The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [47]
“Why do you attack me when I didn’t attack you? What have I done to incur your wrath?” the dreamseller said, regaining his balance.
One of them said what the other guards were thinking. “Get lost, you lousy bunch of con artists.”
Suddenly, I said something I never imagined I’d ever say: “How I’d love to be a millionaire so I could give those guys a swift kick in the ass.”
I spoke before I realized what I’d said. For the first time, I had expressed a love of money. The power of money had subtly seduced me, but I had never admitted it, not even to myself. I loved luxurious cars, cruises and summer homes. It was a secret love. I criticized the petty bourgeoisie who traveled first class in planes, but deep down I envied them. I detested flying coach class, where we were packed in like sardines.
Since we couldn’t go inside the fair, we stayed outside in the reception hall. Undaunted, the dreamseller told us, “Let’s approach people as they enter and leave the event. After all, our stage is the world.”
“Approach people? But I thought we were here to see computers,” I said to myself. Angel Hand wondered aloud whether any kind of dream could be sold in a place like this.
But then I noticed something odd. What looked like a businessman, dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, examined us from head to toe as he walked by and into the event. His badge read Megasoft Group, one of the world’s largest computer companies. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw him stop to talk to other men in suits, who we later learned were undercover antiterrorism agents. He pointed at us as he spoke.
The agents quickly approached, and one of them again asked the dreamseller to identity himself. They ignored the rest of us. When he couldn’t produce any kind of identification, they acted fast: One of them punched him unexpectedly in the face, dropping him to the floor with an awful thud. They pounced on him, shouting “terrorist!” and quickly overpowered him. It all happened so fast that for a few seconds we stood paralyzed. When we tried to protect the dreamseller, we were also attacked.
Honeymouth again feigned his karate pose but was knocked out by a single blow. I’d never seen such violence. In the confusion, one of the agents drew his gun, ready to shoot the dreamseller. He might have been shot dead on the spot if not for two local police officers who had been driving by in their patrol car and ran toward the commotion. Staring at the supposed criminal, one of the police officers drew his gun and shouted at the agents.
“Drop your weapons! I’m the police chief of this district,” he said. The agents lowered their guns. “I know this man. He’s no terrorist.”
“Yeah? Well, where’s his ID? Who is he?” the head agent asked.
The cop searched for a plausible answer. “He’s, uh . . . a salesman. A traveling salesman. And if you don’t leave him alone, I’m going to arrest you for using excessive force,” the chief threatened.
The police chief was the same one from the top of the San Pablo Building. Since that day, he had not been able to get the dreamseller out of his mind. He had spent several sleepless nights after the dreamseller’s comments about his relationship with his son, and had since followed the dreamseller’s “ministry” in the papers.
I was overjoyed and felt my faith in the police restored.
Though he was bleeding, the dreamseller tried to play down the situation and told the chief, “These are good men. There was just a misunderstanding.”
It was only then that Bartholomew started to regain consciousness and asked, “Where am I?”
Remembering he’d been knocked out but realizing the situation was under control, he jumped back up in a karate pose:
“Oh, now these guys are in trouble! I’m a black belt in judo, karate, kung fu and lots of other stuff. Hold me back or things are gonna get ugly.”
Instead of holding him back, we let him go. Honeymouth leaped up in a bound and seeing that the