Waiting on a Dream

I

The old house on the outskirts of the tiny town of Eagle, Vermont was a dream come true for Sabella Laaksonen. The seventy-year-old newly retired long-term care nurse had spent most of her life assisting others. She was now ready to take time for herself.

Although the house had not been lived in since 1960, it had been kept in good condition by the family of the previous owner. The attic was full of wonderful old things, including books, dolls, and record albums.

“You should take this crap over to that doll hospital and antique place and see if you can get something for it,” Sabella’s brother advised. “No sense to you being buried in junk again, Bella.”

“I’m not planning to get buried in junk again, Alex,” Sabella retorted. “But what I keep and what I sell is my business.”

That was how Sabella ended up in the waiting area of Gabriels Doll Hospital and Curio Shop and Didi and Gene’s Entertainment Emporium sipping a cup of strong coffee and nibbling a delicious maple-frosted donut from Bear and Wolf’s Damn Good Eats, which was smartly positioned next door to the enormous storehouse of antiques and oddities.

The owners of all three establishments were antiques themselves, but they showed no signs of slowing down. Perhaps the easy pace of life in the bucolic hamlet kept them young.

“Or maybe I’ve stumbled upon a fountain of youth,” Sabella pondered playfully.

A tiny Caucasian man with a beaklike nose and snowy tufts of curly hair poking out from under his purple Fedora regarded the doll, book, and album sitting on the end table beside Sabella. He approached her with a warm smile, extending a weathered hand.

“You must be da lady who buy my brother’s old house. I’m Teodore Monday, but you can call me Tio like everyone else.”

Tio sounded Cajun and his blue eyes revealed both childlike curiosity and immeasurable sadness.

“Sabella Laaksonen. It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve found quite a collection of fascinating things in the attic. You’re welcome to come take a look and see if you want any of them.”

“Oh, I’ve took de ones he wanted me to have. He wants you to have da rest if you’d like ‘em, but anything that’s a burden I’ll come pick up. Oh, I remember dese! De book is our second, de album is our third, and Wafi make de doll for Rey when first we move here.”

“I wanted to play the album, but I was afraid of scratching it,” Sabella confessed. “I thought that perhaps Mr. Ndidi or Mr. Gene could make CDs from the albums I found. I also wanted to ask them about this book. I realized that the doll was modeled after the dark-haired fellow on the album cover. Looking at you, I can see the resemblance. Am I correct that this is your brother?”

“Yeah, dare is Reymund, although he rather be called Rey,” Tio replied.

“His style was well ahead of its time. His hair is quite long for a man in 1954. Not just collar-length but long enough to pull back into a ponytail. I see you’re wearing the same pendant you wore in that picture, and he has one too.”

Sabella pointed to the pendant in the shape of a star with a flaming eye at the center.

“Elder sign. I get Didi to make you one. Protection from evil or funky jewelry, however you wish.”

“I’d love one, but how much would it cost? After my big move from Texas, I’m kind of tapped.”

“Ain’t cost nothing. My way to say ‘hello, friend.’ Other way I say hello, I invite you to Sunday Supper Club. Now, before you get idea dis nasty old gnome trying to make a play, Imma tell you dat I invites everybody for Supper Club if I feels good from them. I ain’t ever love nobody but Tirzah, and never will I do.”

“Is your wife at home, then?” Sabella inquired.

“Her ashes is in de urn on da mantle, her soul be home in da Dreamlands waiting for me. When my time come, da kids scatter our ashes to da wind together.”

“I’m very sorry,” Sabella said. “When did she…”

“She gone home eight year ago, and I rail at da gods every night for five years. I be older by seven year. I ought to have go first. We was married 65 good years. Got married New Year’s Day 1947.”

“Well, I was married seven mostly bad years, but I got a good son out of it. He and his wife live near the Canadian border, just about ten miles from here. I’ll get to see him much more often now. It nearly broke my heart when he left Texas two years ago, but I knew he needed to go.”

“You a good momma to let him go find his destiny,” Tio declared, patting Sabella’s shoulder companionably. “Some parents hold to dey children too tight. Dey smother ‘em.”

“Doing that only creates resentment,” Sabella mused. “I’ve missed Fionn so much, but Widya’s good for him. They’re both autistic. They met six years ago online, playing games. Fionn’s dad helped them buy their place.”

“Well, now you here to help dem. Fate be kind sometime, but you gotta flatter de old girl. Sometimes she a mean old bitch, but most of de time de real mean come from people.”

II

Tio pointed to a note on the album sleeve.

“You see dare where it say: ‘dedicated to Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do?’” he asked with a grin. “Will you hazard a guess why?”

“You were grateful for musical inspiration?” Sabella asked.

“Dis here a dedication to all de Monday brothers and sisters,” Tio revealed. “My Daddy, Talmadge Monday, were born in New Orleans on All Hallows Eve,1872. My momma, Merlene Brennan, were born in Alpharetta, Georgia on Easter Sunday, 1871. Momma were a socialite, but she meet Daddy on a trip to New Orleans when she turn nineteen. Dey marry on 20 December 1892. Ten month later, on All Hallows Eve, dey has twin girls, Doris and Donna: Do and Do.”

“So, Re must be Reymund,” Sabella surmised. “He doesn’t look much older than you.”

“Well, he ain’t, Chere,” Tio confirmed. “Rey were only two years and twelve days older dan me. Dis here dedication ain’t in order of birth. Mia Rose am next, an’ she were born on de seventh of July nineteen-hundred. Missy Falona come along on twenty October nineteen-hundred and two. Lana Lee arrive on de second day of January, nineteen-hundred and five. Tia Belle make her debut on de fifth of April nineteen-hundred and six. And on de seventh of August nineteen-hundred and nine, my folks have dey first boy, Sol King.

“People reckoned my folks was done having babies den, but Madam Fate have other plans. When my momma were fifty-three years old, she fell pregnant again. She give birth to Rey on All Hallows Eve nineteen-hundred and twenty-five, but dat weren’t even de biggest surprise. She fell pregnant again a little over a year later, and I were born trussed up like a turkey in my life cord on de twelfth day of November, nineteen-hundred and twenty-seven.”

“Your mother is a stronger lady than I,” Sabella admitted. “I nearly died giving birth to Fionn, and I had an early miscarriage a year later. My marriage was over by then anyway. Khorramdin and I divorced when Fionn was two.”

“I’m sorry to hear dat, Darlin’. But I guess maybe da two of you done what you needed to do.”

“That’s the way I see it,” Sabella agreed. “Fionn was the best thing either of us ever did. He’s a wonderful young man, even if the rest of the world can’t see it because he’s quiet.”

“Rey were quiet,” Tio recalled. “He let da guitar and da vibraphone do de talkin’. He don’t mind tellin’ me to shut my fool mouth sometime neither. ‘Tio, shut up, you talk too fuckin’ much!’” the old man imitated his brother. He then cackled until tears ran down his wizened face, which contorted with sadness.

“Why don’t I get you a coffee?” Sabella suggested. “I could use a refill myself. You can hold my place. I really want to make sure the doll’s arm is fixed, and I want to hear more about your family and your album and this wonderful book. You and your brother were ahead of your time. Graphic novels didn’t find a big audience until the 1970s.”

III

When Sabella returned with the coffee, Tio was holding the doll in the palm of his hand and gazing at it reverently. Sabella felt sad for the world-weary little man. She knew from the information given to her by the real estate agent that Rey was found floating in Dark Lake on November 1, 1960 with all the blood drained from his body.

“How does he live with it?” Sabella wondered. “I likely would have gone mad or killed myself.”

Tio grinned as Sabella handed him the coffee. He took a sip and smacked his lips.

“Dis be just what de doctor order, Miss Isabella. I tank you. Now, I be lookin’ at Rey here, and I got to tell you dat all he need am a stitch here and a tuck dare, and he good as new.”

“Honestly, I know that.” Sabella confessed. “And now comes the part where maybe you think I’m crazy. Uriel told me to bring him here. He said that this was the right place to connect with the right people.”

“Uriel de ghost-friend, or Uriel de Archangel?” Tio inquired.

“The archangel,” Sabella confirmed.

“Well, you ain’t wanna disobey an archangel, no ma’am,” Tio agreed. “Only ting worse dan de wrath of a archangel be de wrath of Rey.”

Tio laughed, and Sabella found herself hoping that she would be great friends with this wonderfully odd little man. Most of her connections were superficial. She resonated with Tio.

At last Wafi Gabriels finished with his previous customer.

“Tio, you ornery old cuss, be you driving away my customers again?” the ancient black man demanded playfully.

“Fuck you and de horse you ride in on, Gabby,” Tio retorted, chuckling. “I recruit a new member for de Sunday Supper Club. Dis de lady who buy Rey’s old house, and she have work for you and Didi and Gene. I gotta warn you, Miss Isabella, dis old fart even older dan me, so you best be hopin’ he don’t die before he get de job done.”

“Dey have me marked for death many a time,” Wafi Gabriels revealed. “Even done the last rights once or twice. But here I be, still standin’, still fixin’ effigies and figurines and shufflin’ junk from one home to another. Oh, my friend Rey, what sort of a fix you done got yourself into here, Son?”

“He was sitting in a window in the attic, and I didn’t realize that he was propped against a nail to keep him upright,” Sabella said. “I tore his arm when I picked him up.”

“You got other business here, Darlin’? I fix him up good as new while you tend to it.”

“Well, I was hoping Mr. Didi or Mr. Gene could arrange to record me a CD from this album. I suppose that Tio is really the best person to tell me about the graphic novel.”

IV

Ndidi Uberto and his lifelong friend and business partner Ejiroghene Radcliff were both Nigerian, having immigrated to the United States when they were nineteen and seventeen, respectively. According to Tio, Uberto was now ninety-nine years old and Radcliff was ninety-seven. Wafi Gabriels was an impressive one hundred years old. Sabella marveled at the robust good health of these men who were old enough to be her father. Most people of such advanced years had slowed down considerably even if they weren’t especially frail.

“Looks like you find you a new audience, Tio,” Uberto remarked. “So, you like us to put dis here album to a CD for you, young lady?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Uberto. I wouldn’t want to scratch it. I was also going to ask you about the book, but since I’ve found one of the authors, I suppose he’s really the best one to ask.”

“I suppose it depend if you wants to hear the whole back-story of his life, or if you wants de Reading Digest condensified version,” the second man, who was sitting at a table working on a clock chuckled.

“You don’t give no condensed version of nothing neither, Geno,” Tio retorted. “Someone put a penny in you, and you talk like you got fed a tenner.”

“Dis am de problem wit gettin’ too old,” Gene laughed. “You got too much stories to tell but you done forgot half of it, so you gotta make up some bullshit to fill in de blanks!”

Wafi Gabriels approached with the doll in his hand.

“Here he am, Miss Sabella, good as new,” he said.

“Well, that’s wonderful. How much do I owe you?”

“Not a ting. Just a couple strands of thread is all it take.”

“We have your CD ready for you tomorrow, Darlin’,” Ndidi reported. “I give you a call, or I bring it to you at Supper Club if you gonna attend.”

“Yes, I plan to. I haven’t cooked in years. I suppose this will be good practice.”

“Maybe Tio oughta practice with you,” Gene suggested. “He never cook for his self. He sisters an’ wife done spoil him rotten. Only ting him can cook be cake from a box, and half de time he cheat and buy de cake already make.”

“Well, you always eat it anyhow,” Tio said with a shrug. “Miss Sabella, I am wondering if you might care to join me for lunch. We can let Bear and Wolf cook for us. Now, do you know, Wolf be de cousin of Didi. Bear, he a big old Inuit who look like a bear. He come down here from Alaska when he retire from oil drilling. He stop in at Wolf’s place and have de worst breakfast he ever have, but de maple syrup is de best. Do you know, he help Wolf turn dat old place around and now de maple syrup is still de best, but de food am good enough to eat too.”

“I would love to join you for lunch, Tio,” Sabella agreed. “I have a lot of questions for you.”

V

Sabella and Tio sat at the table near the side window of Bear and Wolf’s Damn Good Eats. The elderly black man from whom Sabella had purchased coffee and donuts earlier approached the table. He and Tio clenched fingers and performed an elaborate handshake.

“Tio, you old sumbitch, what you up to?” Wolf chuckled.

“Just chatting with dis lady while she wait for Wafi and Gene and your cousin to stop foolin’ around and help her out,” Tio replied. “Wolfie, dis here is Miss Sabella Laaksonen, and she done buy Rey’s place. She find some books and some records and dis here likeness of Rey up in de attic, and she brung him down here, and Wafi done spruced him up. Now, Miss Sabella, be you a vegetarian or such?”

“I’m an omnivore, Mr. Tio,” Sabella replied.

“Well, good! You ever have venison?”

“Maybe once or twice when I was a kid.”

“Wolfie, you ask Bear to slap a couple of deer steaks on de grill. Now, I ain’t de sort of man to presume to order for a lady, but when Bear bags a deer, you gotta get it while de getting’s good! I gotta tell you, Wolfie here has developed a real talent for pastry. Every fall, he cans his own fruit, and you can’t go wrong wit’ de peach pie.”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Sabella agreed, “and I’ll take a glass of unsweetened iced tea.”

As Wolf strolled towards the kitchen, he called out the order to the towering Inuit man at the grill. Bearach Qillaq was Sabella’s age, but his hair was almost entirely black, and his face hardly had a single line.

“I have to say, the residents of this town are the spryest senior citizens I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Sabella marveled. “By the time most people get to my age, they’re used up and just biding time.”

“Well then, your friend Uriel must have something else in mind for you,” Tio mused. “No ma’am, Miss Sabella, you ain’t ready to be done yet. You keep an open mind and an open heart, and you gonna be able to find the magic you thought you done lost always waitin’ on everyone else. You gonna see. Now, it ain’t too hard to reason dat you do a search online for a house near your son. How long it take you to find?”

“I probably looked at a hundred properties, but none of them were right. They were all too expensive or in mobile home parks or such. When I saw this one, I almost couldn’t believe my luck. The price was right, and it was in good shape for being unoccupied for so long. When the real estate agent told me that the former occupant had drowned in the nearby lake…well, I did a séance, and I asked your brother if he minded if I bought the house. I hope you won’t be upset when I tell you that I dreamed I was walking towards the lake, and I saw a man wearing a fedora standing by the shore. I couldn’t see his face, but I wasn’t afraid. As I got closer, he said to me…”

“De house am been waiting for you, Isabella,” Tio finished.