Sleep Talkin' Man (7 page)

That one caused some trouble. To be specific, when he walked into work the next morning, it caused a stapler to be hurled at his head.

Real life references didn’t always pepper Adam’s sleep talking as they do now. In fact, for a long time, everything Adam said seemed utterly random and unrelated to reality. It was a full ten months into STM’s existence before he said anything that we were able to recognize from our waking life. But there was no missing it that first time:

“My snorkel! My snorkel! Judge won’t like
it if I don’t have my snorkel!
You PLANT it … Don’t want baby snorkels.”

Now, I can’t tell you where the snorkels fit in. I can tell you, though, that this was the night before he was going into family court concerning visitation with his kids. Perhaps his anxiety was so intense that it broke right through more literally than anything else had up to that point. Although, as you can see, he didn’t quite manage a complete departure from the surreal.

We had another month of nothing but randomness from STM, and then, just after one of our best friends revealed that she was pregnant for the first time, we got our next little glimpse of Adam’s life in STM’s exposition:

“Babies don’t bounce. They don’t bounce!
Shame.
It’d be much more fun if they bounced.”

This regretful warning was most informative for our pregnant friend, I’m sure.

Another month went by with no midnight mentions of Adam’s waking life. And then we went on our honeymoon, and Adam’s two
worlds collided! He babbled nearly every night about the day’s happenings. Our honeymoon was a bit unusual, you see—we spent two weeks volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand—and thus, I believe, it provided plenty of fodder for STM’s interest in the abnormal. It started with this one:

“Oh, such wrinkly skin. And oh so hairy.
Yeah, like grandmothers with trunks.”

No real mystery what he’s talking about there, although it does beg the question of how hairy Adam’s grandmother was. Another night, we had this:

“Stop bouncing the floor. Stop it, seriously, I need to pee. I need to pee and I can’t pee in the toilet when you’re bouncing the floor … Fuck you shit-for-brains, that’s it, I’m gonna piss up and down your body every time you bounce … There we go.”

This one was definitely inspired by real life: at the sanctuary, we lived in a raised structure made of mostly bamboo. When anyone from any of the huts walked around, the entire place shook with their footfall. This next one is pretty self-explanatory, given the fact that we were in Thailand:

“What goes in one hole hot comes out
the other hole hot. Burning fucking curry.
Awesome stuff.”

And finally, for anyone who has ever shoveled elephant poop, this one needs no explanation:

“Totally green snowballs. Giant ones! They
look wrong. They sound wrong when they
hit you. And boy do they smell wrong.”

I can only hypothesize that our daily experiences started appearing in Adam’s sleep talking because in an elephant sanctuary, a situation as
unlike our typical life as you could ask, our day-to-day was suddenly just as interesting as his imagination. Our stint at the sanctuary seemed to throw wide open the portal between Adam’s waking and sleeping lives. Even after we’d returned home to “regular” life, reality cropped up more and more often among the usual bizarre, fanciful musings of STM. STM was inspired by people Adam met, as in this utterance after an evening out entertaining a client with an especially noteworthy beard:

“My beard can tell a thousand stories.
My mouth, however, just says, ‘fuck you,
stop staring at my beard, weirdo.’“

He was stirred by television shows we had watched, especially our most guilty-pleasure programs, like this little number during our
Ghost Hunters
phase:

“I need someone else to help me catch ghosts. ‘Cause we’re going out to kick seven shades of spiritual shit. Yeaaaah. Ghost Kickers! Free floating vapor? Free floating fucker, more like. Come on, let’s get ‘em!”

And sometimes, he simply replayed—with his own twist—experiences Adam had, like this narration while we were spending a long weekend in Belgium, which is justly famous for its waffle houses:

“This waffle is my waffle. I will put my ice cream, my sauce, my cream, and even possibly my strawberries on my waffle. And you will watch me eat my waffle. You will watch me as I carefully slice it up bit by bit. You will watch me wipe my mouth and watch me pay. And then you can have some water and we’ll go home. My waffle, your loss.”

Of course, noticing how often real life was creeping into Adam’s sleep talking, I couldn’t help but try and experiment to see if I could willfully influence the content of STM’s musings. Much to Adam’s annoyance, I started addressing STM just before we went to sleep. The first time I tried this, I said, “Sleep Talkin’ Man, are you in there? Listen, I’d really like to hear about manatees tonight, okay? Can you tell me something about manatees?” In response that night, I got:

“‘Sea cow this’ and ‘sea cow that.’
Fucking bastard sea cows taking up all the conversation! It’s MY turn to shine.”

Sounds like STM resented my showing interest in any particular subject matter, rather than his mere existence. Touchy, touchy!

Another night, he further revealed his refusal to play by anyone else’s rules. Just before we went to sleep, we were Skyping with my friend Jenny. Jenny, a vegetarian herself, signed off the conversation by saying, “Don’t say anything mean
about vegetarians tonight!” To this, we got:

“You know, the world will be a much better place when we get to eat vegetarians.
Furthermore, you get your five-a-day with one of those.”

Apparently, STM doesn’t take requests.

So while real life references do pop up in Adam’s sleep talking—and make a nice addition to the egomaniacal self-praise, scathing insults, and inexplicable surreality, there’s no mistaking it for reality. I can assure you, in his waking hours Adam knows how to share a waffle.

“I wanted a shark with laser beams, and I got a manatee with a Maglite.
For fuck’s sake, get back in your hole and get it right.”

If honesty’s the best policy,
and the truth hurts, then you’d better call an
ambulance, ‘cause you’re not gonna like the
stuff I’m gonna fucking say.

Finger painting’s fun.
I need to get some more fingers, though.
Give me your fingers. Oh fuck it, I’ll just cut ‘em off. You’ve got pretty fingers.
I can do some pretty painting with those pretty fingers. Toes, I can use toes! Yay!
I’m sorted. Fingers and toes.

Batman, why don’t you sit down and have a cup of coffee. I feel much more comfortable calling in the marines. Rubber-loving freak. And as for you Robin, put some fucking normal clothes on, dickhead.

The fruit flies have escaped!
Hide your plums! Satsumas flee! FLEE!
Oh, this is gonna be total fruitocide.
Fuck you, avocado, you’re on your own.

You’ve got to save the curtains!
Save the curtains …
they hold so many secrets.

By the way, washing in rose water doesn’t
stop you smelling like a piece of shit.

Goddammit! Where’s my bazooka?
I put it on the ground, expecting it to be there when I come back. Have you been tidying up again, ‘cause I really would like my bazooka back. I don’t know where you put things. Jesus! Cannot just leave anything alone, can you?

“You piss-flap motherfucking tosser!
No, I DON’T want to say anything else.
I think that sums you up enough.”

Okay. Brace yourself. I can’t be held responsible for the fallout. You ready? I Like You. Yeah, rock ’n’ roll.

Shoot the fucking cellist.
Pompous cunt with his oversized violin.

I smell because I’m a PENGUIN and I eat FISH, doofus!

It’s Captain Fluffer!
Hero to teenage boys.

Yay! It’s my birthday today.
And you’re going to give me presents.
Big fuck-off presents. Lots of them …
WHERE ARE MY PRESENTS?! Tossbag.

I need a mask, nun-chucks, rubber suit, shitloads of talc. Got list, will shop.
It’s a superhero shopping list, shithead.

God judges you. Well, I judge God.
This week: not bad! Still messing up in the Middle East, though. Sort it out.

Being overweight’s hard work.
You should applaud my determination.

No. I don’t talk about the jellybean incident. That’s one wound that’ll take too long to heal.

So what, vegans are healthier and live longer.
Let them be the last ones living on a dead planet.

Kiss my imperial ass,
you Jedi muthafucka!

Yeah, I love you.
But in a not-really kind of way.

Right then:
After dinner, it’s butt shaking time.

Don’t you dare get me up early.
Especially to get vegan fucking cupcakes.
What ever possessed you? Eat some mud instead. Tastes the same, and I bet there’s more nutrients in it.

I’m gonna make you laugh so hard your holes will leak. Wet pants time!

Here’s what we do:
We wrestle back control from the pirate gerbils, and the seas will be ours! That’s right, you nasty little sea flumes … Shit, they’re stashing the treasure in their cheeks! Come on!
Time for some plundering!

I’ve gotta have more people in my life that love my elbows.

Step outside, needle-dick bug fucker.
There’s a whole world out there, and they just want to hate you, too.

My foot is itching to have a date with your ass.
And if you really want, we can make it a double date. Your face and ass, my fist and foot.

From now on, you will OBEY ME.
’
Kay?
Now just nod your head once for yes.
That
’
s good.

Vaginas have brains. Oh, they’ve worked me out. And they don’t like me. Oh!

My donkey. That’s MY donkey.
Get off my donkey!
You know, you’re not some superstar donkey jockey. Piss off.

Is it a bird? Is it—Oh. It’s Koala Man. Asleep in the branches again, and probably pissed. What an embarrassment to superhero-kind.

Letter to Sleep Talkin’ Man

A while back, I was the guest of a dear old friend. One night I got out of bed, walked downstairs, strode right past my host sitting in his easy chair reading, and took off out the front door. His pet raccoon, Racket (evidently figuring I knew where the action was), followed me.

I walked right across his yard and breezed through his neighbor’s front door, the raccoon hot on my trail, went straight to his refrigerator, snagged a pound of bacon, turned around, and headed back outside.

On the way out, I patted the head of his neighbor—fifty-nine years old and a Vietnam veteran—and said, “Good boy! Play nice with the ladies,” then strolled back up the hill, gnawing strips of raw bacon, the raccoon plodding along in my wake.

“Worms for the weak!” I crowed as I headed back into my friend’s house and climbed upstairs with my prize. I crawled back into bed, and Racket the raccoon and I shared a salt-pork feast.