A Pilgrim’s Digression

I slept badly again last night. I’m not sure what’s wrong lately. I sleep fine at home, but when I return to Washington I don’t sleep.

Last night, I even got to bed early, at 10:40. I turned over and over, one side to the next. I got up and got an extra pillow to make myself more comfortable. I lay there for what seemed an eternity.

I kept thinking I could hear thumping bass, as if someone were sitting outside the house in their car, playing hip hop on the stereo. After awhile, I decided the sound was coming from the air conditioner.

When I finally did get to sleep, I had nightmares that woke me up. I don’t dream much anymore, so it is worth recording what my nightmares were about.

In one, my son is kidnapped by a psychopath who keeps him in a dungeon in a dog kennel and forces him to watch as he murders other victims. The killer is intent on raising my son to his specifications and shows him pornography and talks to him for hours about the history of serial killers, and he grows furious when to comfort himself, B. starts singing a Carly Simon song he listens to at night when going to sleep: “Into White.” One day, he drugs B.’s food and, while he is unconscious, cuts his tongue out so he can’t sing anymore.

Meanwhile, the authorities seem indifferent. The police don’t organize a search. No one steps forward to offer a reward. Detectives have other cases they are working on, so they only get to our son’s case in the late afternoon when they are tired and ready to quit. The FBI isn’t interested in helping at all. Dateline turns down an offer to interview us.

“Will there be a Clarice Starling come to save you?” The killer asks my son. “No, I don’t think so.”

I woke up from this nightmare around two AM and then lay there reliving it for who knows how long. When I went back to sleep, I dreamed that my elderly landlady had died and I had to find a new residence. I moved in with a seemingly pleasant man and his wife, who actually have their tenants unwittingly sign a life insurance policy along with the lease. Then they butcher them. This nightmare ends with me locked in my room and the man and woman coming up the stairs for me.

In between all these bad dreams, I kept waking up periodically simply due to the lightness of my sleep. As the air conditioner cooled the room, the wooden doors in the room would crack or there would be a popping sound in the walls. Sometimes it actually sounded as if someone had opened the bedroom door, and I’d wake with a start. My groggy sleeplessness also brought on a headache which lingers even now, several hours later.

Hour after hour passed like this. I’d wake up and look at the clock, seemingly always in hour increments: 12:10, 1:00, 2:08, 3:12. Until finally I got up to get ready for work around 4:30.

What a dreadful night. I can only hope I’ll be tired enough to sleep better tonight. And may it be a dreamless sleep.