I
dreamt that we were driving on a highway in Massachusetts, and there
was an accident. We ended up abandoning our car and somehow
commandeering an empty yellow cab, which we drove all the way home,
several hours to the south. Then, we were getting ready to go to my
sister-in-law Maude Kent’s in Philadelphia, and realized we couldn’t
take the cab. What were we going to do with it? I thought of driving
the cab to a street I remembered from childhood near the Garden State
Parkway in East Orange, N.J., and ditching it, but that could backfire,
and we wouldn’t have a car. I also thought about our abandoned car in
Massachusetts and figured no one would trace it to us. How would I join
up with Louisa and the kids in Philadelphia? Maybe instead of
commandeering the cab, we should have stayed with our car and arranged
for it to be fixed. Sure, it would have set us back a few hours, but we
wouldn’t have all these problems now.
*
I
dreamt that I was walking with a friend on the sidewalk and we passed a
driveway, bordered with pillars, that led to a shady estate. The place
was very similar to the corner of Ralston Ave. and Grove Rd. in South
Orange, N.J., near my friend Mark Woldin’s childhood house, except there
wasn’t a driveway there; the driveway for the old Board of Education
building was closer to South Orange Ave. As we crossed the gravel
driveway, I perceived someone in the shade, a man. He pointed a handgun
at me and looked like he was about to fire. Terrified, I turned and
tried to run around the corner. Two shots rang out. I felt both hit
me, in the right shoulder. I went down. I lay flat on my back. It
felt very natural. I didn’t feel any pain. My friend ran away around
the corner. I suddenly worried the gunman would walk up and shoot me in
the head execution-style. I thought about trying to get up and run
away. But my body quickly communicated that that was unthinkable. I
had been flattened by the wounds. I just had to lie there and hope for
the best.
*