I had cooled off by lunchtime. I waved to Barb and Shirley as I waited in line. They were sitting at a corner table. I assumed the empty chair between them was for me. Good for them.
“The word is the meatloaf is made of horsemeat. You know that, right?” Barb said before I’d even sat down.
“I see you got it too,” I replied.
“It was that or the tuna surprise. You know what the surprise is? It’s three days old,” Shirley added.
“It’s true,” a male voice said from in front of me. “They add the word surprise to the menu after the second day. Is this seat taken?” The nice looking guy with blonde hair who stole my seat in the history class asked, pointing to the chair across from Barb.
Barb spoke up before I could open my mouth. “Have a seat, Brian,” she said and nudged me at the same time.
He wasted no time taking up Barb’s offer. “Actually, after the third day they feed it to the horses they make the meatloaf from. So, in a way, you’re eating tuna surprise too,” he added.
It was time for a confrontation. “One would think the food would be fresh on the first day of school,” I said.
His response was immediate. “I happen to know that the cafeteria workers began the food preparation this past Friday. You didn’t notice the smell around town?”
“No I didn’t, and you seem to know a lot about Poplar School considering you just got here.” All right, I guess my bad mood hadn’t left entirely.
Barb gave me another nudge. “Come on, Lori, ease up on the guy. He’s just kidding. Right, Brian?”
Brian nodded between forkfuls of meatloaf. “Brian Mayfield, and you are?”
“Lori Patterson,” I answered, short and sweet, then went about the business of ignoring him.
He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he kept Barb and Shirley entertained through most of lunch, right up to the point when they had to take off for their math class on the other side of the building.
Now it was just me and him, and he kept the momentum going.
“So are we required to tip here like at Belvedere?”
I didn’t know him that well yet, and I fell right into his trap.
“You had to tip at Belvedere? Why? No one served you there, did they?”
He finished off his milk before he answered. It was in those scant seconds that I realized he had pulled my leg, but I let him have his victory. It was only fair.
He winked at me. “Just kidding.”
Maybe it was his wink, looking back on it, I’m not sure, but I think his wink saved him.
But not completely. “So you think you’re a comedian, huh?”
The bell rang before he could answer, and I wasn’t about to give him much chance to reply. I liked having the last word. It gave me a sense of power. I stood to leave.
“Wait,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”
“We’re not going the same way,” I said, not knowing if it were true or not.
“French, right? Miss Lindbergh?”
My mind was fragile today; I guess that made it easier to read. “Try to keep up.”
Questions. He was full of them. I must have answered twenty in an abrupt manner, before we arrived at the classroom. It didn’t end there. He made a point of sitting next to me in the back row. He even went so far as to pull his chair closer to me. I let it go. Brian Mayfield had worn me out. Maybe that was his intent the entire time. He never told me then or later. He did tell me his one secret, however. Before the school day ended, he told me a secret that would change my life forever.
It began in French class, the worst subject to get a grip on. Why? Because you either knew French or you didn’t. You could not improvise on the spot. French teachers knew the language. They knew it inside and out. It was a required subject for seniors, and by the end of the school year, you would be expected to know the fundamentals enough to be able to hold a short conversation with a Frenchman with a very low IQ.
For a full five minutes, Brian said nothing. It must have been a record of some sort, but once he started, he ran on and on, whispering when the teacher’s back was to the classroom.
I shushed him at least a dozen times. I knew from experience not to get off on the wrong foot with any teacher on the first day of class. Teachers rarely forgave insubordination at the beginning of the school year. A red check mark would go next to your name and stay there for the entire year.
Once I realized shushing would not work I tuned him out. French, as much as I hated the subject, was better than listening to his ramblings.
After a while, he must have wised up because he became quiet. I figured I had broken him, and I smiled a little at the thought; this, at least to me, had become a contest of getting the upper hand. Now, with the tip question still haunting me, I felt somewhat redeemed.
The end of class bell should have rung. I’m not sure why it didn’t. My watch must have been running fast. I stole a glance to my left. I couldn’t help myself. Brian was far too quiet. I wanted to be certain he was still breathing.
He was folding a piece of paper, folding it in different ways, and his eyes looked straight ahead as he did it.
I watched his hands as they moved the paper around, pleating it, shaping it, without once looking down. His fingers seemed to have a mind of their own and I was as entranced as I would have been watching a magician perform an astonishing feat.
When he finished I knew that time had stood still, not for long, just long enough for him to finish his task.
I should have touched him like I was touched in homeroom, because I believe he was dreaming too, even though his eyes were wide open.
Why didn’t I?
I was too busy staring at the folded paper on his desk. The small white sheet, which had folded and morphed into the paper bird in my dream.
Brian Mayfield had a way of getting under my skin. Scratch that. Brian Mayfield still gets under my skin - mostly in good ways now - but back then, on the first day and the weeks after, he simply irritated me. Did he do it on purpose? You bet he did. And here’s the weird thing, I tolerated his behavior because, for one, I kind of liked the attention, and secondly, I kind of liked Brian.
There was a third thing also. He saw some of the same things I saw; things that the others around me didn’t see. Though he didn’t tell me then, I thought he may have seen the scarecrow too. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It started with the paper birds.
Brian called his creations origami birds. He told me his mother taught him how to make them when he was a child. Now, with years of practice, he could transform a piece of paper into a bird in seconds flat, even without looking down, he had become that good at it.
In that French class when the hall bell rang late - on the day I met him, the day of my first of many paper skies - I said his name. I said it softly so only he could hear me. He turned his head slowly to me and in his eyes, colors danced. Then the bell rang and the colors retreated. He blinked twice, I remember that - exactly twice, and stared down.
“I made this for you,” he said, but he wasn’t quite sure of it. The doubt came through in his voice.
I had to ask him. “Did you know of my dream?”
He blinked again, as if clearing his head, or his eyes. “No. What dream?”
I looked around. Brian and I were the only two in the classroom. Everyone else had left, even Miss Lindbergh. “Your bird came to me in a dream I had last night. It landed on our clothesline pole before it flew away.” I didn’t tell him where it flew.
“Was it windy in your dream? Sometimes they fly away in a stiff wind.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Brian blinked again, and whatever thought was in his head left when his eyes closed.
“Here.” He handed me the paper bird. “A welcome to the neighborhood present.”
Another sentence spoken that did not make sense at the time, but does now.
Brian and I separated for the two remaining classes of that day. I sat alone in the back row for both. The bird in my hand drew a lot of attention from the other students, and I fielded tons of questions concerning its origin. “It was a present,” I said, time and time again.
A welcome to the neighborhood present
.
I didn’t see Brian again that day. I caught a ride home with Barb, who had driven her parents’ car to school.
My mother had left a note for me on the kitchen table. They had called her into work again. She was a waitress at Hockman’s Diner, a part-time job supposedly, but it might as well have been full-time they called her in so often. Monday was normally her day off, but it seemed she always filled in for someone, and this time her friend Alice had called in sick.
No problem.
I fixed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and headed for my room.
Here’s the thing about me and homework. I need to get on it as soon as I hit my room. If I didn’t open my books there and then, I never would. There were just too many things going on as the day gradually became night, too many distractions.
Clarksdale had one rock and roll station, WTOP. “The top spot for rock and roll,” they called it, which didn’t make a lot of sense since they were the
only
spot for rock and roll on the radio. Every so often at night, if the stars aligned and the wind blew a certain way, you could pick up WXTC in Columbus. Now that was a rocking station with DJs who knew what they were talking about.
That Monday afternoon I did my homework to the accompaniment of Melvin the Magnificent, a DJ who introduced each song with the words “From Clarksdale to you.”
I dove into my studies, ignoring everything but the music from my transistor radio. Occasionally I’d look up at the paper bird on my dresser, a gift from a boy I’d just met, my welcome to the neighborhood.
My mother arrived home a little after six in the evening. It was just the two of us then. My father had been killed in a factory accident, four years before. He had worked in a steel mill just outside of town, which employed a good many of the male population of Clarksdale, and even a few of the women.
My father, Adam David Patterson, who watches over me each night from his picture frame on my dresser, knew the steel mill was a dangerous workplace. Two men had lost their lives there just the year before, and many had been injured over the years. My mother tried her best to persuade him to find a safer place to work, even if it meant commuting to Columbus. “The money’s too good,” he would tell her. I heard the words many times.
The money’s too good
. And my mother would give up; she couldn’t fight the paycheck.
Then, on the night of July 6th, 1962, my father left our house for work and never came home, and my mother has not been the same since. Still, I didn’t expect her reaction when she opened the door to my room.
“I’m home, Lori,” she said and then stopped in her tracks. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out.
She was staring at my dresser, at the paper bird on top of it. When she finally spoke, she sounded out of breath.
“Where did you get that?” Her hand rose in slow motion until her finger pointed toward Brian’s creation.
“It was given to me by a boy in class,” I told her. “Are you okay?”
“A boy?” Her legs started to buckle and I jumped up and clutched her arm. I led her to the bed where she collapsed in a heap.
“Do you need Doctor Ross?” I maintained my grip on her arm. It seemed that her bones had become too weak to support her. I just knew if I let go she would sprawl face first onto the floor.
“Give me a minute,” she said, as her head lowered to her chest.
The room was quiet, save for her ragged breathing. I don’t mind saying I was pretty scared just then. My mom was all I had. I couldn’t lose her.
I didn’t. In fact you might say I found her that evening - or maybe we found each other - because when she raised her head she smiled at me. A weak and uncertain smile, but it was enough to give me a sense of relief. She patted the bed next to her and I let go of her arm. She wouldn’t fall now, her strength had returned. No, wait! I take that back. She
became
strong in a way I’d never seen before.
And when she spoke, her words changed my world.
“You need to know about your dreams,” she said. “You had one last night, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
My mother took my hand and clutched it, drawing it to her face and kissing the back of it. “I could tell. The colors were still in your eyes this morning, faint, but there. I didn’t say anything because it was your first day of school. I planned to talk to you tonight. This.” She glanced at the bird. “This changes things a bit.”
She held my hand tightly. I was soon to find out why.
“You need to know about the paper sky. I was hoping that it would skip you. It does that occasionally. It skips a generation. I had so hoped that you had escaped.” She drew in a deep breath before she continued.
“The paper sky rises only in the dawn of a dream. It is a thing of beauty, but also of horror. Something hides in the paper sky, something evil, something feral.”
“The scarecrow?” I asked.
“He comes in different disguises, but yes, a scarecrow is one of them. He usually takes the shape of a man, and He roams - looking, always looking.” Her voice faded and I lost her for a short while. When she came back, it was with determination.
“He draws you in with the colors. He seduces you with his ability to amaze, but it’s deceiving. The colors are for show, the darkness is for real.”
She brushed a strand of loose hair from my cheek, again with a weak smile. “Some things live in our dreams that cannot survive outside of them. Other things, dangerous things, have no trouble adjusting to the world of reality once they escape.”
“Escape?” I couldn’t have been more confused, and, I have to say, more scared.
“I know I’m throwing a lot at you. I’m sorry, but your strength will come from knowledge, and I will give you all the strength I can. Before I do, I need you to tell me where you got your paper bird.”
I told her all about Brian and when I got to the part about him making the bird, and the colors in his eyes, she stopped me.
“You saw the colors? Are you sure?”
“I’m certain of it. They were the same as the colors I saw in your eyes in my dream.”
My mother whispered something under her breath. It sounded like she said:
he may be one of us
.
“What was that?” I asked her, but her answer confused me even more.
“We are fewer by the day. Only the strongest of us have survived. I almost fell myself, after your father died. I came close.”
She was drifting again, and it was the wrong time for it. I needed answers that made sense, and I needed them immediately. “Start talking in terms that I can understand. Would you please do that?”
“Yes.” My mother stared into space, and I wondered if there were colors in her eyes.
“But first,” she continued, “tell me everything you remember about your dream last night.”
It wasn’t difficult. I remembered the entire dream from start to finish. Every detail was still vivid, still
distinct
, in my mind.
She took her time to react after I had finished. I’m pretty sure she was sorting through the thoughts in her head. When she finally spoke, she became the teacher in a subject that forever changed the way I thought, the way I acted. She gently pushed me out of the world of logic, through a doorway where reason, hope, and even love, were as fragile as a paper bird in a tempest.
She stayed with me, held my hand, never left me alone. She remained at my side through the entire journey, as a loving mother should.
“I’ll start with the paper sky. We call it that because those dreams are as easy to tear as a piece of paper. It’s just a thin membrane that separates them from reality.
“Only certain people experience the dreams. The ability, some call it the sight, is passed down through the generations, from father to son, from mother to daughter. The ability sometimes skips, but not often. You started late, Lori. I thought you might have avoided it. I’m sorry you didn’t. Anyhow, there are eight of us that I’m aware of - nine, including you. I’ve yet to meet most in person, but we’ve sometimes met in dreams.
“We try to protect each other as best we can. Usually it works, but sometimes it doesn’t, that’s why you must know what to do when you visit the paper sky.”
“Visit? It’s a dream, right?” I asked.
“Yes and no. You are dreaming at the time, but you’re also in another world, a world quite different from this one. It is the world of the smoke man, and you must be watching for him at all times.”
“The smoke man? Is that the scarecrow?”
“They’re one and the same. He knows you now. He knows where you live. He knows where to find you. But there are tricks to avoid him. You’ll learn them as you go. And remember this: the paper sky is his prison. Perhaps he was put there at the beginning of time, I don’t know, but I think there may be others like him - maybe not as powerful, but just as evil. It’s just a feeling, mind you, but always be aware. Trust no one.”
She hesitated briefly before she continued. “He seems to be gaining power, gaining substance. At one time, long ago, I thought I defeated him. I was wrong.”
“Tell me what happened?” I asked.
“
Some other time. It’s a long story,” she said.
So many questions. Where did I start? “Why us? Why are we picked to go there in our dreams? “
“I wish I could tell you it is a dream. Instead, I’ll say you’re an explorer of an ancient world. A world of mystery and danger, and we weren’t
picked
, we were
chosen
, there’s a difference.” My mother kissed my hand once again, and the smile that came after had no sadness in it.
“That’s all I can tell you. None of us know the reason why. None of us know the end result. If there are clues hidden there, in the world of the paper sky, I have yet to find them. Maybe you will. Maybe you’ll find the answers.”
Of all the questions yet to come in the days ahead, I had just one more for the evening. “In my dream,
my journey
, last night, was that you next to me? Were you there?”
My mother rose and moved away from the bed. “I was there, and so was your father.”
She stood next to the dresser, not looking at me but at the welcome gift from Brian. Then, still smiling, she did turn to face me.
“He was the bird,” she said.