The Night Shift

I am running as fast as I can down the street, naked, right into the arms of the waiting line of police. Their lights flicker over me, quick dulled flashes behind my closed eyelids. A female cop smiles, unembarrassed by my nakedness. She removes the pointed cap from her head and shakes out her hair which shimmers in fullness like a shampoo ad, slow-motion, inviting...for a moment I believe she is going to unbutton the top of her uniform shirt.

I realize we are at the edge of a cliff, a thousand feet above the sea. She pushes me and I fall, into the blackness, speeding headfirst toward the waves and rocks below.

My right arm thrashes out and knocks a stack of books off the bedside table. A half-empty glass of water goes flying and ice cubes begin to seep into the rug. It's the startle reflex, inherited from four million years ago when our ancestors slept in trees. If they fell during their sleep their arms would spasmodically grab, hoping for a branch to stop the fall.

The sheets are soaked from my perspiration and stick to me as I get up. I walk across the wet rug to the bathroom. There is a sound downstairs, a metallic scratching, like someone is trying to get into the house.

I don't own a gun, though I have thought about it. There have been several break-ins in our neighborhood, and a grisly double murder a few years ago. I have no weapon but I do pause to pull on a pair of sweatpants. If I'm found dead in my house I'd just as soon have pants on.

It's coming from the screen porch. I open the glass doors and flick on a light. A small red squirrel, furious, sputters obscenities at me while leaping from one screen panel to the next, trapped inside. He is a blur of tight muscles and tawny velvet, streaking around the room looking for an exit, angry and terrified.

I open the screen door to the outside and run around the porch in my sweatpants, waving my arms, trying to herd the small animal out. The squirrel refuses and holes up in a high corner, quivering and cursing me. What would Clint Eastwood do? Clint would have had a gun, perhaps several guns. He would have plugged it and uttered something pithy as the smoke curled from the barrel. I just wait. A Mexican standoff.

After a while I am cold and the squirrel isn't budging. I decide he can find his own way out and go back upstairs. I return to the damp sheets and try to conjure back the dream, beginning at where the female cop unbuttons her shirt. It doesn't work, and all I can think of is how I will probably have to repair the screens in the morning, red squirrels usually eat their way through and never come in and out of the same hole.

The cops have tied my hands behind my back this time. The woman is gone, and the rest look like Clint in his Rowdy Yates days, with the pompadour haircut. They are edging me back toward the cliff. They don't even have to push, I'm off, falling, speeding toward the rocks, unable to reach out. I feel a nibble at my wrists, it's the red squirrel, gnawing at the rope. He chews furiously as the ground rushes closer and my hands break free. I catch a branch and break my fall, and I am suspended in the night, listening to the white noise of waves below. Above me I can see the woman's face, still smiling, reflected in the beams of flashlights at the cliff edge.

In the morning the squirrel is gone. I sip coffee and survey the screens. No holes, no damage. Did I dream it? I hear the crunch of gravel in the driveway. She's home, and I can tell she's exhausted from the way her boots drag across the threshold. She undoes her gunbelt and lays it on the kitchen counter.

"You ok?" I ask.

"Yeah, no big deal."

"Something bad happen?"

She shrugs. "We had a jumper. The usual ugly mess. I was in the group that had to go down and get him." She absently begins to unbutton the top of her uniform shirt.

"Sorry" I say.

"No problem" she says as she pecks me on the cheek. "I'm going to bed. God, I hate the night shift."