Sleep Talkin' Man (8 page)

To add to the delight of this scenario, I was bucknaked the entire time.

Of course, I only found all this out when I was told about it the next morning, everybody rolling on the floor laughing over it. As proof, Racket had the trots from eating too much bacon. I didn’t remember a damned thing.

Stony

Saluda, NC

“Oh, the penguin parade.
Splendidly turned out, in his black-and-white coat and beautiful red-and-orange beak. And following him is—It’s dressed exactly the same.
No imagination, these puffins.
Boring fuckers, really.”

There are certain motifs—perhaps you’ve noticed?—that crop up again and again in Adam’s sleep talking. Of course, there’s the high incidence of insults, and the relentless ego-wanking you’re now well familiar with. But beyond those, there are some preoccupations that suggest intriguing things about Adam’s subconscious.

“You tap-dancing hamsters. You rock my world, with your little blurry feet.”

Perhaps the most prevalent topic among Adam’s midnight mutterings is animals. Whether it’s gangster manatees, hippo ballerinas, heat-packing badgers, or chickens in fetish costumes, animals get a lion’s share of late night airtime around these parts.

In the universe of STM, an animal may evoke joy, as in the quote above. Often, however, the creatures that populate STM’s world are clearly jerks:

“Check out that crab, and his oh-so-sideways attitude.
Dipshit. No one’s impressed.”

And occasionally, he comes out with something that would elicit a cringe in any animal lover …

“Snail fiddling is not an occupation I’d be proud of. You dirty fucker.”

… Let’s just say I’m pleased not to be a fly on the wall for those dreams.

It’s no surprise that beasts and critters feature so heavily in STM’s world, as they’re such a big part of Adam’s waking life. The animal kingdom—whether creatures of air, land, or sea—is a passionate interest that Adam and I share. We watch more National Geographic Channel that can possibly be healthy; we can both identify every one of our sixteen goldfish by name; one of the criteria for our next home will be a yard that can accommodate chickens and goats. Even our wedding date was scheduled around the arrival of my dog Molly from the United States, so that she could walk down the aisle with Adam’s children.

These days, most of our travel focuses around animals as well. As I mentioned earlier, our honeymoon was spent volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. You might be thinking, hey, doesn’t everyone want to celebrate their new life together by getting up at 6:45 a.m. and working their asses off shoveling elephant shit in 95-degree heat? But for us, it was perfect,
absolutely magical. The following year, it was a monkey sanctuary in Ecuador, and then sloths in Costa Rica. We’re hoping for manatees next. I can’t wait to hear the sleep talking gems those inspire.

“Stop the cows!
They’re licking everything!”

Cows in particular come up a fair amount in Adam’s sleep talking. It’s no wonder that these animals, peaceful and unassuming as they are, would have been branded forever onto Adam’s subconscious; he spent some months of his eighteenth year tending, herding, and milking 250 of them. This was during the year Adam lived in Israel, just before university, the year we met. In between falling in love, Adam’s kibbutz kept him busy working in the dairy.

On Adam’s first day on the job, he got thrown right into the thick of it. After a cursory tour of the dairy, his new boss told him that he needed to deliver a baby calf from a cow in natal distress.
“Here’s what you’ll do,” said his boss. “Stick your arm up the cow to the shoulder, and wait for further instructions. Hold on, I’ll be right back.” Adam was so eager to seize this once in a lifetime experience, and to show on his first day what a great worker he was, he figured he’d get started and be ready when the boss returned. He carefully rolled up his sleeve as high as it would go, and pinned the tail out of the way with his left hand. Then, making a little beak of his right hand, he gently inserted it into the cow’s vagina. He eased his arm in up to the shoulder, determinedly thinking of warm rice pudding all the while, and waited for his boss to come back and express his surprise and gratitude for this new young worker with such initiative. The boss came around the corner, took in the scene, and sauntered over to Adam and the cow. Adam prepared himself for the approving pat on the back that was surely coming. The boss reached up and clapped his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Shaking his head, he said, “If I knew how eager you were going to be, I would have told you to put on one of those.” Adam followed his gesture down to
find a pair of two-foot-long rubber gloves sitting at his feet.

It’s not just animals that get the benefit of STM’s consideration. We hear a lot from him about food as well. The roles that edibles play in STM’s universe bear a striking resemblance to those of animals. There’s the good:

“Chicken soup. Get down with that funky stuff. Mmmmmm.”

The bad:

“Don’t put the noodles and the dumplings together in the boat. They’ll fight! The noodles are bullies. Poor dumplings.”

Aaaaaaaaand the inappropriate:

“Well, that certainly was an interesting use for a banana. Now go wash your hands.
And burn the banana.”

And, just as we hear a good bit about cows, there are, of course, favorite foods that put in frequent appearances. Like cake.

“It’s cake o’clock! All day long.”

Adam talks in his sleep about cake an awful lot. It makes sense: Adam and I both LOVE cake, and we’re willing to go the extra mile for the ultimate cake experience. Cake is awesome! Do you think it was easy finding someone in the UK to make red velvet cupcakes for our wedding? Red velvet may be the in thing now, but no one in England had ever heard of this American southern specialty a couple of years ago. We combed the countryside in search of someone who could make these moist, delicious, shockingly hued confections. But that’s just the sort of dedication it takes to be a true cake enthusiast.

Adam’s children reap the benefits of his love of all things sweet and spongy. Every year, for each of their birthdays, Adam makes an elaborate cake in the theme of their current favorite interests. This past year, his fishing-obsessed son had
a guy being towed underwater by a fishing pole, having just been pulled off a jetty by a shark. His horseback-riding daughter had a horse show ring, complete with pony and tiny hand-made jumps. Last year, they got an aircraft carrier and a rainforest scene, respectively. If ever there was proof that Adam is nothing like his alter ego, I think this little habit is it.

“It’s taken years of cake abuse to get this body into the peak of physical fitness.”

STM’s passion for cake is equalled, luckily for him, by his utter lack of regard for the “thinner is better” mantra we’re bombarded with all the time. Often, he appears to be triumphantly throwing an attempted insult right back into someone’s face:

“Me, fat? Think again, titty-fuck.
I taught my muscles to be in a zen-like state of relaxation. Permanently.”

Other times, he sounds downright proud of his extra poundage:

“They’re not love handles. No. I’ve got love impact protection barriers.”

And yet, despite his refreshing comfort with his own apparent portliness, STM doesn’t seem to have any qualms about using others’ weight as a source of insult:

“If you want me to be honest, then I have to say, your ass makes those jeans look small.”

Of course, as STM insults go, that one was nothing. STM’s passion for the put-down is unequalled and unignorable. One gets the sense that STM can muster contempt for just about anyone. And yet, I can’t help but notice that there are certain groups for which he reserves especially vitriolic disdain.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this country: our proximity to France!”

The French are one such unfortunate faction. In fact, the poor French get it from both sides, waking and sleeping: awake Adam enjoys the occasional jibe at their expense as well, which is his birthright as an Englishman: just think of Monty Python and every other English comedy ever made. In fact, I’ve noticed that disdain for the French—ironic or genuine—seems to be the norm among people from all nations around the world, except the French (who, the stereotype would have us believe, feel disdain for everyone else, so I suppose there is a sort of symmetry there).

Surprisingly, evidence demonstrates that STM is open to having his prejudices challenged by Adam’s waking experiences. When Adam and I spent two weeks volunteering at a monkey sanctuary in Ecuador, we shared a house with two fellow volunteers, both French, with whom we got on brilliantly. The walls of our little domicile
were pretty thin, and I’d warned our housemates that they might hear any manner of weirdness coming from our room throughout the night. You can imagine my chagrin when, about a week in, STM loudly pronounced:

“Hmm, I like you. But you’re French.
So don’t tell anyone I said it.”

And yes, our French friends caught every bigoted syllable, as evidenced by the great guffaw I heard on the other side of the wall.

I’ll tell ya, though, the French have it easy compared to the poor vegetarians.

“Vegetarians will be the first to go.
That’s my plan. Vegans haven’t got a hope.
‘I eat air, I’m so healthy …’ Bollocks!”

No other individual or group faces quite the depth and breadth of abuse that STM bestows upon vegetarians. I have no idea where this comes from. As the cliché goes, some of our
best friends are vegetarians! In fact, once upon a time, Adam himself gave vegetarianism a go. Doesn’t every lefty teenager go through that phase? It lasted until the very next time his mother served roast lamb with mint jelly.

Finally, we couldn’t possibly talk about common STM themes without considering the repeated appearances of all the typical heroes to little boys:

“You know, you can’t be a pirate
if you haven’t got a beard. I said so.
MY boat, MY rules.”

Pirates, ninjas, superheroes … these are the figures that populate STMville. I guess since Adam’s subconscious offers a playground where he can be whoever he wants, it’s no surprise that he delves back into the fantasies that grown-ups are forced to leave behind, but probably still bubble away quietly beneath the conscious surface.

There are so many other motifs that crop up regularly in Adam’s sleep talking—the combative nature of vegetables, the importance of good hygiene, the Jesus debate (son of God, or the first zombie?)—but I think I’ll stop here and leave you to discover them for yourself.

THE BODY BEAUTIFUL

8
“I haven’t put on weight. Your eyes are fat.”

7
“My ass and my personality are the same thing. Huge and in your face.”

6
“Right, like I joined to get fit. I joined for the mirrors!”

5
“I’m not fat. It’s just my awesomeness swelling up inside me.”

4
“I’ve got muscles. They’re just sleeping. Don’t wake them. Let them sleep.”

3
“Yeah, I’m shapely. I’m a great big gorgeous shape and loving it.”

2
“It’s not sweat. It’s my aura glistening.”

1
“Well, so what if you call me fat. I’ll forget you even exist the next time I see a doughnut.”

Letter to Sleep Talkin’ Man

One night, I awoke to the cries of my hungry one-year-old daughter. That was a nightly occurrence at the time and, as usual, I woke my husband Eric and asked him to go get her for me so that I could nurse her. It took a few tries to get him up, and by then, the baby was screaming loudly. Eric left the room and was gone for a really long time. All the while, the baby was still screaming, and I started to wonder what he could possibly be doing. After a good five minutes, he finally returned to the bedroom, but instead of the baby (STILL wailing in the nursery), he was carrying a winter coat. He handed it to me and said, “I remembered the coat, but I forgot the other thing.”

Melanie M.

Washington, D.C.

Ninjas in stilettos. Fashion assassains!
Not so stealthy but oh so stylish.

“You can’t drop them. You can’t set
them on fire. You can’t feed them to crocodiles.
You can’t let them play with fireworks.
I mean … kids: what the fuck?!”