Dream 03Aug2017
"You-See-'Em"

"Look at that!" the gameshow commentator said as Dennis flinched, "She's really got him freaked out!"

"You're right, Bill," his partner replied. "That's Sonia Xerxes, inventor of the famous UCM dental app." A useful graphic opened wide, showing a patient in a reclining chair reaching a forefinger into her mouth. As she touched first one tooth and then another, holographic images suddenly appeared, with overlays of history, treatment plans, etc. It was like holding a large plastic data-rich model in your lap. "She's really got him spooked," he agreed. "One of the world's wealthiest women, based on Forbes up-2-the-minute statistics. Dennis must have had some serious trauma as a child."

The view now expanded to include the members of the studio audience, seated in curved rows of blue and yellow seats, arranged in the shape of a mouth. They nodded wisely.

For some reason no one could remember anyone else's address. I had been driving around for most of an hour trying to deliver the book group agenda to everyone. I could picture Daniel's condo, but it was just like all the others. Finally I gave up and returned to home base.

"I have it right here on my phone," Roger proclaimed, turning the device around to face us. "Only thing is, whenever I press the button all it does is call him. He won't answer! How can we just find out where he lives?"

"I'll show you." Alan lurched forward, his index finger extended. He punched the square green icon and the phone began to dial. "See!" Roger said smugly.

I saw Joyce coming up the stairs and pulled her aside. "Did they call you? Do you have the addresses? I know you don't belong to the group anymore." Joyce looked annoyed.

"Yeah, they called. Tell them it's only because it's you asking." She backed up into a tall chair in the hallway. "Crap," she said. "I can't print. Got a pencil?" Needless to say, I had forgotten how to write.

I was the junior member of the film production team. The old man just wasn't getting it. He and his eldest son, the director, were almost coming to blows—ironic since it was a Viking picture, full of bludgeons and swordplay.

They went over it again and again, getting angrier and angrier. Finally I got my courage up and pulled Kyle aside. "Look," I said, "He's supposed to wake up and slash you as you lean over the bed, right?" Kyle nodded dismissively.

"What if instead of having him sleeping on his stomach he's laying there in the dark with his knife like this." I demonstrated. The light went on in Kyle's brain. He nodded enthusiastically.

Dream 02August2017
"AirBnB"

"Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?" It's never good news when they ask you that. What I do remember is how hard it was to see. I suppose resting my head on the pillow while I drove wasn't the best idea. Taking a chance I had stepped on the brake while I pulled the borrowed couch cushion quickly in front of my face and threw it onto the passenger side. "Why?" I asked, almost insolently. I hadn't hit anyone, had I?

What I hate is how you can't ever get any relaxation while you're on vacation. It's always one thing or another. Mary and I had left Vickie back in the room and gone down the hill to watch the sunset. Beautiful view, but right then the neighbors had come roaring back, their big pickup crammed with supplies from Costco, their voices harsh and meaningless, hostile looks directed our way.

You never know what you're going to get with these AirBnB's, even with the pictures. Mary turned back toward the house. "I wonder if there's a lawn someplace, somewhere to sit down for a minute."

"I'm sure there is," I said dubiously.

It looked like our hostess had returned early, her small silver eco-car pulled into the drive. She smiled through the screen at us as we walked by, a woman in her sixties with a dyed blonde perm, a nice pleated skirt that showed off her still attractive legs.

"Oh, good," she called out. "I wanted to get those magazine articles I was telling you about." I waited politely as she rummaged through a heap of torn colored pages, finally pushing a clipped stack of them into my hands.

"That's great," I said, "I know Vickie will want to look at these. What's this about?" I pointed to the top of the sheaf where a small flat key was taped.

"It's the key to this file cabinet here where he kept all the other clippings," she said proudly, turning it in the lock and pulling out a musty drawer. Apparently "he" meant her dead husband.

Dream 01Aug2017
"Blivex"

"Blivex. It's not DOS, it's not Unix, it's something else," Eric quoted from the flyer he was reading. "I wonder if that's pronounced ‘believe' or ‘be live.' Apparently someone had come up with a new OS for their micros and he had sent away for it. It sounded fun, I thought. It wouldn't probably arrive for a few weeks the article said, until the last few issues were worked out.

While we waited I thought I might get a jump on things by reading the manual—a satisfyingly thick hardback with a tan cover. That in itself wasn't a good sign—usually they published technical docs in 3-ring binder form so that the inevitable revisions could be quickly collated. The permanence of the volume was the mark of a theoretician.

A group of E.E. geeks was gathered at the front of the hobby store, asserting their knowledge of the new device, a small six-inch green board studded with components. "It's trivial," one of them was saying, "all you have to do is…" Another case of the assumptions, I was sure. More people die each year from assumptions than any other disease.

I went to the counter to buy my book and the "Blivex Starter Kit," whatever that was. A petite female clerk dressed all in purple was perched on top of a tall metal stool. She sat up with a jolt as I approached. It was Jean S! "Haven't seen you in a LONG time," we both said simultaneously. "Belivex, eh?" she added with respect, "Will that be all?"

"Just hacking, you know," I said modestly. Cash or Credit. I got out my wallet. Plenty of cards but I couldn't find my Crocker debit card anywhere. I ended up emptying the whole thing on the linoleum counter. "I guess I won't get this today after all, I finally said. I was hoping Jean would let me slide, but she'd seen it all before.

Dream 30July2017
"Close-ups"

A portion of delicately fluffed basmati rice sat beside a glazed pork chop, glistening with a delicious golden sauce, a jumble of cut green beans. "We heard that you like rice," I was told. "the chef prepared this plate especially for you."

Looking back through the oak forested valley of the Gardon will magnify your vision and take you into time. I had been there before, not in a previous life or anything, maybe just earlier in the day. In the hazy distance stood the Pont du Gard, the enormous aqueduct built by the Romans that spans the river on a series of stone arches. Water crossing water.

Upstairs I suddenly found my old green shoes, one visible, one hidden underneath the edge of a striped upholstered chair. I couldn't remember the last time I'd worn them. They slipped on perfectly. I smiled with satisfaction as I pulled the laces tight.

The lanes of south eighth avenue are separated by a grassy median. Sometimes in dreams I'm coming down the west side, sometimes cutting across on my bike along story street. I remember way back when they repaved it, the gravel spitting beneath my fat tires. This time the pavement had disappeared, replaced by a rutted impassible gully.

Dream 29July2017
"Lo Siento"

I decided to give a summer party and had been cleaning up the grounds, it was all coming together pretty well. Our old house sat on the bluffs looking over the western sea, worn by the wind and weather, but palatial, almost a mansion. It appeared we had come up in the world.

I jumped over a little arroyo to the property next door where a small lawn looked down on the beach. It was rough and unwatered, a tangle of unsightly weeds. I could just do this.

I walked toward the front looking for the mower I had seen while driving by, stopping as I encountered one of the staff pushing shrubbery trimmings into a compact chipper. How was I going to explain what I wanted to do.

"Buenos tardes," I struggled to remember the words. "Yo soy el vecino del norte. ¿Tiene una otra machina para cortar las gramas? Con tu permisso quiero cortar el…el…" Shit, what was the word? "Cortar el ‘back'," I finished weakly, indicating the direction I had come.

The worker looked puzzled, unhappy, obviously understanding only that some stranger was demanding that he perform some unknown and complicated task. The tightening of his shoulders spoke clearly. I don't work for you. "Excuse me?" he said.

"No. Lo siento," I tried to apologize. Starting over. Maybe sign language would help. "Yo," I said, pointing to myself, "Yo va a cortar la hierba in el otro lado." I gestured again, this time towards the front of the house where I had seen the electric lawnmower and a long orange extension cord.

"Oh. Sure," he said. "Knock yourself out."

Dream 25July2017
"Almost into Carter"

Almost into Carter we stopped one more time for fuel. Chet gestured across the highway. "It's almost 10:30," he said. "That Stacy, he'll about be giving last call." It was a low, sad bar, a gravel parking lot.

"Maybe we could just pick up a 12-pack," I said apprehensively.

"That won't work, though," Chet said. "Open container. John Law always watches the lights. Three guys in the front seat of a pickup, it's an automatic pullover."

"I kind of had the same idea," Byron said. "Hey, I'll take my chances with a breathalyzer every day. I'll meet you guys over there in a minute." He got out of the cab, lighting up a marlboro. Chet won't let him smoke in there, says it ruins his visibility.

I was going on to Chet about the other pickups I had seen. "I notice yours is blue," I said. "Almost all the others around here are white. Maybe it has something to do with being out in the hot sun all the time. Sure is funny, though, all alike."

"That's right," Chet said, moving the shifter into drive and pulling the big diesel out. "Guess it's an identity thing. We roll by night." Behind us there was a faint shout. "Whoops, sounds like somebody forgot to pay," Chet said. "Too dark to read his license plate though. If he had one." He cranked the wheel left and down a residential street, coming up the back side of the bar.

It was a typical small town setup. Anything for a buck. The house next door doubled as a carwash. A hand-lettered sign outside said "Fill up window-wash fluid here."

We got out and walked around. A small rectangular sign, light shining through a crusty yellow surface. "Stacy's Corner," it said. As we approached the light blinked off, leaving only the green and gold Miller High Life sign. I wouldn't drink that stuff on a bet. Actually, I'd been thinking a shot would go good with that beer.

Dream 22July2017
"Yellow Heron"

As usual traffic was completely snarled. Concrete pumper trucks pushed insistently through the lanes, intent on their renaissance mission. Our bus idled forever on the hill above the industrial lowlands, then finally moved downhill towards the river, its placid surface iridescent with unknown chemistry, punctuated with the rusty hulks of abandoned vehicles and equipment. We held our noses as we passed through the rich odor that emanated from the refinery.

"This will all be gone in Phase III," I told Vickie, gesturing at the polluted landscape. "Think about it—residential highrises with street-level retail. Playgrounds. Dog parks. Someone stands to make a lot of money restoring this land."

"It looks bad now," I added. "But actually there's still a lot of plants and animals that live here. Nature is incredibly adaptable." It was true, the riverbank was lined with lush grasses. "Wildlife Refuge," a sign said.

"Wow! Look at that!" I almost missed the rare bird that flew past us at shoulder height. It was a magnificent yellow heron, a soft yellow downy breast beneath a dark brown back. As I swiveled it spread its wings and swooped to perch on the bare branch of a nearby tree. "Do you know where my camera is?" I asked Vickie. "Right here." She turned, unzipping her backpack.

As the heron danced and preened before us, I began to shoot shot after shot, some really good images I could tell right away. But the rule of bird photography is, "never be satisfied." A lot of things can mess up with autofocus and dense foliage, so often the last pics you take are the really good ones. I kept clicking the shutter as the heron hopped back into the air and glided to a grassy lawn, holding its wings aloft as it rubbed its back against the coarse surface. Behavior shots—what the hell was it doing?

The scene turned urban again. Its itch satisfied, the bird rose up and disappeared behind another arriving bus. It was the 80 Stockton. We got on. I staggered perilously in the aisle while I checked my shots. Well, crap. The selector had been turned to video the whole time, lower resolution, my eager finger on the button simply switching state from record to pause. Still some good stuff. At least I had my Bird of the Day.

Bizarre. As I played back the video I found I was rewinding time, a bunch of movies taken in the past. Evidently my upload app had failed to delete them. Scenes of the girls posing near landmarks from our vacation in France, a confusing montage of birthdays and mundane celebrations. A student film featuring my father.

People jostled by me to get off the bus, descending the spiral stairs from the second level. The bus had inexplicably become first a submarine, riveted steel panels, then a vast natatorium, divided into sections. From the far end of the first a high-pitched sound of accelerating turbos as a teen-aged boy suddenly launched his jet ski into the air and splashed down in the pool. Cringing, I didn't bother to check if he was okay, it looked as if he'd let go of the machine in time.

The second section was all wading pools and kids, a babble of excited screams reverberating from the vaulted ceiling. I went through a door to the third chamber, a common shower room, and recoiled in disgust. Three old guys were splayed out naked on the tiled floor, making a porno, their dicks long, semi-erect, in-hand. They rolled their eyes and groaned in simulated passion. I guess it might have been erotic from their point of view. A bath towel hung horizontally, thick with white globs of fake jizz. I backed away, looking for a better place to wipe my hands. I don't have anything against geezers, but those guys were gross.

Dad came along, looking just like he had in the video. Clean-shaven, a nicely pressed shirt. "You might not want to go in there," I told him, steering him quickly away.

Dream 20July2017
"Mall"

After the initial breach I had maintained constant custody of the device, more or less. Would we be forced to destroy my new Samsung S11? It seemed like a shame, even for national security. What about the numerous individuals who might have seen the list of contacts stored on the phone. Some of them were my friends. Would they also require sanitation? Happily, knowledge of such protocols lay beyond my clearance level.

Lana and I smiled together as I finally whipped the powder-blue Dodge into a vacant spot at the mall. The prospect of finding an empty space had become increasingly dim as we seemed to spiral upwards endlessly through the multi-level concrete structure. But there it was. Not only that, the rooftop level was almost deserted, a whole row empty near the elevator tower.

A small fence of wooden slats separated our aisle from the preferred parking, a narrow opening for shoppers to pass through.

As so often happened, Lana and I had the same idea at the same time. She got out and tipped the concrete bollard on edge, rolling it to the side. I rev'd up the Challenger's powerful engine, popping the clutch and smashing the flimsy barrier to flinders. The car lunged up and over. With a satisfying roar I wrestled it into place, cutting the ignition. We laughed together in the sudden silence. Unless someone had seen us, we were set.

There's nothing like criminality to spice up a relationship. Not that we were really that bad. I told her that I had loved her for a long time, and she said she did too. I kissed her sweet upturned face. Good luck with your shopping.

"Excuse me." I had stopped climbing in confusion as my new girlfriend suddenly disappeared somewhere between the ninth and eleventh floors. Housewares – Electronics. I would have thought she'd want to wait for me, but maybe she was just excited.

Dream 19July2017
"Bogey"

A party were hitting their approach shots on the 13th as we cut across the back of the green. I hunched my shoulders in anticipation. Behind us I heard the urgent call. "Fore!" This was going to hurt.

The old man seemed unperturbed, even oblivious, strolling without haste across the close-napped surface. He was dressed in a white polo shirt, a red baseball cap. "Make America Great Again." For my part, swiveling constantly between tracking my duty assignment (code name "Hacker") and the advancing golfers, I was having a hard time keeping up.

A deep rough of Bermudagrass reaches close on this unlucky hole, backed by a screen of native trees that barely conceal a security fence and the motorway beyond. He seemed somehow to sense the way, cutting quickly onto a narrow mowed pathway that ran along the border. Above the chainlink tight spirals of razor-ribbon leaned inward, preventing unauthorized entrance or exit.

Once you go along the fence to the gate you pass through the A3 undercrossing and up the other side. In the distance the foreign capital loomed, ornate residential towers and financial complexes. Sunlight glanced off a twisted skein of steel tracks that led to the city centre.

London by rail? He seemed almost unaware of my presence, but accepted without comment the blanket that I draped across his broad shoulders. The train lurched once and shuddered slowly forward.

Dream 17July2017
"Many Troubles I Have Seen"

There's nothing worse than having people make fun of your underwear in dreams. "JC Penny!" she screamed derisively. "NO! Sears!" I spat back, shouting to make myself heard over the laughter. I had actually bought my Fruit-of-the-Looms at Target. "I hate ALL their colors," I went on, trying to further distance myself. You can't hardly buy anything that isn't boxers anymore. Those long legs and padded crotches give me the creeps. The whole thing made me so mad I finally balled up my scarlet briefs and flung them at her. The crumpled wad expanded immediately, falling harmlessly to the floor. They howled again with amusement.

Variations on the same theme—this other incident was as bad or worse. Shaken awake I realized I was wearing some little kid's striped pajama leggings. I swiveled my legs over the edge of the bunk. Released by the motion a pair of googly eyes mounted on springs dangled and bounced down from their attachment to my waist. Groggily, I considered my options—none. The path to normalcy led directly past the grownups downstairs.

"Can you really fly this thing?" I asked. "Sure, no problem," Jack said, "did it once in training." I could see him desperately scanning the rotating heads-up display for some indicator that would confirm the controls were working. There it was, right in the center: "Altitude." 131 feet, a long way above the ground but perilously close to the tips of the tallest trees.

With aplomb, Jack set her down at the far end of the field. It was a long ways to walk, a little embarrassing, but at least we were still alive.

The six strings on Frank's guitar slid back and forth along grooved arc beneath the fingerboard, giving the instrument a brassy country twang. He adjusted them absently, meditatively, then finally spoke. "here's one I wrote a while ago," he murmured, then began to sing softly as he strummed. "Many troubles I have seen…"

My cheeks burned with mortification for my friend, but I guess when you're a performer you eventually get past that. And actually, he'd obviously been practicing. His voice was deep and resonant, even though his lips hardly moved, very natural, almost a talking blues. When it was over even I applauded. So did all the guys around the table.

"What's your story, then?" the one named Brian said, fixing me with a skeptical look. "You must be forty, fifty by now, right?"

"That's pretty funny," I replied, not without a touch of bitterness. "A bit south of sixty," I said. Maybe it was because I was trying to prove myself that I ended up trying to fix the leak in their roof. It's harder work than singing.

This arts collective had established a warren of ramshackle studios off the main garage. "See this?" Casey said in bewilderment. He reached up to touch a hole in the ceiling boards. Water dripped steadily down his finger, even though it had stopped raining outside. Easy-peasy for an old roofer like me.

I edged carefully along the bearing wall, careful not to put weight on the joists. They were two-by-fours spaced at least a couple feet apart, definitely not up to code. First things first. I located the leak and squirted a blob of silver caulk in to seal it. Then I pierced the round plastic lid of a coffee container in the four cardinal directions and centered it over the hole. That ought to do it, at least for the foreseeable future.

Dream 14July2017
"Dude Ranch"

It had been a long time since any of us had been back to the "Dude Ranch," I thought. A long time. Our jet sat alone on the broad alkali plain, as featurelessly white as the hardened surface of the ancient lakebed.

The aircraft's engine turbines continued to spin with a subdued whine as the hatch was opened and the ramp deployed, as though our autopilot was unwilling to discharge its passengers on such a bleak and unforgiving surface. In the far distance to the north a rise of low hills could almost be seen through the blinding midsummer haze. To the south the mountains were closer, still harsh and remote.

"The Dog" went in advance of us, sniffing the powdery poisonous ground at the base of the ramp, then meandering in a randomly contiguous path of discovery. A small clump of something was located and neutralized with a brief golden stream of pee. Coyote? The Dog looked back at us for guidance.

Maybe these plants had once been alive. Now they crunched beneath our feet as we made our way, our luggage scraping parallel trails behind us. A few hundred yards away a single steel fencepost with a small orange reflector marked the entrance. From there a tracery of deepening eroded gullies led to the Lost Spring, the subterranean source. Beside it spread a sprawling lodge, surrounded by shocking green lawns. The hiss and throb of rotating sprinklers.

Dream 08July2017
"Super-Soaker"

Asleep in the 90 degree heat dreaming of celebrity battles with water cannon. Concrete blockhouses moved along parallel tracks like jousting knights or battle-bots, their powerful opposing streams clashing briefly as they passed, delivering an embarrassing soaking to the unskilled.

"I'll just sit here and look clueless," I told my young squire. I had moved our apparatus twenty feet up the track, concealing the nozzle inside the head of a porcelain statue. "Keep your finger on the trigger," I told her, "He'll be coming fast. As soon as he passes, blast him!" She nodded excitedly, crawling through the grass to her station.

Suddenly the rules changed and got meaner as Wendy Williams seized a super-soaker and began to spray down the well-dressed ladies seated around the table of another mid-morning talk show. It just wasn't fair! Or maybe that's just TV.

I woke up thirsty and shirtless about eleven on my air mattress in the back yard, Jasmine laying in the grass beside me, feuding with the dogs on the other side of the fence. "r-r-r-r. Wa-roof," she barked experimentally, provoking massive retaliation: "Yap, yap, yap, yap," the two pits replied, "Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!"

While I'd napped the sun had set, a slight breeze brushing my sweaty torso, the gnats beginning to rise into the evening air.