You're Living In Dreamtime
A Way Out Of the Maze
It was way past midnight and Daryl Hall, weary from a marathon recording session, wanted nothing more than to collapse onto his bed and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. However, peaceful rest was not in the cards for the blond, blue-eyed musician: His mind was reeling from the events of the past week. Disturbing flashes of memory nagged at him, forcing Daryl to face his demons in a way that he'd never imagined. His life, he thought, with a firm yet sad resolve, would never be the same again
. His best friend and bandmate, John Oates, was unaware of Daryl's crisis. As far as the short, dark and mustachioed musician knew, nothing had changed. The two of them had finally finished the album on which they'd been working for four months and, as he saw it, some heavy-duty celebrating was in order. Daryl, on the other hand, was as far from being in a partying mood as one could get
Sara Allen, Daryl's longtime love, was visiting her parents and would be gone for two weeks. The suffocating silence and emptiness caused from her absence weighed heavily on Daryl and after lying awake for two miserable hours, he decided to get up and have a smoke. His doctor had long advised that he quit his heavy smoking habit, but Daryl shrugged him off. As he sat outside in his garden, listening to an owl's mournful cry as it wafted through the starless night, he ran his long, thin fingers through his tangled head of hair and made a firm resolve: Before this year, 1985 was over, he would win the quiet battle he'd been waging for many months now and reclaim his peace of mind.
Daryl Hall had been slipping deeper and deeper into a sense of black despair, something that made no sense to him when he thought of the tremendous success he and John were enjoying. They were far more popular and famous than either of them had imagined in their wildest dreams and had every single material thing in spades, that anyone could ever ask for. He was physically healthy, had a terrific girlfriend and a family back in Pennsylvania who loved him. There was absolutely no reason to be blue and Daryl felt genuinely guilty about it.
After sitting in the lush garden for an hour and a half and smoking over eight cigarettes, Daryl knew that it was useless to try to get any sleep. As it was, he awoke every morning at this hour and stayed awake until the sun came up. Was he just feeling sorry for himself? Was he just some incredibly messed up, ungrateful slob who was never satisfied with his life? No, there was more to it than that�much more. He rubbed his reddened eyes and picked up his beautiful white cat. The affectionate little animal purred contentedly and rubbed his face on Daryl's. Animals, he thought to himself, gave unconditional love and asked nothing in return but food, water and clean kitty litter.
He tried reading, but found it impossible to concentrate. Where was this incredible sadness coming from? Why was it a monumental effort to do something as basic as brush his teeth? Why was his bed so attractive in the daytime, but a mortal enemy when darkness set in? Daryl couldn't answer any of those questions. Maybe he needed to talk to someone, but who? Surely he didn't need a shrink�he wasn't messed up on drugs or drowning in booze. Sure, he liked to drink, but he wasn't at all tempted to crawl into a bottle of vodka and drown.
John called at eleven that morning and was surprised to hear that his friend and musical partner had been awake most of the night again. "You're making a habit of this," John said. "Don't you think you should face some of this stuff you've got going on, Daryl?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Daryl shot back, angered that John was treating him like a sick person. "So I'm not sleeping much. Big fucking deal. Don't you paint me as a nutcase, John." Daryl twisted the phone cord and, after a terse "bye", he hung up. "Talk about nerve," he said aloud to his cat. "If anyone's going off the deep end, it's him." Daryl was becoming well acquainted with the subject of denial.
* * * * * *
To be continued...
