Dark Houses

Part 2

I like to bake," she says and her hand slips to my arm, touches me above my elbow. All at once I see my life with this girl, laughing in this kitchen, long strolls through the trees together, holding hands and kissing at the water's edge... It's a lifetime in of one feminine touch. She smiles. It radiates. My knees buckle a little.

"So what do you do, Mustang guy?"

"I'm a writer," I say. "I'm finishing my next novel now." I like the smooth tone of my voice. I sound sure of myself, even cocky. I catch the look of my arms then, firm and muscular. My stomach, I see, has no bulge. I run one hand through my hair and find it long and, most likely, a boyish mess.

I'm dreaming. My mind seizes that thought; I am dreaming.

Then a man's yell tears through the stillness outside. "Ou taah aaaah merr," he says. "Ou et aahh aaaa merr ow!"

The woman just smiles at me, unalarmed.

"My ex," she says. "He lost one leg in the war and every bit of his common sense went with it. Don't worry about him. "

Immediately, I envision a one-legged man, limping through the woods on a robotic prosthetic, spying on her from behind an oak tree. The image of a crazy-eyed stalker angered me. Someone had to protect a girl like her from a man like that.

"Pay no attention to him."

The room begins to ripple, as if the walls are turning to liquid. Two children enter from the dinning room; a boy in shorts, dark haired like me, and a girl in a summer dress, a child version of the mother.

"My babies," she says. "Do you have kids?"

"Someday I will," I say.

The whole room shudders.

"Next time plan to stay awhile."

I woke up in my clothes, long sleeves still buttoned tight around my wrists. The oppressive darkness of my apartment surrounded me. I slid off my couch, limped stiff-legged to the balcony and smoked a cigarette. September's wet air sent shivers crawling down my spine. The dream's images, shards of my past stacked into nonsense, stuck in my head.

The Mustang – the first car I'd ever owned. I'd worked two jobs to buy that relic; ticket ripper at the Marion Theater and burger flipper at Hardee's. My dad made me earn every dollar. "A boy's first car should be all his own," he'd said. We'd called it, "Ryan's Red Wreck."

Becker Lake – the last place I'd spent quality time with my dad. We hadn't owned a house there. Poor people only rented. I remembered the boat oars in his meaty hands as he propelled us across the water's flat surface. I saw the permanent engine oil under his nails as he uncoiled the anchor. By then I'd hated the constant grime on him. "I sure would love to own a house on a lake like this," he'd said and coughed into one fist, the lung cancer already bristling in his chest.