Nightmare

2:00 a.m.

I had hair. Lots of hair. Long beautiful blonde locks like Angel’s. And I had hair under my arms that I hadn’t shaved, couldn’t even imagine shaving. And hair on my legs. And on my pubes. I couldn’t help but run my fingers through it. I wanted to spend all day brushing it and shaking it back and forth like a wild animal. Long beautiful hair and it was all mine.

But I couldn’t reach my hair. My hands were tied behind my back. I was sitting naked on a straight chair and Bradley was mocking me. He reached out and jerked out a big fistful of my hair. I thought he would tear my scalp apart when he pulled it. Then he jerked out another fistful. And another. Oksamma walked up beside him and hit me. Hair fell off my head with the jolt. He hit me again. And again.

They were ripping out all my beautiful hair, and my mother was laughing. I could hear her yelling “Hey Baldy,” and smelling like alcohol. I had just one lock of hair left on my head. Everything else was bald. He reached out and took hold of the last lock of hair.

“No!” I screamed. “Don’t take my hair away. Stop! Stop!” But he yanked on it anyway. And all my thirteen year old friends were laughing at me and pointing and calling me a freak and I couldn’t wake up. There was the fright wig mother gave me with its polyester hair sticking out in clownish curls.

“Hey Bozo!” my one-time friends yelled. “Hey Bozo!” “Wake up, Baldy!” “Freak!” “Transvestite!”

I woke up. My heart was racing and sweat poured off of me. I was in a flat-out panic. I wanted to run. I was crying. Panting. I was trapped in the sheets and couldn’t get free. When I finally found my voice I yelled.

“Daddy!”

That broke it. With the word came lucidity.

Daddy was dead. Mom was dead. Bradley and Oksamma were dead. For all I knew, the nasty kids at school were dead—at least as far as I was concerned.

I untangled myself from my sheets and went back to the shower. I spent an hour in there before I went to bed and I still felt dirty. The image of Bradley’s corpse came unwillingly into my mind. 1SB41D1E. Once before I die.

Too late, Bastard.

I didn’t bother to dry myself off. Once I caught myself starting to drift off in the shower, I just turned it off and flopped on my already wet bed. I was asleep in an instant.

Damn. I haven’t had a nightmare and panic attack in months.

4:00 a.m.

Something was thudding in my head. I covered it with a pillow and demanded of myself that I go back to sleep. Then the ringing. My stupid cell phone. I struggled out of my sleep and finally got the mf thing to my ear.

“Deb,” Si Grant said in my ear. “Are you home?”

“Yeah, of course,” I answered muzzily. “Where else would I be?”

“Come to the door then. We’ve been knocking forever.” The pounding in my head. It was at the door. I looked at myself in a mirror and hastily pulled on a wig and a robe. I padded barefoot to the door and looked out the peephole to be sure it was Silas.

I opened the door. Not only Silas, but Lars. WTF? Was I busted?

“Deb,” Lars said as he came into the room. “We thought we should come in person instead of calling you.” Panic was setting in. I could feel my breath coming in gasps. Please don’t say what you are going to say. Please don’t. “Dag passed away about two hours ago.”

My whole world collapsed. Please let this be another nightmare.

Please.

10:00 a.m.

He was sitting by himself in his chair at home. Mrs. Prior found him when she heard Maizie starting to howl. She rushed upstairs and Maizie met her at the door to Dag’s apartment. Dag was sitting in his chair with his eyes wide open staring at his painting with some music by Brahms playing on his stereo. He was wearing the suit I brought him Tuesday and the lavender shirt and tie I bought for him.

All by himself, except for Maizie. Poor Maizie.

I don’t know what to do with myself. Lars and Silas wouldn’t leave after they told me. Silas went into the kitchen and fixed coffee while Lars sat on the sofa with me and held my hand while I cried. There can’t be any more tears. Dear God, please let me stop crying sometime soon.

3:00 p.m.

Teri brought some food over. Lars didn’t leave until I’d called her. I’m going to float away on all the coffee and tea I’ve had to drink. I don’t know why, but after I called Teri, I called Angel, too. She showed up about noon with Cinnamon. So here we sit, four blondes talking about the men in our lives and who we’ve lost. We all sat around crying and then laughing. Cinnamon told about trying to seduce Dag at The Condo and finally suggesting that we have a threesome. She felt a little foolish when I revealed that I was his partner and we were private investigators.

“You mean I could have had him all to myself?” she said indignantly.

“Over my dead body girl,” I snapped back.

“God please,” Angel interjected. “We’ve had enough of those.”

We agreed and Cinnamon got up and opened a bottle of wine that she brought and poured us all a glass. It’s been so long since I’ve drunk any alcohol I wasn’t going to have any, but she put glasses in each of our hands and raised hers and said, “Here’s to Jeremy Brett and his girlfriend Debbie.” We raised our glasses and drank. It didn’t taste good, but it tasted necessary.

“And don’t you ever call me Debbie again,” I said. “It was all I could do to keep from throwing you off the atrium at the Palamino the first time.”

“That’s dedication for you,” Teri said. “So into her disguise that she spared the life of someone who called her the one name she can’t stand.”

“There’s others,” I said. “But I killed the last man who called me one of those.” That set us off talking about what happened at The Condo Sunday morning. The only person I’d told anything to was Silas, and that was just the bare facts. Dag was there, so he knew what happened. It felt good to share what had happened. I mentioned getting hit and having my wig knocked off, but I glanced at Teri and omitted the fact that it left me bald.

Everyone was amazed when I told them how Dag had locked Oksamma out and then attacked Bradley. Angel told them that Davy thought Dag was a berserker when he came into the kitchen and clubbed him. He’s not used to being laid out cold in a fight. I couldn’t help but say that it served him right after he decked Dag the first night he met Angel. Angel agreed.

“He didn’t get any nookie that night, I’ll tell you,” she said. “I was furious.” She paused, then picked up her story again. “I can’t believe that Dag tracked me in Minneapolis and I never saw him. He must have been a master of disguise. I’m sure I would have recognized him if I saw him.” Well that got us off on how to pull off an effective disguise and I told them about dressing like a man and hiding in the men’s room at BKL. They really couldn’t believe that.

Angel and Cinnamon left about 4:00, but Teri is still here and is determined to stay with me for the night, so I guess I’ll let her.

11:00 p.m.

I’m finally back in bed. Teri and I stayed up watching The Graduate on TMC. She’s out on the sofa now with a blanket and a pillow. I told her to go home and she said she couldn’t. She’d get arrested. I don’t know how many bottles of wine we drank, or where they came from. I’m going to regret that in the morning.

Si called to see how I was doing, and later so did Lars. I haven’t laughed and cried so much all in one day, sometimes all at one time, ever. I really can’t have any tears left, but they seem to keep leaking out of my eyes. I should drink some more water. I’ll be dehydrated.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was totally irresponsible today, just wallowing in my own grief. Tomorrow, I’m going to have to go to the office and get ready to clear things out. I suppose that there must be people I should contact. I don’t even know where to start. I know so little about him. I never intended to get involved with him, not that I was in that way, but I ended up loving him so much. He was an anchor and a guide and I’m going to miss him.

I do miss him.

Tomorrow I’ll have to sort through papers. Si said he’d pick me up to go to the funeral home if I wanted. God please don’t let it be Johnson & Sons. There must be something that I can do. I’ll solve his last riddle for him. I’ve got three sets of numbers.

F8ed2die, 36DB00Bs. 1sB4IDie. Is it a code? What am I supposed to do with these, Dag? I don’t know what to do.

Oh, I feel sick.

In the words of Scarlett O'Hara, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”