on the couch and the smell sickens me, but not nearly as much as she does. Jim came around me with a bandage and shakes his head.
“You know she can’t take care of herself.” He starts to say more but I turn away. He pushes me back into the wall and holds me there. “Do you want her to die? She can’t help that she’s like this. We’ve got to take care of her Mike!”
“I hate her and hope she dies.”
He smacks me across the face and yells something at me, just like always. He makes me fetch a bucket and towels to take care of the mess. As I’m forced to clean her, her eyes open and she speaks to me.
“I love you Joe”. That was my father’s name. He left when I was seven and I hope he’s dead and in Hell.
“Fuck you. Go to Hell.” I snap, but she’s already gone back to whatever fuzzy place the drugs take her…
I run away from the man holding the sack with my friends. Tony’s foot is still kicking through the hole until the man in the pink plastic pig mask stuffs it back in. A shoe falls to the pavement and I run as fast as my legs will let me…
He’s after me.
He’s getting closer.
He’s got me.
The sack opens and I’m getting stuffed in. I scream and kick, but he just chuckles. My foot hits his fat belly and it shakes. He bites my ankle and pushes me further into the sack with the other kids who are mewing and crying. Someone crapped his drawers and it isn’t me…
I reach up and grab something outside the sack. It comes free in my hand with a jingle and feels cold and heavy. It’s hard and I strike at the taunt area of the bag. It sticks through and he drops the sack with a yelp. I jump out and run.
He’s after me again and I run through shadows and steam.
He snorts and coughs as he follows. He sounds like a pig. I hide but each time he finds me. Each time I run. Shadows and steam.
I run for home.
Daddy is home – he’ll save me.
I run and run…
A tall robot in green armor hands me over to my Dad. No one believes me and Dad whips me until I can’t breathe. I show Jim the hook and he believes me. It’s our secret…
…They dare me to go into the grate and grab the floating flashlight. I’m five and they are all older and bigger than me. Jimmy isn’t here to protect me from Davie. I have to do it.
“C’mon, you aren’t chicken are ya?”
“Do it pussy!”They yell and push. I climb through the grate and into the black water. It’s cold and I climb up on the slick stone near it. Someone prods me in the back with a sharp stick.
“GO ON!”
I walk down the narrow concrete lip on the side of the water and step across rats. I don’t mind rats. I don’t want the piggy men to hear me so I’m quiet. I hold my breath.
“Don’t let the piggy men getcha!”
I slip and fall into the water. It’s cold and takes my breath, and I splash to keep from drowning. Suddenly I catch my footing and realize it’s only waist deep. I climb back up and keep moving…
The flashlight is there. I pick it up and look at it. It’s dented and something sticky is on it. I point it at the water and use it to see the bones through my hand.
Snort.
I freeze. The light shakes in my hands and I slowly point it into the darkness. Rats with red eyes look at me and stand up. I keep looking for the piggy men.
Something roars and splashes towards me. I drop the flashlight and run for the grate. Everyone is yelling. I fall off the concrete into the water again and try to run. It’s getting closer and I scream. I climb back up and run, but don’t fall again. I run through the grate on my hands and knees and Davie picks me up.
“WHERE IS THE FLASHLIGHT, PUSSY?”
I start to point towards the grate and see my hands. They are covered with something red. It’s blood. I’ve never seen blood before, not like this.
Something splashes and the grate falls open with a roar. The piggy man bites Davie in the leg and knocks him down. He screams and holds onto me, pulling me with him. I clutch the gravel and yell for help but everyone is gone except for us. I bite his hand until he lets go and I run. Jimmy pulls me out of the culvert and Davie stops screaming. I look back at the piggy man and what he’s doing to Davie. I see Davie’s eyes…
…I’m eleven.
We found him. He’s pissed himself in the cardboard box and Jim kicks him in the face. He rolls aside and we check his hands. He’s got a mark on one hand, the kind that a meathook could make. Jim shows him the hook.
“Look familiar?”
The old man plays dumb, like it wasn’t him, but I know it is. His eyes are still yellow and crazy, but the same shit-eating grin is on his face. Jim looks at me and I nod yes, I’m sure. I do most of it in a blind rage. I blame him for what he did to my friends. I blame him for my parents. I blame him for the nightmares, I strike again and again and again.
“Oink! Oink!” he says as I beat him. Rage becomes terror and I hit harder, more quickly. It’s over but his eyes still stare at me from pools of blood. I kick him in the face, but it doesn’t stop. I can still see his eyes. I can see his eyes behind a mask. A mask made of pig’s skin.
“Oink! Oink!”
Something grabs me in the darkness. I fight back and try to push it away. If I could only get to my gun I could…
It’s Maab. She was holding me as I woke up and then I realized how scared I was. It was just a dream, a seriously fucked-up roller coaster ride with my subconscious standing on the throttle. I see him laughing, wearing a pig mask as the ride flies off the tracks…
She didn’t speak and I couldn’t. I give myself to her embrace and waited for the shadows to go away.
I pray for dreamless sleep.
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