Julia Dream

Verse 3: Am I Really Dying?

Will the misty master break me?

Will the key unlock my mind?

Will the following footsteps catch me?

Am I really dying?

Part 3

6

Jake’s eyes shot open, and his body convulsed painfully. A scream escaped his throat. He knew that he’d have been levitating if not for the straps holding his body to the table. As he laid there panting, Jake wondered how Harvey was able to ram him like that. He was certain that the beast wasn’t able to touch him. He suddenly heard the voice of Ronald Reagan in his head, as he had heard it in a Def Leppard song; “We counted on America to be passive. We counted wrong.” And Jake had counted wrong about Harvey the armadillo. Very wrong.

From the corner of the room, he heard a small whirring. It was a camera. He was being watched. It was no surprise to him, seeing as how he’d assaulted his wife, fought with four police officers, including stabbing one in the neck, and killed his psychiatrist. That last one sealed his fate, he knew. Illinois was a state that still had capital punishment, though it could be years between now and when the state would set his death. Assuming, of course, that he would be given such a sentence. A growing movement was spreading across the country to do away with the death penalty, even as many conservative states were looking to bring back old forms of forced death. Some states wanted to bring back hangings, others preferred firing squads, or the electric chair. Many were just happy to stick with lethal injection, like Illinois, so long as they were able to kill the more notorious criminals and fuel their righteous indignation through divine justice.

Jake, however, didn’t have that kind of time. Julia was waiting for him in the Sapphire Tower, and he needed her. He was about to yell at the camera when he heard the key in the door. In walked another man in a suit and tie, he carried a briefcase in his left hand and a manila folder in his right, and he was flanked by two Department of Corrections officers carrying shotguns. Well, they’re not fucking around anymore. Gotta play it cool, haus.

He had proven in his last stint in the Waking World that he could channel the Dream World into it. So, logic prevailing, he also knew that he could channel the World of Death into the Dream World, but he’d have to be at Death’s Door to do so. If he were dead, then that would be all she wrote. If his body died while he was in the Dream World, then he could bridge the gap between the worlds. Was there a way to bridge the gap between the Waking World and the World of Death? Jake couldn’t be sure, but if one could do it with the other worlds, surely there must be a way to do it with all of them.

“God doesn’t play dice,” Einstein once wrote. It was a denunciation of Quantum Mechanics and the probabilities associated with subatomic particles. Take Schrödinger’s Cat as an example. It was a thought experiment introduced by Irwin Schrödinger to provide some basic level of understanding for a superposition of states. Put a cat in a box that has a vial of poison. The vial is closed, but there is a radioactive material in the box, too, and if that material decays, then the vial breaks and the cat dies. Now, without observing the interior of the box, but knowing that the radioactive material will decay, we know that the cat will eventually be killed. The question is, when will the material decay? Has it already decayed, and the cat is dead? Or are we still waiting? The answer is not an “or”, but an “and”. Probabilities suggest that, at any moment when the contents of the box are unobserved, the cat is both alive and dead.

Jake, who had always been a science nerd, read about this experiment over twenty years ago. It never intrigued him like it did in that moment. He understood that the human soul lived in the World of Death, just as the body lived in the Waking World and the mind lived in the Dream World. The worlds could be bridged. Jake didn’t fully comprehend why Julia wanted to bridge with the World of Death, and he knew that whatever her reason, for good or ill, it would not deter him from becoming her king. Somehow, though, Jake was special in that regard. But how would he bridge the Waking World with that of Death?

“… have been assigned as your counsel. Now, the state requires-”

“I’m sorry, what? Who are you?” His questions caused the lawyers face to go blank with irritation. “Please, start over, my mind wandered as soon as you walked in.”

Jake gave the man a wry smile, which pleased him even less.

“Mr. Chambers, your life is at stake here. We have a long road ahead of us and I need your full and undivided attention.” Jake could see the lawyer struggling to keep his composure. “I am Vincent Carmichael, the lawyer assigned to your case. Your wife has provided my firm with the necessary retainer and put your home up as collateral based on the length of time this process will take. Now, the state requires that-”

Jake cut him off again, he didn’t care about the state requirements. “Your fired, Mr. Lawyer. Get the hell out of here.”

Now it was Vincent’s chance to produce a wry smile, which he did with a certain satisfaction. “You can’t fire me, Mr. Chambers, you have no authority to do so. And my name is Carmichael.”

“You’re representing me, and I don’t want you. I will not let you or your firm drive my family into poverty over your ridiculous rates.” Jake’s anger began to well up inside of him, but unlike last time, there was no flow of superhuman strength, no prismatic red skin. “We all know where this is going. I threatened to kill my wife, I nearly killed my wife, I fought and injured several police officers, almost killing one, and I killed my psychiatrist before we could even complete our first session. Tell me, Carmichael, how do you plan on saving me?”

Vincent sighed and smiled politely this time. “Mr. Chambers, you cannot fire me because you are not mentally fit to make that decision. All Powers of Attorney rest with your wife, including all medical and legal decisions pertaining to you. And yes, this is pretty much an open and shut case. We’ve been instructed by Mrs. Chambers to fight for life imprisonment. So, as I said, we have a long road ahead of us. Now, the state re-”

“Nobody seems to understand, do they? Not even my thick-headed wife!” Jake grunts in anger and bangs his head against the pillow. “Listen carefully, Mr. Carmichael. I DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED. I have more important things to worry about than trying to prevent the state of Illinois from putting me to death.”

“But that’s our path, Mr. Chambers!” Vincent became excitable, and Jake could tell that, despite his arrogance and obvious disdain for his current client, the man loved practicing law. “You’re serving your pretrial time in a locked down mental ward! You don’t know what you’re doing. Just as you didn’t know what you were doing when you tried to strangle her, or when you stabbed that police officer with your handcuffs. Not even when you snapped the neck of the good doctor!”

Jake found Vincent’s palpable excitement about the crimes committed comical and couldn’t help but chuckle. But the reality (that word doesn’t really mean all that much to Jake anymore) of the situation was exactly what he told the lawyer moments before. Should things work out the way he hoped, there would be no defendant for Carmichael to represent.

“You won’t need to use the insanity plea, Vince. I won’t be here!”

Vincent’s face dropped and his eyebrows returned to their normal, uptight position. “Yes, of course. The dream.” On the word ‘dream’, Carmichael extended his neck forward like a turtle and shook his head back and forth, mocking Jake’s truth. “The dream, Mr. Chambers, is the defense. It’s the heart of your insanity plea. Now, the state-”

“Shut the fuck up, you moron!” The anger, which had never really disappeared, exploded into rage. “None of you understand! None of you can! But that doesn’t matter. I’m the only one that needs to understand it. And with you jawing at me about things that are meaningless, you’re wasting my time!”

In his fit of yelling, Jake didn’t see the officers cock their shotguns and position them for a quick aim and fire. Nor did Vincent see them do it, as he cowered away from Jake’s expression of violence. Of the many psychos and murderers that Vincent Carmichael, Esquire, had represented for Gorman, Silas, and Gorman, LLC, none of them seemed as dangerous in their behavior towards him than Jake did in that instant. He thought of the psychiatrist that Jake had killed, Doctor Phillip Killian, MD. He had watched the video of the events inside the little room just down the hall from where he now stood. Jake Chambers had shown superhuman strength in that incident. And though nobody had mentioned it, Vincent was certain (no, more than certain) that his client’s skin had a rainbow-like sheen to it. It reminded him of the way the surface of oil can act as a prism and split sunlight into a rainbow. There was no way that he was the only one that saw it, but he also knew that he wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t speak about it.

“I told the good doctor that I would kill him for getting in my way,” Jake continued. “Do you think you deserve any better treatment, Carmichael? Do you think that your life means anything to me?”

Vincent felt like a child being scolded and turned sheepishly toward one of the officers for protection. Jake laughed again through his rage, half expecting the lawyer to piss his pants. Then it was suddenly quiet. Holding his briefcase against his chest, Vincent dared to return his gaze to Jake. His bladder let loose as he stared right into Jake’s red-lit eye.

“Get out,” Jake said calmly in the same Austrian voice he used in the dream. “If you want to live, get out now.”

The corrections officers, upon seeing Jake’s red eye and smelling Vincent’s bladder letting loose, looked to each other for confidence and action. Neither seemed particularly enthusiastic about having to do anything. They heard a strap break on the bed and turned their gazes back to Jake. His red-lit eye threw the whole situation into a place that neither officer ever expected it to go. They weren’t fortunate enough to watch the video of Jake’s last adventure. But Vincent watched it, and he wanted out of that room. Jake’s look was the look of his death, and he wasn’t ready to die yet.

The officer to Vincent’s right, Jake’s left, suddenly found the gumption to level the shotgun at Jake. “Hold it raht there, Mr. Chambers!”

The voice, quivering, had a deep southern twang. Quite often, Jake knew, many a law enforcement type would find themselves somewhat excommunicated from southern law enforcement. There were certain… issues with the way said officers of the law handled themselves. Especially, when it came to people of a certain race, the ones they like to label as “thugs” and call “boy”. These types would often find themselves in deep water after one, or many, depending on the state, interaction that just didn’t look well for the city, town, or county in which they worked. So, their superiors would get on the horn within their sprawling law enforcement Good Ol’ Boy network, which dated back to long before the Civil War, and find the incriminated officer new employment. Their past would be kept hush-hush, of course, and the cost of moving would be covered by the network itself. It was a fairly well-oiled and lucrative machine for the upper echelons of the network. So, they would take these overzealous officers and ship them up the Mississippi, most often from Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee. Officer Twang, in Jake’s estimation, was from Alabama.

But Officer Twang’s words had no effect on Jake. Once again, he felt the power of the Dream World surge through him. He wasn’t T-800 Jake, like in the dream, but he had the power and the lack of fear. He wondered if the shotguns held by the corrections officers would shoot eggs like the minigun in the dream. I doubt it, my man! Without much effort, Jake raised his right arm and broke the strap holding his arm down. All that was left were the straps on his ankles.

“Stop moving, Mr. Chambers!” said the other officer. Having watched Officer Twang shake off his fear, this officer had found his. “Let’s not make dis any harder than it has to be, OK?”

Jake actually hesitated for a moment. Not out of fear, just comical surprise. Officer Twang had been partnered with Officer Chicago. There was no mistaking that slightly off Italian mobster accent. Forrest Gump and Nicky Santoro in the same room? Who’d a thunk it? Jake even took an extra moment to ponder one of his favorite films. You would’ve thought that having been a hulk and now a terminator, those two movies would be at the top of Jake’s list. Nope. They were simply easily referenced superhero characters that made his dreams more fun. At least until his quest to find Julia. No, Nicky Santoro was a Chicago Mafia strongman, and childhood friend of Ace Rothstein, who once ran a skimming scheme for the mafia at the Las Vegas Tangiers Casino, in the aptly named film, “Casino”. Nicky was a tough guy, and he had no fear of anybody. “Maybe if I stick your fuckin’ face trew dat window over here you’ll get unconfused.” Looking at Officer Chicago’s face, though, Jake knew that he was no Nicky Santoro.

Returning to the moment at hand, Jake lifted his right leg and broke the ankle strap with little effort. Then he did the same with the left. Officers Chicago and Twang had their shotguns leveled at him, but neither seemed willing to pull their triggers.

“Oh, God!” Vincent cried from his crouched position between the officers. “I don’t wanna die! Please don’t kill me!”

Jake spoke to him as he got up from the hospital bed, “But you’re in my way, Vincent.” He nearly laughed out loud at the Austrian accent, but he couldn’t give the trio in front of him a moment’s respite from their fear. “There are others that must be saved, and I am their champion. Your pathetic life is worthless to them, which means it’s worthless to me.”

“Mr. Chambers, stop moving!” The tandem voices of Officers Twang and Chicago were deafening in the small room. “We will kill you, sir!” The last was Twang, his shotgun aimed right at Jake’s head, but his back flat against the wall.

Chicago stood a little more firm, and Jake knew that he was the prime concern. That also made him the first target. He turned his red-eyed gaze on Officer Chicago and walked right at him. The gunshot made everything go silent. All Jake could hear was the pumping of blood through his ears. But he also felt the bullet tear through his chest, just to the right of his left shoulder. In his Terminator state, the pain was distant, but he knew that the pain would explode like a bomb as soon as the rush was gone.

The rest of the scene played out in silent slow motion. Officer Chicago pumped his shotgun to reload, but Jake grabbed a hold of the barrel in his right hand and brought that hand square into Chicago’s nose. He immediately went limp, face bloodied and caved in, and released his grip on the shotgun. Die, you muddafucka! said Nicky Santoro in his mind. In one smooth motion, Jake spun his wrist to bring the grip of the pump-action shotgun to his opposite hand. Letting go of the barrel, the shotgun snapped to and was leveled right between the eyes of Officer Twang.

In that instant, Jake saw Twang’s entire life flash before his eyes. Not the actual memories being paged through like a photo album, but the change in Twang’s expression. He knew he was about to meet his maker, that became clear to Twang as soon as he pulled the trigger of his shotgun and realized he had left the safety on. That happened as soon as the now dead Officer Chicago fired his own shotgun. He tried to flick the safety off, but everything happened too fast. He watched as Jake Chambers grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and nearly put his fist through Chicago’s head. Instant death, and Twang watched his corpse slump to the floor. That was the judge’s gavel proclaiming his own death sentence. Twang knew it as much as he knew that Chicago was dead. There was no escape from Jake Chambers.

This was what Jake saw in Twang’s face, the fizzling of fear and the acceptance of imminent death. He was watching the reruns of his life, reveling in the happy memories and wishing, in that moment before his death, that he could’ve lived a longer life. His girlfriend, Sheila, would certainly mourn his passing. But there hadn’t been enough vested in the six-month relationship for it to last too long for her. There were no children, and barely any family. Twang’s family was as southern as it got. He grew up in a podunk town called Pine Apple. There were as many Confederate flags that flew as United States flags. Most of the community was bigoted and the older folks missed the days “when the niggers knew their place”. But the community of Pine Apple, as racist as they were, were never violent about their beliefs. Never would they have considered stringing up a black man for just looking at a white woman. They wouldn’t scream and yell to force a black woman to the back of the bus. They just simply lived their lives “knowin’ they was bettuh than the black folk”. Officer Twang eventually found his home as a law enforcement officer in Andalusia, a decent size borough compared to Pine Apple. It was there, four years ago, that he was caught on video beating the piss out of a young black man. The young man was unarmed, but the department tried as hard as they could to defend Twang. In the end, he was forced to take a plea deal and was allowed to go north. But his family turned their backs on him. “You can be bettuh without bein’ hateful, Bradley. Whatch you did was wrong, and you bes’ pray to the Lord for guidance. Goodbye, son.” That was the last thing his father told him.

I hope it was a good life, boy, Jake thought. His hearing had just started to come back when he fired the next shot. The brain matter that was just seconds ago reliving a life was now splattered across the wall. Vincent still huddled on the floor, pants wet with urine, and screaming like a little girl on a scary roller coaster. The two corpses were now bookends to a small, blood-spattered lawyer who thought that his latest case would be a slam dunk at the firm, acquittal or no acquittal. Jake Chambers had already become a high profile case, the story just the previous day breaking into the national news cycle.

“A man in Illinois, by the name of Jacob Chambers, nearly kills his wife before being arrested. While in police custody, he somehow is able to critically injure one officer and murder the psychiatrist that had been appointed to him. All of this was done in cold blood and is on video. After killing the psychiatrist, Mr. Chambers once again threatened his wife. What was his motive? What could cause somebody to fly off the handle in such a devastating way?

“Mental illness is becoming a crisis in this country, one that has us begging the question, when is it too much? When do we stop trying to help these people who commit such atrocities and just simply kill them? Our sources also confirm that Mr. Chambers was a more liberal person, known at his place of employment for many disparaging remarks about our previous president and those who support him. It leads to this question… Is liberal thinking becoming a disease? Let the records show that many high profile and violent liberals have had serious mental issues. Is there a cause-and-effect correlation, or is it coincidence?”

Tucker Carlson droned on like that for nearly an hour on the previous night, his forehead scrunched in that moronic stare he always gets. Millions of brainwashed individuals were listening to him, no doubt, eager to wipe away more of their critical thinking brain cells. Jake was able to catch just that much as he was being transferred to the room he now occupied. The strange thing was that he was asleep at that time, but there was a part of his mind that was awake and able to understand what was happening around him. If only those parts of my brain could speak to each other directly, that might be helpful, he thought.

Jake stuck the barrel of the shotgun under Vincent’s chin and forced him to stand. He regarded the lawyer with skepticism, eyebrows raised, and head cocked back slightly. Tilting his head from side to side, he took in fully the little man before him. Under the splattered blood, Vince’s suit was black with dark gray pinstripes. Gotta be Gucci, or maybe Zoot Suit, thought Jake. He had gray wingtips on his feet, the same gray as the pinstripes, and the tie, still held back by its clip, was a brilliant blue. Almost like a sapphire. Jake smiled in spite of himself. The clean-shaven face, soft jawline, beady eyes scared to death behind an expensive pair of Versace frames, and greased hair (do people still grease their hair?) that had been combed back perfectly before Jake had caused a scene.

Now that Jake was in less danger with Officers Twang and Chicago lying dead on the floor, he eased up a bit on Jake the Terminator. In the silence, he heard the whirring of the camera and looked up at it. The lens was pointed directly at him. Jake knew that outside the door to his little room there were several more Department of Corrections officers armed and ready to take him out. Would they bust through the door to kill him? Jake put his bet on ‘no’, but he needed a little extra to ensure they’d stay outside. He bent down and grabbed Twang’s body by the uniform collar and shoved it to the corner, then he motioned with the shotgun for Vince to get in front of the door. The lawyer moved slowly, tears streaming down his face and gas escaping from his ass.

Jake laughed out loud again, looked to the camera, and pointed at Vince. The laughter continued for a few more moments, then he silenced himself and brought the gun to Vince’s forehead. The sound of the lawyer’s bowels letting loose was both hilarious and disgusting. Instantly, the smell of shit joined with the smell of piss and death. Perhaps, thought Jake, I really am insane. The smell is oddly pleasant. He laughed again at the lawyer’s plight. His suit and wingtip shoes were ruined by blood and piss, and now his Calvin Klein underwear were ruined by shit. The guy was having a bad day! But Jake was done screwing around. Harvey Wallbanger, the humungous armadillo, still awaited his return and the battle that would follow. Then it would be time to find Julia and take his place among the revered and powerful in the World of Dreams.

He pumped the shotgun to reload and lifted the barrel between Vince’s eyes. The lawyer’s eyes followed the barrel with his eyes, going cross-eyed as he looked up towards his forehead. Then he closed his eyes.

“Vincent,” Jake began apologetically. “I know you woke up this morning thinking that you were on the gravy train to the rich life of your law firm. You thought my case was a slam dunk. And in any other situation, it would undoubtedly be so. But you’re caught up in forces beyond your understanding and control. I have much bigger things to consider than life imprisonment, or lethal injection. You don’t deserve to die, to be quite honest. But now I’ve killed a psychiatrist and two corrections officers. Why should you survive my menacing rampage?”

Vincent began to sob uncontrollably. Through his deep breaths he tried to speak, but it was unintelligible except for “ontuh unnah eye!!”

Jake laughed as Vince cried, then he looked at the lawyer with a smile. “Death is not the end, Vincent. Only another road to travel. Hell, if things go the way I hope, we may yet see each other again.”

Vincent Carmichael, Esquire, of Gorman, Silas, and Gorman, LLC, sobbed one final time and took his last breath. Then the lead shot went through his brain, ending his time in the Waking World. Jake raised his eyes to the camera as the door to the little room began to open. He could hear the screams of more corrections officers telling him to “get on the ground!”

“Gotta go,” he said to the men and women watching the camera feed somewhere in the building. Jake pumped the shotgun one last time and turned it on himself. The end of the barrel pressed against his stomach, just a little to his right and just below the rib cage. He would survive the shot, but it would severely damage his liver and kidney, injuries he doubted he could survive for very long, no matter what the doctors did to try and save him. He thought that it should buy him just the right amount of time.

BANG!!

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