(Dreamscape. Image courtesy of Jamajurabaev. Rights reserved.)
So, at one o’clock the barrage started as prelude for what has come to be known as Pickett’s Charge, 150 summers ago on the fields of Gettysburg. Day Three. It must have seemed like a dream, waiting to walk that mile into the guns and expecting to die.
I have walked the ground over which the charge was made a few times, part of the benefit of having the old family homestead just up the road. I have walked it with my Dad, as a boy, and with my own sons as a man.
It never fails to move me, and once this slaughter was done, and General Lee asked General Pickett to reform his division for another assault, Pickett walked away, saying “I have no division.”
Later, the Armies departed the field, Lee returning to Culpeper, VA, and Meade back to the defenses around Washington. They often say that Meade lost the confidence of the press- and Lincoln- for his failure to engage and harry Lee as he withdrew.
I have no opinion on the matter, and will leave those things to the Civil War Roundtable folks. Meanwhile, I am only now emerging from the fugue state of the most powerful and vivid dreams I have had in years.
I rarely dream, or better said, rarely remember those periods of REM sleep.
There are exceptions, of course. There were incredible dreams in the first nights at sea, when I was uncharacteristically not self-medicated before bed with vodka. It is almost an argument for sobriety, though of course I contend that people who do not smoke or drink don’t actually live longer.
It just seems that way.
Of late, when I do recall what happened in the mental passageways of the night, it is normally a variation on the running dream. You may have them yourself. They can be quite spectacular, like the variant in which I find myself standing on a broad patio overlooking the ocean in some place that feels like La Jolla, holding a drink with a crowd of nice people when things begin to happen in the sky- objects not from here- and then the inevitable arrival of some Bad Things from which, in the end, I am running for my life and knowing that it is in vain.
Some people run across their dreamscape. Others fall. Those are simple enough to figure out, and don’t require Freud to assist. I get them when I am scared or uncertain about what is happening. Fight or flight.
The one this morning had nuance, texture, and people who told me things as if I was supposed to remember. That was unusual.
I was up at three-thirty for the usual reason, wondering if I could get back to sleep. I tossed for a moment or two, and actually did drift off. That is when the dream began, and my eyes must have looked like I was watching Wimbledon under closed lids. It played out over the next hour, in real time.
It started this way: There was a farewell party in the District I packed the Panzer for it- gifts, knick-knacks, and drove over the bridge into Georgetown. I had a gun with me, of course, though in real life that would be a major problem.
One of my old Bosses was hosting the party- I recognized her immediately, and was genuinely glad to see her. I was supported by my younger son, and the cast of characters- The Doctor, educators, colleagues, was vivid.
At some point I had to move the car, you know about how crazy the parking is down there, and the party went on into the evening. There was nothing but good fellowship and a bit of pensive wondering about what was to come. Gifts were exchanged, and merriment had. Then the view shifted into the wreckage of the post-party. It was coming on morning, I realized.
I realized that the parking regulations changed at nine, and I walked around the corner to see that the Panzer was the last vehicle still at the curb, and the advisory lights were swiftly changing.
I would get towed for sure if I did not move the thing. No keys. Despite that minor problem, I was able to open the door- had I left it unlocked in the city? Another impossibility as I rolled it forward through a gate and almost into the side of a red brick building.
A short wiry man with dark hair and a stubble beard told me I could leave it there pending return with the keys. Then back to the party to look for them amid the wreckage of gifts and merriment.
A youth group the Boss was mentoring was there, and though I knew I had to get back to retrieve the car, it was important to talk to them about the future, though honestly, after speaking to them, I was not sure that they were going to go very far, mentoring or not.
After a reprise of the party and its origin- why did the Doctor have a briefcase filled with pistols? I returned to the brick building which was a garage. The Panzer was up on a hoist- I asked the little man why, and he said it was purely routine.
I asked for him to get it down, and I looked in my backpack and sure enough, the keys were there all along. I looked up to see the Panzer down, and an encased in a large metal box with an aperture on the side. A man who I was confident was an Afghan was working on it with a crowbar, and he started to rip out the back seats.
I screamed at him in the vilest of terms to cease and desist, (for the sake of my neighbors I do hope this was a silent dream and not in SurroundSound) but it was to no avail. I was held back somehow, either by a barrier or by confederates of the little weasel, who were all around me with their faces drawn in precise detail- working guys. No particular animus to me, just working stiffs doing a job.
The little man- he was a dead ringer for that asshole on the eighth floor at Big Pink- assured me all was fine, right up until the Afghan man threw a switch and activated the mechanism of the crusher.
I watched in horror as my car was reduced to a silver block of metal. And then things got strange.
By turns my son and party guests were with me, all concerned, and we unfolded the metal box, looking for personal items. We found some, miraculously intact, but I was looking for the pistol that had belonged to Great Aunt Bly’s husband. Guns are forbidden in the District, of course, and I was anxious about that. Then I was looking for the weasel, who had an evil grin of the self-satisfied bureaucrat.
“I’m going to make it right,” he said, laughing, he said. “You are fucked.”
An impossibly tall and thin woman was watching with interest, She was an attorney named Kimber. She thought I had a good case, duh, and told me to text her. “Kimber,” she said, as if making a point to make me remember the name across the veil of sleep and into the real world.
Then the weasel was poking me in the chest as he stopped telling me things were going to be OK and that I would get out if I knew what was good for me, and I threatened to bite his finger off.
The finger, unfortunately, belonged to one of his confederates. Then I awoke.
Before I even stumbled into the kitchen to make the coffee I wrote some notes, astonished at how vivid the images had been.
That is most of it, though the connective details that linked the dream narrative are now fading. That woman who wanted me to remember her name was as real as anything in the daylight world, and I really do want to go down to the garage and see if the Panzer is still there.
And I am also going to be on high alert in case I run into any tall, thin attorneys named ‘Kimber.’
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com