Harrassed

I wore a Nicoderm patch for ten days until I couldn't stand it.

There's a warning about "vivid dreams" which piqued my interest (and my enthusiasm for stopping smoking). So, I put the first one on at bedtime, hoping for some dinner theater at the Val-Aire in Des Moines or somewheres.

I'm usually in the audience in my dreams. There can be all manner of madness and mayhem and it doesn't matter to me at all, it's theatre.

But now, Jake, I was right in the middle of the action and I'm going to tell you. For ten days it was like Candide, getting set up again and once more, for fall after fall after fall. Terrible aimless caroming, accompanied by myself being very quiet.

Guilty dreams for the innocent man. Epic. False.

And given the treatment, Jake! ...by a roomfull of enemy dramaturgists, noir graphic novelists, rogue fictioneers with their scene shifting chop-logic. Love and Rockets red glare. Let me tell you. Old girlfriends turning up at AA meetings, pissed off at me and wanting to reconcile too.

---One was a bearded lady...

A week later, out of the blue, a hermaphrodite in green mini-skirt! I remember walking behind her up the church stairs (as I was always taught to lead women downstairs and follow them upstairs in case of a fall, you know). It was obscene. Horrible.

Finally, inevitably, a naked woman on roller-skates. Hugging her bosom to herself like a woman in a James Bond movie, begging, no, screaming at me to get her home and into some clothes.

Do something! She shrieked.

It was an emergency. I couldn't deny that.

"Can't you see you're witnessing someones real life nightmare? I'm naked on roller skates in the public square, you skinny, lying little FUCK, I HATE YOU! Help me!"

"i don't know what to do."

"You NEVER know what to do, you're RETARDED, you're a COWARD , you NEVER THINK OF ANYONE BUT YOURSELF!"

"please, please be quiet. Wait..."

"WAIT?! What am I waiting for? I'm waiting for you to get me some god damn clothes you son of a bitch, look what you've done to me, look!!!!..."

"please don't cry. so you're getting on the plane alone without luggage, everything will be all right "

All I cared about was making sure everyone else in my dreams didn't misunderstand. Or, you know, understand. Whatever the case may be.

But that was another thing. There was no love in these dreams, not a single friend ever appeared, there was mutual antipathy with everyone who'd come to get reacquainted.

At times I seethed, once or twice I popped off, like "Maybe people wouldn't be staring if you'd stop your bellowing. And HEY it just occurred to me you fucking left me. I mean, what did I do really?"

"N O T H I N G!" she squalled.
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I'm not trying to get to the any truth about myself, I'm shoveling still, telling myself that dreams are radioactive. They can't possibly mean anything because they're nonsense.

Whatever they were trying to bury forever at the Great Pyramids, they got a monument instead.
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Finally, a dream as it should be. Pleasant as a day in May and simple wish-fulfillment. I was 30 again, she was 24. She was light in my arms. I picked her up and spun her around and said "Let's spend the day together, you want to?"

She laughed, "Sure, I'm not doing anything. It's been awhile."

"We'll go visit some friends of mine. And my brother."

And for hours it was just me and her again, in Nashville. We visited our families, friends. Everyone in that dream had a grand time. They were all impressed with her and impressed with me. Some mysteries about her father and her brothers were cleared up nicely, with a laugh.

I woke up in mid-air and floated down to a smothering bed. Mariah May tattooed my sub-conscious 15 years ago. This remains the central mystery of my life. Something about her made me a mystery to myself.

The one good nico-dream defeated me completely. I took the patch off and waited until the poison left my system so I could enjoy my first smoke in ten days.