Sitting down next to him, I can see his glasses, which reflect the last crescent of the moon and a dim shooting star. In the half-dark he has a handsome mild face, thick curly hair and an easy disarming smile, like that of a bank loan officer who has not quite decided whether your credit history is worthy of you. His eyes are large and pensive, toadlike. I realize quickly that if he is sitting out here on this park bench, now, he must be a rather unlucky man, insomniac or haunted or heartsick.
“Hey, Bradley,” I say. “Not much. Walkin’ around. It’s a midsummer night, and I’ve got insomnia. I see you’re still awake, too.”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding unnecessarily, “that’s the truth.”
We both wait. Finally I ask him, “How come you’re up?”
“Me? Oh, I found myself working late on a window in my house. The sash weight broke loose from the pulley and I’ve been trying to get it out from inside the wall.”
“Difficult job.”
“Right. Anyway, I quit that, and I’ve been walking Bradley the dog, since I couldn’t fix the window. Do you remember this dog?”
“His name is … what?”
“Bradley. I just told you. Exact same as mine. It’s easier to call him ‘Junior.’ That way, there’s no confusion. He’s my company. But you’re not sleeping either, right?” he asks, staring off into the middle distance as if he were talking to himself, as if I were an intimation of him. “That makes the two of us.” He leans back. “Three of us, if you count the dog.”
“I woke up,” I tell him, “and I was seeing things.”
“What things?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I tell him.
“Okay.”
“Oh, you know. I was seeing spots.”
“Spots?”
“Yes. Like spots in front of your eyes. But these were more like cogs.”
“You mean like gears or something?”
“I guess so. Wheels with cogs turning, and then getting closer to each other, so that they all turned together, their gears meshing.” I rub my arm, mosquito bite.
In the shadows, one side of his face seems about to collapse, as if the effort to keep up appearances has finally failed and daylight optimism has abandoned him. He sighs and scratches Junior behind the ears. In response, the dog smiles broadly. “Gears. I never heard of that one. I guess you don’t sleep any better than I do. We’re two members of the insomnia army.” He stretches now and reaches up to grab some air. “A brotherhood. And sisterhood. Did you know that Marlene Dietrich was a great insomniac?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you know what she did to keep herself occupied at night?”
“No, I don’t.”
“She baked cakes,” he tells me. “I read this in the Sunday paper. She baked angel food cakes and then in the daytime she gave them away to her friends. Marlene Dietrich. She looked like she did, those eyes of hers, because she couldn’t sleep well. Now me,” he says, rearranging himself on the bench, “I just sit still here, very still, you know, like what’s-his-name, the compassionate Buddha, thinking about the world, the one you and I live in, and I come to conclusions. Conclusions and remedies. Lately I’ve been thinking of extreme remedies. For extreme problems we need extreme remedies. That’s the phrase.”
“‘Extreme remedies’? What d’you mean? And don’t go putting me in your brotherhood. I’m just on a neighborhood stroll.”
“‘A neighborhood stroll’! Man,” he says, pointing a revolver-finger at me, “you’ll be lucky if a patrol car doesn’t pick you up.”
“Oh, I’m respectable,” I tell him.
“Listen to yourself. ‘Respectable’! You’re dressed like a vagabond. A goon. It’s illegal to walk around at night in this town, didn’t you know that?” He stands up to give me an inquiring once-over. He apparently doesn’t like what he sees. “It makes you look like a danger to public safety. Vagrancy! They’ll haul your ass down to jail, man. They don’t allow it anymore unless you have a dog with you. The dog”—he nods at his own dog—“makes it legal. The dog makes it legitimate. I have a dog. You should have a dog. It’s best to have an upper-class dog like a collie or a golden retriever, a licensed dog. But any dog will do. Believe me, the happy people are all at home and asleep, snuggled together in their dreams.” He says this phrase with contempt. “All the lucky ones.” He sits down but still seems agitated. “The goddamn lucky ones … What’s your trouble?” He grins at me gnomishly. “Conscience bothering you? Got a writing block?”
“No. I told you. I woke up disoriented. It happens all the time. Thinking about a book, I guess. I have to walk it off. Anyway, I already have a dog.”
“I didn’t know that. Where is it?” He glances around, pretending to search.
“Sleeping. She doesn’t like to walk with me at night. She doesn’t like how disoriented I am.”
“Smart. So what you’re saying is, you don’t know where you are? Is that it?”
“Right. I know where I am now.”
“Maybe you’re too involved with fiction. Well, don’t mind me. But listen, since we’re here, tell me: how does this new book of yours begin? What’s the first line?”
I start to pick some chewing gum off my shoe. “Nope. I don’t do that. I don’t give things like that away.”
“Come on. I’m your neighbor, Charlie. I’ve known you, what is it—?”
“Twelve years,” I say.
“Twelve years. You think I’m going to steal your line? I would never do that. I don’t do that. I’m not a writer, thank God. I’m a businessman. And an artist. Go ahead. Just tell me. Tell me how your novel starts.”
I sit back for a moment. “‘The man,’” I recite, “‘me—no one else, it seems—wakes in fright.’”
He kicks the toe of his shoe in the dirt and tanbark, and Junior sniffs at it. Now Bradley tries out a sympathetic tone. “That’s the line?”
“That’s the line. It’s still in rough draft. Actually, it’s just in my head.”
He nods. “Kind of melodramatic, though, right? I thought it was a cardinal rule not to start a novel with someone waking up in bed. And what’s all this about fright? Do you really awaken in terror? That doesn’t seem like you at all. And by the way I believe the word is awakens.”
Irritated, I stare at him. “When did you become Mr. Usage? All right, I’ll revise it. Besides, I do wake in terror. Ask my wife.”
“No, I would never do that. What’s the book called?”
“I have no idea.”
“You should call it The Feast of Love. I’m the expert on that. I should write that book. Actually, I should be in that book. You should put me into your novel. I’m an expert on love. I’ve just broken up with my second wife, after all. I’m in an emotional tangle. Maybe I’d shoot myself before the final chapter. Your readers would wonder about the outcome. Yeah, the feast of love. It certainly isn’t what I expected when I was in high school and I was imagining what love was going to be, honeymoon jaunts, joy forever and that sort of thing.”
I glance at the dog, who is yawning in my face. I bore this dog. “Aren’t you going out with a doctor now? Some new woman?”
“That’s private.”
“Hey,