A Dream's Gotta Say Something

a dream's gotta say something or it's not worth the trouble

by Philip Gaber

I went to a shrink. He told me I was half crazy. I asked him for a prescription. He thought about it and gave me one.

But when I reached the pharmacy, I discovered the prescription was written in invisible ink, and I was shit out of luck.

So I went back to the shrink, but he had packed his bags and moved to Bali [so said the note on the door, anyway].

I was furious. I felt betrayed. Used. Like somebody had bored a hole into me with a hammer drill, taken my heart out, and started playing dodgeball with it.

I got so angry I bought a single-shot short-barrel pump gun from Walmart and took it home.

That night, I slept with my gun, just like I saw those Marines in Full Metal Jacket sleep with theirs.

"Feels good," I said as I drifted off to sleep.

I dreamed of some war-torn country. I saw guerilla fighters marching through the streets. They said they were from Ebinthia and belonged to the Antarctic Liberation Army.

I asked the leader if I could bum a cigar from him.

He smiled and said, "I do not lend my cigars to men like you; I will sell you a cigar for 7,171 wooden nickels..."

I shook my head. "No, thanks. I can get 'em wholesale from the Ruskies..."

The leader shrugged. "Have it your way," he said, and he and his men continued marching toward the Fifty-Nine Years' Battle.

Now the scene shifted to a bungalow in West Hollywood... there were lemon trees in the back yard... I imagined one of the family members picking the lemons on the weekend and making Lemon Delight Pound Cake and Lemon Meringue Pie... I wondered if small children were living in the bungalow and if their parents had ever encouraged them to sell fresh-squeezed lemonade to their neighbors...

I imagined all kinds of idyllic, American scenes there... barbeques, yard sales, family reunions, potluck dinners ...

"...a home like that must have folk art wall hangings or paintings by Grant Wood and Frederic Remington and Norman Rockwell adorning the living room walls," I said...

I was about to walk up the cobblestone pathway leading to the front door when it suddenly swung open. A little old man with a rotund build and small-featured, delicate face appeared, pointing a shotgun at me.

"You better git!" the old man said. "I got nothin' you want... now git outa here..."

I raised both my hands above my head in surrender... "I don't want anything from you, sir... I was admiring your home..."

"Well, git goin' 'fore I call the cops..."

"I was trying to envision who might live in such a beautiful home... and I love those lemon trees in your backyard..."

"Keep away from my lemon trees, or I'll shoot ya..."

"Sir, I didn't mean to..." I sighed quietly, lowered my hands, and turned to leave... "I was just admiring your home," I said, walking away.

After that, I dreamed of being in a shadowy forest surrounded by a wispy fog.

A dark figure approached me.

"I am Arthur Rimbaud," said the figure, sipping from a reservoir glass filled with absinthe ... "I understand you are one of the unhappy, fucked up, tortured people..."

I just stared at the twenty-one-year-old vagabond.

"You're the only one in charge of your happiness," said Rimbaud. "You can't depend on anyone else to make you happy... Paul Verlaine told me that shortly after he was released from prison... and then," Rimbaud chuckled derisively. "He converted to Catholicism...so much for his theory... Care for some hashish...?"

I was about to say, "Is it blonde?" when I heard a phone ringing and my eyes snapped open.

...I hated being woken by a phone's sound, I thought. Or an alarm clock..., a barking dog... a chirping bird..., a garbage truck... a leaf blower..., a wood chipper..., or a loud car muffler...

When I finished listing everything I hated being woken by, the phone stopped ringing, and I drifted back to sleep.

I dreamed I was being chased by a woman with a round, bland face. She chased me through forests and deserts, over hills and across mountain ridges, into valleys, along riversides.

At one point, she barrelled after me on the streets of San Francisco in a Pontiac LeMans, but she was no match for my Challenger R/T 440 Magnum. After some awe-inspiring accelerating and cornering techniques, I was able to lose her near Haight and Ashbury streets.

The last thing I remember, I was on 101 North heading toward Napa County and badly wanting to get drunk on some of that Napa Valley vino... when suddenly I heard that damn phone ringing again.

I decided to answer it.

It was Dad calling from the Sunshine Home.

"...I don't understand it," he said. "This Miley Cyrus... Where's the talent? In the old days, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin were alone on stage with a microphone, and it was them singing... These new guys gotta have costume changes and laser lights and dancing and jumping and acrobats and strippers and fireworks and JumboTrons... It's phony!"

I'd had this conversation with my dad at least four thousand times before, and I was too tired even to play devil's advocate with him, so I just let him vent.

"Those old crooners, they had personality... they didn't need all these fancy gimmicks to hide behind, y'understand... Jolson, you talk about an entertainer... Jolson had to project his voice to the back of the theater; he didn't even have a goddamn microphone... he did it all with his pipes...but this Miley Cyrus... What's the attraction? What do people see in her? I guess I just don't understand it," and he hung up.

Laying my head down and staring at the ceiling, I thought, I'm in a really peculiar cycle right now.

I was awake but still asleep.