Sleepwalking in Paradise
Alternative journalist turned corporate copywriter Tommy Delacroix has traded in the Good Fight for the Good Life of the dot-com boom: a German sedan, surging stock options, and an ambitious fiancée. But then Blind Johnny Ray stumbles out of his past, spouting wild tales about a glowing messiah who heals the homeless in the park. Hard to believe, except that Blind Johnny isn’t blind any more.
So begins SLEEPWALKING IN PARADISE (~81,000 words), a San Francisco novel about Old Money, the New Economy, and the Second Coming. As Tommy chases down the impossible answer, he will stake out a singing messiah, bribe a nurse to hack into medical records, and come face-to-face with a sleepwalking power broker who holds the keys to Paradise. In the end, Tommy realizes that the true answer was within himself all along. His fiancée, on the other hand, is still waiting for a good explanation.
Title Pages & First Chapter
The kingdom of the father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it.
The Gospel of Thomas
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won’t you please take me home
Guns N’ Roses
Chapter 1 – Golden Gate Park Tug
You open your eyes.
The morning sun ignites the clouds and fills the park with golden light, as if the gates of Heaven have burst open and there’s no shutting them again. You breathe deep and feel the swirl of energy dancing all around you. This is the Planet, this is the Moment, this is Home.
If this is a dream, it’s like none you’ve ever had. Your dreams are always full of vivid images–women, the jungle, the Rockies–that seem real, but now you feel the same air you felt yesterday, smell the same trees and dirt and ocean. You hear the same sounds: joggers huffing past the museum, cars braking at the crosswalks, a sea gull’s cry.
You see a man drinking from a fountain, go over and splash water into your face. It’s the same water as yesterday, the same biting chill, the same metallic taste.
You are not dreaming. This is real. You can see again. Twenty-three years gone by and you can see again.
Below you is the sunken plaza, metal benches arranged like broken sheet music in front of the great bandshell. The knotty stunted trees are in full summer green, and what a green. Never has green looked so green before. The leaves lift in a sudden breeze, all the trees joining together in a synchronized dance, and you weep at the beauty of it.
You walk on. At the bus stop, you turn and face the glass partition and see yourself, twenty-three years older, hair and beard gone silver. But what a silver. You make it look good! Then a great laughter rises out of you like air bubbles racing for the surface.
Again you look around, the images flooding in faster than you can name them, so you give up trying and surrender to the torrent. Sunlight, cars, people, their clothes, clouds and blue sky, the buildings on the hill, the colossal orange tower.
Everything so beautiful in it’s perfection. Each individual part. The whole of it all.
You laugh and laugh. You laugh until your sides ache and tears run down your cheeks.
The Man in the Park has done more than restore your eyesight. He has given you vision. Paradise unfolds in every direction, revealing perfection in every crack, beauty in every blemish. Starlings dart by and dance in the air all around you, rejoicing in your awakening.
You remember what the Man in the Park told you, so you close your eyes and wait for the… And there it is. The Tug. Time to go find Tommy.
When you open your eyes, you see a wall of people, looking at you but keeping a safe distance. Looking but not seeing. But you can see them all right, see the peppermint swirl of their fear and curiosity. Directly in front of you, a cop squats on one knee, his cap on the ground, looking into your eyes and saying your name over and over, gently, almost whispering, each iteration the same sound but a different question.
Johnny (Are you okay)?
Johnny (Can you hear me)?
Johnny (Can it be really you, Blind Johnny Ray)?
Johnny? Johnny? Johnny?
He knows you. He’s a Friend, never mind the badge.
One with the Tug, you stand up and go with him.