An Orphanage of Dreams Read online

  22 Stories

  1. Wolves

  It is not true that there are wolves in the city now. People hear the dogs howling and think they are hearing wolves. That’s because the bigger dogs—the shepherds, the malamutes—sound like wolves, or the way they imagine wolves sounding. Most people have never heard actual wolves. It doesn’t make a whole lot of difference, probably, whether they are actual wolves or not, as there are now reliable reports of people being eaten by dogs. Wilson stands in the doorway and stares out at the jungle. He wants us to stop calling it “the park.” “There is nothing parklike about it,” he grumbles loudly. Celia has not abandoned the search for more bullets. It won’t be possible to kill them all with the bullets we have. We don’t have even a hundred bullets.

  2. Stanley

  It had been a week since Sheila had heard from Stanley, so she decided to open the door and look. She could tell right away that he was dead. She went up and called the police. They wanted to know if he had gotten into the dryer by himself. Sheila said, “How could he get in by himself?” Stanley had always hoped for a poem, and now he was dead.

  Everything about Stanley was odd.

  3. Buddies

  They were walking single file, ten feet apart as they had been trained, to limit casualties, when Private Nolan stepped on an explosive device. Nolan lost both legs and died in the helicopter. Private Callaway, who was behind him, took shrapnel in the face. Everyone felt bad about Nolan. A year later, on the flight back to the States, they were still talking about him. Callaway was not well liked. He was generally regarded as a prick, and after he was evacuated to Landstuhl no one in the unit thought to mention him again. They never found out what happened to him later.

  4. Dad

  Whenever Dad came to visit, he ran the Cadillac up on the lawn, fitting it between the kids’ swing set and the shack. He would open the car door and practically tumble out on the porch. He was not Rebecca’s dad and she didn’t like him driving on her grass. Jack was too busy painting to care. Dad stood next to Jack at the easel and criticized. Rebecca took Dad to look for swans by the lake so he wouldn’t disturb Jack while he was painting. The kids came back from school and Dad gave them each a dollar. Then Rebecca and Dad took them for ice cream so Jack could paint. When the kids grew up, all they could remember about Dad was that he had given them money and had run over their swing set. After Dad died, Jack gave up painting and moved back to the city. Rebecca spoke fondly of Dad, though the whole painting thing had been a nightmare.

  5. Diebecker

  They had packed up and were ready to move out when the courier arrived with the colonel’s orders: they were to hold the sector at all costs. They all knew that this was a delaying tactic at best, meant to give the colonel time to catch a boat to America. They were in sad shape, with fewer than a hundred bullets. After ordering his men back to their posts, Lieutenant Diebecker sat beneath a tree and composed the poem we all know today. Private Schulz climbed on a chair and read it to the troops. It turned out not to be the moment. The sullen silence that followed the recitation prompted Diebecker to release the safety on his pistol. Later, as senator, he championed the idea of the well-read soldier.

  6. The Funeral

  The funeral was a great success. Calvin flew over in an airplane trailing one of Stanley’s string poems. Everyone said it was hopeless. A woman in a fur coat brought a small dog. She sang a song she had written herself, which everyone thought was awful. Jared said Stanley was a light in a dark world, which everyone considered stupid. Peter came in his fire engine. He said that if Stanley had become a fireman, he would still be with us—he was always seeking new experiences, and now that had cost him his life. We did not have a minister and so were not sure when it was over. Peter had to get to the parade, so in the end we all climbed on the fire engine and rode at the front of the procession. Everyone thought of Stanley.

  7. Max

  One day, crazy with loneliness, Max got on a plane and flew to the Canary Islands. On his first day there he sat in a cafe with a view of the port. In the port were fishing vessels and cargo ships from all over the world. On the second day he rode on a tour bus around the island. The bus stopped at an overlook, and the passengers got down and stood at the railing. The guide told them that from here one could sometimes glimpse the Tenerife volcano appearing to float in the air above the horizon, though today it was obscured by haze. Some of the passengers on the tour complained about the haze, but not Max. On the third day he wrote a postcard to his landlady, who was the only person whose address he could remember. He told her the food for the cat would not last forever. On the fourth day he did nothing. On the fifth day he went to a bar crowded with tourists and made the acquaintance of an attractive woman from Italy. He made up several stories about his life in America. They drank till closing time and parted without exchanging addresses. “Ciao,” she said, as her taxi pulled away. “Ciao,” Max said. The next day he flew home. On the plane he fell into conversation with a Canadian man seated next to him. The Canadian told Max about the death of his Yorkshire terrier. His eyes welled with tears and he choked back a sob when he talked of the dog’s suffering. Max felt embarrassed for him. He didn’t like dogs, or animals in general other than cats, and he couldn’t recall what a Yorkshire terrier looked like.

  8. Old Pals

  If we lived in villages we could go into the mountains to pray. We can’t pray parked in a car like this. Somebody should help us. The police are not our friends. If we hadn’t talked so much about revolution we wouldn’t feel so bad now. Existentialism was an exciting philosophy then, but nobody reads those people anymore. We never thought, after all the anguish and all the struggles, that we would end up sitting in a car, all of us together, the two in front and the three in back, sometimes all five of us smoking at once. We keep the windows cracked. We are kidding ourselves. We were always kidding ourselves, kidding each other. We talked big but we weren’t serious. At bottom we were not serious people. Big talkers, loudmouths. Or maybe just dreamers. I’d like to think we were just dreamers. “A lot of water over the dam,” somebody says, and we all agree. A lot of goddamn water. All we have is each other. Sometimes we drive around for hours, smoking and talking. Nobody wants to go home.

  9. Tools

  He didn’t have tools. There was no way he could fix the car without tools. Meanwhile the snow was getting deeper. If he took the engine apart he would have to be careful not to let any of the small pieces fall into the snow. If they fell into the snow he wouldn’t see them again till spring. If he lost them in the snow, there was not going to be any spring for him. He could ask Wyman for tools. Wyman had a tool for everything. That would mean walking to Wyman’s hut in the snow. He knew Wyman wasn’t going to give him the tools. He never let anybody use his tools. He was worried they would get lost in the snow. If Max got to Wyman’s hut he could stay there till spring. Wyman might lend him the tools then and he could fix the car and get out of here. Janet would be in Mexico by then. He would never find her there.

  10. Doris and Harry

  There are too many holes. It is mostly holes. We can’t cross because of the holes. Imagine falling into one of the holes. What is at the bottom? Is there a bottom? Or do you go on falling forever? Doris stands with Harry at the railing. Harry is in a diving suit. They wonder if they will see each other again. It won’t make a difference one way or the other. Harry will not be the same Harry, and Doris will not be the same Doris. And there will be more holes. Harry will hang out in bars with the other divers. Doris will spend her time at the track. Her horses never come in and she blames it on Harry. She thinks of him constantly, reliving the terrible moment when his snorkel vanished beneath the surface. Harry has forgotten Doris. He takes a booth at the back and drinks scotch and water with the other guys. He remembers playing beneath a sycamore when he was very small while his mother hung laundry in the meadow. He remembers being happy then. He knows there were no sycamores where he grew up and no meadow. He can�
�t understand how he could have been happy then.

  11. Chloe

  So here they are again, with Manny on the bicycle and everyone else walking behind. Chloe especially is resentful at never being allowed on the bicycle. The people they talk to are not interested in their ideas. Chloe has knocked on more doors than any of the others. People everywhere are growing harsher. She doesn’t enjoy standing on a doorstep pleading while Manny is doing wheelies in the street. The people don’t even listen to her. They stretch their necks and stare past her, mesmerized by Manny. So of course resentment builds up after a while. She is losing faith in America. Sometimes she doesn’t care if there is another war. They have a meeting every night. Chloe forms her own faction, but she is not a good leader. When she brings up the bicycle issue, no one supports her. Manny, riding with his hands in his pockets, circles her jubilantly.

  12. Dorothy and Edwin

  Nothing they care about remains. Packs of stray dogs roam the city. The dogs have gone back to being wolves. Swimming pools are filled with rainwater and weeds. It is not true that Dorothy still loves Edwin. At the end of a movie the filmstrip makes a clattering noise as it comes off the reel, just as it did in the old days. “We still have that,” Edwin says to Dorothy. They are alone in the theater. No movie has been shown for weeks. It is icy cold in the theater. They have come in to escape the large dogs roaming the avenue. Dorothy often imagines a world of books, one with no dogs, no movies, and no Edwin. Edwin imagines Dorothy more like other girls, like the ones he used to see at pool parties, when it was still safe to go into the pools. He was too shy to speak to those girls then, and now they are gone. It is pitch dark in the theater. The only sounds are their own breathing and the far-off rattle of the guns. “They sound like a filmstrip coming off the reel, don’t they,” Edwin says to Dorothy, who snuggles closer.

  13. Weather Report

  If the sky stays gray we won’t have fun today. It’s no good walking by the lake. Looking out at the cold, gray water, our spirits will only sink lower. Our spirits are already lower than they were the day we stopped for lunch in Nebraska and your little dog ran away. I can barely remember the dog, though I remember clearly how I felt after he ran away. I felt guilty and remorseful. We should have separated then, right there in the parking lot. The people who live across the street are not attractive. I watched them leave this morning, coming down the steps of their house, under the gray sky. There in the parking lot, fighting about the dog, we were still young and attractive. We had that going for us. The sky was enormous. It was cloudless, the sun was huge and hot, the little dog was lost, and we were yelling at each other.

  14. Ruins

  Clyde and Ellen have driven in from the country to see the ruins. You can’t drive all the way to the center, to get there you have to climb over miles of rubble. Clyde shows Ellen where the ancient colosseum stood. It was already a ruin, he tells her, before they destroyed it. There are other tourists there, picnicking some of them, and others hunting in the ruins for interesting pieces to take back with them. Though no one alive is old enough to remember the city, they experience these visits as a homecoming. Ellen has brought a little trowel with which to dig while Clyde keeps a lookout for animals. There are more animals, and more dangerous animals, than before. One day it will be impossible to come here, because of the animals. They are not sure what the city was for, why so much stone, steel, and masonry was piled up and knocked down, and whether the aim was building or destroying.

  15. A Road Trip

  The car was finished. They didn’t know anything about cars and had no idea why this one had stopped running. After standing around for a while just looking at it, not even lifting the hood, they started walking. They were cheerful at first, making a fun adventure out of it, but they became cross as the day wore on. They weren’t equipped for hiking, had never hiked anywhere before, they didn’t have hats, and the sun was merciless. The road climbed steadily upward, and toward evening they arrived at a summit with a specular view of the road ahead of them. They saw mountains and more mountains. They had already drunk most of their water. Nothing in their past had prepared them for this. They should never have set out, they could see that now. They should have stayed home, they should have kept their jobs, they should have taken care of the children. They thought of the children, their tear-stained faces at the window, watching their parents, waving gaily, drive off in that jalopy.

  16. The Colony

  The planet is not satisfactory. The fact that it is larger than their native Earth means the gravitational force is greater. Everything is harder, just lifting one’s feet to walk across a room is exhausting. Everyone is always tired. The air outside is toxic. In the beginning, people went outside exploring, a practice they abandoned generations ago. There is nothing out there for them. Between growing food and repairing machinery, there is not much time for the things that mattered back on Earth. Every year more people are needed to repair leaks in the dome. One day that will be everyone’s future. In school the children are shown pictures of animals and waterfalls and sky and things like that.

  17. 911

  They were about to call the police when Carol urged them to think of Grandmother, of how frightening that would be for her. “Calling 911 is bound to just set them off,” she said. Toby joked that maybe they should call lost-and-found instead, but nobody thought that was funny. Someone else suggested that, if they called 911, they should ask them to not bang on the door and shout, “Police.” “Why do they always do that?” Carol wondered, looking down at Grandfather and nudging him with her foot. “Why can’t they ring the doorbell like normal people?” “They are afraid of looking silly,” Joel explained. “Imagine them standing at the door with their rifles and armored vests and helmets and all, the assault vehicle idling on the lawn, sharpshooters crouching behind it, and then pushing on the bell with one finger, when what they want to do is just shoot the door lock off.” Gavin disagreed. He had flunked out of police academy but had come away with a deeper understanding of law enforcement. He said “law enforcement” very softly so as not to frighten Grandmother, in case she was crouching behind the door. They all agreed that she would die of fright if they shot the door lock off. “They were together sixty-four years and he had it coming,” Carol said, and nobody could argue with that.

  18. Rainy Day

  There was nothing they could do to stop the leaks. The roof was forty years old. Stella’s grandfather had shingled it himself the summer he came home from Vietnam. She barely remembered her grandfather. When it began to leak, Kevin got a ladder out of the garage and applied roofing cement to the broken shingles, but walking on the roof made leaks in other places. It was an old wooden extension ladder, probably the same one the grandfather had climbed when he was younger than either of them. They placed pans and bowls on the floor beneath the leaks and when it rained the drips made a kind of music. Kevin said it sounded like John Cage. Among the bowls was one Stella had found at a thrift store for a dollar. It was a beautiful bowl. The fact that it was sold for a dollar was testimony to the decline of taste that you could see everywhere now. Stella and Kevin were artists. They could see the beauty in a bowl like that and hear the music in a leaking roof, but they didn’t know where to go from there. It was raining the day Kevin was looking through Stella’s stuff and found the picture of her grandfather working on the roof, smiling down at the camera, so young and handsome. And it was still raining when he went into the bathroom and shot himself with the pistol she kept under her sweaters.

  19. Home

  They wondered whose dog that was. It sat on the porch and glared. This same house had housed them once, when they were small. There were other dogs then, small as well, and friendly. They held hands now, as they had then, and peered over the fence. They had come so far, they didn’t want to turn back. They stayed till sundown and then drove to the motel and ordered pizza. Olives, anchovies, green peppers, and mushrooms. Celia picked the mushrooms off her pieces and gave them t
o Michael. Afterward, and after a shower, they sat side by side on the motel carpet. The master had said, “Empty your minds,” but their minds were filled with anguish. They slept with the television on but the sound off, just to have the flickering light in the room. The next morning they drove away in a sandstorm. Michael fiddled with the radio as he drove, searching for something besides Mexican music, while Celia looked out the car window at houses and trees that were barely visible through the blowing sand.