Dreams Come to Life Read online

  “Well. She’s got skills.” He put the suit down on the desk and leaned forward, looking at me closely, like he was trying to look through my eyes and into my brain or something. “You got skills, kid?”

  “What?”

  “Your fingers, you’re a writer?” he asked.

  I looked at my fingers. They had ink stains on them. Especially on my thumb and forefinger. I was so used to them being like that, I hadn’t remembered that wasn’t normal.

  “I draw sometimes,” I said.

  “You draw sometimes.” He smiled when I said that. “I draw sometimes too.”

  It was then I actually looked around his office. I was feeling a bit more myself now and was able to take it all in. The shelves of books and papers. The inkwells everywhere. A drafting table in the corner. And more posters. But not just posters: sketches, unfinished drawings with unreadable words next to them, arrows, cross-throughs—it was like wallpaper, there was so much of it all over everything.

  And the big desk that took up almost the whole back wall. Covered in more paper. And books. And one tall glass award for something. And a framed picture of some cartoon characters signed with the name Henry Stein.

  “Wow,” I said. Couldn’t help myself.

  “I get feelings about people, kid. I get feelings … I just know, sometimes.” He handed me a piece of paper with a sketch of the smiling cartoon from downstairs. “What do you see?”

  I looked closer at it. The character didn’t seem human. His body was basically an oval with spindly legs and arms coming out of it. But he wore black boots and white gloves. Had a bow tie and everything. His face was round, and he had two big black eyes, but no nose. And that grin. That wide toothy grin. “I see a mischief maker. Someone who has a lot of fun and gets in a lot of trouble. But that’s okay.”

  I glanced up at Mister Drew. He was smiling almost like the drawing. “Yes!” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Exactly. You know how many people just say ‘a cartoon’? But you get it.”

  I nodded. Sure, I thought. I guess. I looked down again. It was then I noticed that the head wasn’t entirely a circle. The top kind of looked like when you take a bite out of a cookie. But smooth. No teeth marks. Wait. I got it! His head had horns, those were little horns at the top. “He’s a devil.”

  I heard Mister Drew push his chair back, scraping it along the wood floor. I looked up and watched as he walked around his desk and leaned against it, still smiling. “Kid, how would you like to come work for me? I need a delivery boy of sorts, but just within the building. A gofer, delivering stuff between departments. Whatever Schwartz is paying you, I’ll double it. I’ll make sure you work out of the Art Department, kind of like an apprentice. Give you a chance to prove yourself. And you might learn a few things along the way.”

  At first I didn’t fully process what he was saying, and when I did I still didn’t believe it. Here I was worried that Mr. Schwartz was going to fire me from my delivery gig, and now I was getting my dream job. Finally I was able to give the man a smile and shake his hand.

  “Good,” he said. “Excellent. Well, I’m Joey Drew and this is my studio. You can call me Mister Drew.”

  “Okay, Mister Drew.”

  “And you are?”

  “Oh, I’m Daniel, sir, but everyone just calls me Buddy or Bud or whatever. Really I don’t care.”

  “Nice to meet you, Buddy.” He reached out and took the drawing of the character from my hand. He turned it around so it was facing me. Side by side, they mirrored each other with their big smiles. “And this,” he said, tapping his finger on the picture, “this is Bendy.”

  “This is Bendy.”

  At the time, the introduction to a two-dimensional drawing had been kind of, well, I guess, cute. Though “cute” wasn’t exactly a word I used too much in my day-to-day existence. But yeah, sure, cute. Nice to meet you, fictional character. But now, trying to explain to you what I understand about that moment … What I know now compared to what I knew then …

  I didn’t know, for example, that when Mister Drew smiled, you had to look close at his eyes, to look for a small crinkle in the corner. Every artist knows that crinkle, it makes for a more authentic-looking smile. But I wasn’t really an artist yet. Not then. I didn’t know what was missing.

  I didn’t know, either, that an introduction could have so much meaning—that at a party the way someone shook your hand or said their name or even the way Mister Drew introduced me to people—I didn’t know then that it was all a kind of code. Something to decipher. I wish I’d known right then that Mister Drew had been waiting for a realization from me. Something to click inside and all come together.

  Watching me carefully.

  “Hi there, Bendy,” I’d said, playing along. Mister Drew laughed and put the picture down.

  “So you really don’t know him, do you?” he asked.

  I shook my head no. Because I didn’t.

  “That’s unfortunate,” said Mister Drew, but more to himself than to me. That much I recognized, so I didn’t say anything.

  The thing is, Mister Drew thought I should know who Bendy was. And I bet a lot of folks would ask themselves the same thing: Why didn’t I know? After all, he was in those little short movies before the feature-length movie, there he was on soup cans. The little devil sold war bonds, for cryin’ out loud. I know, I know.

  And it’s not like I hadn’t seen him before. Like I wrote earlier, I did have this feeling of recognition. So it wasn’t that. It’s just, when you’re on the Lower East Side, growing up, going to school, then dropping out to make money … when your experience of movies is Don Miller holding open the back door of the cinema for you … you just don’t see cartoons as much as the average kid. If Bendy was still running a comic strip by the time I started drawing, that would have been different. Those were my whole world.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was being poor’s fault. It was trying to do right by my ma and working twelve hours a day. And let’s be honest here, those cartoons weren’t exactly popular in the way they had been. I was barely in the world when the Bendy toons were all the rage. So the little devil wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t represent anything. He didn’t mean anything.

  Except he meant everything to Mister Drew.

  “This is my point, this is my whole point,” he said, standing up and pacing about the room. He still wasn’t talking to me but he was talking louder and I couldn’t just ignore it now.

  “Sorry, sir, what’s your point?” I asked.

  He looked at me but kept pacing. “What is this studio coming to? What have we come to that a kid your age doesn’t know Bendy? This is my point, this is why.”

  He still wasn’t making much sense. It was kind of crazy that a few sentences that made sense could still sound like total nonsense.

  You like that, Dot? I know you like that kind of stuff. That funny wordplay stuff.

  I hope I’m making you proud.

  I hope you read this.

  I hope you’re alive.

  Where was I?

  Right.

  “Oh, okay,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say at this point.

  There was a silence. He stopped pacing. I stopped talking. And then he clapped his hands together loudly. Sharply. The sound made me jump in my seat. It was like a gunshot; I nearly ducked.

  This has always stayed with me: Of all the memories that are getting mixed up a bit in here, in this brain, in this head, this … this for some reason just sticks out. Right then when he clapped, the lights came back on. It was like they were waiting for him, it was like he was in control of them.

  He wasn’t. But I made that connection back then. Somehow it made sense to me that maybe, just maybe, he had the power to do that.

  He didn’t. And he doesn’t. Don’t let anyone make you think he does.

  Mister Drew noticed the light and laughed a “Ha!” exactly how you’d spell it. Like that: “Ha!” He turned to me and he was smiling again. “Come
on, I’ll give you a tour, kid.”

  I nodded and all the strange thoughts I’d had in that short moment disappeared. I was excited now. I was getting a tour of a studio that made cartoons. I was going to meet other artists. This was not at all how I pictured my day when I woke up that morning.

  “Great!” I was up in a flash and following Mister Drew out of his office and into the now brightly lit foyer. A woman was sitting behind the desk next to the door. She was compact looking, with jet-black hair formed into perfect curls.

  “We’re going for a tour, Miss Rodriguez,” announced Mister Drew as he passed her.

  “Tom’s here,” she replied, not looking up from her typewriter.

  Sure enough there was a tall, broad man sitting in one of the chairs near the elevator. He had one leg folded neatly over the other, holding his hat in his lap. Next to him was what looked like a yellow tool bag with the word “Gent” written on it.

  I glanced up at Mister Drew and saw his smile flicker, kind of how lights do before they go out. Then it grew larger and he pointed at the man and said, “Tommy Connor!” It wasn’t a question.

  The man stood, picking up a long narrow cardboard tube that had been sitting beside him on the chair.

  Mister Drew noticed and pointed at the tube but didn’t say anything. Then he smiled bigger.

  “Yes, sir,” said Tom, even though there hadn’t been a question. “It is.”

  What was?

  “Sorry about that, Buddy, got to take this meeting. Big plans, kid, big plans,” said Mister Drew. “Come back first thing and we’ll get you settled in.” He didn’t look at me but did give me a firm pat on the back as he extended his other arm toward his office. “Right this way, Tommy.”

  “Mr. Connor,” replied Tom as he walked over.

  Mister Drew just laughed at that, though I didn’t get the joke and they went back into his office, closing the door behind them.

  I was alone then.

  I walked up to the secretary. She didn’t look at me. I didn’t expect her to at this point. I also didn’t know what to say.

  “What did he hire you for?” asked Miss Rodriguez.

  “A gofer. Maybe … maybe an artist. He said I’d be in the Art Department.” I wasn’t so sure anymore what exactly my job was going to be.

  Miss Rodriguez stopped typing and leaned back, looking down at her desk. She pulled open a drawer and grabbed a thick envelope full of papers. Finally she looked at me as she handed it my way. “Fill these out, bring them with you tomorrow. Come by at nine a.m. and check in with Mrs. Miller downstairs in the lobby.”

  I took the paper and nodded. “Thanks.”

  Miss Rodriguez looked at me for a moment longer. Like maybe she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. She just went back to typing.

  * * *

  I didn’t go home right away. First I had to see Mr. Schwartz, let him know the delivery was made and Mister Drew was pleased with the suit.

  Then I had to quit.

  Which, well, didn’t go too great, but I didn’t really care how red in the face Mr. Schwartz got, or how hard he pointed his finger at me. I was going to work tomorrow morning at Joey Drew Studios and no one was going to stop me. The only thing that scared me was Mr. Schwartz might take it out on Ma, might fire her. But he didn’t. Ma was too good. I wished sometimes she could just start a shop on her own.

  Well, maybe now. Maybe when I was earning enough. When I was a paid artist for Joey Drew Studios. I grinned at the thought.

  I wasn’t ready to go home yet after that. I was buzzing with excitement. Wandered a bit through the neighborhood. Got a free doughnut from Ms. Panek as she was closing up the deli, and the Jankowski kids tried to get me to play stickball with them. I smiled and kept going and made it eventually to the East River as the sky was turning a dark purple.

  The lights were on in Brooklyn. They looked like stars across the river.

  I sat on a bench. Almost in some pigeon crap but I saw it last minute and jumped my bum to the side. The air was less stagnant by the water. And it was cooler now with the sun almost set.

  It made me feel kind of calmer than I had been. The vibrating excitement of the day was now settling around me like a blanket. I still felt happy but it all felt a lot more real.

  Sometimes things like that happen.

  * * *

  I got home late. Real late. The hall light was on, which was nice of Ma, but I knew I had to shut it off immediately behind me. Lighting bills get high and then Ma has to work more. I hoped now with this new job maybe lights wouldn’t be as big a problem. Maybe now she could sit up and read comfortably and not with a candle.

  I knew also I’d probably get some speech the next morning about being out so late. She liked to know where I was. Like I was a kid or something. Well, it wasn’t my fault for losing track of time … it had been a big day.

  I opened the door as slowly as I could. Ma slept on the daybed in the sitting area, right there by the entrance. It was all one space, the kitchen, where we ate, where we sat. And the door opened right onto all of it. She was curled up under the sheet, deep asleep, and I slipped out of my shoes, carrying them to my room.

  My room was never actually pitch-black. It’s funny, but up until this day standing in the dark lobby of Joey Drew Studios, I’d had no idea that there could be different kinds of dark. It never occurred to me that the streetlamp outside our windows made it possible for me to find my bed, toss my clothes into the corner, and crawl under the sheet in my shorts without crashing into everything.

  It had never occurred to me that it could be so black you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face.

  Back then, I hadn’t known about that kind of dark.

  I threw the sheet off and lay on the bed for a moment, trying to get cool. I got up and opened the window a crack. There wasn’t much of a difference in temperature, but there was something soothing about the hum of the city. I lay back down and closed my eyes.

  Sometimes you don’t know you’ve fallen asleep. That’s what happened then. I thought I was still awake trying to fall asleep when I realized that I wasn’t lying in bed anymore. Everything was still black like when you close your eyes, but I was standing in it and my eyes were open. I was trying to see something but couldn’t. So I walked forward into the blackness.

  There was something ahead of me.

  I could hear it.

  Something breathing maybe?

  But for some reason I didn’t know if it was alive. I think I still thought I was awake at this point because I thought to myself, You don’t have time for this, you have to sleep. But I kept going forward.

  Finally I came to a door. It just kind of materialized in front of me. But I wasn’t surprised. There was a knock coming from the other side. This made me take a step back. I felt like I shouldn’t answer.

  Knock knock.

  I took another step back. Somehow the door was still right in front of me.

  There was a long silence.

  A giant hand burst through the wood, creating a shower of splinters. There was a roar as I stumbled back, but I couldn’t get away. It kept grabbing at me, waving around, trying to find me.

  I woke up suddenly, facedown in my pillow. The bottom sheet was drenched in sweat. My heart was in my throat.

  It was a dream, I told myself. A dream.

  I rolled over onto my back and stared at the slice of light from the streetlamp as it highlighted the ceiling. There was that crack that ran across the corner in the plaster, water damage. It had bled dark brown once upon a time, and the stain made it look a bit like the Hudson River. Dark. Cold. Filled with all kinds of who-knows-what.

  Why couldn’t I shake the feeling I was being watched?

  I glanced to my right.

  A thin figure stood in my doorway.

  He glowed in the lamplight. A pale, gaunt face, paper-thin skin stretched over his skull. Eyes wide and soulless. A long white nightshirt covering his skeletal frame.
r />   All I could do was stare. Breathe. Shake the dream out of my brain. He’s not real. Wake up and he’ll disappear. But he just kept standing there. He didn’t move.

  He raised his hand slowly and pointed at me. That’s when I just couldn’t take it anymore. I closed my eyes and yelled. Maybe it was cowardly, but I couldn’t move. I yelled again. My whole body was yelling.

  The lights buzzed on. The one over my bed did its threatening flicker, the wiring in the walls damaged by the water leak above.

  “Buddy, are you okay?” Ma came charging into my room, struggling to pull her pale purple housecoat on even as the right sleeve was trapped under the belt. I’d normally laugh but the terror was still in charge, especially as, even though the lights were now on and the dream long gone, the old man was still there. And he looked pretty much just as scary.

  I couldn’t answer her, obviously. I couldn’t make words.

  The figure turned to my mother. It took a step toward her.

  That helped me find my voice.

  “You stay away from her!” I called out, and leapt from my bed. My foot got caught in the hole at the bottom of the knit blanket draped at the edge of the bed and I fell face-first onto the floor.

  “My goodness, what’s going on?” Ma said.

  I was reaching for anything to help pull myself up. I felt like a fool. I pushed myself onto my forearms. A bony hand extended toward me.

  “Up?” said a rich low voice with a thick accent I recognized all too well.

  I turned my head and stared at the man. His features still seemed too pale and too worn, but his eyes were a light blue and had a spark to them, no longer hollow. I reached out and took his hand. It was warm.

  I stood and stared at him for a moment. We were about the same height. He was maybe an inch shorter. He seemed now more frail than terrifying.

  I looked at Ma. She’d managed to get her arm through the sleeve and was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. But on the other hand …

  “Who’s the old guy?” I asked, pointing just to make sure she knew what I was talking about, since she seemed so confused and to me it didn’t seem like a confusing situation.