Jim Hasse: A Dream
“Jim, it’s okay. It’s just a dream.” My wife gently shakes me awake.
I’m hyperventilating as I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Rubbing my eyes, I say, “I gotta pee.” I slide out of bed and walk stiffly to the bathroom. I relieve myself and open the medicine cabinet. Where’s the Klonopin? Got it. I flip open the bottle. Only six left. I pop two pills in my mouth, lean my head down, and slurp water straight from the faucet. Where the hell is my bathroom cup?
Getting a full night’s sleep has been a challenge for too many years. Trazodone, Risperdal, and Melatonin. A couple of Klonopin joins the regimen when the dream comes.
I walk back into the bedroom and crawl into bed. “Same dream?” Carol asks.
“Yeah, it was Swan again. Same old thing. She’s begging me not to go. I try to speak, but nothing comes out. Feels like I’m choking on guilt and frustration. She’s haunting me.”
“What does it mean?”
“It all began about a month ago when this guy, Jimbo at Ace Hardware, helped me find the right light bulb.” I stare into Carol’s eyes.
“Did you take something to help you go back to sleep?”
“Yeah, a couple of Klonopin. Another 25 minutes and I should be back in the arms of Morpheus.”
“You know you use that phrase so often that I looked up ‘Morpheus’ on Wikipedia the other day. He was known as the God of Dreams before he was known as the God of Sleep. That’s where ‘morphine’ originated.”
“Hmmm. Interesting.”
"What’s the connection with that guy at Ace, the one named Jimbo? Did you say he looks Eurasian?”
I nod, my eyelids heavy. “Swan was a prostitute in Nha Trang. Her name was spelled ‘Xuan,’ but pronounced swan. It means ‘spring’ in Vietnamese. I only slept with her once, and then we became friends, good friends. When I was getting ready to leave Vietnam, she told me she was pregnant and begged me to marry her. She said it could have been my child. I counted back to the day, or rather the night, I slept with her, and that was possible. But she slept with many guys. She even had a regular American boyfriend who gave her lots of money, and she gave him lots of love and attention.” I sit up. “She called me Jimbo.” I look at Carol.
“The guy at Ace is about fifty. I asked him what his birth name was, expecting to hear Nguyen or Dong or something like that, but he said it was Jimbo. I asked him where he was from, and he said Saigon, which rules me out.
“Now it gets a little weird. He said he was born in Nha Trang, but as a baby, his mother moved them to Saigon after his American father left them and returned to the U.S.”
My mind wrestles with the dream and Jimbo.
“It’s after 5 a.m.; Jim, do you think you can go back to sleep?”
“No. I’m going to go make some coffee. I’ll take a nap this afternoon.” I push off the covers. “I always wondered what happened to Swan. I suspect she had a rough life. What do you think the chances are that the guy Jimbo is my son?”
Carol shrugs. “Wow, wouldn’t that be something. What will you do if he is?”
“I don’t know. I have mixed feelings. I guess it depends on how he feels about me. I could be the answer to his dream, or he could hate me for leaving them to the fates of war.” I get out of bed.
“I’m going to Ace this morning hoping to chat with him again. One question will solve it all. ‘Jimbo, what was your mother’s name?’ I have butterflies just thinking about it.”
A leisurely breakfast. Too much coffee. I drive to Ace. I almost walk in, but chicken out and go to the grocery store instead. Twenty minutes later, I slam shut my car trunk. I freeze. If I want these dreams to stop, I’ve got to go in and do this. I need to find out once and for all.
The friendly young gal behind the register greets me. “Good morning, sir. Can I help you find anything?”
“Nope, just looking around. Is Jimbo working today?”
“Ah, who?”
“Jimbo, the new guy. An Asian fellow.”
“No. We don’t have anybody like that.”
“Is Nick here?”
“Yeah, he’s here. Want me to page him?”
“No. I’ll just walk around and find him. Are you sure you don’t have a guy named Jimbo working here?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, you do?”
“No. I mean yeah, I’m sure we don’t have anyone named Jimbo working here.”
I shake my head and go looking for Nick. He’s in aisle five on a ladder getting a bird feeder down from a top shelf. I wait until he finishes with the customer. He turns and shakes my hand.
“Hey man, how you been?” Nick was once my neighbor, and we’re friends.
“Oh, I’m fine, but a bit confused.”
“Don’t know if I can help you there; I’m confused most of the time myself.” We laugh.
“Nick, you know that new guy you’ve got working here whose name is Jimbo? You know who I mean?”
“Well, I’m not confused about that. There’s just the regular crew here. No Jimbo.”
“Nick, he helped me find a large wattage LED bulb two days ago. I’m sure of it. Is there an Asian guy here named Jim or Jimbo? Anyone new?”
“Jim, I’m sure. There are seven of us. Tim is the newest employee, here for six months and he is black.”
“Oh…well…uh…thanks, Nick.” Half-dazed, I turn and walk out. What will I tell Carol?
I shrug. Huh, I guess it was just a dream.DSS
Jim Hasse, of Walnut Creek, CA, is a retired US Postal Inspector, was a drug and alcohol treatment counselor, and is now a writer. He is a Carbondale, IL native, and has a Master's degree from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
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