From: boutell@cshl.org (Tom Boutell)
Subject: I Dreamt
Organization: Cold Spring Harbor Labs
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 12:20:11 GMT

Last night. The weather had changed over the course of the evening and
my body swept my with it in following the path of the depression,
welling down into a sea of past circumstances and determining contexts to fit
the tide, as always happens.

I took the Long Island Railroad, then the subway to LaGuardia, wanting to
go to Wisconsin, having heard that in Wisconsin they had just abandoned
their interpretation of Jewish law as too expensive and in the eleventh
hour had agreed to maintain it by contracting out to Connecticut for
gentle enforcement of the strictures; and wanting to see what my former
fellow-nutmeggers had gotten themselves into I resolved to fly to their
newest charge and investigate. I paid two hundred dollars as the farewar
erupted into open firing of executives. Suite.

By four I was in Wisconsin I was on a main street that hadn't very many
buildings on it mostly trees and reddish dream background material
mostly restaurants and I went into a restaurant and what do you know
Gabe was there, my old buddy Gabe holding a slice of apple pie,
and I said hello and he said hello and that was really fine. Mom
was nowhere in evidence.

But I began to hear things loud things all around me and I heard and I
saw the owner and a waitress in the corner discussing the murder of
her father and I heard and I saw a policeman sitting in the front
explain what he'd like to do to his five-year-old daughter and
I unfolded to twice my normal height and shouted "STOP! All of
you OUT!" and everybody got out of the restaurant even Gabe and
I was left alone, disconsolate and pure.

I left the restaurant and walked along the street as the houses grew
thinner and more nonexistent and there were more trees and more
horses and I found myself walking across a bridge and a horse was
coming toward me and I got off to the side of the road and the horse
passed, and a man came up to me with deepwellingness in his beautiful
brown square-shoulder eyes and said you might want to head over there,
into the store, there's a chance they might tribe up. And I said oh
I'll just watch by the side of the road and he said it's your choice
and more of his horses came by, thundering, small horses dancing in the
lee of large-horse hooves, and circled me and then were gone, and I
dusted myself off and said that was an adventure but I must be
going and he looked at me and said as a matter of fact if you don't
mind why don't you stay awhile, and not being from Wisconsin or 
knowing what people did in Wisconsin or knowing, particularly, why
I was in Wisconsin I said why not.

And he brought me home, and we slept, me the deep sleep of jet-lag
exhaustion. And the next day I don't remember; what I do remember
is that the next thing I remember had to have taken place on Sunday,
and the whole dream decided to set itself on a weekend, the
flight to Wisconsin having been on Friday. So on Sunday we rose
and he took me to the edge of a hill and at the base of the hill
was the ocean but it had a different, unfamiliar smell, not
unpleasant but not native to me, muskier than I would have expected.
And he laughed and climbed halfway down the hill to where the drop
became sheer and there was no longer foliage on the hillside and
there were only occasional tufts to hold onto and he dropped straight
down into the water with a splash and I thought just because I'm
not from Wisconsin doesn't mean I can't follow you and I did, and it
wasn't so bad really, I didn't fall as fast as I thought I would
and the water was warm and soaked about halfway into the waist of
my jeans before I scrambled out because this was Wisconsin and the
water was so cold here.

And he was already clambering up the hill so I clambered after him,
hand-over-tuft-over-tuft until we reached stronger grass and pulled
more readily and soon we were nearing the summit of the hill, and
then he looked at me with those brown eyes and he kissed me, and
I kissed him back, with considerable enjoyment and said "I'm sorry,
no."

And he started away looking frustrated and I said it's not you and
he said I know it's not me but why didn't I know earlier and I
said I'm sorry, you have to understand,

My girlfriend and I are both like this we are like gay men and women
growing up in straight company because so many of our friends are
and we think we probably should be or would be or could be but
we're just so hopelessly attracted to members of the opposite sex.
And can't we just be friends, and in all sincerity I have enjoyed
your hospitality, and if you'd raised the issue earlier I would have
told you earlier but I didn't want to embarrass you or guess the
situation wrong, and you really are a good kisser I haven't done that
before but I sort of expected you would be since I'm one of what
you are and I suspect I'm not half-bad, but it's just not
possible and he said he understood. And his face was red but he
walked on companionably and soon after I took my leave.


(And then some people got into a fight over whether the theme to
my girlfriend's play was from their play at the 10th Street
Playhouse or somebody else's play at the 2nd Street Playhouse but
that's just garden-variety anxiety, not half as interesting as
a mature treatment of homosexuality taking place in one's sleep,
so I won't bore you with it or claim that there were elephants
and doorknobs and newspaper salesmen flying kites, because
there weren't and even if there had been you would probably try
to force some silly Freudian interpretation on them and I'd
have to kill you.)

-T

-- 
Tom Boutell, boutell@cshl.org

Clausthaler is the best non - alcoholic beer in the known universe.
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre