Last night my bunk mates and I shared dreams for some unknown reason. About a half hour before lights out, Smallville, a mountainous parolee about 6 feet tall and so wide he needs special care in chapel, began telling us about a dream he'd had in prison(he explained his nickname to me, something people almost never do: "See, I got that nickname because sometimes when you're describing a person it's funny if you call them the opposite thing. Helps you remember because it's not the same, it's different." "That makes good sense," I said).
"Certain type of dream always ends the same way. I was still locked up when I had it. I was waiting for a bus. That's crazy because I was locked up so what would I be doing waiting for a bus? Anyway, I was waiting for that bus and it pulled up and it was one of those really old-type buses you can still see sometimes out on the street, know the ones I mean? I was the only passenger and the bus driver was the hottest blond you can think of. Hotter than a loaded .44. I she turned around when we stopped and smiled, and I started walking toward her then the dream changed--know how that happens? and we were under the sea like the bus was a submarine only the bus was full of water and we were swimming around in it and she was a mermaid like that Darryl Hannah movie or like "The Little Mermaid," except now she didn't have no clothes on at all. Don't ask me nothing about below the waist, she was a mermaid that's all I know. Then we were on the beach and rolling around in the waves and stuff and I was just about to kiss her when I woke up!"
"Yeah," said Lee, an older gent who reads lots of different newspapers in actual paper editions. "I had a dream like that once. I was going to visit my brother at his car wash, except he never had no car wash, he worked in a hardware store in Detroit and did some dealing and died before his time. Anyway, I was walking through the forest to my brother's car wash and the car wash was in Yellowstone National Park. I knew it was Yellowstone because there were big signs everywhere. When I got to the car wash it was one of those self-serve car washes and you all thinking I'm crazy because it was in the forest but all these people were there washing their cars and you couldn't hardly see the sky because of all the trees. Then my brother told me to start waxing a pick-up truck but there was this woman way up in a tree calling for help. Barely pick her out way up there. So my brother told me to get on the ladder in the back of the truck. So I did and he turned on the radio and Marvin Gaye started singing "Sexual Healing" and the ladder was going up and up with me on it. When I got way up there I could see she was a hot little red head white girl with freckles and about 38 sized titties but she was wearing a negligee. She leaned over and started to whisper something in my ear but then the ladder started bending way over backward and I woke up! Know how you wake up jumping or startled and your heart's really pounding?"
"Yeah." "Oh, that's all messed up." "Sure."
Smallville looked at me and said how about you neighbor? Ever had a dream like that?"
"Yeah," said. "Once when my marriage was really on the way down and my wife was out at some bar I was lying on the living room floor watching TV and I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly I was paralyzed. You know when you're sort of half-asleep and you sort of want to wake up but you can't move?"
"Oh, yeah that's a fucked up situation," said Lee. "I've had that happen."
"Sleep paralysis," I said. "Anyway I'm lying there starting to panic because I can't move and can't wake up and a polar bear walked into the room and starting licking my face! An arctic polar bear! It was as real as anything I've ever experienced! I couldn't move but then suddenly I relaxed because the bear turned into Julie Newmar in her Catwoman suit from the old Batman show, know the one I mean? And she started purring and talking to me in that kitty voice she used. I was about to kiss her and I woke up and it was just the cat licking my face!"
"That's a pretty crazy-ass dream," said Smallville. "But it wasn't really the same as ours because it had a polar bear and a cat in it, and that's pretty weird."
"It had Julie Newmar in leather, youngster," said Lee. "You too young to know that shit."
"It ain't the same because he was kissing a cat when he woke up. And the whole dream was animals."
"Well," I began, "I wasn't kissing the cat, it was licking me . . ."
"You had a fish woman in your dream," said Lee.
"It was a mermaid."
"Same thing."
I realized it was no use for me to add anything else. The conversation moved on to baseball, then Marvin Gaye's death and other celebrities killed by guns.
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