The City of Dreams -- Part 22

[Shorter section, but Father Thomas didn't have too much to say--or else he said more than enough, and it was time for something to EXPLODE or go ZING or go WHAMOOSE!

[Now you're learning the secret to my writing: when in doubt, blow something up.]


I almost called Brie.
I really truly almost called her. I even got as far as the 'M's in the student directory. I looked at 'Mitchell, Amanda,' and then I dropped it back in the drawer with the other lists of phone numbers. Why didn't I have Brie's phone number in my cell phone? I didn't know, but she could have called me, too. Right? It's not like there were six different entries in the directory for 'Crows, Perry.' True, there were two other 'Crows,' but we all had the same phone number. She could have called my home, and my sisters would have answered, and they would have teased me, but we would have talked. And then we could have done something.
So it wasn't all my fault.
I went to bed on the late side. I wasn't excited about seeing Brie. I didn't want to feel like I'd let her down, and I knew if I saw her that's how I'd feel. It shouldn't be a big deal, right? We didn't spend an afternoon together. Not a big deal by any kind of measuring stick, except maybe the wacky kind of measuring that girls do. The kind that makes a missed phonecall into a meteor crashing into the earth and digging out a hole the size of the Gulf of Mexico.
I kept telling myself it wasn't a big deal all the way until I fell asleep.

I looked around at the church. The organ was filling the heights of the hall with stately washes of white, red, and yellow, a comfortable and steady glory. I sat back in the pew, leaned my head back, and watched. However good Father Thomas might be in the waking world, he certainly could play in the City.
After a while--I couldn't tell how long--the music stopped.
"So we're back here tonight," said Not.
"Guess so," I said.
"You like the music?"
I nodded, my head still leaning on the polished wood of the bench. "Yeah."
"It is nice," said the dream. "Maybe I'm supposed to be a musician. Did you want to be a musician?"
I thought about it. "I don't think so. I'm a decent singer, but the best I could probably hope for is to be a choir teacher, and I don't think I want to teach high school."
"Also, you'd have to learn piano, I'd think."
I rolled my head on the bench to look at him. "How did you know that?"
"I don't know."
"Huh," I said.
"Should we go talk with Father Thomas?" asked Not.
"Maybe he'll start playing again," I said, hoping.
"Sorry. He's coming down the stairs."
"Oh well." It would have been nice to hear more music. To watch it. "Sure, let's go talk with him."
I pushed up onto my feet and walked to the back of the church. Father Thomas smiled at me and gestured toward the door that lead to his home on the side of the building. I nodded and followed him. Soon we were sitting around his little table with orange juice again.
"How have you been, Perry?" He smiled at me like he was genuinely glad to see me. I didn't mind.
"Up and down," I said. "Better at night than during the day."
"And what about you?" asked Father Thomas, looking at Not. "Found who you belong to yet?"
"I think I belong to Perry."
"I wondered."
"But even if he is mine," I said, "how does that do me any good? I still don't know what my dream IS. Not is a hodgepodge of things. It's not like he's a medical doctor or mathematician or anything recognizable."
Father Thomas settled back in his chair and looked at his orange juice. "Just because a dream is muddled, that doesn't make it any less powerful. Sometimes a person can be filled up with a need for SOMETHING in his life, even if he doesn't know what that something should be. I've seen it plenty of times."
"Like when?" I asked. "What happened to the people like that?"
"One man became a psychologist. Spent the rest of his life looking, but never found much."
"That's encouraging," I said with a hint of sarcasm.
"A woman quit school and became a mother. Another mother went back to school and became a hospital administrator. A father bought a fast car then sold it again six months later to pay for cooking lessons. A boy devoted himself to sculpture and got accepted to a fine arts college. All sorts of things happen." The priest looked at me. "The hardest part is figuring out that you need a dream to move ahead. Once you've discovered that, finding what the dream is just takes time. And persistence."
I looked around at the pictures on the wall. Father Thomas was in all of them. In some he was young, playing soccer or standing with friends. In another he was in military uniform. In others he was even older than he looked in front of me, thinner, supported by a wheel chair, surrounded by other priests or at an organ.
"Why do you keep coming to the City of Dreams?" I asked.
"Hmm. I figured you'd ask that. Wondering what it is that I'm missing, are you? I'm afraid it's quite straight forward, actually. I don't think I'm particularly good at helping people."
I looked at him. "Haven't you been a priest forever? Isn't helping people what you spend your life doing?"
He nodded. "Yes, it is. But I don't think I'm good at it. I may have managed to do some good a time or two, out of sheer perseverance, but, truth be told, I've often given up on having any real success. It seems that any work I do one day will be erased the next, like I'm weaving a cloth that is unraveled every night. I've found it quite discouraging."
I blinked at him. "Are you saying this to try to help me? Feeling like a failure is something I'm already good at."
"Perry," said Father Thomas. "I'm telling you how I feel, not what the reality is. I've kept journals through the years, names of people I've spent time with, kindnesses that others have done for me, good deeds I've managed to do. I have letters from children I've counseled with who have grown into happy adults, notes from couples who have stayed together and fallen in love again. When I look at these things, I KNOW I've done good, and I know that it can last."
"So why do you keep coming here?"
The priest smiled. "Let me teach you something: How you feel is seldom connected to the way things really are. I keep coming here because I feel like I've failed, like I have to do more and more and more. In truth, I think God and others are much more forgiving of me than I am of myself. And forgiveness is at least as true as failure."
Father Thomas set down his orange juice on the table and stood, walking over to look at pictures on the wall. "I think some people have an easier time being happy than others. For some it seems to fall down on them, day after day, like manna from Heaven. For the rest of us, we...have to work at it a little extra."
I thought about my days and weeks. "Or a lot extra," I said.
"Yes," said Father Thomas. "Or a lot extra. Do you play chess?"
I stared at him. "Sorry?"
"Do you play chess?"
"I know how."
"Care for a game?" He walked over and pulled a box out from under the low table. "The rules are the same as regular chess, but it takes a bit more work than you might be used to."
"Why's that?"
Father Thomas opened the box. "That's why."
I managed to catch an escaping pawn before he could fling himself off the edge of the table. A knight charged me, but I fended him off with my glass of orange juice. The black king looked up at me with disdain, and both queens leaned together, whispering something. Somehow, I knew it was about me, and I knew it wasn't particularly flattering.
"Attention!" said Father Thomas, steel in his voice for the first time I'd ever heard. The scrambling pieces slid to a halt and looked up at him with a wary respect. "My friend and I are going to play a game of chess. If you are good, we'll let you stay out. If you give me any serious trouble, you go back in and I find myself a nice, obedient set of checkers. have I made myself clear?"
One of the white rooks looked ready to bolt anyway, but a stern glance from a pair of bishops brought him back in line.
"Good," said Father Thomas. "Now, what would you prefer, Perry? Black or white?"
The pieces all looked up and pulled back, as if they dreaded having such an inexperienced chess player in charge. I had no idea how they could tell. Perhaps they could smell fear.
I had to ask another question, though, before I could play. "So I don't have to know what my dream is?"
"Not yet, no. You have to know that something is missing and set out to find it. Sometimes we get more from looking than we ever do from finding."
I looked at Not. He was leaning from side to side, trying to take in all the chess pieces at once, like they were something wonderful and new. Apparently my dream wasn't to become a chess player.
"Okay," I said. "I'll play white."
On the table the light colored pieces all sagged.