Dig For the Bones of a Lobster
I had a dream last night: I'm in old hospital/rehab type building, getting ready to check out. My ex-girlfriend Jenni is there, selling books out of my (our?) room. It's a not-for-profit operation, this book business. She is running low on stock, so she borrows some books from the institution we're in. There is something she wants to talk to me about (are we breaking up)? I leave the room alone and start walking down the hall. The place is more like a school now than a rehab. My pants are down, not quite to my knees, but far enough that I'm able to involuntarily defecate on the floor as I walk. Walking a ways behind me is an orderly or some kind of employee of the institution. He is big, dressed in white and is in a position of authority. I start walking faster, knowing he will soon discover the load I dropped. I take a right down another broad hall and now the place is now even more like a school than before. The hallway leads to a doorway to the outside and I go through it (Strange, I had thought that we were several floors up.) I see another entrance back into the building up ahead. There's a small, scalene-triangular shaped courtyard bordered by a black wrought iron fence in front of the door. This is a school! Mothers stand around the courtyard along with some small children. I need to get in as The Orderly will be gaining on me. One of the mothers, short and matronly, stops me to ask if I have kids. She's asking for 
the benefit of someone else, another mother or maybe a kid, in order to make a point about something. I say no. She's holding me up. I finally get inside.
What happens next is hazy
but
eventually Jenni and I are leaving the place.
We have plans to travel to several cities and then maybe back to New York. We are walking the Manhattan streets and come across an interesting door. We enter, go down two flights of stairs and come to a pitch black doorway. Closer to this door we can see some light inside and when we're closer yet we can see a woman get up from the end of a bar and come to greet us. We decide to stay for a drink. There's a large screen tv, showing only shifting shapes. We both sit facing it. I finish my beer and say, "Anytime you're ready to go, I am." I've never been ready to leave anywhere after one beer. We leave and are immediately separated. Jenni calls my cell phone and says she wants to try this new restaurant she heard about. We will be meeting several friends there, but neither of us knows where it is. I stay on the phone with her, narrating where I am: "I'm in an alleyway running between Fruit St. (sic) and Houston St.
Ahead of me I hear a couple of guys cursing each other out from a distance. One is walking away, still shouting. By his voice and his short stature I realize it is the actor Danny DeVito. "Mr. Devito," I say "Do you know about this restaurant we're looking for"?
I describe it and he says yes, he knows -it is that place that almost looks like it's closed down, right?
He shows me the way. I ask him if he'd like to join us for dinner and without much hesitation, he says yes. As we arrive, so do our friends, sans Jenni. We go through a narrow door into a small, dilapidated room. there are three tables in this room with fairly well dressed people at all of them. I'm still talking to Jenni on the cell phone, but become concious that these diners might think I'm rude. We are led down a narrow staircase into another dining room and are seated at a long table near the stairs.
We start conversing. I ask DeVito what he's working on. He doesn't say it outright, but implies that it was not cool of me to ask him that. Later, DeVito gets up, maybe to use the restroom, which is upstairs. Everyone in our group starts laughing at him, in an openly hostile way. He goes upstairs and I wonder if he'll be coming back. Soon after that I woke up.
I was at my grandmother's today, eating lunch with her. There was an advertising flier on the table for a seafood restaurant. We started talking about seafood, none of which, with the exception of shrimp once, she has ever eaten, or ever cared to.
She told me my father cooked lobster once when they visited him in Amherst. She said he ate it like a kid eating candy; "He ate it so fast, I thought he was going to eat the bones and everything."
I had a good laugh.
the benefit of someone else, another mother or maybe a kid, in order to make a point about something. I say no. She's holding me up. I finally get inside.What happens next is hazy
but
eventually Jenni and I are leaving the place.
We have plans to travel to several cities and then maybe back to New York. We are walking the Manhattan streets and come across an interesting door. We enter, go down two flights of stairs and come to a pitch black doorway. Closer to this door we can see some light inside and when we're closer yet we can see a woman get up from the end of a bar and come to greet us. We decide to stay for a drink. There's a large screen tv, showing only shifting shapes. We both sit facing it. I finish my beer and say, "Anytime you're ready to go, I am." I've never been ready to leave anywhere after one beer. We leave and are immediately separated. Jenni calls my cell phone and says she wants to try this new restaurant she heard about. We will be meeting several friends there, but neither of us knows where it is. I stay on the phone with her, narrating where I am: "I'm in an alleyway running between Fruit St. (sic) and Houston St.
Ahead of me I hear a couple of guys cursing each other out from a distance. One is walking away, still shouting. By his voice and his short stature I realize it is the actor Danny DeVito. "Mr. Devito," I say "Do you know about this restaurant we're looking for"?
I describe it and he says yes, he knows -it is that place that almost looks like it's closed down, right?
He shows me the way. I ask him if he'd like to join us for dinner and without much hesitation, he says yes. As we arrive, so do our friends, sans Jenni. We go through a narrow door into a small, dilapidated room. there are three tables in this room with fairly well dressed people at all of them. I'm still talking to Jenni on the cell phone, but become concious that these diners might think I'm rude. We are led down a narrow staircase into another dining room and are seated at a long table near the stairs.
We start conversing. I ask DeVito what he's working on. He doesn't say it outright, but implies that it was not cool of me to ask him that. Later, DeVito gets up, maybe to use the restroom, which is upstairs. Everyone in our group starts laughing at him, in an openly hostile way. He goes upstairs and I wonder if he'll be coming back. Soon after that I woke up.
I was at my grandmother's today, eating lunch with her. There was an advertising flier on the table for a seafood restaurant. We started talking about seafood, none of which, with the exception of shrimp once, she has ever eaten, or ever cared to.
She told me my father cooked lobster once when they visited him in Amherst. She said he ate it like a kid eating candy; "He ate it so fast, I thought he was going to eat the bones and everything."
I had a good laugh.
posted by Ben P at 9:29 AM
1 Comments:
This is good, good stuff.
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