20070628

Psychological opinions required

A combination of things - work, Los Pedros impending departure, my family, my constantly growing grass (not that kind) and work (it deserves two mentions) - have been on my mind a lot lately. Last night found me unwinding on Los Couch with a couple of Caucasians (thank you, Gary) after which I took 45 minutes to watch the last 8 minutes of Rio Bravo (interesting flick for another story). Pretty standard, really. The dream that ensued was not. Here's what I remember.

Los Pedros and I were hauling ass down a muddy dirt road in a parking lot tram like the ones at Disney. It was just the three of us on the tractor in the front with five empty passenger cars behind us. The landscape was country hillside with tall grass (about the same height as my lawn) and a few trees scattered here and there. Sirens could be heard off in the distance.

This opening dream sequence lasted about 20 seconds which is about the time that TP and I 'coached' LP off the tram. It was a teary goodbye, but the sirens were closing in; we were almost out of road; and, we were near the Jizzetta. I had/have no doubt that LP would have been great in outsmarting the fuzz, but who was going to pick-up KP from daycare? More importantly, she had yet to be implicated in the slowly thickening plot.

TP and I tried to unravel the facts as we raced the tram away from the sirens and LP. We were both in normal gear, jeans, t-shirts and tennis shoes. But, we both had big Crescent wrenches in our back pockets. These wrenches were part of the plot. I'm not sure how, but they were. Almost like weapons used in a crime, but we were not getting rid of them. Lord knows we had plenty of chances to dump them, but the wrenches needed to stay.

As the tram crashed through the hurricane fence, the scenery changed abruptly as it can do in a dream. We were still on the tram, but were now on a wet street, like you always see in night scenes of a movie. The grassy countryside was no longer behind us, but the sirens were closer. We needed to lose the tram.

We drove the tram around the back of an isolated rental car lot to secure a new form of transportation since the keys are always in the cars. For some reason TP wanted to ditch his wrench. He wiped off his prints and wedged under the orange vinyl seat cushion in the tractor. Then, we climbed onto the roof of the first passenger carrier and jumped over the razor wire topping the security fence of the car lot.

This place wasn't Avis. I remember it appearing like the used car lot in Silver Streak where Richard Pryor steals the Fiat. We picked out a BMW Z-4. It was fast and maneuverable and my subconscious sleeping noggin was probably more comfortable since I've driven these on a slick pad, which is very similar to the wet streets you see in the movies in night scenes.

The BMW cut a quick path down a busy divided highway. The highway had characteristics that evoked US1 through the Florida Keys or US98 through the Florida Panhandle. I'm not sure how we teleported from Texas to Florida, but then again, the sirens were no longer nearby. We also shifted time; 2 AM on a weekday became Noon on a Saturday. Don't know how I know that, but that was the feeling that I had.

The unusual thing was that the neutral ground dividing the four lanes of speeding traffic housed small businesses. Coffee shops, tanning salons and strip joints whizzed by us in a single file line. The buildings were evenly placed at quarter mile intervals and were situated with their entrances perpendicular to the traffic flow.

My mind's eye was still trying to read the business signs, but that was tough when it was also trying to generate the next scenes of a car speeding down a highway at 100 mph. In a blink, I cut a 180 in the Beemer and parallel parked it against the flow of traffic next to a sunglasses joint. TP and I were in and out of the store in another blink, both of us sporting new shades. I still had my Crescent wrench.

I was again seated in the left side of the car with TP on the right, but somehow the car had transformed into a right-hand drive model. Same everything else, but the steering wheel was gone.

Just as we were about to pull away from the curb, a Hispanic family materialized in the car. Now the mom was in the right-hand driver position with TP, the Papi and nino wedged between the bucket seats and the top, which was down. I got the sense that they were Cuban, which is probably my subconscious telling me that were definitely in The Keys and not on the Redneck Riviera.

The lady pulled us away from the curb. (Highway to the) Danger Zone started blasting from the stereo. [Note: Danger Zone also blasts in my head every time I drive through a locale densely populated with Asian drivers thanks to J-Le's power of suggestion. She posits that Asian drivers can't drive well. I have witnessed this first hand, but always chalked it up to an isolated incident and berated myself for being racist. But, I have to no reason to doubt her. She's Asian.] I was too busy digging my new shades to really notice the song or anything weird about the current situation, aside from the fact that we had four adults and one toddler sans carseat crammed into a sports coupe.

Then I saw the headlights. They were ahead in the distance about five miles or so and closing rapidly. "Um, I think we're on the wrong side of the road," I suggested to the driver. She mashed the accelerator into the floor; the car lurched forward.

The headlights were much closer now. It was apparent that the road didn't curve or bend or dip. The headlights were at our 12 o'clock and were growing. TP and I were both screaming at the lady to pull over. She drove faster. Perhaps she was thinking that she could out run us.

We passed a motorcycle cop who'd set-up a speed trap in the neutral ground. Passed is actually a generous interpretation. We nearly ran over the sumbitch. Four black and white units appeared between us and the headlights. Their rollers were rolling. Blue. Red. White. Blue. Red. White.

"Oh, shit. This lady is going to kill us in a head-on collision with a cop. This will not end well," I thought.

Just then the dream blinked again. The new scene was surreal. We were all hand cuffed around a bamboo patio table situated in a large, one room tiki hut that functioned as an interim interrogation room/police station for the Florida troopers. All of the cops were dressed like the cops in the Matrix. Weird.

The cops were super nice. They offered us coffee, water and smokes, but not the keys to the cuffs. Turns out that they suspected the family of being illegals who carjacked us since neither of the adults had licenses or spoke English. However, I fail to understand how a little, cute lady would have carjacked me with a toddler. Then I saw my Crescent wrench in an evidence bag laying on the bamboo table top. They must have viewed that as a weapon.

I gawked at the wrench in the bag wondering how it really fit into the whole scenario. TP looked anxious, but said nothing; he just stared out into space. Two cops were preparing to transport the family to another facility.

The cop by the coffee pot interrupted my gawking, "Anything I should know about this car?"

"Nope, it's just a rental. The contract and my sunglasses were stolen from the glove box when we stopped for gas. That's why we stopped earlier - to get new shades."

He reached for the receiver of a large black rotary phone.

The dream stopped.

2 comments:

MicNola said...

Got a Cliff's Notes version of that? I'm at work!

Dabbler said...

Dude. Let me know when you have your fundraiser for therapy sessions...I'll kick in a donation. It's a good cause...right up there with the orphans in Cambodia.