The Sleep Experiment Read online

  Bright sunlight seared his eyes. He squinted until they adjusted and he made out Brook’s bedroom. That feeling he always experienced when waking in a woman’s bed—that he was in a place that wasn’t his own, and maybe one where he shouldn’t be—encapsulated him now. Yet this was lessened by another feeling: one of carefreeness. Nightmare be damned, it was simply nice to be waking in Brook’s bedroom. The warmth of the sun’s morning rays slanting through the porthole windows. The strawberry scent of her sheets. The gentle rock of the houseboat on the calm bay waters. All the natural wood and eclectic knickknacks, which created the illusion of waking up in a beloved childhood tree fort.

  Wiping beads of sweat from his forehead and dismissing any lingering dream-fear, Dr. Wallis called, “Brook?”

  She didn’t answer.

  The houseboat wasn’t big, and he couldn’t hear water running, which meant she had likely gone somewhere.

  He pushed aside the covers and hunted down his clothes, which he’d expected to find strewn all over the floor, but which he found folded neatly on the seat of a corner rocking chair.

  Brook had left a note written on a small piece of pink paper atop them:

  Another Saturday, another morning shift. Before I knew you, I always used to look forward to seeing you when you came in for your vanilla latte. Now what do I have to look forward to?

  Help yourself to anything you’d like. Call me later.

  xoxo

  Wallis checked that his phone and keys were in his blazer pockets, then he left, making sure the door locked behind him. The morning was sunny and cool, the air crisp and moist with sea fog, and he felt absolutely dynamic. He spotted a bakery café across the street and realized he was famished, having eaten none of Brook’s spaghetti the night before. He checked his wristwatch and found that it was almost nine o’clock. Rarely did he sleep in so late.

  Wallis sat down at the bakery and ordered sourdough waffles with fresh whipped cream, seasonal fruit, powdered sugar, and maple syrup. Afterward he ordered a second coffee to go and detoured through a park redolent with the smells of eucalyptus trees and wild fennel. When he reached his car, he saw a slip of paper pinched beneath one of the wipers. For the briefest of moments, he thought Brook had left him another sweet note. He plucked free the parking ticket, which cited him eighty-three dollars for parking in a red zone.

  Crunching it into a ball in his fist, he tossed it in the Audi’s center console (which Penny had tried to climb to straddle you, big boy, he recalled with real contrition), then got behind the wheel. He had nearly five hours to kill before his shift at Tolman Hall commenced. Instead of driving home, he detoured to a boutique jewelry atelier a few blocks from his apartment where he had purchased a number of his custom-made rings and belt buckles. Inside the small, industrial space, focused spotlights hammered light onto silver pendants, stackable jeweled rings, necklaces, and numerous other creations by local metalsmiths and artisans.

  “Roy!” Beverley St. Clair, the artist-in-residence, greeted him from behind the glass counter. White hair cropped and spiky, leathery skin tanned from the sun, she wore a pair of tortoiseshell Ben Franklin bifocals and about twenty pounds of silver around her neck. She had designed the gold signet ring engraved with his family crest that currently adorned the third finger on his right hand. “Wonderful to see you again,” she added, her Eastern European accent always making him think of Count Vlad.

  “Morning, Bev,” he said, stopping before the counter.

  “What sort of ring inspires your visit today? You know, you have so many calaveras, I have always believed a king lion design would suit you magnificently. Large, one hundred fifteen grams of solid silver. Diamond or ruby eye socket inserts. Or perhaps aquamarine for something fresh?”

  “Actually, Bev, I’m not looking for anything for myself today.”

  “Oh?” she said, arching an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Something for a lady friend of mine.” He held up his hands, intuiting what she was thinking. “Not a diamond. In fact, nothing too flashy or glitzy. Let’s say—unassuming yet tasteful. Can you help me out with that?”

  “Most definitely, Roy. Most definitely. Just a moment while I get my sketchpad.”

  ◆◆◆

  “You’re finally here!” Penny said as soon as Dr. Wallis entered the observation room. “Things are crazy!”

  He set the hot drinks he’d brought on the table and looked through the one-way mirror—and found himself face-to-face with Chad. The Australian seemed to be in some sort of distress. His eyes stared at his reflection with haunted concern, the way one might upon finding the face of a stranger staring back. He held both hands to his head, slowly running them over and through his wavy (and unwashed) blond hair. Sharon was pacing the perimeter of the room, her eyes glued to the floor.

  “What’s going on with him?” Wallis asked, concerned.

  “He says mushrooms are growing from his head.”

  “Mushrooms?” Wallis nodded. “He’s hallucinating. This is not to be unexpected.”

  “This is normal?”

  “Sleep deprivation exceeding forty-eight hours is considered unethical today by the prudish wing of academia, so there’s not exactly a treasure-trove of information on the effects of extreme sleep-loss. But the studies I’ve read concerning individuals suffering from extreme insomnia all reported visual distortions, illusions, somatosensory changes, and, yes, in some cases, frank hallucinations, even in cases of people with no history of psychiatric illness.”

  “What we’re doing is unethical?” Penny asked, apparently surprised by his a priori statement.

  “Come now, Penny!” Dr. Wallis chastised. “We’re depriving two individuals of sleep for potentially twenty-one days. We’re not going to win the Noble Peace Prize. But when you’re pushing the boundaries of scientific study, ethical matters are not always black and white. There’s a lot of gray.” He pressed the touch panel controller Talk button. “Chad? How are you doing, buddy?”

  “Mushrooms are growing from my head, mate!”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Shaz told me.”

  Wallis’ eyes went to Sharon. She was passing in front of the exercise equipment, her eyes still downcast.

  “I don’t see any mushrooms,” he said.

  “You sure, mate? I can feel them.”

  “No, I don’t see any. I think Sharon is simply trying to stir you up.”

  A hopeful look. “You think?”

  Sharon’s circuit took her directly behind Chad. She mumbled, “Outta the way, mushroom-head!”

  “See!” Chad cried, his hands once more furiously probing his hair.

  “There are no mushrooms, Chad!” Wallis said firmly. “Do you trust me?”

  His brow knit. “I—I don’t know.”

  “Do you trust Sharon?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Then you trust me more than Sharon?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then believe me when I tell you there are absolutely no mushrooms growing out of your head. You are perfectly healthy.”

  Sharon, now passing the kitchen, cackled: “Your head’s rotting, and you got mushrooms growing out of it!”

  Chad whirled on her. “Shut the fuck up, mate!” he exploded, his hands balling into fists. “The doc says there are no mushrooms, you’re full of bullshit, so shut the fuck up!” He started toward her.

  “Chad!” Dr. Wallis said. “Do you want to end your participation in this experiment?”

  His whirled to face the mirror, eyes wide. “End it?”

  “You can leave right now. We’ll continue with Sharon only.”

  “Leave? You mean, no more gas?”

  “No more gas. You can go home.”

  His face ghosted. “No! I—I want to stay. Shit, I’m sorry, doc.”

  “You’ll keep your temper in check?”

  “Yeah, no problem, mate, I promise.”

  “Good,” Wallis said. “That’s good, Chad. Now w
hy don’t you go watch a movie. Put on your headphones. Relax.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll do that…”

  He went to the lounge, put on a DVD of Beverly Hills Cops, dropped onto the sofa, and clapped the headphones over his ears. Sharon continued to pace the room, though now she was ignoring him.

  Dr. Wallis sank back in his chair, pensive.

  Penny said, “This is getting weird, professor.”

  “Seven days without sleep is quite an achievement, Penny. Only a few more days to go to surpass the Guinness World Records champ Randy Gardner.”

  “You mean that guy, Randy Gardner…no one’s ever beaten his eleven days?”

  “In fact, several people have. Guinness, however, stopped certifying attempts at his record, believing that going too long without sleep could be dangerous to one’s health.”

  Penny was quiet as that sunk in.

  “Their reticence is nonsense, Penny,” Wallis assured her. “Unfounded in science. After Randy Gardner’s experiment concluded, he was taken to a naval hospital where he slept peacefully for fourteen hours straight. Although the scientists monitoring his brain signals discovered his percentage of REM sleep was abnormally high, this returned to normal in a matter of days.”

  Penny nodded but said, “Chad and Shaz are a lot worse than they were yesterday.”

  Wallis shrugged. “Chad had a mild hallucination, Penny. It is nothing to be too concerned about.”

  “Shaz hasn’t stopped pacing my entire shift. Eight hours. She just walks in circles.”

  Wallis frowned. “She didn’t stop once?”

  “No.”

  “Did they eat anything today?”

  “Only oranges. We’re going to need to get some more.”

  Wallis contemplated this.

  Penny said, “I don’t know if they’re going to make it two more weeks, professor. I don’t even know if they’re going to make it one more week.”

  “They very well might not.”

  “But how will we know when to end the experiment?”

  “We’ll know when Chad or Sharon tell us they want to end the experiment,” he said curtly. “And you heard Chad just now. He wants to keep going.”

  ◆◆◆

  Dr. Roy Wallis watched in fascination while Chad reenacted scene after scene from the 1984 film, Beverly Hills Cops. In each he recited the dialogue of Eddie Murphy’s character, Axel Foley, word for word.

  He’d been doing this for the last hour.

  “Look, cuz, don’t even try it okay…?” Chad was saying now as he played out the scene in which Axel Foley confronted a wealthy art gallery owner and his thug in an exclusive men’s club. “Get the fuck away from me, man,” he said to the imaginary thug before performing some comical martial arts shit, adding all his own sound effects.

  “Shut up!” Sharon shrieked suddenly and dramatically. For most of Dr. Wallis’ shift she’d been sitting on the edge of her bed, her back to Chad, holding her hands over her ears and tapping her foot. “You’re talking too much! Shut up! Just shut up!”

  Chad seemed nonplussed. “I’m rehearsing, mate. Big role coming up. Gotta nail it.”

  “You’re not a movie star!” she wailed. “You’re nobody!”

  “After I land this role, Shaz, everybody’s gonna know who I am!”

  She stood and faced him. “What’s your name?”

  “My name?” He shrugged. “Eddie.”

  Sharon cackled. “Eddie, right! Like Eddie Murphy?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “He’s black!”

  “So?”

  “Are you black, you dipshit? Look at your arms!”

  Chad held his arms before him.

  “They look black to you?” she said.

  “Yeah, mate. What’s your deal?”

  “Your name’s Chad! You’re a white Aussie wanker with no job—unless you call this experiment a job—and no future prospects in acting! Don’t believe me?” She snagged his wallet from the table separating their two beds. “Driver’s license, right. I don’t see a black wanker looking back at me. I see you. And, surprise, surprise, his name’s not Eddie Murphy. It’s Chad Turner.”

  Chad marched over and snatched the wallet from her hand. He flipped open the plastic sleeve with the driver’s license and studied the identification closely. Different emotions rippled across his face. Then he stuffed the wallet in the pocket of his track pants. “Eddie’s my acting name, Shaz. A lot of actors have acting names. You think Spacey is Kevin Spacey’s real name, you fucktard?”

  “Actors might change their names, but they don’t change their race—”

  “Don’t know what you’re yabbering on about—”

  “You’re not black! You’re white! You’re white! You’re white! You stupid goddamn mushroom-head—”

  Chad swung at her. She ducked, and his fist bounced off the top of her forehead.

  Dr. Wallis smacked the Talk button. “Chad! Leave her be!”

  Ignoring the instruction, Chad scrambled for Sharon, who retreated to the kitchen, where she kept the island between herself and Chad. She was screaming and laughing at the same time. Chad was seething and feinting left and right.

  “Chad!” Wallis bellowed, shooting to his feet, wondering whether he was going to need to enter the sleep laboratory and physically intervene. “Chad!” A lightbulb: “Eddie!” he said. “Eddie Murphy!”

  Chad swung his head toward the two-way mirror, his expression a mix of rage and bewilderment. “Who’s that?”

  Wallis’ mind raced. “Your manager, Eddie. Your talent manager. Now you leave that woman alone.”

  Chad shook his head. “She’s a fucking spaz, a shit-talking spaz. She called me—”

  “You want to work in Hollywood again, Eddie?”

  “What’d you mean?”

  “You touch a woman, every major studio and director worth their salt is going to blacklist you. They don’t tolerate that type of behavior. Not one bit.”

  Chad looked at Sharon, who was grinning wickedly at him, almost daring him to attack her. He snorted, then spat on the ground. “You’re not worth it, Shaz. You’re not gonna derail my career.” He looked back at the two-way mirror and scratched his chin. “What was I doing?”

  “Rehearsing,” Wallis told him. “For your role in Beverly Hills Cops. The Harwood Club scene.”

  “Ah, righty-o.” Chad grinned, his dark disposition immediately abandoned. “How was I doing?”

  “You’re very talented, Eddie. The role’s as good as yours.”

  “I better keep rehearsing then—”

  “Why don’t you give it a break for now? Put on a movie perhaps?”

  “Nah, don’t feel like that.” He raised his arms above his head and sniffed his pits. “Think I might have a shower. I stink. Can’t go into an audition like this.”

  “Excellent idea,” Wallis said. Chad’s last shower had been three days earlier.

  Whistling a tune—and completely ignoring Sharon—he grabbed a fresh set of clothing from the wardrobe, went to the bathroom in the back of the sleep laboratory, and closed the door behind him.

  “He’s crazy!” Sharon said, looking directly at the two-way mirror, her gaze so focused and intense for a moment Dr. Wallis had the uncanny feeling she was somehow seeing him beyond her reflection. “You locked me up with a crazy, doc!”

  “How are you feeling, Sharon?” he asked her.

  “Can’t remember crap. Feel like a goldfish in a tiny, stupid bowl.”

  “Can you recall what you ate for lunch today?”

  She glanced at the kitchen. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Wallis said. “You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “You need to eat, Sharon.”

  She looked back at the mirror with those x-ray eyes. “We going crazy, doc?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “You both are performing exceptionally.”

  “Doesn’t feel like we are. Feels like we’r
e going crazy.”

  “What exactly do you mean?”

  “Feels like there’s somebody else inside my head. Somebody who wants to do the talking and everything.”

  Dr. Wallis leaned forward. “Does this person have a name?”

  Sharon approached the viewing window. She stopped directly before it, less than a foot away. This close he could see that her eyes were dancing left and right. Her blonde hair fell around her oily face in tangled clumps. She glanced over her shoulder at the bathroom, then back at the mirror. She whispered, “I need to talk to you, doc.”

  “Why are you whispering?” he asked her.

  “I don’t want him to hear,” she said.

  “Chad?”

  She nodded.

  Wallis turned down the volume of the loudspeakers in the sleep laboratory so his voice too was barely more audible than a whisper. “He won’t be able to hear anything now.”

  Sharon, her eyes dancing faster than ever, said, “He’s faking.”

  “Faking what?”

  “I don’t trust him. He’s spying on me.”

  “Spying? How so?”

  “Like, I catch him watching me. Like, I’ll look up from my book, and I’ll catch him.”

  “What does he do then?”

  “He looks away.”

  “Have you mentioned this to him? Perhaps tell him it makes you uncomfortable and you would like him to stop—”

  “He wants something.”

  Wallis frowned. There was a violent inference to that statement. “What do you think he wants, Sharon?”

  She smiled. “What do you think he wants, doc?”

  The water in the bathroom stopped running. Sharon pressed a finger to her lips. After a long moment of silence, she whispered, “He’s listening to us right now.”

  For a surreal moment Wallis became caught up in Sharon’s paranoia and believed that Chad was not in the bathroom drying off but crouched with his ear pressed to the door, listening to them talk about him.

  Nonsense.

  He pressed the Talk button to reassure her of this conclusion, but before he spoke, Sharon went to her bed, picked up her book, and began reading. Chad emerged from the bathroom a minute later. His hair was wet but not brushed, his clothes fresh, though he wore no socks. He tossed his dirty clothes in the hamper by the bathroom door, then went to the lounge. He glanced at Sharon as he passed her bed. She remained intently focused on her book. He spent some time perusing the stacks of DVDs before selecting John Carpenter’s The Thing. He clapped his headphones over his ears and slumped down on the sofa.