Steve Erickson - These Dreams of You

He realizes, “You’re having me on.” Maybe she knows he shaved four years off the bio he gave the record company. He calls to the bartender, “Jonesy!” with no reason to believe the bartender’s name is Jonesy, then turns to the young woman. “So, this the night then, Jaz?”

She says, “Shut up.”

“A tumble would inspire me for tomorrow’s session, yeah?”

“We both know,” Jasmine answers, “that no tumble will inspire you all the more, don’t we?” Even by lead-singer standards, she thinks, Reg is lascivious; his songs are a nonstop orgy. The bartender brings another. “Dead night,” Reg says to him.

“Monday,” the bartender says, “theatres are closed.”

“Everyone’s at the Indica or Marquee,” says Jasmine.

“Never heard of the Indica,” pouring the drink, “but then I’m new.”

“Me too,” says Reg. “In town, I mean.”

“Hear the Marquee lot used to come in straightaway after the shows.”

She says, “Too late for the Marquee.”

“Don’t know why they stopped. Coming after the shows, I mean.”

“Soft Machine’s on the bill, yeah?” says Reg. “Should be a bit of a crowd, then.”

“That’s Sunday night,” says Jasmine.

“Never heard of the Indica,” the bartender says again.

“Next to the Scotch, over on Mason’s Yard. It’s not a club, it’s a gallery. The Marquee moved.”

“Yeah?”

“From Oxford over to Wardour now.”

“Jonesy. . ” says Reg.

“So if you’re waiting for the lot from the Marquee,” says Jasmine, “you’re going to wait awhile. Everyone heads for the Crom now, or the Ship a few doors down.”

“Jonesy.”

“But you got us , don’t you?”

“Oh,” the bartender assures her, “I got more than you two—”

“But Jonesy,” Reg finally says emphatically enough to stop the other conversation, lowering his voice and leaning across the bar, “who is that?” and points at the Yank across the room.

When they reach his table, the Yank speaks first. “Are you a Beatle?” he asks Reg so abruptly it can’t help sounding accusatory.

The young man and woman laugh. “No,” says Jasmine, “he’s Elvis Presley.”

Bewilderment flits across the Yank’s face. He narrows his eyes, studying them on the other side of the ale he’s barely drunk. “You’re not Elvis Presley,” he decides; they laugh again. “I don’t think he’s in music, then,” Jasmine says to Reg, who worries, He’s much older than I. She was just winding me up. For a moment the other man seated at the table is uncomfortable, slightly irritated before he forces himself to laugh as well. “You’re not him,” he declares with more certainty.

“Not Elvis, anyway,” Reg says.

“Not the Presley part either,” says Jasmine.

“Hey, you lot in management came up with that .”

“If you’re not a Beatle, then you might as well not be anybody,” the Yank says, and it isn’t clear to Jasmine if he realizes or cares how rude it sounds, though he does feel bound to add, “What I mean is, you might as well be a Beatle, for all that I know.”

He speaks in a whine. Over the gray noise from upstairs, the other two barely hear him. “Reg and Jasmine,” Reg tells him. He says the names like they go together but the woman decides to let it pass. There’s a slight hesitation from the Yank: “Bob,” he says as though giving an alias, or as though he’s got different names for different circumstances and has to decide which sort these are — circumstances, that is. He reaches out his hand. His handshake is almost womanly and Jasmine is put off by it.

It’s a small hand like a child’s that barely reaches all the way around Reg’s. When he takes it back, Jasmine sees how it shakes. The Yank sees it too and tucks the hand under the other arm to hide it. Since it doesn’t seem to occur to him to invite them to sit, Jasmine does it on her own and Reg follows. “So, Bob,” Reg says, “not into the music then, are we?”

“I, uh. . ” the Yank begins and the other two have to strain to catch what he says, “like. . the Broadway tunes. . ” and smiles, “‘The Impossible Dream.’ Do you know that one?”

“No,” Reg says, “who did it?”

“As he said,” Jasmine answers, “it’s from a show. Broadway. Don Quixote, right?”

“Yes,” says Bob.

“Hey, it’s a groovy song,” Jasmine allows, “good message.”

“I, uh, think you’re being polite,” the Yank says.

He’s out of place. In the dark of the club, Jasmine still can’t place him; he looks like a fifty-year-old teenager but in fact has just turned forty, aging a decade in the last few years. With his rabbit’s teeth and long brown hair already turning gray, all of his features are too big for his head. He’s still growing into himself, still in the process of becoming who he’ll be, and he has a perpetually distracted quality that seems interrupted only by concentrated doses of discomfort, self-amusement, a secret. He takes everything personally.

There’s a calm about him but it’s not the calm of sanguinity. It’s the calm of something too damaged to be grace, let alone peace; Jasmine already has decided he’s the most intense person she’s ever met. She says, “What are you in London for, then?”

“Passing through,” Bob answers, voice dropping back to his nasal whisper, “here tonight, then leave tomorrow,” and adds, “I never sleep well so I. . thought I would go out, not wake my wife. . ”

“Get a bit of time for yourself,” observes Reg.

“Sometimes,” he says, “you’re most alone when you’re not.” Reg nods uncomprehendingly. “Where’s home, then?” asks Jasmine, and the man smiles his little-kid smile. “New York,” he says, “sometimes. Boston. Washington. . no,” he shakes his head, “not Washington. Never Washington.”

Pushing away from the table, he gets up. “I, uh, should head back. They’re looking for me by now.” He hesitates. “Want to walk?” No, Jasmine realizes, this isn’t a man who fancies being alone; when he can, he bullies his way through his reserve, when he gets through at all. She says to Reg, “You have your session tomorrow,” and looks for a clock on the wall but there is none. “Or today, I mean.”

Reg answers, “Not till noon,” passing up the out she’s given him, or too dim, she thinks, to realize she’s given it. Bob gets up from the table and he’s small like his hands; inside his clothes, his small frame sinks with exhaustion. “Don’t fancy a taxi?” asks Jasmine.

“No.”

“Where you staying?” asks Reg.

“Over near the park,” says Bob, and both Brits laugh again. In the dark of the club the Yank flushes again, and again has to compel himself to smile at whatever he’s said that they find so damned ridiculous. The three step outside the pub. In the late-night hours there’s still scattered traffic and taxis gliding by. “We’re in London,” says Jasmine, “more than a few parks. Not like New York where you might say ‘the park’ and everybody assumes you mean the big one.” Bob nods. “Right,” she says, “so you know which park?”

“I can never remember the name,” says Bob.

Reg says, “Hotel?”

“I’m, uh, not at a hotel.”

“Residence,” says Jasmine.

“Yes.”

“Hyde Park,” she says.

“No.”

“Green Park, over near the palace.”

“No.”

“St. James.”

“No.”

“Regent’s.”

“Yes.”