Alleymanderous and Other Magical Realities Read online

  And you start falling, falling toward Earth.

  “Whose fault?” you hear in your earphones.

  “I don’t know,” you say. “Ignorance? Bad PR job? Space as entertainment? Contest? Not a glorious new frontier? Viet Nam?”

  “A pity,” says Alleymanderous, “where it could have taken—” then, surrounded by plasma, you are out of radio contact and in the searing light, you see nothing. You are glad that the suit you wear seems to have remarkable properties, like, not burning up. And somewhere, at about 10,000 feet up, your parachutes pop open. And you both land. Somewhere.

  Taking off your helmet, you are struck by how corrosive the air, how hot it is. “Alleymanderous,” you say, “Alleymanderous—where are we?”

  Alleymanderous, having landed just a few yards away, looks at some sort of readout device on his right paw. “Just a minute,” he says, then, “solar radiation is intense, no ozone, it’s one hundred fifteen degrees and we are at—” he looks at his readout, this way, that, as if trying to make sense of it, “not far from Nome, Alaska.”

  Not far away, a bright light erupts, the ground shakes, “Whoa,” says Alleymanderous, “sure looks like a bomb to me.” You dive for cover in what appears to be a bomb crater, and feel a wave of heat pass overhead. In a few minutes, you look up, around.

  “Nothing growing,” you say.

  “Yup,” says Alleymanderous, and he sits on his haunches, looking away.

  “There is still—” you gulp, “Isn’t there still—this doesn’t have to be the future,” you say, and you can’t help but hear the pleading in your voice.

  But Alleymanderous doesn’t answer.

  And you begin to feel incredibly ill.

  Alleymanderous looks to you, eyes filled with what you guess to be pity. Finally he says, “Why the dreams of what could be get so easily replaced by the nightmare of what is—” and he shakes his head. On the horizon, sudden, staccato, searing white lights and the ground shakes, shakes again, again and again...

  1:41 am

  ...the light is blinding and you think, “Oh, fuck, this is it.” Suddenly, it’s dark. In the dream you open your eyes, and you are looking out a window, with a view of a vast star field and you recognize constellations. Then you turn around; you are in a room with people you don’t recognize. Sitting beside you is a large version of Alleymanderous, remarkably human-looking but still, Alleymanderous. He wears a black shirt and woven in the fabric, little stars; they twinkle and form—constellations. You focus on Gemini and Alleymanderous, looking through glasses with small, rectangular lenses, studies you. Abruptly you realize that the lenses are just glass.

  “I know,” says Alleymanderous, “these are for looks, but first impressions are everything.”

  He then picks up a cup of coffee and you see the logo on the outside, CATBUCKS, and the image is that of a feline form with its tail going up one side of the body, around the neck and then down the other side.

  You squirm. This, you intuit, is going to be so fucking weird. You brace yourself.

  “You’re tense,” says Alleymanderous. He sucks on a straw and you get the scent of intensely sweet, vanilla flavored hot milk.

  “No shit,” you say.

  “It’s OK,” says Alleymanderous.

  “I don’t want to be here,” you say.

  “That’s true,” says Alleymanderous. He looks at you with green eyes that are strangely luminous, like two glowing spirits are sitting in the irises. You can’t take your eyes off those eyes. He continues, “But here you are.”

  “Where’s the door?” you ask.

  “There.” Alleymanderous points.

  You look up. It’s in the ceiling. Ten feet above you.

  “This won’t hurt you.”

  You keep staring at the ceiling, to the door and you say, “I’m not so sure.”

  Alleymanderous says, “That’s true.”

  “Which,” you ask, “that this won’t hurt me, or my being not so sure means that they might hurt me?”

  Alleymanderous simply stares at you with those luminous eyes and says, “This is true.”

  “What?” you ask, “What’s true?”

  “Shall we begin?” asks Alleymanderous.

  “Begin what?” you ask.

  “Examining more deeply your family of origin. That’s why you can’t get out of the dream.”

  “What’s this got to do with my family of origin?”

  “Everything.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see. After this, you might have better dreams.”

  “But it might not help me get out of this dream?”

  “Or dreams,” says Alleymanderous. He takes another long suck on the straw. You notice he wears a wrist watch around his furry wrist and you realize that the hands are going backwards. You are beginning to dread this more and more. Alleymanderous then says, “Tell me about your family. Brothers? Sisters?”

  You stare longingly at the door in the ceiling. “Sister. Kathy.”

  “Mother, father?”

  You nod.

  Then he points to the group of twenty or so individuals in the room. “Pick out people to represent your family. Without thinking, just physically move them to a place that feels right in the room.”

  “Why?” you ask. “What’s this about?”

  “Generational Field Energy. These people are going to represent your family and will show you your family dynamics.”

  You can’t help it. You start crying. “I wanna go home,” you wail.

  “This will help you.”

  You look at Alleymanderous, sitting there, with his constellation-designed shirt, those glasses and, even though his image is tear-blurred, you have to admit, in this dream, he looks distinguished. You sigh miserably. “So these people will act out the field energy of my family that I’ve internalized?”

  “That’s true,” says Alleymanderous.

  “Do you have life insurance? Medical coverage?” you ask.

  “Of course,” he replies, “also malpractice insurance. Think I’ll need it?”

  “Probably,” you reply, “especially if this is really accurate.”

  “It is,” says Alleymanderous.

  “Then you’ll need all the coverage you can get.” You then take on a “what the hell” attitude and get brave. You go to the strongest looking fellow you can find and you motion him to stand. He smiles. He’s the most not-looking-like-your-father guy there. His whole attitude is of interest, curiosity, attentiveness. You sigh internally; So unlike my father, you muse. You set him up in the center of the room. You then go toward a kindly-looking woman; her demeanor is sweet, engaging. Good choice, you think; no one could be more different from my mother. You then go for a representative of your sister. You locate someone petite, with long brown hair, who is quite lovely, and again, as different from your sister as you can imagine. You place her not far from your father. You place your mother figure next to your father.

  “Now,” says Alleymanderous, “choose someone who represents you.”

  You pick a young man, calm, pleasant; his demeanor is the exact opposite of yours right now. You set him up next to your mother. In your head, you hear the theme music of Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best.

  You turn back to Alleymanderous.

  “Through?” he asks. He takes another sip of his drink.

  You nod. You look back. The fellow who represents your father has become your father; he stands on his head, in his Metro uniform, steering wheel in hand. He moves it like he’s actually driving a bus; his feet move in the air as if braking and accelerating. “Vroom,” he says. “Vroom, vrooooom.”

  Your sister hangs by her feet from the ceiling by a chain. Her dress is over her head and she’s got on stainless steel underwear with such things as, “Come and get me, baby,” “fuck me,” “I’m yours” written all over them.

  The representative of your mother becomes your mother; she somehow stands as though anchored rigidly perpendicular
to the wall. She has her eyes closed, and is snapping her fingers like she’s listening to a rock concert in her head and you? You see yourself scrunched in a corner, sitting on the floor, with your arms wrapped around your legs, looking around as if you’re in mortal danger and have to be on guard every moment.

  Alleymanderous gets up, goes to your father and asks, “And how does the father feel?”

  He grins and yells out, “Fourth and Blanchard. Free ride zone!”

  Then, he goes to your sister. “Hello, sister,” says Alleymanderous, “what’s the sister feel?”

  “Hornier ‘n shit!” she screams.

  Alleymanderous contemplates the stainless steel underwear and says, “That’s true.”

  You watch Alleymanderous move. You don’t how he does it—you’ve never seen cats walk upright—but in this dream—you then rivet your attention on Alleymanderous going over to your mother, and part of you says, “Oh, boy, is this is going to be good.”

  “And how is the mother feeling?” asks Alleymanderous.

  “I’M FUCKING FINE,” she screeches, “JUST FUCKING FINE YOU MISERABLE EXCUSE FOR A FELINE!”

  As she says this, she continues to smile, snapping her fingers.

  “That’s true,” says Alleymanderous. Then, looking to your representative, he asks, “and how does ___ feel?”

  You notice he doesn’t have a name for you but somehow, at a time like this, you don’t give a crap. You see yourself cowering and simply saying, “I’m scared out of my fucking mind.” It comes out almost as a high pitched squeak.

  Alleymanderous looks to you and says, “Well, for this interesting family constellation, there must be a powerful ancestor who is still disturbing the field. Who’s missing?” He looks at you for a long minute. “Oh,” he says, “I know who it is—”

  “Don’t,” you say.

  “Don’t,” says your representative.

  “Oblivion and James Street,” calls out your father.

  “Someone get this God damn stainless steel underwear off me! The bolts have quarter inch heads, it unbolts from the front and you can use this 3/8ths socket wrench which I have in my hand!” yells your sister.

  “I’VE NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE!” screams your mother.

  Alleymanderous looks to you again. “The field must manifest itself. You must let all aspects of your field be represented—”

  “No!” you wail.

  “No,” says your representative.

  “NO!” yells everyone in the room in a panicked chorus.

  Alleymanderous goes over to a grandmotherly-looking woman, and has her come forward, saying, “The field must be healed.”

  Alleymanderous lets go of her; abruptly, the representative turns into your grandmother; she smokes a cigar, carries a whip in one hand, an AK-47 in the other and is dressed as a Nazi SS officer. She looks to Alleymanderous, then to you and says, “You shoulda listened! You shoulda let me remain unconscious—” and then she screams, “BUT IT’S TOO LATE NOW AND THE FIELD HAS MANIFESTED ITSELF. COVER YOUR ASSES, PUSSIES!”

  Alleymanderous, now beside you, says, “Ooops.”

  And the next thing you see is that the room has exploded in pandemonium. People are running pell mell as your Grandmother lets off a few rounds from her AK-47. Then she morphs into a black widow spider and looking at you, hisses, “I devoured your grandfather; I destroyed your father—”

  You get it.

  Abruptly the floor gives way, you’re falling though space, Alleymanderous right beside you, and he yells, “TOLD YOU THIS WORK WAS POWERFUL!”

  All you can think of to say is, “NO SHIT!”

  2:05 am

  ...you fall for a long, long time. You keep falling. Then, somehow, it’s like you hit something dense. You turn to look at Alleymanderous. He holds a mask up to his face: you recognize it’s your sister to whom you’ve always felt inferior, but you think, well, hell, it’s just a mask, and Alleymanderous is behind the mask, so you feel safe enough to ask, “Why are we slowing down?”

  “Gawd,” comes the voice of Alleymanderous, which suddenly changes and sounds exactly like your sister, “how can you be so dumb? We’ve hit invisible matter.”

  You immediately go into deep shame and you recognize, gee, you feel the same way now as you used to around your sister. You don’t know what to say.

  “I bet you don’t know what to say,” says Alleymanderous in his familiar voice.

  You don’t say anything. Instead you try real hard to admire the place through which you are falling; yellow stars burn in a deep blue background and it’s like you and Alleymanderous are feathers, just drifting.

  Alleymanderous says, “Admiring the place through which you are falling doesn’t change the fact that you don’t know what to say.”

  You turn and this time Alleymanderous is holding a mask of your father up to his face.

  You turn away again to be dazzled by a golden-hued galaxy drifting past you; you love the glowing, spiral arms.

  “Admiring a golden-hued galaxy drifting past you and loving the glowing spiral arms just distracts you from the task at hand.”

  You look at the mask of your father that Alleymanderous holds up before his face like some weird, existential all-day sucker. “Geeze,” you say, “if I say something, to whom do I talk? The mask or you, Alleymanderous, the Cat Behind The Mask?”

  “That’s the dilemma, isn’t it?” says Alleymanderous. “When we talk to people, who is it we really talk to? Who is it we’re really with?”

  “Well,” you say, “right now I’m talking to you, Alleymanderous.”

  “Fourth and Blanchard. Free ride zone. Are you sure?”

  You look at Alleymanderous; there is no mask. You see Alleymanderous, but the voice is that of your father. Same inflection, same tone, same everything.

  You close your eyes. This is a dream, you think. This is a dream. Just a very, very—

  “And who’s to say that dreams aren’t their own reality?”

  You look. Alleymanderous has another mask up in front of his face—a mask of your mother.

  You sigh.

  “Different people bring out different aspects of our personality,” says Alleymanderous. “So who are we, really?”

  “Oh, God,” you say, “if that’s true—” suddenly, you feel feverish, pouty, and, in the worst sense, childish.

  “You don’t look well,” says Alleymanderous in your mother’s voice as he floats gently down in tandem with you. “Maybe you should go to bed.”

  You feel like you are five years old. Suddenly, you get it: You not only see who you are in your mother’s eyes, but—

  “Stop,” you say in a weird, childish voice. “Just stop!”

  “OK,” says Alleymanderous. It’s quiet for a minute, and you savor the momentary peace of this falling, falling, forever falling. Falling past those blazing yellow suns, occasional slow motion bluish-white comets, ghostly glowing galaxies, and when you look to Alleymanderous again, he’s holding up a mask of—

  —you instantly turn away; you want to run, but you can’t; you want to do something but you can’t, for floating right along with you is Alleymanderous, holding up like an existential lollypop a mask of—your grandmother. You’re freaking out and you can’t believe it—she’s dead. She’s gone. She’s harmless. And you’re freaking out. It’s like your unconscious hasn’t heard the news and your memories have become reality and you again feel the hatred she had for her husband and her hatred of everything male, including your father, including...you gulp, and you want to scream. Then you really begin to lose it when you see yourself dissolving, see suns shining through your hands, your arms—the right word comes to your mind: oblivion. You see how your grandmother saw you—hating males into infinity, oblivion, hatred, hatred, never-ending hatred. You see yourself becoming even more ephemeral and yet somehow something in you awakens, fights and on some cellular level you hear the very DNA essence of your life force screaming, “It’s not me who has the problem!
It’s her!”

  Suddenly, you stop fading away; slowly you come back. You look at the face of your grandmother and you hear Alleymanderous say, “Hey, that was pretty cool.”

  You’re stunned for a moment; you’re still drifting in wherever it is you’re at, but somehow—it’s OK. You reach over to grab your grandmother’s mask away from Alleymanderous, but he says, “Ah, ah, ah. Mustn’t touch the merchandise.”

  “Listen, you feline Marquis de Sade, give me that fucking mask so I can be done with this once and for all.” You grab for it again. “Come on—let go of it!”

  Alleymanderous waves his paws about and says innocently, “I have let go of it.”

  You grab the mask by its handle but, “It won’t budge,” you say, clearly aware of the fear and frustration in your voice. So you look at the mask and knowing what you’re feeling, you watch with horror as the mask’s eyes light up, the mouth works.

  Then, you get it. “Whatever this mask brings out in me, my fear of it animates it, creates it, gives it power.”

  Abruptly the mask drops away and behind that, you see another mask, that of the wretched countenance of a man; face twisted in rage, fear, insanity. You don’t know how you know it—

  Alleymanderous just continues to drift with you, drifting, down, down, deeper, into wherever it is you are going, and finally he says, “For your grandmother to be so mean and nasty to the men she chose to have in her life, and to whom she gave birth, can only mean one thing—”

  You inwardly shudder at the implication. You look to the twisted, contorted mask behind which is the face of your grandmother’s father and you simply say, “God in heaven, why, why, why did you do it? Did you think that my grandmother, your daughter, would forget what you did? Forgive you?”