Which Is Where We Are Now

Jon is hanging out in my room: graytones at night.

I’m hanging out with mobsters. They don’t like my red boots; I play nonchalant anyway. The godfather has barefeet and I tell him how the red of his feet match my boots. This is a preshow appetizer party.

The play takes place in a restaurant. All the tables are cleared and it’s a large restaurant with a second story of tables lining the wall. I know the director; she resembles Sigourney Weaver and my sociology professor; I know some of the dancers. The audience is sparse. I’m taken by the music, or perhaps I’m jealous for attention, and seat myself in the middle stage in the middle of the room. The director tells me with vehemence I don’t belong in the play.

I go downstairs. There is no audience for this play but me. A mobster is acting. He’s on the phone with someone. The phone tells him to ship the jeweled chessboard he has. The mobster has a twinge of conscious; he doesn’t like its nefarious business. He smashes the board mildly over and over again into bits while he’s on the phone. There is some miscommunication; perhaps the board wasn’t worth so much anyway. Young women dance here as part of the play too.

I am taking some Greek class. It’s a fairly full class. I’m about to take a class in another institution, some downgrade like NOVA compared to GMU. I have a book close to the subject. It looks like my Marx-Engles reader. I open it up. This book happens to be written by the professor of the class for the class. The introduction is long. The contents of the book is just three early poems of unidentified dates, then maybe ten long poems its probably Homer or Plato — it’s strange that they are poems. I go back to the busy class. The students are busy reciting memorizes information for the classes test. Trivia I hadn’t bothered with. Ray tells me of a bus I might miss. I have missed it. Still, I realize I can just drive there.

I’m going to some high school with a goose mascot. We see some 60s film about kids growing as individuals. Then there is a republican convention at the school with much success and fanfare. I can’t take this so I go to the democratic convention just across the next week [sic]. The convention is empty and the nominee is the republican vice-president; some slovenly lady.  She’s talking uninspired drivel. I object on a small point. To placate, they play a video; after a minute I object that this is the same video we just saw. I continue to object until I find myself accusing her if being part of a republican plot to weaken the democratic party from the inside. This strikes a nerve; the candidate leaves in tears. I control the room and walk around to Gerald Ford and tell him he’s suspect. He, in turn commends me on my rhetorical skill.

Well, I take candidacy even though I’m just in high school. We don’t even have a campaign slogan. A construction crew has these blue pieces and we spell out in 3 story tall letters our brainstorms. We go through 100 words very quickly, each in its own beautiful font without ever getting anywhere.

Driving with Alex and a bunch of people. We are going to a sporting event. I indicate a place to park. There are barely any spaces. Still, I kind of indicate that there might be more spaces further. As we take the long walk to the school, there are lots of spaces. I go to Alex and suggest we get the car and drive it up so everyone won’t have to walk so far back. This is idea isn’t taken up, Alex is concerned about being caught in the exit traffic; although I’m not so worried.

Once inside the gym, I notice steps leading right to were we parked; we could have taken those steps and avoided the long walk. There were a couple of easy ways into the gym.

Before the main event, there is wrestling. I participate. It changes into trying to keep a large rubber ball on stair steps. I succeed. The prize is a ball like the one in the wrestling game.

Now comes the event. It’s like soccer but with a rubber ball the same material used in the wrestling. I call it soccer-hockey because of the continual substitution of players. I get to play. I’m really excited to play. There are only me and another person waiting to sub, so I should getting to play soon.

I rent a room from a lady. I wake up and realize I’m close to school. I actually parked in the teachers’ parking lot. That’s kind of illegal; good thing I didn’t get towed.

I’m biking and I see a young lady riding a bike the same make as mine. Later I’m talking with a bunch of young women and they tell me she bought it after she saw me. She comes by. She shakes my hand. She says “I could never marry you, you’re too eccentric”. I don’t see what eccentricity has to do with it. I like idea of someone thinking of marrying me, then I remember I don’t really want to be married and I haven’t even considered her in particular.

I’m playing cards with some neighbors outside in the dark and simultaneously returning a program to Best Buy, which is just next to us. The store is open to the outside even. A little girl wants to ride in a plastic car in the store. I go across the street and pull the neighbors plastic car from off the caravan parked in their garage and give it to the girl. She has her delight with it. She and her family leave and I return the plastic car to the top of the caravan.

We are in a beautiful meadow playing cards. We are all children. This is a loving card game. Spades go after (for) hearts, clubs after diamonds. You have to like the person in order to play your cards on them.

I’m in a space ship on a scientific mission to engage with an unknown life form. The crew has its own drama as it gets closer to the planet. We aren’t sure if the life form will be kind or hostile and we have strategies for both scenarios.

We land on the planet very close to the life form which seems like some kind of Native American fortress. We attempt a peaceful engagement. By the time we realize it’s hostile, we are too vulnerable and there is too much inner conflict to effectively defend or attack.

In class. It’s on a stage in an auditorium. We are hanging around still. Professor has a music selection playing. I like all the songs. The playlist starts to repeat. A Bowie songs starts to come up. I get my guitar to and prepare myself to play it.

The professor is irritated by this… but I thought class was over.

I’m back at my parents home but I forgot something. Now I have to go back to class. I’m walking and I’m glad I’m not driving but this is slow going. It punishing how many neighborhoods I have to walk through.

Day turns to night and it’s like I’m skating. The What It’s Like song goes on. I slide by a very well designed high-end Bob Evans establishment and overhear a job interview going on. It’s between a young man and woman both well on in their careers and enjoying the scope of power they have in their engagement with the world. The songs lyrics are changed to my situation. They talk of the stringent inhospitality of folks. I glide behind some townhouses on their second stories and people point me away from the house in tune with the music as I pass by.

As I turn the corner there is a well-dressed lady eating a meal like at a restaurant in her teeny-tiny balcony and she points down to the exact spot I should land. I land where she points and sail on in the lonely suburbs.