A KILLER OF A DREAM

Okay, so I want to write about the dream I had last night, because I’ve been awake for several hours now, and I’ve already forgotten parts of it.

It starts with me busting into a public library in Miami, which may strike some of you as a reprehensible act, but I distinctly recall having justifiable cause: I had a book that was overdue, and the library was closed. Also, I want to remind you readers that this was a public library in the city of Miami. I grew up there. Believe me, most of them could only be improved by having their entranceways smashed in by a four door sedan going at about seventy miles-per-hour.

Strangely enough, however, what I’ve just described doesn’t constitute the best part of the dream. Moments later, I find myself back in Brooklyn, at JFK Airport specifically. I am waiting for the air train, which will carry me to the subway. Suddenly, the cell phone in my jacket pocket starts to ring.

I answer it, and find it to be a voice that I instantly recognize. It’s the cheerful-sounding woman from the temp agency I worked at several months ago. She mentions the assignment she told me about the other day (In my dream-memory, I remember our conversation, and telling her that I would think about it, and give her a call back, which I never did). Now she wants to know if I’m going to take it. I politely apologize for not calling her back sooner, but I regret to inform her that I have another job now as a reporter. So I’m going to have to pass. Once more, I apologize.

My answer does not please her. I feel her straining to be polite as she reiterates that the work is right up my alley, administrative blah-blah-blah in the creative department somewhere. Again, I tell her no. This time, she gets unnecessarily pushy.

“Phil,” she says. “You are going to take this assignment.”

But there’s a funny thing about the dream Phil X, besides the fact that he’s a Steve McQueen wannabe who’s never heard of either subtlety or a book drop: He’s got backbone.

“Are you threatening me?” I reply (Somewhere, back in the realm of fluffy green pillows and bed sheets, hairs are standing up on the sleeping Phil X’s neck). The cell phone line goes dead.

Now the scene changes to somewhere in Brooklyn. I’m walking with someone I actually know in New York, and as she explains to me how something terrible almost happened to her in that very neighborhood, I know why I’m there: I’m supposed to apartment-sit for her while she and her boyfriend go on a trip. Everything is good, except that we’re sitting next to the window of her second floor apartment, and I can see a car pulling up out front. A man with broad shoulders and a black suit gets out. Dust blows up around his ankles. I interpret this as a sign of impending trouble.

I duck out the back way and start walking down the street. But out of the corner of my eye, I can see the man following. And I know who he is: Some thug the temp agency sent to make me do their mercenary bidding. But I’m a free man, not a mercenary (Or maybe I’m wrong; more about that later).

There is a supermarket just ahead. Once inside, I make a beeline for the small bottles of soda. This is what I need. The important thing is the glass bottle. I grab one and keep walking, cocking my head at every turn to make sure the goon is still behind me. He is. I wait until we are alone together in the meat aisle to abruptly turn around, which takes him by surprise.

“I’m not going back,” I say.

He whips out his pistol and fires off a round.

I raise the bottle to about chest level. It catches the bullet, but doesn’t stop it from passing through, and into my left shoulder. Blood spurts out, and mingles in mid-air with rivulets of brown sugar water and shards of broken glass. It’s a slow motion ballet of tiny reflective surfaces. The momentum of the bullet, meanwhile, whips me around. But I manage to perform an impressive 360-degree turn, and chuck the handle of the broken bottle like it’s a kung fu star. The broken neck of the bottle, laden with jagged edges, catches the would-be assassin in the throat. He gasps, grabs at the severed artery in his neck with ever-decreasing strength, then falls into a twitching heap, blood pooling around his head.

But that still isn’t the best part. That happens after I turn him over, rifle through his suit jacket, and find his cell phone. Once I’m outside again, I call back the last person to use his number. It’s hardly surprising when the person to pick up is Miss Cheerful-Sounding from the agency.

“Hello,” she says.

I stand there in silence, my anger welling up like hot coffee at the bottom of a pot.

“Hello,” she says again.

“It’s me,” I say.

There’s a pause. At length, she starts talking again, trying to sound as cool and nonchalant as she possibly can. But she knows where things sit; we even start reciting some really good dialogue from “Heat”—and that’s the best part.

“I, uh, sent someone over to talk to you,” she says. “I haven’t heard back from him. Is... everything okay?”

“There’s nobody at the end of this phone line,” I say.

“What?” she says, her level-headedness starting to waver.

“I said there’s no one at the end of this phone line,” I say. “You know why? Because I’m talking to a dead person.” Then I hang up and toss the phone away.

The next thing I know, I’m back in Miami. Specifically, at my parents’ house, but no one is at home. It doesn’t really matter, since what I want is in the backyard. I go out the back door, around the side of the house, to the tool shed, where I dig around until I find the cache of small arms that’s there for no good reason, except possibly revenge.

Unfortunately, just when the dream was getting good, I woke up.