Strangers

himself.
        Nyugen Kao Tran preferred to be called "Duke," in imitation of John Wayne, whose movies he loved. Duke was thirteen, the youngest son of boat people who had fled the horrors of "peacetime" Vietnam. He was bright, quick-witted, as startlingly agile as he was thin. His father-after surviving a brutal war, a concentration camp, and two weeks in a flimsy boat on the open sea - had been killed three years ago in a holdup while working at his second job as a nightshift clerk at a Seven-Eleven store in sunny southern California.
        Denny Ulmes, the twelve-year-old who was Parker's little brother, lost his father to cancer. He was more reticent than Duke, but the two got along famously, so Dom and Parker frequently combined their outings.
        Parker became a Big Brother at Dom's insistence, with curmudgeonly reluctance. "Me? Me? I'm not father material - or surrogate father material," Parker had said. "Never was and never will be. I drink too much, womanize too much. It'd be downright criminal for any kid to turn to me for advice. I'm a procrastinator, a dreamer, and a self-centered egomaniac. And I like me that way! What in God's name would I have to offer a kid? I don't even like dogs. Kids like dogs, but I hate 'em. Damn dirty flea-bitten things. Me, a Big Brother? Friend, you have lost your marbles for sure."
        But Thursday afternoon at the beach, when the water proved too cold for swimming, Parker organized a volleyball game and surfside races. He got Dom and the boys involved in a complicated game of his own devising, involving two frisbees, a beach ball, and an empty soda can. Under his direction they also built a sandcastle complete with a menacing dragon.
        Later, during an early dinner at Hamburger Hamlet in Costa Mesa, while the kids were in the bathroom, Parker said, "Dom, good buddy, this Big Brother thing was sure one of the best ideas I've ever had."
        "Your idea?" Dominick said, shaking his head. "I had to drag you into it kicking and screaming."
        "Nonsense," Parker said. "I've always had a way with kids. Every artist is a bit of a kid at heart. We have to stay young to create. I find kids invigorate me, keep my mind fresh."
        "Next, you'll be getting a dog," Dom said.
        Parker laughed. He finished his beer, leaned forward. "You okay? At times today, you seemed… distracted. A little out of it." ."Lot on my mind," Dom said. "But I'm fine. The sleepwalking's pretty much stopped. And the dreams. Cobletz knows what he's doing."
        "Is the new book going well? Don't shit me, now."
        "It's going well," Dom lied.
        'At times you have that look," Parker said, watching him intently. "That… doped up. Following the prescribed dos age, I assume?"
        The painter's perspicacity disconcerted Dom. "I'd have to be an idiot to snack on Valium as if it was candy. Of course, I follow the prescribed dosage."
        Parker stared hard at him, then apparently decided not to push it.
        The movie was good, but during the first thirty minutes Dom grew nervous without reason. When he felt the nervousness building toward an anxiety attack, he slipped out to the men's room. He'd brought another Valium for just such an emergency.
        The important thing was that he was winning. He was getting well. The somnambulism was losing its grip on him. It really was.
        Beneath a strong pine-scented disinfectant, there was an acrid stench from the urinals. Dom felt slightly nauseous. He swallowed the Valium without water.
        That night, in spite of the pills, he had the dream again, and he remembered more of it than just the part where people were forcing his head into a sink.
        In the nightmare, he was in a bed in an unknown room, where there seemed to be an oily saffron mist in the air. Or perhaps the amber fog was only in his eyes, for he could not see anything clearly. furniture loomed beyond the bed, and at least two people were present. But those shapes rippled and writhed as if this were purely a realm of smoke and fluid, where nothing had a fixed appearance.
        He almost felt as if he were underwater, very deep underneath the surface of some mysterious cold sea. The atmosphere in the dream-place had more weight than mere air. He could barely draw breath. Each inhalation and exhalation was agony. He sensed that he was dying.
        The two blurred figures came close. They seemed concerned about his