IV. 21 and Done

I took a nice long drag on my cigarette and exhaled it over the top of my coffee mug so I couldn't tell the smoke from the steam. I looked at my wrists again, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming as I thought about the dream I had just finished doing. I say doing instead of having because it's a more accurate description. After all, the point of language is to, as close as is possible, describe things that you can't point a finger at and say "That's what I mean." Language does the best it can at this despite being used mostly by people.

Before I lulled myself into an internal debate about the differences between language and communication, I pulled a beat-up leather-bound journal from underneath the pile of last week's mail. I had bought it years ago with the intention of keeping a daily journal of my thoughts and activities but got distracted from writing them down by the nature of my daily thoughts and activities. I fished a pen out of the pocket of the shirt I slept in and clicked it three times even though once would have been plenty.

I wrote my dream down as best as I could, but it was literally leaving me like a dream upon waking. Some cliches are here for a reason, I suppose. Like most weird dreams, this one left me with an odd feeling. It was a new feeling, too. Somewhere between an itch I couldn't scratch and the pain I get in the middle of my head  when trying to recall something from the tip of my tongue. Once something gets to the tip of your tongue, it's often too late to recall it. Best to let it go. That's just my personal policy on the issue, not that anyone was asking.

As soon as my pen finished with the notebook my doorbell rang. It had to be Sam. I knew I was right before I got up to answer the door because Sam yelled "Hey T.J., you up? " It was a fair enough question given my sleeping and dreaming habits.

"Just a minute," I said while getting up to answer the door.

I opened the door and greeted Sam, "Why didn't you use your key this time?"

"That's rude," He said. "Why don't you invite me in?"

"Did you become a vampire recently?"

"Not yet, but you never know. When do we have to be on the case?"

I looked at my wrist and sighed with relief that I wasn't wearing a watch. Then I asked Sam, "Depends, what time is it?"

"It's 11:45."

"We have about an hour or so. It's about a half hour's ride."

"Time for coffee?"

"It's waiting inside. Already in mugs."

Sam pulled two tiny bottles of rum from his pocket and dressed his face in a grin. I stood aside and allowed him to enter. Sam could make a great rummed up coffee if you'd let him, which I usually did.

"Nice coffee," I said in a complimentary manner.

"Thanks, the trick's in how you pour the rum," he confirmed.

"Thought so, tastes sorta counterclockwise. Hey- by any chance do you have some concrete?"

"Unmixed or mixed?"

"First one, then the other," I said. "Vampires usually dig holes. Good chance we might need to fill one up while on the case today."

"Yeah, I picked some up on the way over. I don't need to be told about vampires," Sam said stating the obvious. "But I do need to ask a few questions about that dream you did last night."

How Sam always knew about my dreams was beyond me. He routinely surprised me with how much he knew about me that he shouldn't. It takes more than someone knowing stuff about me that they shouldn't to spook me, but it was exactly all it took to make me slightly unsettled. Given the string of recent events, slightly unsettled wasn't enough to become unhinged so I was able to maintain my demeanor of acting settled with relative ease.

"Don't know what to make of it yet. Why do you ask?" I asked.

"We'll get to why in a bit. First I need to know if there was a woman in a blue dress in it?"

"Not that I recall," I confessed. "There was a bunch of other stuff though…"

"Yeah, yeah. The midget with the door, dealing with your psychological residue from the mummy stuff,  the weird kids, our case today…got all that. Just need to know about the skirt in the blue dress."

"I got nothing."

"Fair enough. Musta not happened yet," he said while he sipped his rummed up coffee in a manner which suggested we should change subjects.

"Should be pretty straightforward," I said.

"What should?"

"Today's case at the law firm. Vampires are pretty easy. We should be done well before 2."

"That's good," Sam said, lighting one of my cigarettes. That's what I get for leaving them out on the table in plain sight. "Afterwards we should stop by my new bar and have a drink in it. Unless you need to see your crypto-epidemiologist or something."

"Nah, I got time. Only thing I have to do is check in with my street urchins, been wrapped up in my own bullshit for a few weeks, need to get my ear back to the ground."

"I hear ya."

"That's what ears do. When did the new bar get finished?"

Sam used to own a bar, but we burnt it down to get rid of a mummy that had stopped by to offer me a job. He had some kind of weird clause in his insurance policy that paid him double if his bar was destroyed by mummies or mummy related activity. I was pretty excited to see the new joint as I really enjoyed the atmosphere of a good bar and Sam's bar had the best atmosphere. At least to me, but everyone is different.

"It's not ready to be open all the way yet, just enough for us. What do you need to do about the street urchins?"

"Not much, sitting in your bar and waiting should do the trick," I replied over the rim of my coffee mug.

"That's good. If we do it right, that's all you'll be able to do anyway."

We finished our coffee and went and found a cab. It wasn't too difficult a feat, which was nice. Cab rides are usually pleasant. Even when they aren't, they tend to be effective. That is to say, you end up where you wanted to be at the end of them more often than not. They're a lot like elevators in that sense.

The non-dream trip to the vampire plagued law firm went almost exactly like the dream version except:  Solitol isn't real, we had some concrete with us this time- so we filled in the vampire hole instead of flying off on a motorcycle, and I got a check from Ms. Rhombus that day, instead of it being mailed. Also, Sam didn't pilfer anything from the basement this time. Aside from those differences, it was exactly the same as it was in my dream. I checked the writing on the door as we left to see if I could read it this time. I could, no problem.

"Well, that settles it," I said while we stood outside smoking and waiting for a cab.

"Settles what?" Sam asked.

"Settles whether or not I'm awake this time. Dreaming is getting to me."

"Think it'll settle down after last night's? Seems like you got a lot of psychological hash settled."

"Psychological hash accounts for less than 5 percent of my dream plots."

"What's the rest? That number sounds low," Sam raised a suspicious eyebrow as he inhaled his cigar. "Wait, you talking about settled or unsettled hash? I can see a low percentage of settled hash being used as dream fodder. What's the point of turning it inside out making it all weird if it's already been settled?"

"Combined settled and unsettled hash. Most of my dreams aren't even dreams, you know that. I get visitors, there's time travel, inter-dimensional shifts, all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with me or resting," I squeezed out through a yawn.