Look Ma: No Socks
Jun. 19th, 2003 07:51 amXena woke me up around three in the morning, so I drank bourbon and read Abe's book for two hours till I could finally fall back to sleep. It's a very good book.
When I fell back to sleep, I dreamed:
At an art house movie theater to see a particular classic film. When the film was first released, it had aired with the stipulation that sitting in the very back row of the theater would be a bunch of men in solider costumes who'd pretend to arrest the movie goers as they left the theater. This revival had taken things one step farther. Waiting in the lobby for the patrons to emerge were soldiers from every possible army that had ever existed – samurai and faceless men in W.W.I gas masks, Pol Pot's boy army and Civil War veterans, and they began to arrest us one by one as we filed out. I escaped down a flight of stairs. On the staircase, I ran into Robin who was chattering and annoying me – I told him the soldiers would track us down – so I told him that henceforth he wasn't my son. He ran away.
The staircase led to Israel. Israel in my dreams was a bright dusty place with long avenues, something like Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. People were always having junk sales outside their houses. Interesting junk. I started looking for Robin, I knew he couldn't take care of himself, I was feverish with guilt. Abe took me to visit some Orthodox friends of his, the woman had once been a Hollywood producer. She had many children, one of them was handicapped, they put phenobarbitol in his pudding. But one of the other children had eaten his pudding, a wild little seven year old with a white forelock just like mine.
"Did it make you sleepy?" her mother asked her.
The little girl shook her head defiantly.
Somehow I had fallen. I had skinned my knee, it was bleeding. I kept waiting for Abe to notice it from the other side of the room, to take care of me.
When I woke up, the phone was ringing. Robin on a bad cell connection. From South Dakota. "We just passed Mt. Rushmore," he told me. "And I'm not wearing socks."
When I fell back to sleep, I dreamed:
At an art house movie theater to see a particular classic film. When the film was first released, it had aired with the stipulation that sitting in the very back row of the theater would be a bunch of men in solider costumes who'd pretend to arrest the movie goers as they left the theater. This revival had taken things one step farther. Waiting in the lobby for the patrons to emerge were soldiers from every possible army that had ever existed – samurai and faceless men in W.W.I gas masks, Pol Pot's boy army and Civil War veterans, and they began to arrest us one by one as we filed out. I escaped down a flight of stairs. On the staircase, I ran into Robin who was chattering and annoying me – I told him the soldiers would track us down – so I told him that henceforth he wasn't my son. He ran away.
The staircase led to Israel. Israel in my dreams was a bright dusty place with long avenues, something like Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. People were always having junk sales outside their houses. Interesting junk. I started looking for Robin, I knew he couldn't take care of himself, I was feverish with guilt. Abe took me to visit some Orthodox friends of his, the woman had once been a Hollywood producer. She had many children, one of them was handicapped, they put phenobarbitol in his pudding. But one of the other children had eaten his pudding, a wild little seven year old with a white forelock just like mine.
"Did it make you sleepy?" her mother asked her.
The little girl shook her head defiantly.
Somehow I had fallen. I had skinned my knee, it was bleeding. I kept waiting for Abe to notice it from the other side of the room, to take care of me.
When I woke up, the phone was ringing. Robin on a bad cell connection. From South Dakota. "We just passed Mt. Rushmore," he told me. "And I'm not wearing socks."