“Have You ever had a dream, Neo? One that seemed so real…. How could you tell the dream world from the real one?”
The line went something like that.
I thought that the matrix movie really sucked.
I mean, it was soooo unrealistic. i never had dreams like that. I was way too busy enjoying my life. Way too busy to care. Me and my brothers had just released ‘This Time Around’ and it wasn’t doing too bad. It was like a dream…
For this first time, I thought about that stupid movie. Why did I think it was so stupid anyways? Wasn’t it a good idea? A really cool concept? Yet, it annoyed me somehow. Why?
“Melanie told me she likes you.” Taylor said out of nowhere on a Saturday morning.
“Really?” I asked, amazed. Melanie was really cute, with short blond hair and dark blue eyes. She was kinda ditzy, but who cared!! She was like a dream! I couldn’t believe she actually liked me! “How do you know?” I asked cautiously.
“Oh, she told me, after I told her she was no good at blow jobs. I think she was just trying to make me mad.” Taylor said in a nonchalant way. Taylor could be such a snob sometimes. Had he always been like that? I seemed to recall distant memories when Taylor was nice, when Taylor was my friend, who was always playing sports, having mud on his face and…
I shook my head. What was i thinking? Taylor had never played sports in his life, save for soccer sometimes, so people would think he was an athlete. Where were memories of Taylor with mud on his face coming from? Taylor would defiantly whine about zits if he got anything on his face.
“You’re a snob.” I muttered irritably.
“Hey kiddy, I’ve always been a snob!! Just like Ike has always been a drinker and you’ve always been the goody who never fit in.” Taylor rolled his eyes, throwing his legs covered by leather pants on the table.
Isaac was a drinker?? I was perplexed for a moment, as if he had forgotten. Taylor wore leather pants??
But it all came back quickly and I calmed down. Ike was a drinker of course. He had been for a long time. And Taylor wore leather pants all the time. He said it showed off his ass. And showing off his ass was very important cos it helped him get girls, which seemed imperative to Taylor.
Something was wrong.
I could not place it, but somehow something was ripping at the seams. He could feel it and almost touch it.
I was having dreams. Dreams of Taylor with mud on his face, laughing, wearing a loose pair of jeans that certainly didn’t show off his ass. But they were just dreams.
And yet the dreams were feeling real. I would wake up and be unsure of where i was for at least 5 minutes until I would remember and relax.
“ Hey kid, you got any money.” Isaac asked oneday, flinging himself down on my bed.
“Why do you want money?” I asked. He was rich. He had his own money.
“For what I always want money for. Booze, moron.” Ike slapped me upside the head. Hard.
Taylor’s cackled laugh could be heard from the door as he walked in.
“What a bitch!!!” Taylor howled, snorting. He walked into my room, looking how he really was, ugly, mean, cruel.
“Can you believe this bitch fan? Marilyn! She gave me her phone number, so I call her and arrange to go eat with her someplace. Anyways, she shows up in this tiny lil shiny pink skirt and she must have a push up bra on cos her cleavage is like the grand canyon right..” Taylor giggled and Ike followed suit. “ So, we get food somewhere, I dunno, and we get in my car and I drive her to a secluded spot and I’m going down on her.. and guess what the bitch says??” Taylor snorted, but I looked into his blue eyes with fear. They were angry.
“What did she say?” Ike asked.
“She says she’s not ready to go that far!! Well then, I told her she shouldn’t have worn such an ensemble, and just keep on going!! She’s screaming like a pig and so I just keep on going. I didn’t even use a condom, man!!” Taylor seemed to find this hilarious. I was going to be sick. This was my brother?
“You raped her??” I gasped, horrified. Who was this monster???
“Shut up!” Taylor giggled, like he was a ten-year-old girl and I had blabbed the name of his secret crush.
But Taylor wasn’t a ten-year-old girl. He was a 17-year-old man. And I hadn’t blabbed the name of his secret crush. I had proclaimed the truth. He had raped a girl.
“Oh, Zac don’t look so horrified!! It’s not so bad if you don’t call it rape. I won’t get caught, no one will believe her. Plus, you would’ve done it too if you had seen the legs on her…” Taylor began to go into detail about her legs, her chest, her curves. I wanted to hurl. I left the room and went outside.
What was happening to me.
I had a more vivid dream. I dreamed of Isaac and a boy named Jordan.. Who looked like my brother Taylor, but he wasn’t evil.
“ I wonder if oneday I’ll be famous…” Jordan wondered, his voice like fog. I wanted to say you’re already famous and you wear tight ass pants like my brother does.. but there was something slightly different from this boy and my brother Taylor. This boy wasn’t selfish or mean. He wore baggy cords and a baseball hat with his hair on a messy ponytail. His blue eyes sparkled with innocent hopes and dreams.
“You don’t want to be famous.” I replied simply. Jordan’s movements were very dreamlike. This was after all a dream.
“Why not?” Jordan questioned, and then blushed. I had never seen Taylor blush that way before. But this wasn’t Taylor. Not really, anyways. “ I’m too shy to be famous, anyways.”
Isaac was there too.
“Can I borrow some money?” He asked me. My guard was up, even in this dream world.
“What do you need money for?” I asked.
“I wanna take this girl out to the movies and…” Isaac kept talking, but his voice floated away. Isaac is taking a girl to the movies. It was very unreal. And yet too real. Too familiar.
I woke up, sweating. Where the heck was I?
I panted. Where were Jordan and Isaac? Where was I? Had I been kidnapped?
My head whipped around in a panic for a long time.
Memory slowly sunk in. Again.
“Hey Zac.” Ike said, looking up grumpily. He was obviously recovering from a severe hangover that morning.
“Walk.” I corrected.
“Walk? Since when is your name Walk?” Ike snapped.
Since when was my name Walk?
I shrugged, very unsure of it. Walker was my middle name. Why had I corrected Ike and told him to call me Walk?
“You’re trying to confuse me” Ike hissed, slumping down in his chair. How old he looked, I thought, his eyes sunken into his head. Eyes that usually laughed and crinkled at the corners..
Usually? I must have meant used to.
I was confused. Something was hurting.
The seam ripped wide open suddenly. I could actually hear the ripping sound.
I blinked.
Jordan looked at me as he ripped paper out of his notebook.
“What are you doing?” I asked suddenly. As if I was supposed to be here. As if I belonged.
“ I don’t like the story I wrote. I’m throwing it out.” Jordan replied, and kept right on ripping.
“ Which story? The one with the dragons? Don’t!! It’s good!!” I grabbed his hand and yanked the book away. “ Keep it.”
Jordan frowned, thinking, the way he often did.
“Well.. ok, Walk.” Jordan said.
Walk.
“Hey Walk!” Isaac came into the room, hangover free. “ Can you believe that dad is letting me go to New York for a week alone?? I’m an adult!!”
Isaac was, I thought. Just great.
“Zac!”
I flinched. What was that?
Jordan punched my shoulder.
“Hey, are we still on for some baseball today?” Jordan grinned. He had baggy blue jeans on.
“Zac!”
What was that??
“Zac!”
Things began to fade around me and I could almost hear Jordan’s frantic panicked calls. Calling for Walk.. but then who…
“Zac!”
“Zac!”
It was pounding in his head. Throbbing. A dream? No!
Suddenly i knew. It was like lightning.
This was real. Jordan and Isaac, brothers who loved me, real.
But somehow, somehow, I had dreamed. Dreamed of being famous. In some perturbed way, my dream had come true.
But I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t escape my dream. It was screaming at me by the name it called me. Zac.
No. I’m Walk. No one calls me Zac. I’m Walk. Walk.
I blinked.
“Zac, uh you okay?” Ike asked, looking up from the table he had his head slumped on.
“No, I’m not okay.”
Jordan looked down on the bed. Walk lay there, as he had in his coma for the last 5 months.
The doctors said it was any day now that he would come back. Any day,
But Jordan felt like his brother was somehow trapped. Stuck in a dream he couldn’t escape.
“Oh, Walk, come back,” Jordan whispered, and his eyes filled with tears. “Please, we need you..”
Need you
Need you
Need you
I blinked and blinked. I could hear him, I could hear Jordan.
Need you. “Christ, Zac! Snap out of it! What the fuck is wrong with you? You can’t have a hangover too! You don’t drink!” Ike was barking. How could I get back? Why was I like this? Was I forever trapped?