BB Grey–musings

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Hey.

Hey, I said, and wondered when she had stopped saying Hi baby, sweetheart, well hello there—any of the phrases I’d looked forward to hearing as she tried her hardest to make the ordinary less than.

I was surprised she answered at all. Ninety-five percent of the time I got her voicemail, which in the beginning had that pause that tricked me every time, thinking it was her, until her talking over me and that small giggle gave it away. Not so much the talking over, but the giggling.

What’s up? She sounded even more separated, irritated that she’d picked up at all. Perhaps I’d interrupted her doomscrolling, resulted in a mistakenly answered call. From me.

Oh, not much. Except I had that crazy dream again.

Oh yeah? Which one? She tried to sound interested, but my dreams were the lowest on her list of what interested her in me. In all fairness, I had many dreams—some actually when I slept—and I had the propensity to share them. I often remembered them with uncanny detail.

The one about the meeting at the lawyer’s office.

Oh yeah, she said, and I knew she hadn’t the foggiest recollection but was placating me, trying to get on with the conversation, back to her scrolling. Which was possible she was doing already. Hence the disengagement I was sensing.

The dream was one where those closest to me are meeting at a lawyer’s office. Two couches—love seats angled toward each other—placed in front of a huge desk with legs that make it sit higher than the norm, dwarfing the Lilliputian attorney on the other side. The attorney has tufts of white hair, wears a banker’s suit and bow tie. Gathered there are my three kids: Loise and Juliette on the sofa, my son behind them. On the love seat to the left is Anita, sitting solo in dark rinsed denim jeans and a black top that says I remember but am moving on, or just says This is what I wear every day. There are others gathered behind. I think I see my brother and sister, some friends, but their faces are more illusion than reality, as in dreams.

Yeah, you know the one with the love seats and the banker stripe—

I trail off. She interrupts.

And I’m wearing rinsed denim jeans and a black top.

For a minute I’m surprised she remembers the dream. In the disbelief I temporarily forget what I was saying and grow silent.

Yes?

Go on.

I remember myself and begin.

Yeah, well, you know how usually I wake up before the lawyer speaks. The dream is just this awareness of those who’ll be there after I die, I guess. I wake up just after I review all the people and inventory them as naughty and nice. For purposes of the now, which doesn’t make sense because after I’m gone, who cares who shows up? It’s not like I have this long reading of a will to allocate all my high-net-worth belongings.

Yeah.

I feel there should be something more here on her part, but I don’t have the energy to put those words in a manner that will make sense, so I don’t.

Yeah, well, in this version he doesn’t speak. He hands my kids a bill.

What do you mean, a bill?

I mean an actual fucking bill. It’s cartoonish with exaggerated letters saying BILL on top of a long, thin spool of paper, like one of those old calculator ribbons an accountant would have used.

That’s weird. She sounds just a little more interested now. Maybe thinking I’ve roped her into some debt she’s unaware of and now, subconsciously, I’m trying to come clean.

Yeah, so he hands it over to Juliette, and she just looks at it. Loise puts her arms around her while she sobs uncontrollably. At this point there’s a little more movement in the crowd behind. Everybody’s trying to get a glimpse of the document. Those that do just nod in lament.

What am I doing? Anita asks, sounding the most interested in the dream she’s ever been.

Oh, I don’t know, I lie, trying not to give her credit as being important in my dream now that she’s finally stopped scrolling on her phone.

I hear her lose interest on the other end of the line. Then a cold seeps in.

We’re both quiet for what seems longer than thirty seconds, which is a long time when you’re waiting for a pin to drop. I finally break the silence.

Well, you know how dreams are. They’re just sorta weird, don’t make much sense.

I’m trying to dismiss any gravity in the situation, bring things back down to a neutral Hey, the way we first started this call.

You know, I go on. When I die, you and the kids—any other person for that matter—don’t owe anything to anyone. Nobody can come to you or the kids trying to say you need to pay this or that.

Uh huh. She sounds more distant. I can’t make out if this is what sadness sounds like for her, but I don’t have the balls to ask. I’m more afraid of the truth than the low-risk living in the unsaid.

No, seriously. I’m trying to underline the point. You don’t owe anything to anyone. Not that lawyer, the cemetery, the hospital, Visa, American Express. Fuck them all. If there’s anything left that needs fucking—

I avoid saying the word. A practice only used with Anita. In construction, my world, F-bombs are used with as much frequency as breathing. But out of courtesy I try not to say the word. She doesn’t like it.

At this point I’m growing tired with the conversation. Even the dream seems trivial. I’m ready to end the call when she breaks in.

Hey.

Hey, I say, sounding slightly more defeated than when she first picked up.

You know, dreams are crazy sometimes.

I end the call without so much as a goodbye. Place the phone face down.

And dream.