Lion's Lair - 14. Nightmares

Flames are everywhere, and there’s no one in the Humvee but me. I know it’s about to explode. Big and small explosions are all around—maybe targeting the Humvees behind us. Somehow manage to get the door open, and fall onto the ground with my rifle’s strap around my neck. Can’t stand; why aren’t my legs working? Shots in the sand near my head tell me I can’t stay here. Moving toward the back of the Humvee, gotta use hands and elbows to grab at the sand.

Grab the collar of the guy who was behind me with one hand, dragging him to the back of the vehicle, wrestling his body and mine at once. He’s not moving, just moaning. At least he’s protected from the gunfire here near the back tire. If the Humvee explodes, well ….

Cries of “Medic, Medic” come from men all around. Guys at the back of the convoy are returning fire, but they’re too far away. Pull up, prop myself up with my chest against the driver’s side back bumper and look around. The other guy in the Humvee is lying on the sand, only the movements of his fingers tell me he’s still alive. Pull him back behind the vehicle with me, with the “twacks” in the sand telling me I’m fuckin’ lucky and they’re fucking lousy shots. I can’t get to Sammy, the driver, damnit.

I spot three different snipers, one inside the ground floor window in a nearby building. Another on the roof maybe a hundred yards away to my left. Another on the roof maybe a hundred twenty yards dead ahead where the road bends. Manage to pop off a few shots, and they’re done.

Why aren’t my legs working? Why am I so light headed? Still need to get Sammy ….

There’s an explosion behind me. Mortar took out the third Humvee in our convoy, men on the ground everywhere. Can see where the shot came from, but can’t get a clear shot into the bunker of sand they’ve dug. Start crawling with my hands toward it—I’ve got a couple of grenades on my vest, time to use ‘em. There’s more “twacks” in the sand around me. Keep going.

Pull the pin, lob it in.

The world goes black.

I’m lying in bed by Clayton, his hand on my chest. Soaking wet with sweat. Look at the clock, it’s 3:33am.

At least I didn’t wake him up.

Never had that dream before. Where’d that come from?

Pull myself out of the bed into my chair. Fuck getting dressed, I need a smoke. Head out to the breezeway outside the living room to cool off. The first drag almost instantly helps me relax.

Really looking forward to the 4^th of July. Since it’s on Monday, everything is going to be closed, including the bar. Clayton thought it’d be fun to have a group in that afternoon, throw some burgers on the grill at the “screen porch” down by his pier and the lake. Folks can swim, relax with a few drinks, and then later, we’re all trooping to the subdivision’s dock—the same one where Clayton and I watched the meteor shower—and we’ll watch the town’s fireworks that are being fired from a barge they’re towing into the lake. “We can’t see the fireworks from here, there are too many trees,” Clayton explains.

So it’ll be a good group; Joe and Rex, Jenay and Dixie in one of their last appearances before the baby arrives next week, Dave and Barry, and a variety of others. Probably 30 or so people here. It’ll be fun. Maybe the start to building more friends.

Clayton and I had talked about heading into New Orleans to watch the fireworks there tonight, but neither one of us really wanted to battle the crowds on a Saturday night there. Like here, everyone’s going to be partying, the bars will be packed, parking won’t exist … and, well, I’m really enjoying the cuddle time with Clayton tonight. Just hate waking up this early.

Rather than slow down everyone from going into New Orleans to see the fireworks, Barry moved the regularly-scheduled drag show at the bar to Sunday night. He’s doing a crawfish boil at the bar early in the evening, then the drag show, so he’s going to be busy as hell. He’s got a new guy that’s going to be helping out behind the bar since Bryant is on vacation, but he knows the workload is on him, not the new guy.

So we’ll spend the bulk of Sunday here, relaxing, maybe getting in a mid-afternoon nap, then head to the bar. Nothing big.

Actually, I’m glad to have a couple of days off. The last few weeks have been nuts, with both Clayton and me running like demons. Physically, I can use the time off—the workouts at the therapist, plus the extra time I’m putting in at the gym have been kicking my ass. Clayton’s been concerned, but hasn’t said anything.

Probably the worst was one night after a particularly grueling schedule on my temp legs, I came to Clayton’s for dinner, kicked back with a beer in hand—and went to sleep while Clayton was broiling salmon for dinner. Didn’t spill the beer, but it was embarrassing to have Clayton wake me up for dinner.

He felt badly about it—he came up behind me in one of the club chairs, and grabbed me around the neck in a hug, not knowing I was asleep. Hell, I was out in less than 15 minutes from my arrival there, and slept for ten minutes or so while the fish cooked. But it was worth it; I walked the full length of the parallel bars that day, maybe forty feet or so, without holding onto the bars.

Didn’t tell Clayton any of that. One day, I’m gonna surprise him, and just walk in with my new legs.

And, maybe that time will be soon. I’ve got a doc’s appointment on the 7^th to see about the bone spurs. If it takes surgery again, we’ll do it. Just gotta look at it as a minor “work around”.

It’s nice out here. There’s a breeze coming off the lake, a quarter moon overhead, the sound of waves from the lake lapping against the shore, even an occasional bullfrog croaking. A distant owl hoots a low call. It’s all a little surreal, totally different from Nebraska, yet the sights and sounds are comfortable. Just like being here with Clayton. It’s just a natural fit ….

I wake up a little disoriented—where am I?—and my face and shoulders are a little chilled, while the rest of me is warm. Look down, there’s doubled-up sheet lying on top of my torso and nubs, gently tucked in at the edges. Guess I drifted off to sleep here on the breezeway, and Clayton found me out here, covered me up. Even though it’s July outside New Orleans, it’s still a cool morning.

Clayton’s taking care of me.

I move the sheet, wheel around, and roll into the house. “Good morning,” Clayton calls from the kitchen, “coffee is almost ready.” He’s in a pair of gym shorts, barefoot, shirtless, just waking up himself.

“What time is it?”

“It’s 7:20am. I know sleeping in the chair isn’t all that comfortable, but I didn’t want to risk getting you back to bed only for you to realize you were wide awake. I found you out there around 4am or so, took the sheet out, then went back to bed.”

Roll away to piss, pull on a pair of shorts, back out, coffee’s ready. “Did you sleep ok? I never heard you get out of bed.” Clayton’s casually listening for my response as he passes me a mug of coffee.

Do I tell him about my dreams?

Honesty is the best policy.

Fill him in on it, he lets me cover it in just a few sentences.

“Ok, Ryan, is this the first dream? Do you have them often? I know you’re stressed out with the job, and working to get your legs, and maybe surgery, is that a factor—the stress? What can I do to help?” Clayton’s not alarmed, but he’s obviously concerned. “Maybe we’re trying to do too much, would you feel better if we cancel the cookout tomorrow and just hang out here, or go wherever you want to go?”

“Clayton, relax, it’s really ok. I do have the dreams occasionally, maybe once a month or every six weeks or so. Figure it’s just my brain trying to work past some of the shit in my past. It’s really ok, and I’m not having flashbacks or PTSD or other shit, and it doesn’t seem to be related to stress. In fact, I think it’s because I’m so comfortable with you and with us, it lets my brain let go. And no, we’re not cancelling the cookout tomorrow. I’m fine. We’ll go to the crawfish cookout and the drag show at the bar tonight, no problems. Trust me, if I’m ever not fine, you’ll be the first to know.”

I watch Clayton as I speak, checking his reaction. Is he gonna freak over this? After a couple of minutes he leans back in the chair and relaxes a little.

“You’re sure.”

“Yup, I’m sure. Seriously, Clayton, no worries, ok?”

And with that, after a few moments, we head out to the breezeway and the little bistro set there to finish this first mug of coffee. Conversation is casual. Clayton grabs my mug as I finish a smoke, heads in. He’s back in maybe five minutes, this time with a toasted bagel for each of us, smeared with a thick layer of cream cheese on each half.

Polish that bitch off in no time—hungrier than I’d have guessed even ten minutes ago. Do another smoke, finish up the second mug of coffee, then Clayton stands and waves. “Come on, we’re going back to bed.”

Sex on Sunday morning?

“My favorite show comes on at 8:00am—CBS Sunday Morning. It’s a great way to start the day. Come on.”

We pile into bed just as the show starts, mugs topped up with more coffee. It’s kinda like 60 Minutes, except it’s an hour and a half, and instead of going into detail on news topics, it’s covering everything from art to architecture to personal finances to Broadway to book authors to sports celebrities, all from a human interest angle. It’s really interesting, and I can see why Clayton likes the show. And, when it ends, in the last 30 seconds or so they run a clip with a shot of nature—no narration or voice over, just the sights and sounds you’d experience if you were there. Incredibly relaxing, especially since the political talk show Meet the Press follows it, and creates its own stresses.

And we’d gotten comfortable in the bed, just being lazy, curled up against each other. Relaxed.

Just so damn comfortable.

So glad we found each other.

We ended up watching part of the political show, then decided to get cleaned up. “By the time we finish, we can do an early lunch. That will have time to settle, and you can eat all the crawfish and suck all the heads you want at the bar.” Clayton’s kidding me, especially about sucking the heads—I still can’t do that—but I do want to enjoy the crawfish, since it’s near their season’s end.

Clayton has me drive to a mom and pop diner and do a “breakfast for lunch” thing. It’s an out of the way spot, but I’m glad I drove; I’ll remember how to get here. And the waffles and sausage I had were great.

We drove through town, picked up a couple of things at Walmart—razors, my shampoo, new flip-flops for Clayton, then headed back to Clayton’s. Even after killing time in the store, we still had time to work in an afternoon nap before getting dressed.

Barry had opened the bar at 5pm just to get ready for the crawfish boil; he wanted to start serving at the bar’s normal open time of 6pm. Even though it was an early open, there were already a dozen or more cars there.

The new bartender, Cliff, was already behind the bar, serving drinks. We each grabbed a beer, then headed out to the patio. Barry was already out there, shirt off, sweating, moving bags of crawfish from the back of a truck parked just outside the gate next to us. Rex and Joe each had grocery bags of stuff bringing in to put on a table; vegetables to go into the boil.

“What can we do to help, Barry?” Clayton beat me to the punch with the question.

“We need to do some prep on the vegetables, just rough cut and clean the potatoes and onions, the corn is frozen and ready to go, clean the mushrooms, chop some celery, slice the bread and put the garlic butter on it, get the bowl of coleslaw out when the crawfish are done ….” Barry’s thought all this through, just needs to get a little help to get it done.

I rolled over to the table, started chopping the vegetables. Clayton and Rex moved the big pot onto the burner, filled it with water, and turned on the propane, lighting the flame underneath it. Joe was manhandling the tables, covering ‘em with newspaper, and a couple of other guys who I’d seen but hadn’t met were setting up folding chairs.

It all came together quickly, with Barry putting in his special spice mix for the boil, letting it simmer for a few minutes, then dumping in the first burlap bag of crawfish. Three more big bags to go.

I’m missing Dave. “Where’s Dave, Barry? You gonna let him come out and play?” I grinned as I said it, and Barry picked up on it.

“You think I could keep him away? As much as he loves crawfish? Nah, he had to work; had to go on-site tonight and hang there through the shift change. I’ll save him some food, and he’ll be here by the time the bar closes.”

Damn. Helluva thing to work on a holiday weekend.

By 6pm the first batch was being dumped from the wire basket inside the cooker directly onto the table. The crowd had already grown to make 35 or 40 people, and they attacked the crawfish.

The carnage didn’t last long; the remaining 3 bags of crawfish were cooked, and quickly eaten. The garlic bread and coleslaw were long gone. And, the well-mannered crowd, which now numbered 75 or 80, helped clean up, and hung around for the drag show.

The show was a riot. The queens performing didn’t take the drag too seriously, and handled it more like a comedy show than just serious drag. They’d chat with the crowd between the numbers, occasionally miss words while they were flirting with a hot guy in the crowd; one even attempted a standup comedy routine that had everyone roaring with laughter only because it was so bad. The crowd loved it all, and the performers made great tips.

The bar was doing well, with Barry and Cliff slammed. It was a great night.

The crowd had pretty much cleared out after the show—after all, they’d been there since 6pm, and it was now maybe 12:30am or so. It was light enough that Barry let Cliff have the rest of the night off, saying he’d take care of the rest of the crowd.

A few of us hung around, doing nightcaps, and just chatting. We’d pulled together a couple of tables with me; Joe; Rex; Dixie and Jenay; a sheriff’s deputy and his boyfriend who’s an air conditioning tech; Eddie and his boyfriend, Jack; Clayton, and small spot left for Barry if he ever got to step away from the bar. Dixie and Jenay were shooting a game of pool with another couple, and we all had conversations going between us. Maybe 20 or so folks in various groups at the bar or nearby.

Joe, Rex, and I were on the curve of the table with our backs to the bar, facing the stage. All the others were facing the bar on the opposite side of the tables. Clayton had leaned in from my left and was saying something when I felt a hand on my right thigh, then grip it hard.

I spin my head around, leaving Clayton in mid-sentence, surprised that Joe would do such a thing. Look him squarely in the face—and his face is frozen in a scowl, one finger above his lips as he mouths “shuuuu”, and nods toward the bar. I shift my body around a little and look over my left shoulder in that direction to see a nightmare in real time.

There’s a man in a ski mask holding a gun on Barry, and Jenay is heading to the bar to get another beer for her and Dixie.