The Loud Uproar

The Loud Uproar of Heaven:

The Childhood Dreams

Of an Ineffectual Lowlife

 

By Francis “Frenchie” Costello

 

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So, you figure it out!

 

I finish my plea, go to the Empty Place, and wait for the Nothingness, even though I'm scared and feeling more alone than I've ever felt. But Nothingness doesn't happen. Only this gigantic goldenrod spider in a red smock and glasses happens. She’s lugging over this leathery-looking book that's about twice as big as she is, and she sets it down right in front of me. It totally blows my mind because this isn't exactly what I was led to believe was going to take place. Then, she picks me up like a loose penny and puts me in her pocket, opens that gargantuan book, and jumps inside its pages. Talk about a head trip! Unbelievable! I mean, none of it made me feel like a lowlife that had written a plea but everything like a storybook cookie that has a chance to hop out of the oven! I was flying, really flying!

 

About a second later, I'm plopped down on a grassy little hill near this magnificently blossoming cherry tree, and the spider, who is pretty much at a normal size now, is asking me all kinds of questions about my life in the Garden. Nothing heavy or anything, just very small stuff like my mother's childhood nickname or the highest rank I achieved before I was kicked out of this stupid marching band in high school. She’s occasionally writing stuff down like she's tying up some loose ends or something. So, I do what I can to help her fill in the blanks; but find myself distracted by the amazing number of wildflowers that blanket parts of the hill, and the way the sun is pouring down on these white pillars I can see not too far off in the distance.

 

 

Now, the weird thing is that although I know I'm not where I was, I know I'm not where I thought I would be either, because things are still going on and because everything is more like something a lot better than the Empty Place. I mean, even though I know that things could still get serious, I have the sense, too, that whatever happens is not going to be the kind of thing that I can’t handle. It might sound crazy, but I'm so jazzed by the turn of events that I’m eager to know what might be coming my way. Pretty soon, though, this spider is done with the small stuff. She puts away her notepad and just sort of looks at me in this very careful way and says, "Frenchie, I am Paulette Avocat, a clerk to Sister Rose Immaculate, and I want you to understand something before we begin to talk about some things that may make you feel a little uncomfortable. The Gardener has rejected your plea for the Nothingness and has in its stead extended to you an invitation to what we call The Scattering of the Blossoms. I cannot tell you why this has happened, and I am not allowed to describe any aspect of that event, but I will be taking you there when our business is done. But first, I need to talk to you about several of your dreams. You called them nightmares when you were in the Garden, but they were not nightmares. They were something else. They were what we call adjurations. It may seem like an imposition, but Sister Rose is very big on the disclosure of personal information. More importantly, the Gardener herself cares deeply about everyone’s dreams and wants all of us to understand them, not just our own dreams, but also those of others.”

 

So, like I said, I thought things might go in a serious direction, but I really don't care because I suspect that this is all going to be for the best when it's over. I mean, honest to God, she could’ve said, "Frenchie, I'm going to hit you over the head with my big-a*s book," and I would have been happy to be clocked because at least I wasn’t in hell anymore, and really, that was the only thing that mattered to me.^[1]

The first dream she wants to talk about is this one I had when I was still a little bug. The deal is that I am sort of crawling around near this rusty trash can, when this evil-looking bum comes rushing by me like he’s on some extreme, psychological mission, only he’s got my mom over his shoulder like a sack of topsoil and starts stuffing her upside-down in the trash can. He doesn’t even seem to care that he’s doing this right in front of me because he really takes his time about it, even winks at me, knowing there's nothing I can do but watch, since I’m so little and not too strong.

 

-P-

 

So, Paulette asks me if I remember how that dream made me feel at the time.[2] I say, 'Of course I do. I felt like I was about to die or maybe just not be there anymore.' Then she asks me why I don't want to be there, and I say, 'Because I think that bum might do something even worse, and I don't want to see him do it when there’s nothing I can do to stop him.'  Paulette doesn't say anything right away because she's thinking things over and maybe doesn't know that I'm a little nervous about something bad happening now.  But she draws herself close to me and lifts my chin a little, so all I can see is her face. Then she says, "Your mother was love itself to you, so maybe it was love that you feared losing. She was the first creature to love you, and no one can love unless they have first been loved by another. But those who teach us to love come in physical containers that can easily perish, even in a trash can. You feared the loss of love, and recognized that love doesn’t just grow on trees.” I only nod because I don’t think she expects me to say anything. Then Paulette wipes this tear from her eye, takes out her notepad again, and brings up the second dream. I had this one a few months after my parents died.

 

What happens is that my family is gathered around this big picnic table in a park pretty near where I grew up, listening to my uncle Frank talk about the Garden. But my mom and dad catch my eye because they're just looking at each other and not really listening to Uncle Frank. I like how they look doing that because they look like they're just one thing. So, I begin to slowly wake up, feeling that everything is okay. But then it dawns on me that my parents are dead, and I have this tremendous sense of surprise and amazement because I didn’t know they were dead while I was dreaming. It makes me feel like I am two people: One that knew and one that didn’t know. It feels very much like what a priest might call an epiphany, only I don't really grasp what it is that I am realizing. It feels sort of creepy but exhilarating, too.

 

So, Paulette asks me if there was anything about my parents’ appearance that suggested that they might be dead. I say, 'Not really, or maybe their faces glowed a little.' Then Paulette looks away from me for a moment but lets out this big sincere laugh and says, "I think you're kidding yourself when you say that you don't grasp what you realize! An adjuration like that is delivered with great urgency, and the fear created by the extremity of its expression provokes our wonder. But I’m sure you knew what you realized! There are things inside you that straddle the line between being you and being something else. It can be a little daunting to contemplate, but those things are the sureties of a realm that is beyond the physical world. They identify you as a confetti bee, even though you may not look like one on the outside. You realized that dream life is as valid and as meaningful as waking life, and it is as much a part of who you are as anything else. That could not have been lost upon you, Frenchie, because you said it made you feel like two people. That tells me you realized as much as the Gardener allows anyone to realize about the ‘others’ inside of us[3]. At least that’s what your amazement suggests to me.”

 

Then Paulette brings up the most important dream of all. It's one I had just before I was arrested with my friend Bobby Casanova and ended up in the Empty Place. In this one, I’m just one bug among many in this long hallway. Everybody is talking loudly, having a good time, joking, and even dancing around sometimes. My dad is at the center of all this, telling his jokes and being extremely popular. I don’t think he even knows I’m there, but I’m watching him and feeling a little resentful. So, I get it in my head that I'm going to throw a question at him to maybe put him on the spot a little. What I'm going to do is ask him how he likes being dead. But the next thing I know, I'm like right in his face, and I'm not asking him how he likes being dead but telling him that I love him. But none of this is a nightmare to me until that happens. No, it only becomes a nightmare when my dad looks at me like I’m some kind of weakling and disappears without saying anything. I mean, the reason I don't think this is a nightmare until then is that I'm proud that I realize that my dad’s dead, and I'm comfortable with the general reality of death because it doesn’t bother me that everyone around me is probably dead, too. I’m even sort of proud that I changed my mind about the question I was going to ask!

 

So, Paulette takes off her glasses and gets this very serious look on her face, and asks me why I find my dad's disappearance to be so disturbing. And I tell her it’s because I feel like I laid everything on the line and got stuffed. So, she says, "Maybe he didn't stuff you; maybe he could love only in the way he was taught to love, and that came off like stuffing you." Then Paulette glances over at the cherry tree and takes in this pretty long breath and says, "I think you were good not to ask your father how he liked being dead - That allowed a small thing like you to triumph over a gigantic thing like your ego. So, even if you did get hurt, you got hurt for doing something good. You gave and got nothing back, but that’s the way grace usually works, maybe the only way it can work.[4] Each creature's universe is different, and the efficacy of grace is never greater than a creature’s ability to express love. Nothing can change that, unless of course, the Gardener chooses to change it, which so far, she has not."

 

Now, when all this dream talk is done, I'm not really doing that great psychologically, even though there's a part of me that feels something like I did after confession when I was in the Garden. So, Paulette takes my hand and assures me that everything’s okay because even though our talk was important, it was not a condition, but more like a gift inherent in the Gardener’s invitation. And things get better because the next thing I know, Paulette balloons up to her gigantic version again, sweeps me into her pocket and we’re headed to that scattering thing she mentioned earlier - Only this time we tumble out of the book in front of two impressive old columns with this very ornate marble pedestal set between them.

 

Then, Paulette takes up the book one last time and carefully places it on the pedestal. Her task is done, I guess, because she looks at me, as if she’s going to laugh in that magnificently honest way again, but only glances in the direction of this stately old hall that seems to have risen out of nowhere behind me. And for a few seconds, it’s eerily quiet, but then, the doors of that hall crack open, and I hear a loud uproar of thousands, or maybe even millions of voices pouring out into the daylight, and guess what? This beautiful little boy is coming out and waving me inside. But I can't move because my knees have buckled and I’m trembling and even beginning to cry a little. But it doesn't matter because there is this throng of tiny roses encircling me, singing, and shouting, and taking hold of me and carrying me toward the doorway. I’m lighter than their petals, and as we reach the entrance, I see that the little boy seems to know me or something, and he greets me like I’m someone important! He thanks me for coming, even though I had nothing to do with my being there! But as I’m trying to understand this, I notice that the roses are scampering toward the pedestal between the columns.

---

[1] The three dreams that Frenchie describes in this story belong to the poet. Frenchie is loosely based on him when he was a young man. Paris believed that most of us live in the “spiritual gray,” somewhere between the “possibly redeemable” and the “do-not-allow” lines: “That God gets involved with any of us underscores the value God places on our souls,” he said.

 

Paulette Avocat is based on Paris’s recollections of the tutor he had at the Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis., a gregarious Swedish-American woman who he once described as, “the most conceited person I ever knew and the best teacher I ever had.”

 

[2] Paris claims to have been only four years old when he experienced this unusually graphic nightmare. Its “crazy-looking bum” was the host of a morning television program called “T.N. Tatters.” Although the poet was merely ambivalent toward the cartoons and 30-second advertisements that dominated its air-time, he was fearful and deeply suspicious of the hobo-clown who oversaw the program’s daily mayhem. Furthermore, Paris believed that this sketchy comic lurked the hallways of his school and claims to have once been chased by him down an alley. The poet feared that Tatters was the mysterious “stranger” his mother had warned him about. As an adult, Paris came to view the dream as a divine lesson in the enormity of physical existence - The demiurge of gnostic antiquity.

 

[3] Paris admired the work of Sigmund Freud. Like him, the poet believed that much of an individual’s mental functioning occurs outside of his conscious awareness. But Paris believed that the unconscious is not merely a psychological mechanism that interprets or responds to an individual’s conscious experiences, but also an autonomous entity that speaks to its host from a context of independence and existential superiority. The poet also broke with Freud on the nature of dreams. Freud believed that dreams represent a “disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish” within the individual dreamer, while Paris believed that dreams are spiritual hieroglyphs.

 

 

[4] Paris said that he could not recall an instance when his mother was not given deference when she spoke about Christ, nor could he remember a listener who did not communicate some degree of affection for her and her words. To him, that suggested that an individual’s expression of love is not about his relationship with another, but about his relationship with God.