TRAVELING WITH A LINGUIST, somewhere in Eastern Europe … perhaps the Balkans … or perhaps even parts of Asia, such as Kurdistan. At any rate, he was explaining the addition of syllables to a place name to indicate our destination as we headed toward the train station or a marketplace or the like. We were in crowded towns, of dark brown shades, all the same.

As the scene unfolded, we agreed to part, planning to reunite, which left me to wander on my own for a while. Of course, I became confused but not panicked. At one point, I actually saw him and another – maybe even an old girlfriend of mine – walking a street below me, though I was unable to catch up.

Somehow, I became part of a wedding party reception. An old girlfriend, in fact, maybe even the same one I’d glimpsed earlier, though we were now quite distant memories of one another. Still, when our paths crossed in the crowd, we acknowledged each other’s presence, yet I’m not sure either of us wished the other well. Still, I was dragged off to festivities at a long bar with seats all around, like the Tiki bar at Lobster on the Rough, only larger. It was late afternoon or early evening – dark, that is, with twinkle lights – a Renoir kind of scene. I was told to order dinner, but getting a menu was another matter. All of the menu-like brochures said nothing of the food, as far as well could tell, much less the prices. As I hesitated, I told the waiter to go on, I’d catch up to him. Finally, it came down between a steak at $60 and lobster, also $60. I ordered the lobster. I went over to the waiter, whispered my decision to him, and was told, “Wait,” and soon a lobster on a platter was handed to me, right there. I was also told, by my neighbors at the bar, to go ahead and begin eating while the food was still hot, so I was one of the first to do so. It was a large lobster, over two pounds, served with a kind of chili on the claws. (We’d had a bean soup earlier that evening, reminding me of chili.) The father of the bride was picking up the tab, probably $8,000 for the event. (My first lover’s daddy? Maybe because I’d come across his obit again earlier in the week.) Even so, I was aware that I was one of two or three “poor boys” admitted to this affair.

The next morning, perhaps, on a lawn overlooking a lake, I was told by another participant how much he enjoyed my presence, that I was one of the few people who could carry on a conversation, who had something to say, who had really done things. So that’s why I’d been admitted.

 

TRYING TO CONSOLE a deeply depressed Prince Charles. (Well, in some ways he was more like Mick Jagger. But when a dream imposes an identity, we stick to it. Besides, we were both much younger than we are now.) Considering the circumstances, we were getting along quite well. He even asked for a long hug before running off to jump on the mattress, like a trampoline, and then a set of sofas as the scene morphed into a hotel lobby as others, including the girl, drifted into the setting.

It started off when a woman I was involved with (a contra dancer?) who worked in his household or some other organization of his wondered if I would ask him, when he arrived, what he thought of her. Well, he and I hadn’t been introduced, so I was reluctant but now see that as an American, for me that wasn’t the problem.

Since he was essentially alone, I was able to strike up a conversation, however awkwardly it began. He did indeed recognize her name (Kate, never mind, not his daughter-in-law but more like Kate Moss) and rattled off a list of statistics and the like – nothing of an emotional nature, but still thoroughly informed.

A while later, I asked if he was a reader, and he assured me he was. I was beginning to tell him of Nicholson Baker’s work when we were interrupted.

WALDEN POND. IT’S DEEP WINTER, with a good two feet of snow on the ground. My thoughts turn to logistics: getting there from the town, what books and projects I’ll be taking, what food and cooking gear (if any) I should pack.

The prospect is liberating and exciting – an invitation to get down to some Real Work.

 

I’VE BEEN OFF SOMEWHERE and am returning with a friend as we come over the crest of a hill and look down to a very green meadow. A figure runs across the field. A moose? Or a horse? But a very full tail follows, and then I realize it’s a giant squirrel.

No wonder I awaken!

 

WAS SOMEHOW VISITING BROWN, a small group somehow in a social setting when we “went out back” to see is latest work. (This is where the dream picks up:) Not at his house and farm in Berwick, but rather beside the sea or a large gray lake. It’s a former industrial site, and he leads us into a large half-shell, somewhat like the Hatch Shell along the Charles except this has large piles of dirt inside, the kind that have been moved about by bulldozers. The shell is surfaced in rough concrete, and this is what he’s been painting on. Another person tells me Brown’s been doing very little of the painting these days but has others, including Mennonites, as apprentices who are doing much of the work he envisions. It’s largely gray, with some red and yellow. Brown tells me he’ll never be finished with this project and has no intention to.

We step back and the structure is no longer open to the air but rather goes back like a large Quonset hut or airplane hangar with office cubicles along the floor. This time, much of the surface is salmon or pinkish. What’s happening overhead is quite incredible, a contemporary Sistine Chapel. I retreat to a far corner to sit down to take it all in. Brown approves of my move with a nod or a wink.

In the final tableau, I’m outside in open ponderosa and see three typewriters in the sagebrush or palmetto. Warily, watching for rattlesnakes, I step out to get one in order to finish some project we’re engaged in. That’s when I notice the IBM Selectric II in a taupe shade. Before I can retrieve it, a stiletto-heeled secretary in black hosiery approaches to say, in effect, keep my hands off. As I retreat, something drops from a tree onto my neck and shoulders. I’m trying to brush the snake off as I awaken.

A rather elaborate sequence of dreams after drafting a letter to our former landlords. I had fallen asleep especially early, around 8 p.m., and this was kicking in probably around 4 a.m. and continuing until 6:

I’m in Yakima (actually had an elaborate “east of Yakima” dream about six months ago, heading through the small towns off toward Tri-Cities … no trace of its content now). Except that this one could as easily be Binghamton or even Manchester.

It picks up as we’re coming over the crest of a high hill overlooking the city. We’re on a clean concrete boulevard on a sunny day, the downtown arrayed below us – and golden hillsides overlooking it from the other side. Blue sparkling river flows through it. (Columbia River, as it is up in Wenatchee?) We’re chatting about my return visit after so long.

Actually, I now remember there was an earlier episode about taking my family out West … spurred by the letter, actually … so they become part of the crowd in this series, even when they’re masked as others, I suppose. In actually, it’s a golden morning after a very glum Sunday.

It’s a smooth sweep downhill, skirting the downtown. We’re talking about a movie that was done here. (Maybe even picking up on another recent dream of visiting Ivar’s orchard, which in reality could have been in York County as easily as Washington State.)

Next thing I know is we’re driving along the sparkling blue river. From the angle of the sunlight, we must have been headed east. The freeway is in a set of elaborate caging – wiring like extended lobster pots, actually – sprinkled by a earlier shower perhaps or occasional irrigation. A vast serpentine structure along the river and overhead – was the other side cliff? “They haven’t done a movie with this yet, have they?” Laughter. And our guide (Phyllis?) replying, “Not yet.” It was very cinematic and joyful.

We pull off at a small mill area … like those of New England. (I now remember yet another recent dream, of what I pegged as eastern Ohio or even West Virginia: driving along an industrial valley, leaving the freeway and visiting within the varied small cities. Many shades of Warren, Niles, Youngstown, with moats thrown in. Maybe this dream repeatedly. Trying to reconnect with something lost.) We park and walk past or through a small Catholic church and out on a shaded plaza beside a mill. In the window, I see someone sitting. Looks like Carl P., only turning to face us, is a woman. Not pleased by our banter, either. We start to borrow a picnic table bench to use elsewhere, then I turn around and replace it. Glancing down the street beside the church, I notice that what first appeared to be triple-deckers beside the mill are actually one long, complex series of stucco apartments with Roman Catholic crosses in strategic places.

I think we had been visiting in one of the apartments … a rather erotic introduction for me … though it’s all fuzzy now. Again, later vague memories of other apartment dreams and student-residents. Colleges or art schools. Maybe Cincinnati and theaters or music.

We exit through the church, and dash across the street to a parking lot – all set high above the river, like the Sam Hill museum and Stonehenge in the Horse Heaven Hills. The headlights of a procession approach – either a wedding or, as it turns out, a funeral. Now off to the side, we watch two groups in conflict – the funeral contingent above, with the hearse, and a group taunting and jeering below. Some kind of minor thug – a woman? – is to be buried after a funeral mass.

But first, we’re off. Somehow, our own crowd has changed. It’s more crowded, and Phyllis must be driving. A teenage orphan is snuggled up next to me and several others. (It’s getting very erotic.) She’s freckled, open-faced, and has somehow managed to live on her own – a victim of the thug’s oppression. A blanket’s thrown over us. I reach down to scratch my leg (I’m wearing shorts) but am scolded for touching someone else. Lift the blanket, and a face looks up at us. “Sorry. I’ll keep my hands up here, to myself.” Laughter. There are other bodies pressed in against us, too. It’s a crowded, but joyful trip.

Turns out this is part of a group that sees this as the moment of liberation from the thug’s circle.

A leap again, and we’ve stopped at a small roadside restaurant called, it turns out, Baklava’s. Looks like a Carvel’s or Baskin-Robbins. We’re running around in some confusion. I see bagels for sale, but not what I’m seeking. (Something big and fluffy, like a cinnamon roll, or even baklava.) “Oh, the coffee comes with baklava,” I’m told, and yes, the coffee is dark and thick.

After I get my order, one of our companions (not Phyllis?) goes up to the counter, where the manager (I presume) in a red-plaid shirt is at the counter. She squirts him with a fountain pen-turned-hypodermic, hitting him with a dark liquid. He falls over backward. He was one of the thugs and we’ve made our hit. We run from the store and no one pursues us to the parking lot. Good thing, since my car keys are tangled in my pocket. (So I’m driving now?) Even with the delay, there’s no sensation of panic. We’re on the side of justice, however illicit. The people’s side. Justice has been served. It’s still morning.

LIVING AGAIN IN AN OLD LIMESTONE dorm, had a room in each of two or three buildings, under the pretense of opening some kind of retail store in all but one. For some reason, though, none of the doors would lock; or if they were locked, they wouldn’t hold. Anybody could push in. I was greatly annoyed – after all, I couldn’t be everywhere at once; besides, I had to be away for classes and the library, too, even though nobody actually broke in.

On the way back to one of the dorms, I saw a two-story building that had smoke rolling out of its windows – “Oh, no! It’s the firehouse!” – and then bright flames licked from the structure.

Poetic justice, perhaps, more than alarm – and relief wasn’t our building.

OUR building?

 

I RETURN TO MY APARTMENT, which is at the bottom of a staircase in a carpeted basement. The apartment is essentially one room, with the door in the corner and a panel of windows along the hallway – a commercial feel to it, like a small store. But as I approach with a friend, we realize the door is agape – and everything has been cleaned out, except for my violin case and same papers atop the closet. Somehow, I’m not disturbed by all the loss.

This leaps to something from another set of dreams, the door latch that will not lock – which has been the case in this apartment. “They” finally got me, and that’s it. Except it’s somehow also liberating.

This came the morning after our trip to IKEA, with all of its designer small-scale apartments, and my unexpected surge of feelings of poverty no doubt arising from my sudden “retirement” with its accompanying issues of finances that still need to be addressed. So who was with me? You? Even so, I felt insured … and that all my creative work and notes could be recovered. That, before clothing and kitchen ware!