A Book of Dreams Read online

  The wooden block shook. Daddy focused the binoculars. ‘Nah, this time you were a bit off. Do you have another?’

  I nodded. The echo fell.

  ‘Okay, try again.’

  Open, shut, click, aim. And the people out to get Daddy.

  Krang!

  ‘Ja, good. It was closer than the first, but still not bullseye. Now I shall shoot.’

  In my echo from Saddleback, Daddy took the .45 out of his holster and handed me the glasses.

  He went up to the railing and pulled the magazine out to check it. He knocked it back in with the palm of his hand, pulled the top of the gun back to cock it, and aimed. As soon as his arm was held out straight I started to wince because the .45 was a lot louder than the .32–.20. My eyes kept closing all by themselves and my shoulder went up.

  Boom!

  I felt the noise and saw Daddy’s hand fly up in the air with the kick. The .32–.20 hardly kicked at all but the .45 kicked hard. In westerns they never show guns kicking but when you shoot a real gun, it kicks hard and that is why Daddy’s other guns had shoulder pads.

  The echo came back across the lake as I raised the binoculars.

  The target filled up almost the whole lens, making it look close and grainy. There was a big hole right in the middle and three smaller holes near it.

  ‘You got bullseye!’

  Scattered around the woodblock in the grainy lens were chips of wood from where other bullets had hit and farther back in the woods was an overgrown place with baby blueberry bushes growing where Tom and I burned brush together, a long time ago in winter.

  I turned the binoculars around and looked at Daddy through the big end. He looked very far away. He was aiming again, getting ready to shoot. Maybe looking this way will make the sound smaller too.

  Boom!

  He turned and looked at me.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I just turned the binoculars around. It made you look smaller.’ The echo passed us like heavy water. ‘Daddy, will I be able to stay with you when the battle is over?’

  ‘I hope so, Peter. I hope when it is over, we will be able to live together and be happy with Aurora.’

  Daddy’s new girl friend was Aurora. I didn’t know if I liked her or not. She lived in Washington, D.C., and Daddy wanted me to like her a lot. He talked about her for a while and then he talked about the appeal.

  ‘We shall know soon if I will have to go to jail or not. I hope the appeal will be accepted, because I think the trial made it clear what we stand for. Peter, there is a real conspiracy against my work. Somewhere, someone does not want this work in Orgonomy to continue. I do not know why, although I am beginning to understand. You must understand that I might die. Someone might try to kill me.’

  He stopped and looked at me. ‘Peeps, please don’t run away.’

  Everyone ran away. At the trial they all sent me a telegram saying hello. In the telegram they called me a lieutenant. I wanted to go to the trial but I had to go to school. There was a trial because everyone is afraid of Orgone Energy and they said that Daddy couldn’t let people use accumulators any more but he did and so they are going to do something bad. I will be brave.

  ‘Whatever happens, I want you to be brave and to live your own life. That is why it is good for you to be with Mummy now and go to the boarding school. It is important for you to have friends and grow up where there isn’t so much tension. You must live your own life. And whatever happens to me, you must always be brave.’

  The binoculars pressed between us, I held him so tightly. I wanted to cry but there was not time. We had to be ready.

  ‘I understand,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be brave.’

  I gave him my eyes and we smiled. He went inside to do some work.

  I stood on the railing alone for a while and looked at Orgonon through the glasses. Toreano was leading a troop through the woods and waved. I was proud to be guarding Orgonon.

  After I cleaned the guns I went through the study, where Daddy was working, and went up the stairs to the roof.

  The little room on the roof of the observatory was a little lab. A pendulum hung from the ceiling and I made it swing slowly. By the door to the roof I touched the knob on the oscilloscope that makes the snake wiggle. Sometimes Daddy let me play with the knobs and make the snake into a dot, and the dot into a line.

  Through the window, drops of water sparkled on the damp boards under the outdoor shower. I held the binoculars up and focused them down so that the wet shower boards were all out of focus and sparkled fuzzily in different colours. No-focus was like a prism that broke up the sparkles so that each drop of water had red, blue and yellow sparklers against the dull brown boards.

  I lifted the binoculars and looked at the horizon, all a fuzzy blur of sky and mountains. Below the fuzzy line the fuzzy red roof of the lower cabin was bright in the middle of green blobs of trees and the road was blurry with a funny moving sparkle on it. I turned the focus knob and the moving sparkle settled on the road and became sharper and sharper until it was a shiny black car rolling quietly along the road with a government seal on the side.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ I screamed, running down the stairs, ‘Daddy! They’re here! They’re coming! The agents are here!’

  Daddy got up from his desk and walked quickly out onto the porch and I ran after him. His face was very stern

  ‘Give me the glasses.’

  He focused quickly down to the road by the lab where the black car had stopped in the driveway. I held my breath until my heart pounded all the way up into my head.

  ‘Who is it, Daddy? Are they coming to get you?’

  I was so afraid. Daddy always said they would have to take him away in chains.

  ‘I don’t know. Wait.’

  He stood very still, holding the binoculars with both hands. The black car was standing still in the driveway. The Mannlicher had a telescopic sight too, so we could get them from here.

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just sitting there.’

  Daddy could probably see their faces through the glasses. All I could see was the car. I only shot once with a telescopic sight but it is easy with the crosshairs.

  The car started to move up the road a bit and then it stopped just about where the sign says BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. Then it rolled back towards the turn off, glinting all the time in the sun. It turned around and started down the road away from Orgonon towards town. The binoculars followed the car until it was out of sight.

  ‘Ahem. AHEM ahem. Well, perhaps they will call for once.’ He turned and walked back towards the study.

  ‘Do you think they will come back?’

  ‘Yes, but I think this time they will call. I think we made the message quite clear the last time.’

  For a long time Daddy and Bill carried guns around in their cars because agents were coming up all the time and not even calling or asking for an appointment, just coming right up. That made Daddy mad. And people were shooting holes in our Orgonon sign. That made Daddy really mad. That was when he told me he wanted me to start wearing a whistle. He gave me a shiny metal police whistle on a piece of rawhide to wear around my neck when I played out in the fields. If anyone tried to get me, I was supposed to whistle.

  He sat down at his desk and cranked the telephone, waiting for the operator ahem ahem.

  ‘Yes, operator. Would you please get me six four ring three?’

  While he waited for the operator to get the number, he put on his glasses and shifted some papers on his desk. Then he looked over his glasses at me.

  ‘Wait a moment. Don’t go away. Ja, Moise!’

  He waved a finger at me for me to sit down. I sat in one of the big soft grey chairs next to the fireplace and put my finger in one of the funny soft places that went back and forth in the material. It went back and forth with my finger.

  ‘Moise, this is Dr Reich speaking. Ja. We have just seen a car stop at the gate and I think it is Food and Drug Administ
ration people again. I looked with the glasses and I think I saw a US marshal too. Ja. About the accumulators.’

  Bill’s voice sounded all high and squiggly coming across the room, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  ‘Ja. They drove away without coming up and I think they will probably telephone before they come back. I think we made our point. I wonder if you could come over right away. Ja. Good.’

  Bill’s voice squiggled out again. Daddy looked at his watch. ‘No. Ja. Mr Ross will be back from lunch soon too. Okay, see you. Goodbye.’

  After he hung up, he put some papers away and opened up one of his red books. His pen scratched for a few minutes and the material in the chair wiggled against my finger. The clock ticked.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Ja?’

  ‘What is going to happen?’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘I guess a little bit. I don’t want them to hurt you.’

  ‘Come here.’

  He moved his chair away from his desk and held his arms out to me. I ran across the carpet to Daddy.

  He put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me deeply. ‘Look at me, Peeps.’ He looked worried and sad, and I could feel his warmth and the smell of oil on his skin. He used baby oil for his skin disease and sometimes he smelled like a baby. His eyes were so good to me, it always made me want to cry.

  ‘Peeps, you are a very good soldier and you are very strong. But you must be stronger. We are fighting a very tough battle against the anti-life forces. It is very hard sometimes. Many people ran away. You have been very brave.’

  I nodded. It was too much for everybody – Oranur, the flying saucers, the cloudbuster, and the FDA. A lot of people thought Daddy was crazy. There were spies who stole the Orgone motor. And everyone who ran away, except me and Bill and Eva, was afraid of truth: we had truth.

  ‘You know, Peeps, hundreds of years ago there was a sickness called the black plague. It went all over Europe, killing thousands and thousands of people. Many good doctors worked very hard to cure the people but very often they died too, victims of the plague. Today, I have discovered a new kind of plague.

  ‘It is an emotional plague that comes from within. It kills people emotionally and makes them keep their belly tight. It makes them lie and slander and spy. This emotional plague is more vicious than the black plague because the people do not want to be cured. They strike out in rage at one who tries to cure it because they have been sick so long, they think the sickness is health. And that is why they are attacking me. I am trying to tell them that they don’t have to hate and they hate me for it. We have discussed this many times, do you remember?’

  I nodded and held onto his eyes because I could not let go. ‘The hate and the attacks started many years ago when I was forced to leave Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway. For years, people who were afraid of what I said have spread rumours that I was insane. Here in America I have been barred from professional organisations and, as you know, attacked by the government. You know they have orders to burn some of my books this week.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening, but it is. Strange things have happened before: the Orgone motor being stolen, the Einstein affair, the Air Force … it all adds up to an incredible conspiracy. And it is frightening. Of course it is frightening. They do not look at the work, they attack me personally. Peeps, people do not fight back like this unless they are themselves frightened and they are frightened by the truth of cosmic Orgone Energy. They are frightened by life.

  ‘But Peeps, no matter what happens, I will not stop my work. No matter what happens, the work must go on. Nothing can stop the truth. No laws can stop scientific research. That is why we are fighting, and that is why I may have to die. Truth is deadly and they know I am right. The emotional plague can kill.

  ‘I told them that in court, and they refused to listen. I told them that a court of law could not judge basic scientific principles and they refused to look at the real issues. It doesn’t matter that they found me guilty, because even if we lose the appeal we have really won. That is why this is such an important battle and why you must be very brave. It is very hard to stand up for truth but it is very important. That is why I always told you never to lie.

  ‘Now listen. The men may come back and I want you to be a brave soldier and help. Will you be strong?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘All right. I want you to go to the lab. When Moise comes, tell him to come directly up here and when Mr Ross comes back from lunch, tell him I want him to come up here also. If the FDA men come back, I want you to stop the car at the lab and telephone me to see if I shall come down or if they will come up. Don’t let them come up without first telephoning. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ I started to go, but he held me.

  ‘Peeps?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give me your eyes.’

  As I walked around the front of the observatory and started down the hill, I heard the telephone ring.

  I didn’t know what was going to happen but I wasn’t scared. Toreano came up and brought me a pony. We rode down the hill together.

  Daddy was so serious and worried. I know there are a lot of bad things people say about him. One day, a long time ago when I was at the observatory, I found a whole stack of magazines in the basement. They had pictures of lots of girls with their breasts almost showing and movie stars. One of them was Uncensored. I started looking through one of the magazines because it was exciting to see the soft curvy breasts and legs. There were pretty girls struggling with tough guys with crew cuts and swastikas. But that was fucking.

  Then there was a picture of a naked girl jiggling her breasts in front of a row of accumulators. There were men staring out of the accumulators at the girl and the story said that the men were masturbating and that the accumulator – only they called it an Orgone box – was supposed to give them huge orgasms.

  I haven’t masturbated yet but when I do, it will feel good. And it doesn’t matter if people say it is bad because they are sick. Daddy said I could use Vaseline or oil to rub my penis. I told him I didn’t understand but he said just wait.

  Then there was another magazine that didn’t have as many pictures but there was a long story about how we had machine-gun guards around Orgonon and lots of naked people running around inside, protected by barbed-wire fences. But I’m the only person I know who ran around naked a lot. It scared me that people thought that.

  Besides, I’ve used an accumulator and it makes me feel better.

  Mummy used it when she burned her hand and it healed much faster than usual. The one Daddy uses has a light in it so you can read and there is one with a board in it for your chest, too.

  I like it because it makes you tingly and warm and that is when it is time to come out. Like when I cut my finger with the BB gun, Daddy put the shooter on it and said wait until it starts to tingle and then take it off. The tingling meant it was alive and moving.

  I used the funnel on my hand when I pushed my hand through the washing-machine wringer, too. I was helping Mummy put laundry through the wringer and for a long time I just stared at the clothes going in between the two white wringers and coming out on the other side, all smooth and flat.

  So I watched the wet lumpy clothes go in one side and smooth out the other and then all of a sudden I just put my hand up after a pillowcase and it started to go, through the wringer. Mummy screamed when she saw my fingers come out the other side and before my hand got all the way through she reached up and hit the release bar and the rollers came apart. She took my hand in hers and we went out onto the porch, where Daddy was reading. ‘Why did you do it?’ they asked. I said I didn’t know. Daddy got kind of mad, but he just went and got the Orgone funnel and put it over my hand. In a few minutes it started tingling and feeling better.

  Daddy always said staring is a sign of sickness.

  When we got to the lab I told Toreano to go out and get the troops ready. He rode off and I got the key out of
the hiding place and opened the lab.

  As soon as I opened the door, the cool, dry chemical smell rushed outside. It was cooler inside and behind the chemical smell was the headachy smell of Oranur. The lab hadn’t changed hardly at all since Oranur because it still had a high charge and couldn’t be used. No one had used it for nearly four years. Most of the scientific stuff had been moved to the observatory, so all that was left were a few tables and chairs and cabinets and empty jars and boxes and the smell. Standing near the door were several accumulators that were sent back by people who were afraid to use them because of the FDA. The FDA made people afraid.

  It was very quiet and there were no cars coming so I poked around in the little back rooms. Paint was peeling off the hot-water heater in the bathroom and the floor creaked. The next room was where there were lots of samples of rocks and wood that were decayed by DOR. Almost all the shelves had old samples in jars and rocks with faded pieces of paper with dates and places. Up on one shelf were bottles of stuff and one of them had a yellowish puffy mass of stuff floating in clear liquid.

  Once, when there were people here, a lady came in this room with me and showed me the bottle. She said it was a tumour and then she unbuttoned her blouse. Her skin was pretty, with soft yellow light from the window coming through the cloth onto her soft breast, making it look soft and the nipple all dark, and then she lifted the other side of her blouse, where there were lots of Band-aids where the other breast was supposed to be. She said it was the tumour in the jar and I tried to be serious but I was scared.

  Beep! Beep!

  Tom had stopped the pickup in front of the lab and was leaning out of the window. I ran outside.

  ‘Hi, Tom.’

  ‘Hi, Pete. I seen the lab door was open and wondered if that was you.’

  He sat back as I ran up to the window. His hand shook on the gear-shift. ‘What you doin’ down here all by yourself?’

  ‘Tom, some agents came just before and then they went away. Daddy said you’re supposed to go right up to the observatory.’

  Tom looked up the road and started to shift into first. Then he turned and looked back at me.