John Strausbaugh - THE HATED DREAMS [ss]

Ever watch an ordinary-looking "solid citizen" drive his car along a highway like it's a P-38 tearing into the Luftwaffe?

Well, when even that meager source of adventure is vanished, there will be other ways for bored people to set their pulses pounding.

The boy crouched in the dense thicket, peering into the small clearing. It was night. A tiny fire, the size of a hand, glowed in the center of the clearing. In the fire was a blackened tin cup with water steaming in it. And hunched over the fire, staring morosely into the cup, was a short, paunchy, very hairy man. The black coiled hair on his naked chest and arms was almost as thick as the greasy serpentine locks which tumbled over his shoulders and writhed down his broad back, almost to the long red scar under his shoulder blades. His trousers were soiled and black, and they were cut away from his hirsute calves. He was half squatting, half sitting on a pair of knee-length leather boots that had seen better days. His face glowed like sunset in the firelight. Under his broad flat forehead, his thick eyebrows ran together, bridging the top of his nose, a sharp beak that had been broken and twisted thirty degrees to his left, so that he seemed to be sniffing at something over his shoulder. His lips were juicy and petulant, his chin round and a bit recessed. His eyes were large, and shiny black, and pensive.

The stocky man dipped one coarse finger into the cup, singeing some of the dense hair on his wrist. He pulled back his hand and swore toothsomely. He picked up a long straight razor with a pearl handle and ran his thumb along the edge with a look of intent distaste. He decided it was not sharp enough; pulling one boot from under his meaty haunches, he began to strop the blade across the cracked instep. After testing it again, he decided it was sharp. He reached into the fire and whipped out the cup, cursing and dropping it hastily to the ground, where fully half of the boiling water spilled, some of it splashing into the hissing fire. From a hip pocket he removed a crumpled red bandana. This he dipped into the cup, and then spread it out in his hands. He took a deep breath, and plastered the steaming cloth to his face. He uttered a muffled cry of pain and fell onto his back, kicking his right heel into the fire, whereupon he yelped and pulled it away, knocking some of the reflecting stones into the fire, almost killing it. Peeling the hot cloth away from his face, he leaped to his bare feet and looked into the thicket where the boy was hiding.

"Damn and double-damn yer eyes, whelp!" he yelled; and having yelled, he clapped his broad hand over his mouth. He continued in a hoarse semi-whisper: "It be hard enough to shave, without some big-eyed calf starin' at me from amidst them bushes."

His red-rimmed eyes stared right into the boy's, who started backward, conducting a cacophony of snap-pings and crackings in the dry underbrush.

"Would ye he quiet, ye damn bag o' bones, and come outtin there?" the hairy man whispered aggrievedly.

The little boy accommodated him with fearful haste and a minimum of noise, and stood on the edge of the clearing, trembling in his shorts and Buster Brown shoes. His hair was the color of hay, his skin fair, his limbs so thin that the big fellow's signet ring would have slipped from the boy's biceps. He wore, besides shorts and shoes, a short-sleeve shirt that had once been white, but now approximated the hue of grass. He had huge blue eyes, a button nose, and sweet lips. He stared at the hairy man through the fringe of his yellow bangs, while his scratched-up knobby knees banged together.

Before the boy's cowerings, the hairy man's bluster seemed to melt.

"Well, c'mon in, I won't eat ye," he growled, and paced back to his fire.

The boy watched him guardedly until he had settled himself on his dowdy buskins. Then the boy approached like a doe coming to water and sat cross-legged on the other side of the feeble fire.

The paunchy man broke up and fed to the fire some small twigs, and rearranged the hot stones. He looked up into the boy's wide blue eyes.

"What are ye starin' at, then?" he grumbled.

The boy licked his lips and spoke. His voice, too, was like a doe's, if does would speak to men.

"Please sir, is that water for tea?" he asked.

The hairy man frowned. He looked at the half-empty cup, and at the razor, and ran his hand over the blue-black stubble on his cheeks and chin. He coughed and spat over his left shoulder, into the night.

"Sure, I guess so," he said. He cocked an eyebrow. "Got ye any tea?"

The boy smiled wanly.

"Please sir, in my bag," he said.

"And a cup?" the man asked. The boy nodded with a bit more enthusiasm.

"Sugar?" asked the man, cocking his black brow still higher.

"No sir," the boy said apologetically.

They stared at each other across the glowing fire.

"Well go get 'em," the man urged gruffly.

The boy leaped up and ran to the bushes where he had been hiding. When he returned with the dark cloth sack over his shoulder, the hairy man had refilled the tin cup and placed it into the fire. The boy untied the knot that held the sack together, and produced a battered tin cup and a small paper bag. The man filled the boy's cup from his war-surplus canteen and placed it into the fire beside his own.

They sat back to watch.

"What be yer name?" the man asked.

"Christopher Robin," the boy said.

The man harumphed.

"I be Harry Trigg," he said after a pause.

The boy nodded dully. The man looked up and frowned.

"I said I be Harry Trigg," he repeated.

"Yes sir," Christopher Robin answered.

"Well damn it, boy, ain't ye never heard o' me?" the man cried. Then he slapped his hand over his mouth again.

"And keep it quiet," he growled.

"Please sir, I have never heard of you," Christopher Robin said meekly.

"What're they teachin' you yungin' nowadays?" Harry Trigg harumphed. "I suppose ye ain't never heard o' Bluebeard neither?"

"Oh yes sir, he's a pirate who killed six ladies," Christopher Robin told him.

"I know what he be," cried Harry. "I be Bluebeard!"

The boy's mouth made a little o. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you, Mr. Bluebeard," he said.

"That's all right," Bluebeard said. "I forgot I've shaved me beard. 'Tweren't really blue, anyway, but it gave me away once too often. Them People, they gives ye a nickername like 'at, it's dangerous. I mean, what if they was to call ye 'Little Skinny Blondie'? Then ye couldn't raid a merchant-ship nor slip into some little town for a quick one without everybody ye meet shoutin', 'Hoo, it be Little Skinny Blondie!' and they'd hang ye fer sure." He nodded pensively. "Hang ye like a hooked haddock."

"Was it a very beautiful beard, sir?" asked Christopher Robin, who had never raided a merchant or had a drink.

"Naw," said Bluebeard, who was visibly pleased. "It were like me hair, only shorter. I don't miss it, ye see, but I hate shavin'. Ye be lucky yer a boy."

Christopher Robin seriously considered that opinion while Bluebeard, with much scorching of hair and restraining of curses, retrieved the two cups. From the boy's paper bag he pinched two miserly rations of tea. The resulting brews tasted like hot tinny water. Bluebeard downed half of his in a scorching gulp, while the boy cupped his pale hands around the hot tin and blew on his drink.

"'Ar, ye be lucky ye haven't growed up yet," Bluebeard said. "Nothin' but trouble, growin' up. Responsibilities, that's all it be, like makin' somethin' o' yerself, and defendin' yer manhood, and like 'at. Yep, many's a time I've wished I were a little boy again. Take my advice, and don't never grow up, if ye can steer around it."

Christopher Robin stared thoughtfully into his steaming cup, and asked:

"Please, Mr. Bluebeard, what is growing up?"

"Eh?"

The befuddled Bluebeard arched his thick eyebrow. Then he smacked himself, not on the mouth this time, but on the forehead.

"I plumb forgot!" he said. "I guess ye wouldn't be knowin' what growin' up is, would ye?"

"No sir," Christopher Robin said. Bluebeard studied the boy's face. "How old be ye, boy?" he asked.

Christopher Robin pulled a face and scratched his head.

"I don't really know, sir," he finally decided. "It seems I've been chased for a very long time, I'm sure."

Bluebeard grunted commiseratively.

"Ar, I'll bet it do," he said. "Ye must be from the third batch they sent out, back in '23. In my day, ye understand, they didn't involve no children nor women in this thing. 'Twere a man's game when I started out. That were in '87. I were in the first batch, seven hunnerd chased by two thousand. Bad odds, boy. Tain't many of us first batch left to run. 'Tweren't until five year ago they sent out kids. Damn craziness, what it be, usin' children as chased. Some crazy cruel People they must have now."

Bluebeard gazed thoughtfully into the hand-sized flames.

"Ever caught?" he asked abruptly. Christopher Robin bowed his head.

"Only once, nearly," he mumbled.

"Hurt?" asked Bluebeard.

The little boy held out his right hand. In the slight fireglow, it shone like wax. There was no baby finger. The skin at the knuckle had been crudely sewn up with dark thread.

Bluebeard cleared his throat several times.

"Well, tain't nothin' to be ashamed of, Master Robin," he said lightly. "I be scarred in well-nigh a dozen places, as ye can see. Ye weren't caught an' hung, that be the important thing. Just keep 'em runnin', boy, runnin' and guessin', that's what counts ..."

Christopher Robin stared into his tin cup. Bluebeard cleared his throat and stood up. He paced around the clearing, walking into and out of the surrounding gloom, muttering. He came back and sat down abruptly.

"Are ye hungry?" he asked.

Christopher Robin shook his head.

"Would ye like more tea?"

"There isn't enough, I must save it," Christopher Robin said.

Bluebeard nodded and scratched his stubbly chin. He watched a moth loop and dive into the flame. It flew right into the center of the fire with a hiss, then it flopped onto its back in the white ashes and writhed in a paroxysm of either ecstasy or torment.

"Ar, it be a tough life," he said. "Sometimes I stop, and I ask meself how it got started. 'Tweren't always chased and chasers, ye know. Not in the old days, in Scripture."

"Excuse me, Mr. Bluebeard," said Christopher Robin humbly, "but didn't the Egyptians chase the Hebrews to the Red Sea?"

Bluebeard frowned and spat into the night.

"Ye be right, boy," he conceded. "Me Scriptures have got a bit mildewed, that's the truth.

"But it weren't the same, anyhow," he continued. "In the old days, it weren't organized. People chased other People 'coz they hated 'em, or they wanted somethin' they had, or they wanted everybody to be scared of 'em. 'Tweren't good, that's fer sure, but it were real, it were honest. Ye killed somebody outtin passion, ye see, or ideals, or what they called morals.

"But this thing, this chasin' and chased, this ain't real, tain't honest People were gettin' bored, back around '87, 'cor nobody were fightin' nobody, nobody warrin' against nobody. Half the reason they began star-hoppin' in the first place was that they were hopin' to find green monsters or giants, somebody to hate. But all they found were decent, quiet folks, folks they couldn't hate or fight.

"That be how we got started, boy. People were bored, so they started this sport. It's all right, ye see, fer them to hate us. We be the bad folks, and they be the good folks. We run, they chase us. When they catch us, they shoot us and hang us in their homes. It's like fishin' or duckhuntin', and we be the fish and ducks. Ye understand?"

Christopher Robin nodded bleakly.

"Well, I'm glad ye do, 'coz I don't understand it at all," Bluebeard said, running his finger along the broken ridge of his nose. "Ar, I can understand them chasin' and hatin' me, 'coz I'm mean and ugly and they think I killed all them women. But where ye come in's what's puzzlin' me. How can they hate a little kid like you? There were two thousand sent out in yer batch, and all of 'em I hear were women and kids. That be some kind of sickness."

"Please Mr. Bluebeard," said Christopher Robin, "I think I understand."

Bluebeard cocked his eyebrow.

"The way you said it, made me think that the reason they started chasing you was that they were all bored," Christopher Robin said.

"Ar."

"Well sir, maybe after chasing you for so many years, they got bored with that too, so they started chasing little boys," Christopher Robin said.

Bluebeard looked surprised, and then some smoke got into his eyes. He coughed and spat.

"It be all right for them to chase an old pirate," he finally said, "but it be an evil worse than bein' bored that got them into chasin' children."

Christopher Robin said nothing. He was inclined to agree, and not only because little boys are easily swayed by pirates.

Bluebeard released a great chestful of breath.

"Be time to put out the fire," he said, "and get some rest."

"Yes sir," Christopher Robin said, and he began to follow Bluebeard's example of tossing dirt onto the flames. They both kneeled over the fire tossing handfuls of dirt, and the shadows fell in upon them, drawing them very close together. They were two tiny beings in a slightly larger clearing in a huge and dense forest, which in turn was a tiny corner of a large planet in an immeasurable universe ...

The fire was out. Only a little smoke crawled up into the canopy of tall trees. In the dark, Bluebeard reached out one large hand and roughly patted Christopher Robin's slender shoulder.

"The worst thing People can do is not to let kids be kids," he said hoarsely.

"Yes sir," said Christopher Robin meekly.

The dead fire exploded in a star-burst of multicolored sparks. Dirt, warm twigs, and shards of rock pelleted Bluebeard and the little boy, who were tossed onto their backs by the concussion.

"Damn!" Bluebeard shouted, rolling to his knees.

Christopher Robin sat up shakily.

"Run boy!" Bluebeard yelled.

A needle of intense scarlet light arced out of the forest and terminated on the ground three inches from Bluebeard's left knee. That spot of earth exploded, and the sparks shot into the air, and Blue-beard fell again, this time with a shout of pain.

Christopher Robin ran to the old pirate. Bluebeard's knee had been fractured, and the gleaming twisted flesh and metal jutted out through the hole in his black trousers.

"Run," Bluebeard panted, and he shoved Christopher Robin so hard that the boy flew into the thicket where he had been hiding before. Bluebeard hobbled to his feet, and limped to a bush under which he had stashed his curved sword and peaked pirate's cap and clothing. He gathered the whole bundle into his expansive arms, and dived into the underbrush just as the bush exploded into fireworks.

From the spot where the shots had been fired, two figures came into the clearing. The first was a People, crashing out of the dense thicket. He was short and very fat, and middle-aged. His cowboy suit of sky-blue velour gleamed in the light of the blasted, burning bush. A huge ten-gallon hat crushed his rosy ears, and his pants were tucked sloppily into leather boots with intricate sequined scrollwork. His porcine face was flushed and dripping with perspiration, except where it was hidden behind a black velvet mask. His concave chest was heaving, and his gunbelt was slipping down around his knees.

Behind him, a tall, red-skinned animatron strolled calmly into the clearing. The river of his black hair was held under a snakeskin band, his eyes were black coals, his mouth thin and firm. In the crook of his buck-skinned right arm he cradled a waspish rifle.

The fat little cowboy stamped his booted foot in gelatinous rage and whirled upon his towering companion.

"Dash it, Tonto," he cried in a squeaky voice, "you let them get away! That's the third bag you've missed this week. I have a good mind to have you dismantled when vacation is over."

Tonto's black eyes gazed placidly into his master's.

"Yes, Kemosabe," he said.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were letting them go on purpose," the little man continued.

"Yes, Kemosabe," Tonto intoned.

"Well, come along," the fat cowboy grumbled, and he disappeared, hiking his gunbelt and crashing into the dark woods.

The red-skinned animatron stood in the clearing. He looked at the disrupted fireplace and the smoldering bush. Then his inscrutable black eyes looked right into the harried eyes of Harry Bluebeard Trigg, and into the wide blue eyes of Christopher Robin, where each was hidden in the underbrush.

The red-skinned animatron wheeled and entered the woods, following silently in his master's crashing footsteps.