The Dreamseller: The Calling (5 page)

He became my teacher. And I, the first to agree to this unpredictable journey with no set course or destination. Crazy? Maybe. But no crazier than the life I had been living.

A
S SOON AS WE LEFT THE SCENE WE WERE STOPPED BY ONE
of those closely watching us at the top of the building, the police chief. He was a tall man, about six-foot-three, and slightly overweight, impeccably dressed, graying hair, smooth skin and exuded the air of a man who loved power.

When we stopped in front of him he barely noticed me. He was used to dealing with suicides and considered them weak and damaged. To him, I was just another statistic. I could taste his bitter prejudice and I hated it. After all, I was much more learned than this gun-toting buffoon. My weapons were ideas, which were more powerful and more effective. But I didn’t have the strength to defend myself. And I didn’t have to. I had a torpedo at my side, the man who had saved me.

The policeman was really interested in grilling the dreamseller. He wanted to know more about this character who fell outside of his statistics. He hadn’t been able to hear much of what we said, but the little he heard had amazed him. He studied the dreamseller from head to toe, unable to reconcile the image. The stranger seemed alien to his surroundings. Uneasy, he began his interrogation. I guessed that, like me, the policeman was about to step into a hornet’s nest. And he did.

“What’s your name?” he asked in an arrogant tone.

The dreamseller studied him for just a second, then said:

“Aren’t you happy this man changed his mind? Aren’t you simply overwhelmed with joy at knowing this man’s life has been saved?” And he gazed at me.

The policeman lost his footing on his pedestal. He hadn’t expected his insensitivity to be laid bare in a few short seconds. He stammered, then said in a formal tone, “Yes, of course I’m happy for him.”

The dreamseller had a way of making any man realize his insensitivity. He made them see how foolish they were acting. And then he launched another torpedo:

“If you’re happy, why don’t you show your happiness? Why don’t you ask him his name and tell him how glad you are? After all, isn’t a human life worth more than this building?”

The police chief was stripped naked more quickly than I was, and it was perfect. The dreamseller won back my self-esteem. He was a thought-provoking expert. Watching him rattle the police chief, I started to understand: It’s impossible to follow a leader like this man without admiring him. Admiration is stronger than power, charisma more intense than intimidation. And I had begun to greatly admire the charismatic dreamseller.

It made me think about my relationship with my students. I was a vault of information but had never understood that charisma is fundamental to teaching. First you fell in love with the dreamseller’s charisma, then you opened to his teachings. I was afflicted with the same disease of most intellectuals: I was boring. I had been dull, critical, demanding. Even I couldn’t stand myself.

The police chief, now shamed by the dreamseller, turned quickly to me and, like a child who has been told to apologize, said, “I’m happy for you, sir.”

In a softer tone, the officer asked for the dreamseller’s identification.

The reply was simple: “I don’t have any ID.”

“How can that be? Everybody needs some kind of identification. Without it, you have no . . . identity.”

“My identity is what I am,” the dreamseller said.

“You can be arrested if you don’t identify yourself. You could be a terrorist, a public threat, a psychopath. Who are you?” the policeman asked, slipping back into an aggressive tone.

I saw where this was headed. The dreamseller replied:

“I’ll answer you if you answer me first. On whose authority should you be able to know my most intimate secrets? What are your credentials for plumbing the depths of my mind?” he said flatly.

The policeman took the bait. He started to raise his voice, not knowing he’d be trapped by his own wit.

“I’m Pedro Alcantara, chief of police of this district,” he said, radiating a proud and self-confident air.

Annoyed, the dreamseller said, “I didn’t ask about your profession, your social status or your activities. I want to know about your essence. Who is the human being beneath that uniform?”

The police officer quickly scratched an eyebrow, revealing a nervous tick he’d hidden away, not knowing how to respond. Lowering his voice, the dreamseller asked another question: “What is your greatest dream?”

“My greatest dream? Well, I, I . . .” he stammered, again not knowing how to reply.

Never had anyone using so few words confronted this pillar of authority. He remained motionless. I could look into the dreamseller’s eyes and see what he was thinking. The police chief protected “normal” people but couldn’t protect his own emotions.

That’s when I began to see myself in him. And what I saw bothered me. How could a person without dreams protect society, unless he was a robot whose sole function was to make
arrests? How could someone without dreams mold citizens who dream of being free and united?

Then the dreamseller added, “Careful. You fight for public safety, but fear and loneliness are the thieves that steal our emotions, and they can be more dangerous than common criminals. Your son doesn’t need a chief of police. He needs a shoulder to cry on, a friend with whom he can share secret feelings and who teaches him to think. Live that dream.”

The police chief was speechless. He had been trained to deal with criminals, to arrest them, and had never heard of thieves who invade the mind. He didn’t know what to do without his weapon and his badge. Like most “normal” people, including me, he defined himself through his profession. At home, he didn’t know how to be a father, only a police officer. He was unable to separate the two roles. He won medals for bravery, but was wasting away as a human being.

I wondered how the dreamseller knew the chief had a son, or whether he had made a lucky guess. But I saw the police chief squirming, as if handcuffed inside his mind, trying to escape from a prison years in the making.

The psychiatrist couldn’t hold back any longer. Seeing the police chief at a loss, he tried to trip up the dreamseller. Using psychiatry, he tried to rattle the dreamseller, saying, “Anyone who won’t reveal his identity is hiding his own frailty.”

“Do you think I’m frail?” asked the dreamseller.

“I don’t know,” replied the psychiatrist, hesitating.

“Well, you’re right. I
am
frail. I’ve learned that no one is worthy of being called an expert, including a scientist, especially if he doesn’t recognize his own limits, his own frailties. Are you frail?” he shot back. “Well?”

Seeing the psychiatrist hesitate, the dreamseller asked, “Which discipline of psychotherapy do you subscribe to?”

That question came as a surprise. I didn’t understand where
the dreamseller was going with this. But the psychiatrist, who was also a psychotherapist, said proudly, “I’m a Freudian.”

“Very well. Then answer me this: Which is more complex, a psychological theory, whatever it is, or the mind of a human being?”

The psychiatrist, fearing a trap, didn’t answer for a moment. Then he replied indirectly. “We use theories to decipher the human mind.”

“Fine. Then allow me one more question: You can map out a theory and read every last text on the subject. But can you exhaust the understanding of the human mind?”

“No. But I’m not here to be questioned by you,” he said dismissively, not realizing what the dreamseller was driving at. “Besides, I’m an expert in the human mind.”

The dreamseller took that opening:

“Mental health professionals are poets of existence, they have a grand mission. However, they can’t put a patient into a theoretical text, yet try desperately to put a theoretical text inside of a person. Don’t trap your patients between the walls of a theory, or you’ll reduce their abilities to grow. Each sickness is unique to the one who’s sick. Every sick person has a mind. And every mind is an infinite universe.”

I understood what he was telling the psychiatrist, for I felt in my own skin what he meant. When the psychiatrist approached me, he used techniques and interpretations that I immediately rejected. He dealt with the act of suicide, but not with the ravaged human being inside me. His theory might be useful in predictable situations, especially when the patient seeks help, but not in situations where the patient rejects help or has lost hope. I was resistant. First, I needed to be touched by the psychiatrist the man. And later, by the psychiatrist the professional. Because he had approached me as an illness, and not as a person, I perceived him as an invader and withdrew.

The dreamseller took the opposite approach. He started with the sandwich; he asked me deep questions to know more about who I was, like nourishment that reached down into my bones. Only then did he deal with the act of suicide.

The psychiatrist, though he had been called a poet of existence, didn’t like being called out by some shabbily dressed stranger with no credentials. He didn’t seem happy at all that I no longer wanted to commit suicide. Damn his envy! I wanted to make him see that he was missing the bigger picture. But then again, I’d done the same thing inside the sacred temple of my classroom.

Then, the dreamseller placed a hand on the shoulder of the young fire chief and told him, “Thank you, son, for the risks you have taken to save people you don’t know. You
are
a dreamseller.”

The dreamseller turned and headed toward the elevator, and I followed him. The psychiatrist turned to the police chief to speak just as the dreamseller turned around to say something himself, and, amazingly, they said the same thing:

“Crazy people understand each other.”

The psychiatrist turned red. He must have asked himself, as I did, “How could they have been thinking the same thing?”

The dreamseller saw there was time for one final and unforgettable lesson at the top of that building. He told the psychiatrist, “Some people’s craziness is obvious. For others, it’s hidden. Which type is yours?”

“Not me, I’m normal!” the psychiatrist snapped.

“Well, mine is visible,” the dreamseller said.

He then turned his back and began to walk, his hands on my shoulders. After three steps, he looked toward the sky and said, “God save me from ‘normal’ people!”

W
E RODE DOWN THE ELEVATOR SILENTLY. I WAS LOST IN
thought, the dreamseller calmly whistling and staring ahead. We passed through the immense lobby, richly decorated with chandeliers, antique furniture and an enormous reception desk of dark mahogany. Only then did I realize their beauty. Before, my world was colored by my own dark emotions.

Outside, the lights shone brightly, lighting the crowd that was anxiously awaiting news from the top of the building. News that I would do my best not to provide. Truth be told, I wanted to hide, forget the commotion, turn the page and not think about my pain for a second longer. I was ashamed and shrank from the attention. But I couldn’t teleport myself out of there. I had to face the stares of my audience. For a brief moment I was angry with myself. I thought, “There were other ways I could have faced my demons. Why didn’t I choose one of them?” But pain blinds us, and frustration clouds our thinking.

When we left the San Pablo Building and broke through the police tape, I wanted to cover my face and leave quickly, but the huge crowd made it impossible; there was no room to run. The media wanted information. I made my way through this Trail of Tears, eyes downcast.

The dreamseller kept my secret. No one knew what had really
happened atop the building; the rich exchange I had with that mystery man remained lodged in my head alone.

As we escaped the media and began walking among the crowd, I was startled. We were treated like celebrities. I was famous, but not in the way I had hoped.

To the dreamseller, society’s obsession with worshipping celebrities was the clearest sign that we were losing our minds. As we walked, he asked aloud: