Jim Krusoe - The Sleep Garden

VIKTOR begins to stuff his hands into his pockets, then thinks better of it.

Viktor:

You all can do what you want. I’m not going anywhere. That’s it. It’s final. I’m staying here.

Jeffery:

Suit yourself. Are you still in, Madeline?

MADELINE nods.

Jeffery:

I’ll lead, and the rest of you can follow one by one. Raymond, you go last, just in case anybody tries to stop us. See you around, Viktor.

Heather:

But suppose it’s dangerous? Suppose something happens?

Jeffery:

What could happen? Anyway, remember to prop the door open, and we can always come back here again.

Raymond:

Don’t worry, Heather. I’ll be right there behind you.

Meanwhile, it so happens that Junior’s old theatrical agent, a man of dubious character whom Junior hasn’t seen in years, has sent him a letter now resting in the young actor-turned-psycho’s mailbox, waiting to be read. In this letter his agent says that amazingly, against all odds, Mellow Valley has finally been picked up as a rerun in one of those ex-republics of the former Soviet Union. There will be translation issues, of course, he adds, but it’s a sign of how desperate for new material the networks are these days. In any case, Junior will be receiving at least a little money for this, minus, of course, the twenty percent that he, as Junior’s agent, will be taking. Oh, and beyond all these matters concerning business, he hopes Junior is well and prospering in whatever new career he’s found for himself. Yours truly, etc. etc.

But Junior isn’t near his mailbox, or even at home right now. He’s doing something else.

Reruns. That’s a good one. Ha ha ha.

Junior crouches behind the rosebush, watching the window of the luxurious home, practically a mansion he guesses you could call it. Soon it will be dark, and then. .

But wait! Is there something there? He thinks there could be, so he gets Old Stag Killer ready. It was no problem at all getting over the wall, and then finding the perfect place to hide was easy too. He laughs — ha, ha — because now he is no more than thirty yards from the house. Does the man have dogs? He could take them out, but it seems there are no dogs. Excellent. Better yet.

Then there is a movement at the window, and is it? Yes. . it’s his father. . no, the Captain. . no, his father. . no, the Captain. . but who cares, really? This is who he came for, and anyway, father or not, this is the man who has come to assume the role of father, or close enough, in Junior’s tortured and confused mind, the same man who used to call him Junior on the set of Mellow Valley as if it wasn’t his real name but a joke, so that even as far back as the days of Mellow Valley this strange ironic vibe had been set in place, and anytime anybody anywhere said “Junior” they were referring not only to him, Junior, but at the same time making a sinister inference about his television character as well, and also to the Captain’s being Senior, which could not help but make a complete mockery of his position in the hierarchy of the production so after that there was no way in a thousand years he could have asked Heather for a date, which was what he had been planning to do before the old shithead snuck up on her and Judy and got some kind of eyeful. It made him glad that he had switched those signs around.

“I hate you,” Junior says under his breath. He raises Old Stag Killer to his shoulder and looks through the crossbow’s sight.

Now the man is outside, and holding something, possibly a cup of coffee in a grayish mug, peering out at his lawn, not seeing Junior at all, not having the remotest idea of what’s in store for him, but admiring, no doubt, the perfection of his stupid perfect grass. My fucking father, he thinks, lost in admiration for his lawn and not for his son, who deserves it. It isn’t fair at all. He cocks Old Stag Killer, but wait — the man has turned away and — Junior’s sight line is blocked by a bush — seems to be heading back inside, maybe to get something he’s forgotten.

Come back , Junior thinks. And soon.

To touch .

And so they know this much: that there is a tunnel, and that they are in it, but nothing more than that: not what will become of them, nor where they are headed — only that in the distance there is — what? — a light, and then perhaps a dark, and then possibly a light, and so on, but still they are there, wherever there is, and possessing a being that is theirs nonetheless, a being with no name and that has no reason, nor can it make any clear distinction between what is and what is not — a being, if it can even be called such, that sees only chance and dimness and regret, a something that hears only the muffled sounds of wave after wave, the grinding sounds of pebbles on a beach; an unnameable sound; an unnameable taste; a soul — well, who knows, and who can say? — but if there is one, it is — whatever it is — half-formed, unshapely, half-light, half-dark— as if, it thinks, if I only had the chance to learn a little more, to study a little more, had time enough to prepare, to brace myself, then —each of these things, whatever we may call them, thinks— if only just a little — then I would have understood whatever it was I needed to know, the part that was to be found in me, the part that I could never quite encompass, before the light goes completely out .

It’s totally amazing, Madeline thinks as she’s standing there waiting her turn to crawl into the hole that will take them out of there, or somewhere: all this time she’s been considering Jeffery pretty much a loser (and he is a loser), and yet he’s the one who came up with this plan to get them out of there. And even though earlier she hadn’t been so sure she really wanted to go outdoors — because what is out there except the clouds and a lot of nameless trees? — now that it’s so close, so nearly happening, she’s excited.

And Madeline can just about taste it: first a little restaurant with cheap rent because it’s off the beaten path somewhere, then a couple of excellent reviews from food critics, one, two, three stars, long lines, guest appearances on television, her own show, a book — or maybe the book will come earlier, when she still will have the time in her schedule to write one and every spare minute isn’t taken up by the demands of celebrity because who needs Viktor?

She gets up on the stove, scraping her knee on one of the burners, and crawls into the dark. Cooking with Madeline . Here she comes.

Raymond is still holding his decoy, which is impossible to see in the dark, but feels safe and friendly, like a real duck, almost.

But come to think of it , Jeffery thinks, this Burrow script doesn’t sound like a first episode at all. It sounds like a last one .