In the dream, I keep returning to Terminal 6 in the Rivergate Industrial District. I stand on the water's edge. I check my watch. No ship.
Later, I board a rusty, dark aircraft carrier. I understand it's a military vessel, although no one tells me the ship's name or destination. Ashley leads me through a narrow corridor, gripping my wrist tight. I can't see his face. Only the blue tips of his fingers, his yellow nails. "Would it matter," he says, "If I had died of AIDS instead of an overdose?"
I ask if he was sick when he died, if he knew the heroin was a lethal cut when he injected it. He pushes me into one of the cramped rooms and locks the door. I'm surrounded by sealed glass mason jars, with plastic identity cards suspended in golden jelly. Several of the cards have no photographs, only names. Some are missing the name, but have the photo. I wonder if one of them is mine.
Ashley unfolds a tattered paper and hands it to me. It's a hand-drawn map of Cedar Memorial Cemetery, with a red "x" drawn where his grave should be.
"Turn it over," he says.
On the back, he has written instructions for digging up his plot. According to the instructions, I should do this on the night of March 16th. The anniversary of his death.
When I wake up, I understand immediately that Ashley was never dead. He witnessed a drug crime, and for this, he was enrolled in the Witness Protection Program.
Then I wake up for real.