A billowing loaf of clouds hung above the verdant, serpentine cliff as always. In red shorts, olive-green T-shirt and a reflective safety sash, Sergeant Roan Gorham pushed through the last mile of ten known as the big loop. He slowed to a stop at the gate and pulled his ID from his sock. The lance corporal at the gate looked at the ID, then at Sergeant Gorham.
“Good run, Sergeant Gore-ham?”
Gorham nodded, looked back at the green velvet cliffs, then exhaled out words between deep breaths. “Gore-um. Can’t beat the scenery – humidity takes some – getting used to.”
The lance corporal waved Gorham through the gate. Gorham stretched to longer, faster strides on the two-lane blacktop road of Marine Corps Base Hawaii. As the sun fell behind the cloudbank above the cliffs and his shadow faded into the uniform dim of twilight, he turned into the enlisted quarters parking area to take a long shower before grabbing a decent plateful at the chow hall.
Chow was the usual: plenty of quantity with rare nuggets of quality. The prospect for social contact was much more appetizing than the food; it was Gorham’s chance to get the latest scuttlebutt and meet people. Gorham surveyed the room and sighed at the scarcity of women Marines—even an infantry base should have a few WMs around. Now a sergeant, he was above the crowd of the junior enlisted grunts. Seniors expected him to be a leader. Dating on a one-shot basis was passé; only someone of wife material would be worth his time.
He said a “hey” here, made a wave there to some familiar faces from his platoon. He ate with them, traded burnished stories of conquests and wounds in battle and in bed, then returned to his quarters and opened his laptop. After euthanizing a couple of hours skimming the internet, Gorham rolled into his bed and set his alarm for 0515 to be ready for the squad run at 0530. He pulled up the sheet and read an old sports magazine the room’s previous occupant had left behind. At 2300, his gaze and hands shaky with drowsiness, he clicked off the light and let the magazine fall to the floor. At 2303, the first deep breaths of sleep filled Gorham’s chest.
Wife material. You could tell by looking at her. Brilliant smile, startling green eyes. She had the charm, the timeless sort of presence that Gorham had never found on date after futile date. Gorham moved closer, then introduced himself. She took his hand. The chemistry of her palm on his rushed through his body, weakening knees that had not wavered in combat or marathons. He felt her fingers slip from his as their handclasp drifted apart. No ring on that hand. He looked at her left; no ring there either.
She turned to walk away.
“Wait,” he said, “I didn’t catch your name.”
She turned back. Her lips moved. Gorham struggled to hear. She gave him that smile again.
Gorham nodded politely as if he’d heard. Had the years of infantry life taken its toll on his hearing? He smiled back as she turned away again. Her name, dammit, what’s her name?
“Can I call you?” he asked.
The woman ignored him, walking into the distance.
“Have a boyfriend?” he asked.
She walked on. Not so fast, he thought. He ran to her, touched her shoulder.
She turned again. “You know my name.”
The buzz of the alarm clock invaded the dream, seizing Gorham, shaking him awake.
0515. Gorham pushed the snooze button, desperate to resume the dream.
“Where are you?” he asked aloud.
Eyes closed, he struggled to return to sleep. 0516. 0517.
Moaning his disgust, Gorham rolled out of bed. He had no need for a comb or brush—his high-and-tight left too little hair for any to be out of place. Walking to the bathroom, he closed his eyes, trying to recall her engaging, radiant look.
***
Five nights later, Gorham’s chest reverberated with the beat of club music. Gorham paid for Sergeant Caudle’s cover charge, payment for the ride from the base into Honolulu. Over the thudding drumbeats, he said “Gonna scan,” and left Caudle at the bar.
From behind him, Caudle’s shouted response, “Sure, man,” barely breached the pulsing din to reach Gorham’s ears. Gorham searched through the crowd but found no targets of interest. After Caudle left the bar to prowl, Gorham docked back at the bar and ordered a drink.
Gorham’s eyes locked with every female set he could find in the club. He would recognize her…would she recognize him? His gaze was bold, invasive. He didn’t care. The right set of eyes would know why he looked that way. If his eyes were not met by her eyes, those special green eyes, there was no point in looking further. Some eyes were pretty, some plain, some laden with makeup to the point he couldn’t tell. None were the special set he hungered to have reflecting his gaze.
Caudle approached the bar shouting back and forth with a Polynesian “would” chick. Caudle noticed Gorham and nodded; Gorham returned the gesture with a thumbs-up. Gorham kept scanning: a couple of woulds, several would-nots and a slew of in-betweens that in previous nightclub excursions or with more alcohol on board would have been woulds. Gorham corrected himself. There weren’t any “woulds” anymore. There was only the singular…the one in his dreams. How many times had he seen her? Four nights? Five! The dream memories faded so quickly on awakening that Gorham could not separate the memories of one dream from another. His excitement about being in the nightclub vanished faster than his drink, now only whiskey-tinted ice.
Gorham met two glances in the mutual-interest-checkout way, but didn’t see the green eyes, the smile, the blond hair he needed to see. Even her hands would be a giveaway if he ever saw them in real life. Gorham paid for another drink, then posted himself on a barstool, a spectator of Caudle’s sport.
What if I’m in the wrong club? The wrong time? What if she’s a night owl and doesn’t get to partying until midnight? Gorham found himself staring at a cascade of a curls, brownish-blond in the dark strobe-speckled cacophony of disco lighting. His heart pulsed faster. The height, the curves checked out. It could be her. It had to be her. His heart beat harder, sending its pulse into his neck and head. A matter of destiny—the essence of dreams. Gorham touched her shoulder. She turned from her friends to Gorham. Her face was wrong, all wrong. Too long, sad-looking, gaunt, too much makeup. Her lips curled in a pouty frown under a nose that just wasn’t right. Retro-rockets!
“Um, sorry, I thought, I thought you were someone I knew. Know. ‘Scuse me.” Gorham turned aside and walked away, leaving his drink at the bar. Tinny words came after him through the musical din. He pretended not to hear. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. How could he explain? Gorham sifted through the crowd hunting for Caudle, then went outside.
Caudle and his car were gone. Gorham would have to improvise to get back to the base. If he didn’t find a ride back or find the shuttle bus, he’d have to take a pricey taxi ride. He looked for other Marines, hoping to find a relatively sober driver with room for one more. It was still early, though and Gorham concluded nobody would be heading back to K-Bay for at least a couple of hours. By then, Caudle might show up to go for one of his trademark double-headers.
Oahu’s classic fragrances of plumeria and ginger mingled with wafts of cigar smoke and beer to proclaim the ambiance of Waikiki nightlife. Gorham chafed, not wanting to loiter but unwilling to fork over the cash for a solo taxi ride. Wandering down Kalakaua Avenue, he looked into an ice cream shop. What the hell. He entered and squeezed past the customers in line to tour the flavors available. He wanted something that would last a long time, so he ordered one he didn’t like: pistachio. “Two scoops in a bowl, no toppings.”
The service was quick and the scoops enormous. Gorham paid the server and looked for a seat. The only empty place was at a four-top by the door where a short-haired chick sat by herself loving an ice cream cone.
“They’re a little short on seats here,” said Gorham. “Wouldja mind?”
She sighed, “Free country.”
Gorham sat down diagonally opposite her. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” she replied between licks. “Might as well. I’m almost done.”
“You here by yourself?”
She looked left, then right. Her look said “Duh.” After another lick, she said “You didn’t see Daphne and Shaggy here? And you sat on poor Scooby.”
Gorham mixed an apologetic smile with an eye-roll. “So what brings you downtown?”
“Ice cream, what else? The Times Market was sold out, so I spent an hour looking for a parking place just so I could have some ice cream. And some peace and quiet.”
Gorham snorted a little laugh. “If it’s peace and quiet you want, I’ll go eat my ice cream on the street…but it still won’t be peaceful or quiet in here. I didn’t come here for ice cream either.”
The young woman’s appearance softened, her eyes brightened. “Sorry. We were in a club all of ten minutes before my girlfriends were snogging with two guys they knew and I was a fifth wheel. So I made my exit. Welcome to ‘stage left.’ You in the Army?”
“Army? No.”
“Oh. Guys get their hair cut so short these days, I can’t tell anymore. Doesn’t matter.”
“Marine Corps. Kaneohe Bay.”
“Must be new here.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’re pale. You can’t be in Hawaii long and not get at least a little sun.”
“Yeah. Not much where I came from.”
“Where?”
“Norway. Embassy security. I’m Roan, by the way.”
“Roan? R-O-A-N? Your parents horse people?”
“No, my father’s name, and my grandfather’s. I’m Roan-the-third. They’re over there in Punchbowl—killed in Korea and Beirut. My mom comes here every few years to see them. I was there once as a kid—it’s way too depressing to ever go back. Anyway, maybe my great grandparents were horse people. I dunno. Kind of odd to be named a color. What’s your name?”
“Violet.”
“You kidding?”
“No. I hate it. I use my middle name. Besides, roan isn’t a color. It’s a kind of color. Gray mixed with anything. Grayish-tan, grayish-brown, black, whatever.”
Gorham’s returned the “Duh” look she’d given him. “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s my name, after all. Not many people care to go into the details. What’s your middle name?”
“Hannah. I hate it too. Not as much.”
“Nice to meet you…Hannah.” Gorham held out his hand. Hannah took it in a quick and awkward shake. She wrapped the uneaten part of her ice cream cone in a napkin.
She stood. “I can’t finish this.”
Gorham looked under the table.
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing. Wondered if you were standing or kneeling on the bench or what. You got shorter when you stood up.”
“So I’m short. What of it?”
“Nothing. Hadn’t noticed—I was surprised, that’s all.”
“I’m full of surprises.” Hannah stuffed her napkin-wrapped cone into Gorham’s ice cream bowl. She turned and rushed out the door.
Gorham stared at the ice cream a moment, then picked it up and dumped it in the trashcan. He considered finding Hannah and apologizing. Not worth the time. Kinda cute, but she has the wrong eyes, wrong hair and wrong hands. She’s not the one and she’s way too short. How tall was the dream girl? A little shorter than him, not much. Maybe five-nine, five-ten. Hannah might be five-two in heels.
Gorham wandered back down Kalakaua. He hailed a taxi and directed the driver to take him back to the base. Passing through the Pali tunnel, Gorham felt a little sleepy. “At least,” he consoled himself, “if I sleep, I can see her. What’s her name? What does she look like? An Ann? Barbara? Carol? Debbie? Ellen?”
Gorham worked his way through the alphabet, skipping Q because he couldn’t think of any Q names. Sharon, Theresa, Ursula, Valerie. Valerie? Maybe Valerie. She seems kinda like a Valerie. Definitely not a Wendy, Xaviera, Yvonne, or Zoe. Yvonne. Hah! Certainly not Yvonne-the-hell-bitch of a wasted senior year. Valerie, then—it must be Valerie. Gorham gazed over the lights of Kailua and Kaneohe as the taxi coasted down the highway on the windward side of the cliffs. Beyond the lights, the dark horizon of the Pacific Ocean melted into the night sky.
Gorham paid the driver at the gate and walked to his quarters. Rushing himself to bed, he brushed his teeth, stripped to his underwear, then dove under the covers. Sleep did not come. Valerie remained far away while Gorham’s excitement at seeing her kept him awake. After trying to get to sleep for half an hour, Gorham got out of bed and searched through his cabinets. Somewhere in his stuff he had some fenadryl pills from a drugstore and a few tablets of zolamax a friend had given him to help pass the time on the flight from Norway.
Aha! He found the fenadryl in his shaving kit. He took two and went back to bed. Whether it was the fenadryl or the passage of another half hour he would not know, but he fell asleep at last. The consistency of Gorham’s Valerie dreams allowed him to guide the dreams to some extent, and he immediately maneuvered this one to Valerie.
“Hello, my love,” she said, smiling.
“Hello,” replied Gorham. He refrained from calling her Valerie—what if he had guessed wrong?
He approached her. Her shimmering robe glowed with blue iridescence. The matching nightgown under it reached only to mid-thigh. He embraced her; she hugged him back. Her warmth was comforting and fulfilling. He leaned to kiss her. His lips touched only her cheek, and his efforts to touch her lips with his yielded only awkward kisses to her hair, to her shoulder, to her forehead. Her lips retained their magic ambivalence, simultaneously beckoning his touch but never accepting it.
“You see that?” she asked, pointing behind him.
He looked. A flash of silvery-white, then nothing. “See what?”
“Look again. It’s the cord to your world. It connects you to it.”
Gorham spun quickly. Behind him, turning as he turned, was the something she described. He spun round and round, a dog chasing its tail, trying to get one good look at the thing.
Valerie let out a little laugh. “When you sleep, a layer of your world is pushed into dreamland. It wraps around you so tightly you cannot see it, but where it twists behind you, it forms a cord. When you awaken, the twisted layer is drawn tight, pulling you from dreamland.”
Gorham was mystified. “But we touch…don’t you feel it?”
“I do. Still, the layer is there. Here, let’s sit.” She motioned to a wicker settee on a sun-dappled porch. Gorham took a seat next to Valerie and spent an unending moment studying her eyes. What was it that set them apart from the hundreds he’d seen at the club? Deep green, sharply focused with energy and clarity—beautiful, strong, intelligent eyes, unwavering as they looked into his. Perhaps, he thought, it was how Valerie looked at him. She showed no uncertainty, no hesitation when she looked at him. It was a look of confidence, of comfort, of depth beyond reckoning.
They talked of many things. Of Roan’s experiences in the Marines. The hard days moving up from private to corporal in time for combat in Afghanistan, then being selected for embassy duty. They talked of Valerie’s past, too. Gorham understood her words perfectly, yet they left no impression on his memory. As meaningful as each sentence felt, he could not remember from one sentence to the next what she’d said before.
The conversation returned to embassy duty. Norway was so cool, he said. He’d grown fond of the people, had learned some of the language. He dated a bit but never felt connected. Not like this.
The conversation went on and on, punctuated by laughs, smiles and enveloping, comforting warmth. Gorham awakened, angry at his buzzing alarm, but enriched and recharged by the dreamtime with Valerie.
After the morning run and formation, Gorham asked his platoon corpsman for directions to the aid station. Gorham checked himself into sick call and was seen first by a corpsman, Beale, who referred him to the doctor. Gorham waited in the passageway counting cinderblocks in the wall until the doctor called him into his spartan office.
“Sergeant Gorham,” drawled the doctor. You’ve got the skinniest medical record I’ve seen in a while.”
“First time in sick call ever, sir.”
“Have a seat,” said the doctor, pointing to a rickety exam table. “Petty Officer Beale noted here that you came in for trouble sleeping. What’s up?”
“I’ve been here six weeks, plenty of time to get over jet lag, and I just can’t get to sleep. I awaken tired. I yawn all day.”
“Do you take naps?”
“I did, at first. I thought it might be a bad cycle, so I stopped. It’s been a couple of weeks now, and it hasn’t helped.”
“What hours do you usually sleep?”
“I get to sleep about one, one-thirty. Then I’m up by oh-five hundred most days. Weekends, I’m up by oh-six at the latest.”
“Only about four hours a night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything on your mind keeping you awake? Trouble with your job? Financial stuff? Spouse or girlfriend troubles? Noise in your quarters?”
“No, sir. I think about all sorts of things, but it’s not any one thing. My mind races when I should be settling down. There’s noise, but it’s quarters, you know? Never bothered me before.”
“Keeping up in PT?”
“Yes, sir, I keep up. Run my squad PT and the big loop about three or four times a week.”
“KT?” asked the doctor.
“Yes, sir, we run up KT at least a couple of times a week. I got winded the first couple of times. Not since then.”
“Well if you can run up KT and not get winded then all systems must be pretty much ‘go.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“Something may be bugging you more than you give it credit for. Give it some thought. If there are problems, don’t pretend that everything’s fine when it’s not. For now, I’ll write a prescription for sleeping pills. Try to get to sleep without it first, but if you’re still awake after thirty minutes, take one, but not with alcohol. No naps, no coffee, no cokes or those energy drinks—not even the little shots. If it doesn’t get better, come back and see me. Oh—any allergies?”
“Just needles, sir.”
The doctor laughed. “That won’t be a problem then. Carry on.”
Gorham stepped out of the Aid Station. Petty Officer Beale gave him a nod. Gorham walked to him, then kept walking as Beale turned and led him toward the parking lot.
“The stuff the doc gave ya’s just fluff. Your best bet’s a roach.”
“Roach?” whispered Gorham.
The corpsman nodded. “You know, roofies. Good stuff for a little attitude adjustment. ‘Specially to adjust your girlfriend’s attitude, know what I mean?”
Gorham nodded. “No girlfriend.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” said Beale. “With a roach you take your pick. Got some in my car. Got twenty bucks on ya?”
Gorham nodded. “I don’t need the girlfriend help. Will they help me sleep?”
Beale nodded and smiled. “Oh yeah. For sure, my friend, for sure.”
They reached Beale’s glossy new Corvette. Beale insisted that they sit in it for a minute so Gorham could experience the tactile thud of its sound system. After the car’s speakers pounded his insides for a minute, Gorham exchanged his money for a two-pill blister pack. He buttoned the pack in a breast pocket, thanked Beale, and left the parking lot to find the pharmacy.
***
After picking up the prescription, the rest of the day had dragged past in slow motion. Gorham idled away an hour and a half at evening chow, then fidgeted away two hours watching a movie in the base theater. It was only 2100, but with a little help he could get to sleep and have a long night with no morning alarm cutting off his time with Valerie. He walked into his quarters building, said a quick hello to a few Marines, then bounded up the stairs to his room.
Tonight was gonna be good. He grabbed a bottle of tequila from the mini-fridge and looked at his options. He’d bought more fenadryl from the PX and had the sleeping pills from the doc, three tablets of zolamax and the two roach pills.
Gorham looked for a cup or glass for the tequila. He didn’t have one in easy reach, so he drank from the bottle. How much was that? Maybe half a shot. Another makes one full shot. And another, that’s one and a half. Gorham let the burn in his throat subside before taking another swig. That’s one and a half. Two should do the trick. He drank another gulp, then took two of the sleeping pills with a drink of tequila, then two of the zolamax. Two fenadryl. Two more shots. Two is the magic number for lovers, after all. Only one roach, though. Wait—if one puts a chick out, two’ll be okay for a guy my size. Gorham went to the bathroom, let his uniform fall to the floor, then went to bed. With his head already buzzing, he kicked off his shoes and waited for a long, Valerie-filled sleep.
The combination of genuine fatigue and drugs took Gorham quickly to dreamland. His clothing was different: Marine Corps dress blues, saber and all. Maybe that meant Valerie would be dressed to the max, too. Gorham pulled the saber from its scabbard. Isn’t a saber only for staff sergeants and up? The jacket’s high “leatherneck” collar was supposed to protect from saber cuts, so the uniform should have a saber, right? Doesn’t matter, Gorham concluded. If I don’t know, Valerie won’t know, nor will she care. It’s dreamland, not the Commandant’s change of command. Looks sharp, anyway. He sheathed the sword.
Gorham looked for Valerie, turning this way and that. He caught a glimpse of the cord behind him, silvery-white in the corner of his eye. He turned to touch it, pivoting as quickly as he could. After a few tries, he caught it, then pulled himself around on it so he could see it better. Closer inspection of the cord gave no more hint of substance or structure; it had the same smooth, shiny gray look up close as it did far away. He felt its substance in his hands, but the cord had no texture or weight. He let go of it. It drifted behind him, out of his view.
Valerie walked toward him.
“Hello, my love,” she said. “You look great in your uniform.”
“You look splendid as well,” said Gorham. “Will you join me for dinner?”
“Of course,” she said with a hug. She kissed his cheek.
Gorham imagined a restaurant setting and waited a moment for it to take shape in his dream. He took Valerie’s hand and escorted her to her chair. They sat, ate and talked. The candlelit ambience was perfect, the food superb and Valerie beyond radiant, a shining mélange of angelic beauty and irresistible sensual allure. Tonight, thought Gorham, it has to happen tonight, but no rush, not with all the time in the world.
Gorham listened for music. He heard none at first, then a lilting hybrid of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Costello met his ears. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. He’d have to listen to more romantic music while awake to bring something better with him to dreamland.
He invited her to dance; she accepted. He held her closely, feeling the soft cushioning of her breasts against his chest. Her lips were millimeters from his; her breath brushed across his neck. He turned to kiss her. She did not pull away, did not even move. Still, his lips missed their target and kissed her cheek instead. He backed away from her, his face flushed with anger and frustration.
“What’s wrong?” asked Valerie.
“It’s the damned cord! It keeps messing me up.”
“Your dancing is fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s keeping me from being me. Holding me back.”
“No,” she said, “It must be me.”
“How could it be you? There’s nothing wrong with you! It’s the cord!” Gorham drew his saber and held it high.
His eyes met Valerie’s.
“No!” she shouted.
“I can be with you forever!” He jerked into a spin to his left and brought the saber flashing down on the cord. The cord offered no resistance; the blade passed through it. Gorham lifted the saber again, feeling like he’d missed hitting a nail with a hammer. He felt hopeless, futile, impotent.
He turned to Valerie and threw the saber aside. Her eyes, glistening with tears, focused not on his eyes, but on something behind him.
Gorham turned to look. The cord had separated from him. The free end bobbed in space, slowly unraveling, revealing at its loose end an expanding, writhing black blob of nothingness. Gorham moved closer to Valerie, reaching for her. She reached for him.
The looming black cavity at the end of the cord snapped him from her grasp. The monstrous pull stretched him, pulling at every ligament of his joints. He struggled to hold on to the substance of dreamland.
His last desperate grasp for Valerie’s hands came up empty. Her expression, full of horror, receded into the distant mist.
“Valerie!”
“Valerie?” he repeated to the fog around him.
The gray darkened to black. The nothingness absorbed Gorham and pulled his dreamland substance apart until he was diluted into nothingness.
***
Away from the glaring brilliance of the sunlit memorial building in the Punchbowl Military Cemetery, a white awning ruffled in the breeze. Beside it, one of the plots in the officially closed cemetery had been dug open.
“Sergeant Roan Gorham!” called the first sergeant. “Sergeant Roan Marcus Gorham the Third!” The third and final call was answered by a rifle volley and the mournful tones of the bugle.
Following Taps, the Marine pallbearers folded the flag draped across Sergeant Gorham’s coffin into a blue triangle. Sergeant Caudle, nameless among the pallbearers, carried the flag to a woman in the front row of chairs under the awning.
Sergeant Caudle sniffled and let his hands touch hers as he handed her the flag. She couldn’t know what happened. He’d been a friend ‘til the end, and even after. He made the tequila and the pills disappear. The coroner found the traces, but the source remained a mystery—a tainted drink in Waikiki, an accident.
Caudle’s eyes locked with the woman’s watery eyes, framed by tear-moistened wisps of gray-blond hair. The woman flicked her gaze away from Caudle’s eyes toward the hole in the earth that had swallowed her husband and would soon receive her son.
Caudle backed away. The woman looked down. Tears raining from her green eyes pelted the star-spangled nightmare she held in her lap.