Chapter 3: Nightmare

I HAD HAIR. Lots of hair. Long beautiful blond locks like Angel’s. And I had hair under my arms. I 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.

Dreaming

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 as if it were a wig. 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 smelled alcohol on her breath. 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 I felt my soul being ripped from my body. And all my thirteen-year-old friends were laughing at me and pointing and calling me a freak. 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!” “Tranny!”

I woke up. My heart was racing and sweat poured off 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 screamed.

“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 sank to the floor and spent an hour in there before I went back 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. Once I caught myself starting to drift off in the shower, I 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. Not since meeting Dag.

No respite

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

“Deb,” Jordan 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 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 Jordan.

I opened the door. Not only Jordan, 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’re going to say. Please, don’t. “Dag passed away about two hours ago.”

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

He was sitting by himself in his chair at home. Mrs. Prior found him when she heard Maizie howling. She rushed upstairs and Maizie met her at the door. 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 Jordan wouldn’t leave after they told me. Jordan 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.

Wake

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 said she’d tried to seduce Dag at the Condo and finally suggested 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. Cinnamon opened a bottle of wine 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. “Here’s to Jeremy Brett and his girlfriend, Debbie,” she said. We raised our glasses and drank. It didn’t taste good but it tasted necessary.