The City of Dreams -- Part 3

         We slipped around a small dance party—teenagers dancing along with the speakers, the DJ telling three different iPods that they had to wait their turn—and walked down a row of booths.
        “Who’s Mr. Punctilious?” I asked.
“He’s a friend,” said Brie.  “He has his own show and garage sale.  I figure he can help you.”
“Help me do what?” I asked, and said ‘no, thank you,’ to a woman holding a cage of cell phones.
“Find what you’re after,” said Brie.
“Am I after something?”
“Everyone is.”
“I think I’m just after food.  Do people eat here?”
“Of course we do,” said Brie.  “But like I said, don’t accept anything from vending machines.  They don’t keep good track of expiration dates.”
“No vending machines.”
“Exactly.”
“What about those?” I asked, pointing towards the smell of fried dough and the booth that went with it.
Brie squealed, and I didn’t mind it, which was proof of two things: one, I was definitely dreaming, and two, hormones do strange things to boys’ brains.  If a guy squealed, I would have given him a flat look and said something withering, like ‘dude.’
“Zoli’s back!” said Brie and ran over to the booth.  I felt a certain amount of unexpected relief when I discovered that Zoli was well into his thirties (at least) and had as much around his middle as most people have from head to toe.
“I am back,” said Zoli, smiling at Brie and fishing a slab of fried dough from a pot of oil.  He flipped it onto a paper plate with his tongs and slid it across the counter to Brie.  “One for your friend?” he asked, nodding towards me.  He had an accent that I could identify as ‘not from the US,’ but not more specifically than that.
“Please,” nodded Brie.  “It’s his first time to the market.”
“In that case,” said Zoli, pulling another platter-sized whatever-it-was from the oil, “this is my gift to you.  Welcome to the City.”
I started to thank him, but Brie talked over me.  “Where have you been?” she asked.  “I was afraid you weren’t coming anymore.”
“You should be so lucky,” said Zoli.  “My food will make you fat.”
Brie’s hand dipped towards her waist self consciously, but then she glared at the man in his apron and deliberately scooped out a large glob of what looked like sour cream from a bowl on the counter.  “No one ever got fat from dream food,” she said, and plopped the sour cream onto her giant scone.
“Then put plenty of cheese on it,” said Zoli.  “I traded the Italian two rows over for it.  This didn’t come out of a truck.”
Brie leaned in over the bowl of grated cheese—the thin, dry shreds that come from a hard cheese—and inhaled.  Her face lit up.  “This smells good!”
A smile played around Zoli’s mouth.  “It had better.  I got it for a song.”
Brie’s eyes went wide.  “An entire song?”
“That’s a yes.  I dreamt it last week and thought I’d save it for something special.  Like my grand reopening.  Go on.  Eat.”
Brie used the little tongs in the cheese to scatter a generous portion onto her scone and I started following her example, not sure about the whole combination.
“You still haven’t told me where you were,” said Brie, her mouth full.
Zoli shrugged.  “I met a woman.”
“And you weren’t sleeping?  Zoli, you bad boy.”
Zoli rolled his eyes.  “It never got that far.  You know I’m not that kind of guy.”
“I know,” said Brie.  “‘No ring, no fling.’  That’s a dumb rhyme, by the way.”
“But you remember it,” said Zoli, “and English isn’t even my native language.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Wow what?” asked Brie.
“This is really good.”
“Glad you like it,” said Zoli.
“What is it?”
“It’s called a langosh.  Thousands of Hungarians die from it every year.”
“It would be worth it,” I said, my turn to talk with my mouth full.
“And what happened with the woman?” asked Brie.
Zoli shrugged and dropped another flat of dough into the oil.  “She said she wanted to be friends.”
“Ouch,” said Brie.
“Do girls really mean it when they say that?” I asked.
“Yes.  At least most of us do.”
“And do they know that guys don’t do ‘had a crush on you but now I’m your friend’ very well?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Then why do they still say it?”
“Eat your langosh,” instructed Zoli.  “Good food is much easier to understand than a good woman.”
I obeyed willingly.  It really was good, but Brie had stopped eating hers.
“I’m sorry, Zoli,” she said.
Zoli shook his head, his lips flat.  “It happens.  That’s it.  Now get out of the way, Brie.  Line behind you.”
Brie put her langosh back on her plate, gathered the whole thing into one hand and grabbed a handful of cheese with the other.  “I’m coming back,” she said.  “You know I have to hear the details.”
“You enjoy my suffering?” asked Zoli.
“It’s how girls become friends,” said Brie.  “We talk about everything.”
“I’m not a girl,” he said.
“But you are my friend,” she said, waving her cheese in goodbye.  I picked up my plate, said a quick ‘thank you’ to Zoli, and jogged a little to catch up.
“People stop coming to the City?” I asked, taking another bite.  Cheese, sour cream, and fried dough.  Who would have thought?
“Duh,” said Brie, and she paused while we edged around a mailbox that was vomiting letters onto the paving stones, retching noises and everything.  A man in a Postal Services jacket started sorting through the pile.  “People start coming some time,” she continued, “and they stop some time, too.”
“Why?”
“Mr. Punctilious has a theory.”  She hesitated, almost said something, then shook her head.  “He’s better at describing it than I am.”
“You don’t like his theory?” I asked, guessing from something in her voice.
“Not really, but it’s probably true.”
“Who is Mr. Punctilious?”
Brie was in the middle of a large bite of langosh, so she just jerked her head towards the break in the booths ahead of us.
The first thing to catch my eye was the tree, in part because it was big.  It didn’t glow as flamboyantly as the flowers I’d seen, but it made up for it by being all four seasons in one tree.  The far left had the new growth and blossoms of spring, towards the middle it blended into the mature green of summer, towards the right fruit of some kind was growing, surrounded by leaves turning golden, and finally on the far right were the empty branches of winter.
“He’s a tree?” I asked.
Brie laughed.  “No, silly.  Trees can’t talk.”
“Of course that was silly of me.  Since everything else here makes perfect sense.”
“Sorry,” said Brie, almost looking really sorry, but not quite.  “Look under the tree.”
“Oh,” I said.  “Right.  Okay, my question was kind of silly.”
“Just a little,” she said, “but that’s okay.”
Beneath the tree was something like a barn on wheels, big monster-truck wheels that would have looked ridiculous except for the fact that the barn was quite large.  Steps led up to the open doors, and over the doors in vibrant letters lit by spot lighting were the words MR. PUNCTILIOUS’ FABULOUS AND OFTEN EXCITING TRAVELING TROUPE (AND GARAGE SALE)!
“Obviously,” I said, “Mr. Punctilious is a barn.”
“Exactly,” said Brie.  “He’s probably inside.  It’s about time for one of their shows.  Maybe we can catch it.  Let’s go buy tickets.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
“You dream, don’t you?” she asked.
“Sure.  I mean,” I waved my hand around that wasn’t holding food, “obviously.”
“I mean besides about the City.”
“Yeah.  I do that, too.”
“Then you’ll be fine.  Just don’t pay with any of your daydreams, unless you’re sure you’ll never use them.  Night-time dreams are easier to come by.”
“Got it,” I said.  “Huh?”
“Just come on,” said Brie, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind her.  I liked the feel of her hand.  It was warm and mine was fortunately un-sweaty.  She pulled me over to a small stand at the bottom of the stairs up into the barn.  Music was swirling out from the barn’s doors in patches of greens, yellows, and bronzes.  I wanted to grab at some but both my hands were involved in critical procedures: I realized I didn’t want to let go of either thing I was holding.
“Hiya, pumpkin,” said the tall, redheaded woman behind the counter.  “The show’s just about to start.”
“Two, please, Mrs. Absinthe.”
“You paying for both?”
“Not tonight,” said Brie.  “Do you mind going Dutch, Perry?  I’m saving up for something.”
“What’s ‘Dutch?’” I asked.
“We each pay for our own.”
“Oh!  Right.  I knew that.  My dad always jokes about that when he takes my mom out to dinner.  Sure, I’ll pay.”
“What have you got for me then, honey?” asked Mrs. Absinthe, looking at Brie.
“A glimpse of a color that doesn’t exist,” said Brie, letting go of my hand to pull a flash of something out of her shoulder bag, dropping it into the tall woman’s hand.
“Not bad,” said the woman, looking at it with raised eyebrows, then dropping it into a cash box.  “What about you, young man?”
“I’ve never done this before,” I said.
“Just pull a bit of dream from your bag,” she said kindly.  “Not much, mind you.  We put on a good show, but we like everyone to be able to see it.  We’re not like the big theater on the other side of the market.  Thinks he’s Shakespeare reborn, that one does.  They even spell it ‘theatre,’ as if they were British.”
“But,” I said, “your sign has an ‘e’ on the end of ‘troupe.’”
They both looked at me.
“Isn’t that kind of pretending to be British?” I said, certain that I was digging myself deeper, though not sure exactly how.
“We spell it that way in America, too,” said Brie after a pause.
“It’s a theater term, I suppose,” said Mrs. Absinthe, trying to be nice.
“You may not have known this,” I said, looking at Brie, “but I never won the spelling bee.  Not ever.  Got out in the first round in sixth grade on ‘flabby.’”
“Only one ‘b?’” she asked.
“Exactly.”
“A common mistake.”
“That’s what I told my mother.  She’s an excellent speller.”
“I would have thought spelling ability was genetic,” said Mrs. Absinthe.
“My father couldn’t spell his way out of a wet paper bag,” I said, “and that metaphor works better when talking about punching.”
“Is he always like this?” Mrs. Absinthe asked Brie.
“I’m not sure, really,” said Brie, looking at me with a speculative air.  “There’s something different about him in the City.”
“We’re all a little different here,” said the tall woman.  “Now, young man, pull something out of your bag.”
“I don’t have a bag.”
Mrs. Absinthe looked meaningfully down at my side.  I followed her glance.
“Oh,” I said.  “It looks like it was woven in South America.”
“Yes, it’s very nice,” she agreed.  “Now pull something out.  The show isn’t waiting for you to figure out how the world works.”
“I just reach in and pull something out?”  They both just looked at me, so I pulled open the flap on the bag with one hand and reached in with the other.
It turns out that dreams are remarkably like marbles.
“How about this one?” I asked, pulling out a medium-sized, glossy one between my forefinger and thumb.  It made me feel light and it felt like I ought to know what the dream had been about.
Mrs. Absinthe bent down to look at it and I held it out so she could see it.  She squinted, then her eyebrows went up.  “A flying dream, young man?  No thank you.  We’re not out to rob you at Mr. Punctilious’ Fabulous and Often Exciting Traveling Troupe.  Find us something smaller.”
I dropped the flying dream back into my bag and felt around for something smaller.  I found a small bit of dream, kind of like those tiny metal marbles.  I felt slightly embarrassed showing it to anyone, though I didn’t know why.  Mrs. Absinthe looked at it closely.  Then she looked longer.  Then her stomach started to jerk and the muscles went tight around her mouth.  For a moment I thought she might be ill.  Then I realized she was holding in a laugh.  I tried to pull the bit of dream back, but she was too quick for me, snatching it from my hand.
“This will do,” she said.
“I want that back!”
She shook her head, openly smiling now.  “Trust me, young man.  You  don’t.”
“I want to see!” said Brie.
“No!” I said.
Later, mouthed Mrs. Absinthe.  “In you go, children.  I hear Mr. Punctilious warming up the crowd.”
“Good to see you, Mrs. Absinthe,” said Brie as she dragged me behind her with my sleeve.
“Always good to have you around, Brie.”