The Native Iowan

1) The Dream

He woke with a start. A quick, deep inhalation. A jerk. Eyes wide open.

The lights were blinding.

His head was foggy.

He shook his head is if it might help. Help change the scene. Change the stark, institutional green walls. The blaring lights which hurt the eyes and made too much noise. He shook his head a second time. Let out a tortured sigh. Closed his eyes. Went back to sleep.

The dream was like a drug. An intoxicant. Deadly, dark, frightening. And soothing. Soothing in its familiarity. Soothing in its predictability. Soothing in its ability to be ever changing. Frightening in its ability to be ever changing.

It rarely changed. Perhaps it never changed. And it always changed. Perhaps it was not changing. Perhaps it was only more of the scene being revealed. More of the “place” he was dreaming being revealed to him. More of his experiences of the dream understood. More seen. Heard. Smelt. Felt.

In his wakeful musings he’d spent hours analyzing the dream. Agonizing over every single detail. Coming to terms with the experience the dream ultimately was. Coming to an acceptance and, yes, even an appreciation for the physicalness of the dream. Getting over being frightened by it. Or afraid of it. He had spent years of his life just being able to live with it. More years studying the details of it. Then it would change.

He knew he was traveling “some place” in the dream. Although he was mostly stationary. Although his ability to “move” was limited. He always felt as if he was traveling.

He’d wake in a cold sweat. Gasp for air. Gasp for being awake. Aware. Gasp out of fear. His muscles would be strained. His head pounding. He’d look around.

Initially, in the early days, this had been the greatest hurdle. To go from sleep to waking into the dream. Aware in the dream. To go from darkness to painful, full awareness in less than an instant. To go from being asleep, unaware, to being awake, in the dream, fully aware, in the dream, in such a short period of time that it took his breath away.

It took years to just be able to wake up and not scream. To be able to wake up and not feel the hot tears boiling in his eyes. Streaming down his cheeks.

For ages upon ages the knowledge, fear of waking up into the nightmare scene was enough to send him screaming like a lunatic.

He had learned, very early on, to tell when he was going to wake into that pain filled dream. His body knew well before it was time to wake into it. His brain knew too. He could tell.

Every muscle prepared by constricting beyond the threshold of pain. His brain prepared by sending that silent, screeching alarm of danger and pain throughout his body. He’d be peacefully asleep and feel his body go rigid and hear his brain start singing in panic.

Often, in the early days, waking into the dream would be enough for him to lose his bowels. The fear of the dream and the knowledge of his reactions made it impossible, for years, for him to take the step toward looking at the dream calmly. It took a massive, conscience effort of sheer will just to be able to wake up and not lose complete control.

Between experiences with the dream he would analyze what he felt. What he had sensed and, eventually, he began tabulating what he had learned from his previous experiences. He eventually came to the conclusion that the dream was not going away. He concluded that the dream was apart of him and that he would, by necessity, have to learn to understand the dream.

Yet, even in his maturity, after all these years. All those experiences with the dream. The dream still scared the life out of him. Shocked him beyond terror. Shocked him to the point of madness. And nothing was more shocking than to wake into the dream and find something new. Something different.

It started happening slowly at first. After spending ages just preparing to wake into the dream and be in control. Exercising the self-control to feel the dream coming. To refuse the body and mind’s invitation to open his eyes, scream, shit and piss all at the same time. After many trials and failures. He managed to open his eyes, relax his neck muscles, take a deep breath and look around him.

The ceiling and the lights were the first thing he always saw.  Long, industrial flouro tubes encased in semi-opaque plastic. Casting a soulless glare which instantaneously burned his eyes and made the bile build up in his stomach.

He practiced. For ages. Practiced waking into the dream, relaxing his neck muscles, breathing deeply through his nose, closing his eyes for a second then opening them again, taking a good look.

Behind the glare of the soulless light he eventually made out the green painted ceiling. It was the same color he associated with the insides of dead animals. Darker than lime green but much lighter than the green of something living.

Between the blaring lights and the sick, green paint it was ages before he mastered his senses enough to “look” around.

This too he practiced between dreams. Practiced opening his eyes, relaxing his muscles, taking a deep breath and looking beyond the bright light and the green walls. Blinking his eyes, shaking his head and taking a good look around him.

It did not work every time. Even now, years later. But he was constantly getting better at staying in control. And staying in control longer.

After what appeared to be an eternity of waking into the dream. Fighting the lights and the sick, green paint. After several deep, controlled breaths. He was able to relax his neck enough to actually look around him.

As opposed to the looking straight ahead, into the lights, looking around was easy.

He made great progress quickly after his first few, slow attempts at looking around. He learned that he could turn his head a minimal amount to right or left. He could blink his eyes and slow his panicked breathing.

He began to look forward to waking into the dream. It became a game. How far can I go this time? How much can I gain this time? What will I see this time?

The concept of the dream being a game helped him very much. It allowed him to bury his fear. To prepare for his next “visit”, as he thought of it, to “his” dream.

He began to take stock of his surroundings. Keeping mental lists of what he had seen and experienced. He began to ask questions. Why can’t I move? Is something holding me down in the dream. How and why am I restrained? Do I even have a body in the dream?

His early field of vision. His early mental inventory. Included two large flouro lights behind plastic covers. An expanse of green ceiling the size of a large room. Corners where the ceiling met the walls to his right and left. The same sick, green painted walls meeting the ceiling.

He quickly added to his inventory a long, feathery build up of cobwebs in the corner to his right and a large, yellowed stain to the left of the flouro tubes.

He’d daydream about his inventory of knowledge. About the dream while he was awake. He’d make plans to look more and harder in other directions. He’d fantasize about great and glorious discoveries.

Yet waking into the dream and staying aware was always a struggle. It appeared to vary for no reason at all. He would have a consecutive number of reasonably easy entries into the dream. Then have to start all over. Start with the basics of opening his eyes, relaxing his neck muscles, taking a deep breath and looking around.

He somehow got the idea of waking into the dream but keeping his eyes closed. Being awake but trying to sense what was around him without using his eyes. Sense what was around him by using his body. He practiced waking into the dream and opening not his eyes but his ears. Opening his entire body. Opening everything but his eyes to the dream so he could hear and feel the experience as opposed to “seeing” what was around him.

He rightfully assumed that the bright lights bombarded his senses too much. Bombarded him with such aggressive stimuli that he became ill and frightened.

So he learned to wake in the dream and not open his eyes. He learned to wake, relax his neck muscles, take a deep breath and lie still. To listen first. To breathe softly. Listening to what his dream might have to say.

He practiced this between dreams. He worked hard to feel the dream coming, stay in control, to wake into the dream relaxed and prepared.

He wanted to practice listening before he woke into his dream. He wanted to get good at breathing and staying in control while hearing what his dream had to offer.

He took a deep breath. Felt himself wake into the dream and willed his eyes shut. His ears and his body open. He breathed through his nose. Slowly. Evenly. Straining to identify a distant sound. An indistinct, moving sound.

He was not sure what a dream was suppose to sound like but he knew that the sound he perceived should not be in ‘his” dream. He knew that he did not want sounds like that in “his” dream. He knew that sounds like those were dangerous, deadly, evil.

It was a combination of a high pitched squeal and a monotonous, repetitive, insidious action. Like a bone of an animal being sawn while the animal was still, almost alive. The incessant grinding of the saw with the muffled, repeated whimpers of pain.

The sound was coming closer. Coming for him. He knew. He could not run. Could not move. He felt the panic in him rise. His breathing become erratic He willed his eyes shut as the scream entered his throat. It was no use. His eyes opened wide as the scream filled his head. Filled his world. Every muscle strained. His body arched and tore at itself. It was worse than he had expected. Worse than he had ever dreamed possible. The nightmare was revealing too much. Too quickly. His eyes, now open, were seeing too much too quickly He screamed again. Convulsed. Fell heavily back. Passed blessedly out of the dream and into blackness

 2) The Living

She pushed the medication cart down the row of beds. She planned to park it at the end of the room before beginning to organize each patient’s meds. She was new to this ward. Unfamiliar with the human refuse that ended up in the chronic ward of a state mental institute. She was more experienced with the geriatrics. This chronic ward frightened her. Any chronic ward frightened her. And this was the chronic ward of all chronic wards.

Seven patients who were all either vegetables, catatonic or perpetually in lala land. Seven patients who were known to the attending staff by number. Seven patients who, between the lot of them, had spent over three times her life without knowing what was around them. Seven patients who collectively had spent more than twice her life in this same room with it’s industrial green walls and glaring, blaring fluorescent lights. Lights which remained on twenty four hours a day.

Seven patients who were held in their sterile, stainless steel beds by leather belts and cuffs.

Seven patients who were tended as one would tend an unwanted, unholy garden. IVs were checked twice a shift and changed when needed. Sheets were checked and changed twice a shift – or so the rule was. Meds (all intravenous on this ward) were administered as per doctor’s instructions that usually meant every six hours.

All were cuffed and belted at their heads, wrists and ankles.

It was a dull if not boring ward to work on. But it had its good sides. So few demands on you that you could relax more than any ward she had ever worked. She enjoyed reading the patients’ histories.

Drinking black coffee to stay awake she had read that number four, Mr. Jackson Hepworth, had been a normal, happy man who, at the age of 17, drove his motorcycle into a car and suffered severe head injuries. Although he would thrash and often do a fair imitation of a dance he had not responded to any external stimuli since his accident in 1973.

Number four was one of the more “mobile’ patients and required an additional belt around his waist which was in turn belted to the bed.

It had been a very slow night. Often other nurses from other wards would come up with reasons to meet for a coffee while running errands. But the chronic ward offered no opportunities to run errands. It was a one “man” ward. There were strict instructions not to leave the ward. The chronics (flowers as she though of them) could not be left alone. Had to be tended one hundred percent of the time.

Number five, Mr. William W. Wilkinson the Third, had been a successful businessman. He had inherited his fathers business in 1977 at the tender age of 21. The family business dealt with textile manufacturing and had been started during the first world war by none other than Mr. William W. Wilkinson the First.

 Mr. William W. Wilkinson the Second had committed suicide and left the family fortune and the family burdens to young WWW the third. Young WWW the third had been in his second year of university when his father passed on but young WWW managed to run the business and complete his studies in only eighteen months.

He appeared to be a raging success then one day, after running the business for three years, he laid down for a midday nap (a habit he took up in school) and simply never woke up again.

Well, no, he did wake up but every time he woke up he would go into fits of screaming which ended in convulsions. They had tried everything. Money had not been an object. Specialists. Modern techniques. Imported hacks from around the globe. But each time he opened his eyes he would go into terrified screaming then pass out.

Mr. WWW the third had a belt that ran around his forehead all the way around the bed. They said it made it easier for him to endure his convulsions.

A very sad story, she thought, as she pushed her cart past number five’s bed. The ancient cart groaning and screeching with every revolution of it’s wheels.

3) The Nightmare

His earliest memories were of his father. They were on the campus of the university his family had thought of as theirs’. Perhaps it had been a class reunion. Perhaps it had been a ball game. He remembered being carried and jostled. Walking with his hand in his father’s. Ice Cream. Popped corn. Soft drinks. Cakes.

He remembered the green expanse of the quadrangle. His father and some friends had walked out on the manicured lawns. Were sitting. Telling stories. Little or none of what they said made sense to him. Made an impression upon him. His memory was of what he’d seen. The senses he had experienced. His confused emotion of happiness and dread.

Every time he brought this memory forward he felt the same confusion.

The happiness of spending a day with his father. Of being a part of his father’s life. Of feeling important. Again. For a change.

The dread of knowing it would all end. That they would leave this green and clean smelling wonderland. He would return to the dark and brooding building everyone called home. Return to the care of efficient and uncaring hands. To schedules and clocks.

His father would leave him at the place called home. Perhaps spend a night. Perhaps not. But he would leave. Again. Vanish from the face of the planet. From his life. Disappear and leave him in the hands of well-paid and professional yet uncaring hands.

He chased butterflies and grasshoppers as his father sat and talked. He felt expansive and joyful. He smiled and laughed. Every time he ran up to his father he was petted and hugged. The men with his father were gentle and kind. He remembered running toward them, then being thrown high in the air by strong, sure hands.

He remembered being very focused on snatching one large brown grasshopper. Of having it in his hands. Of it kicking and getting free. Hopping and flying a short distance away. He chased it. Grabbed it a number of times. But it was too big. It kept getting away.

He remembered literally running into a large marble block set in the middle of the quadrangle.

Head down. Intent on the grasshopper. He remembered running head first into the hard stone. Falling back on his seat. Looking up and screaming with fear and revulsion.

The bump on his head had hurt for days. He had cried each time he was bathed. But the sight he beheld when he fell backwards was worse than pain. It was pain personified. Pain revered. Worshipped.

His first screams had brought his father’s group running. He remembered being beyond himself with fear. Screaming and wriggling. Not knowing whose outstretched arms to fall into for comfort.

He remembered being lifted. He remembered soothing sounds. He remembered having his head inspected. He remembered screaming and shaking the entire time.

And he remembered the man on top of the stone pedestal. All dark. Arms stretched upwards. A tormented expression on the face. The mouth open. The eyes looking downward. Directly into his.

He cried and carried on so much that his father carried him to the automobile. Drove straight to the place they called home. Delivered him directly to the well paid, professional hands. Returned to his gleaming automobile. Drove away.

He remembered sleeping poorly that night. Remembered the shadows. The dark corners of his large room. Remembered the sounds of the old building groaning and complaining. He remembered the emptiness of the crisp white bed he slept in. Remembered the itchiness of the dressing that had been taped to his forehead. The efficient confidence with which he had been stripped, bathed and tended to. He remembered it all. Very clearly. As clearly as he remembered the total absence of love. Of any emotion. In the faceless hands that ministered to his needs. 

All other memories began for him when he was six.

It was September. HomeComing at his family’s university. He was with his father. His father’s friends were there. They had all brought along their sons. He remembered that every man they met had a son about his age by the hand. They all wore, as he did, a blue blazer, white shirt and trousers, shiny black shoes and a thin yellow tie.

This memory was easy to dredge up. It was very clear because for every HomeComing game for the next fifteen years he would dress in the same way. Accompany his father. Meet his father’s friends. Get to know the other progeny of the world’s elite.

The world’s elite. He chuckled to himself. All dressed the same. All proud of their damned yellow ties. Of their past. Of their present. Of their future. Of their superiority.

All lying, thieving, whoring bastards. All of them. Except him. And except Paulie.

They taught you all that and more in “their” university. They taught you how to lie better than anyone else. They taught you how to steal and get away with it. To even be commended for it. They taught you that whoring, abusing women was their god given right. Their booty in a world where the strong ruled and the weak suffered.

They taught that those who entered the glorious gates of their university were elite. Were strong. Were gods among modern man. They taught that common rules did not apply to those who benefited from the teaching of “their” revered institution. They taught that the world and those who ruled it belonged to the elite. They taught that the elite rarely stood in the limelight. They taught that true power was the power that came from behind the source. The power that made rulers and aristocrats was true power. Was their power.

Their university would be a focal point of his life up until his early twenties. Up until the time his father passed away.

4) While Sleeping

It was after his father passed on that he had a chance to learn more about his family. About his father. About himself.

It was only then that he gained access to the volumes of family documents. The contracts, deeds and letters of agreement. It was only then that he understood why his garndfather’s study was always locked.

His father had always been distant. Always busy. Always gone. There was a time that the only annual calendar event where he could be sure to see his father was the HomeComing festivities at their university. He had once gone an entire year without seeing him. Gone an entire twelve months with only messages delivered by paid professionals. Hand written notes signed by his father but written by another hand. Post cards sent from exotic lands by private pouch and delivered by friendly yet hurried staff. No one could ever explain what his father was doing or even, at times, where he was.

In his early days of schooling he would track his father’s travels on a map of the world as big as a billboard. He would receive a card or a memo and, if it mentioned where he was, he would place a colored pin in that location on his map.

His geography lessons would often consist of reciting the locations his father visited. His tutors would be pleased if he could name the city, the country and explain something important about the location. Often, it was enough to state that his father owned a factory there.

When his father spent time at the place everyone called home he would unlock the huge old library that had been his grandfather’s study. He new it had been his grandfather’s study for two reasons. One, it had a painting of the old man over the main fireplace. And two, he had once, when six or seven, been admonished for playing in his grand father’s study by one of the withered, old housekeepers. If his father was not in residence the door remained locked; the drapes would remain pulled shut. No one would enter to dust or clean.

His father would often return unannounced. The staff would be in a frenzy as the great man drove up in some predatory looking automobile. Leaving his bags in the automobile, his father would stride through the grand entrance. Walking directly to the study. He would unlock the door. Telling the housekeeper what time he expected to begin working. When he did this everyone knew he would be staying for more than a short while. If he entered and went directly to his suite of rooms it was clear that he would not be staying long.

There had been a few times, not many, when his father had made every appearance of living in the place others called home. Then the great study would remain unlocked for months. Grand automobiles driven by dark suited men would bring the elite of the world to this place called home. Bring the elite of the world to consult and pay homage to his father.

Or so he had thought. He had spent the majority of his young life believing his father was a man among men. A true leader.

Throughout the years of his primary education he saw his father as a hero in a world of mediocrity. His father was a king’s king. One of the few elite on the planet who was wise, just and trust worthy.

His primary education took place in the East wing of the place they called home. There the tutor of the day had his apartment adjacent to the fully furnished classroom.

He remembered being dressed every morning at eight o’clock, fed his breakfast of juice, toast and one three minute egg. Wiped clean and marched to the East wing. He remembered learning his basic mathematics, his early history and geography, his first music lessons and, of course, his first lessons in business and finance. All while looking though the same windows at the same scene year after year.

The education was designed to prepare him for a life of power. He spoke French and German (and read Latin) by the time he was twelve. His lessons were in one of the four main languages and often a combination of two would be used.

He learned modern thought and philosophy by reading the great philosophers in their native language. He was versed in the theories of Euclid. Knowledgable of the world’s mondern countires. He knew who or what ruled the important countries and could discuss social and ethnic problems existing or inherant in each. Educational trips were taken to all points on the globe. Well paid, professional scholars tutored him in the classics. Opened his mind to many wonders. Tended him as one would a valuable, exotic, poisonous flower. Tended him with cold, calculated logic. Nurtured him with respect and fear.

In Spetmeber, after his twelvth birthday, he was driven by his tutor of the day to meet his father at their university. He had assumed it was their yearly outing to the HomeComing game but was surprised when a number of heavy, leather bags were deposited on the road side where they were to meet his father.

Either they were early or his father was late. They wiated almost fifteen minutes.

 5) The Light of Day

The first William W. Wilkinson left very little information about his early years. His date and palce of birth is unconfirmed if not unknown. There is no reference in any documents to his parents. His swarthy good looks lent one to believe he was of Italian or Spanish decnet. His skill with languages was a matter of awe to all who ever met the man.

The Anglo name belied the speculation that WWW Sr. was a Jew. His refined, european manners and his skill with languages made people suspect. But his thouroughly Anglo ways (including attending church services) moved him through the speculation, and upward in life.

It is known that he was not young when he traveled to the european continent to join the world as they took sides and fought one another from trenches dug in the earth. That he was penniless when he enlisted is a fact. That he was fluent in no less than three European languages is fact. It is also fact that his mental and physical abilities allowed him to rise in rank and status in those trenches. He entered the army as a simple enlisted private and left as a field commissioned officer.

He worked for military intelligence. Gathering what information he could by crossing lines and gaining confidences. His work eventually caught the eye of some elite in the European High Command. That was the beginning of the now upwardly mobile William W. Wilkinson.

His role as a soldier was never that of a soldier. His was the world of intrigue and intelligence. He was known by his rank by his supriors only. It was often thought that he had too much freedom, too much latitude. But his results were impressive. His worth was incalculable.

As the war came to an end his contacts on both side were sufficient for him to be given the covert assignment to stay on in Europe and monitor the situataion covertly. His cover had always been that of a somewhat wealthy industrialist. With the war ending and industry moving from manufacturing death to serving a new and blooming consumer market WWW Sr. stepped in and began to become incredibly wealthy.

His contacts with the miltary on both sides of the past conflict were obscure at best. It is known that he had contacts in the High Command of every country in Europe. Access to both political and military leaders in many countries. His influence and resources were wide spread. And so, eventually, were his financial holdings.

By the mid 20s WWW Sr. had industrial holdings throughout Europe, in Asia and in South America. He had homes in Europe and America. He traveled incessantly. Seeking new oportunities. Expanding his holdings.

It was in the mid 1920s that WWW Sr. began to move his textile empire East and South. He sold most of his European holdings. Moved from the “old country” to Asia and South America. It was in these new lands that he found a wealth of cheap labour. Much like the industrialists of the late 1800s, WWW Sr. wanted cheap, unskilled labour in a land where unions and workers rights were nonexistant. 

6) …