DREAM: "Put Down My Sketchbooks!"
“Put down my sketchbooks!” I yell at the two kids sitting at the picnic table, but they don’t hear me. I yell again, “I said put ‘em down! I don’t want you flapping ‘em around like that holding ‘em up so everybody can see.” I keep yelling till finally they lay the sketchbooks on the table with hurt, reproachful faces and walk away. Now I feel bad, walking through some kind of outdoor church setting, people laying their prayer cloths on the ground, minister making sure everything is done right. I’m full of remorse thinking I’ll find those kids and apologize, tell them it’s old drawings I did decades ago and don’t want people seeing them anymore—then start thinking well, maybe the drawings are okay after all, the kids were entertained by them, so … But I can’t find the kids, and somehow or other end up sitting in a car, with my first wife. She’s driving like a maniac. “For God’s sake, slow down,” I scream as she speeds up, heading straight into a busy intersection. “Calm down,” she says in her irritated, condescending way, “I know what I’m doing”—but of course she doesn’t. We plow right into the rushing traffic—tires are squealing, cars crashing and banging—I wake up briefly from the horror, relieved it’s only a dream and thanking God we haven’t been married in years, but soon sleep pulls me back under and it’s decades ago, I’m a young father again on some kind of outing with my daughter—we’re walking down The Drag, but it’s barely recognizable, it’s turned into a rat’s maze of malls, fancy restaurants, exclusive boutiques, towering condos cocked at ridiculous angles with the window panes falling out. “My god it’s a wonder the people don’t fall out,” then realize this is present-day Austin not the old one, the sleepy little hippie town of the 70s I once knew, now replaced by this God-forsaken mess—and to make matters worse, entire city blocks have been turned into a film set with cables and lights and cordoned-off areas—“they’re making a commercial,” someone says excitedly—and there’s so many people and cars—so many God-damned cars—you can barely move, barely breathe … on and on we walk, holding my child’s hand: lost confused wanderings through hurrying crowds, utterly purposeless meanderings down crooked streets—I have no idea where we’re going, what I’m doing—my poorly thought-out plans at last ending in a cul-de-sac of garbage and tall towering wreckages of broken electronic crap, yesterday’s toys shit out by consumer society into one big smoking toxic heap … then more confusing things happen, and at last I’m home, not walking with my child anymore, but I find half a dozen people crowded into my garage. I’m outraged. “What the hell are you people doing here?” I scream, but no one will answer, and they won’t leave either—and more people arriving all the time. “Get out!” I scream. A few start drifting away, but a man walks up to me. “What the hell do you want?” I ask. He says he wants me to read a book he’s written—“It’ll be a great graphic novel,” he says, “if you’ll draw it for me. Shouldn’t take you long—” I look at the damn manuscript: it’s the size of a refrigerator. He goes on: “It’ll make millions. I’ll give you fifty percent of the profits ..” then stands there with hopeful, expectant puppy-dog eyes waiting for me to say yes. I try to be civil, but can’t. “Fifty percent of nothing is still nothing,” I snarl. “Get out—” and chase the toothless old fool out of the garage—then turn around and see that two people have taken the three most precious books in my library—one of them my tattered old copy of Tom Sawyer which I’ve had since the third grade—and are tossing them back and forth. I grab the books, furious … Then more confusing things happen, and next thing I know I’m back in dreamscape Austin again, with my child again, only now she’s a baby so has to be carried … going from one place to another on obscure meaningless errands, back and forth, up and down one street then another, hungry looking for a restaurant but never finding one … frustration, toil, and misery, and more pointless meanderings but always carrying my baby, around and around and around this stupid town, we sit down on a park bench, where I try to figure out what to do next. Some guy walks up and offers us a ride, then the park bench turns into the passenger seat of a convertible and of course he’s driving too fast, careening around corners on two wheels, pedestrians jumping out of the way, one God-awful near-miss after another—I tighten the seatbelt around myself and the baby and hold on to her for dear life. “Just let us out,” I’m trying to tell him, but can’t be heard above the roar of the engine—then another hairpin turn and we’re on the State Capitol grounds, slowing down as we circle the capitol—but come to a dead stop because Oh Shit the grounds are filling up with cops, an entire SWAT team—no, an army—of black-shirted, jack-booted, buzz-cut, muscle-bound moron robo-cops marching around the building to shoot some protesters with their rubber-bullet guns. I get out of the car, carrying the baby to a safe place but can’t find one, then cover her face and my own as the trouble starts—I hear explosions, people screaming—and peeking through my fingers through the red smoke and horror, I see people dropping as they’re pelted by the bullets—then we’re back in the car, driving away. Looking down a hillside, I see the protesters under arrest, wearing straitjackets with hoods covering their faces … “My God, the obscenity of it all,” I think, covering the baby’s face again so she won’t see. “Oh, the horrible obscenity of it all,” still thinking as I wake up …
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