Strange dreams and the Master Mechanic

Strange dreams, nightmares. I pull my molars out one by one, from front to back. Clean to the root, strings of blood and yellow puss. I dream the interpretation given by all the books: oh, this is about fearing loss of attraction. I fight the dream, I try to shout and wake myself and when I wake I tell myself I won't go back to nightmares.

But there I am, a child bride. Who am I marrying? Why am I marrying? I'm going through the rituals. I brush long hair I've never had. Make-up. I'm about to put on a heavy sateen dress, a beautiful baptismal childlike dress. And he calls; my ex, my nightmare betrothed.

Why aren't you here? I say.

I'm moving in with so-and-so tomorrow, he says.

You can't, we're getting married, we have to live together after today, I say.

Fuck you, he says, I don't care. Exactly as it was.

But, you can't live with so-and-so, we have to get married today, we have to live together.

I don't give a fuck. Fuck you, he says.



I sat on my couch in the morning sun making googly eyes at my dog and theorizing about his deep love for Thom Yorke and The Postal Service. I sat outside in the morning sun and saw my dog looking at me through the window and thought how funny it would be if he jumped out.



I drove to the mechanics to get a quote on the Jeep. Half an hour into the quote he tells me his friend died this week of Hep-C. He was a real bastard. It's funny, they went to Wilson High School together, and they were both voted least likely to live past age 17. And his friend, he was 56. A fucking waste. No one cared but his mother. He lived fast. They raced cars together when they were younger. And he had such physical prowess, you know? He'd drive up to the track and hop out of the car with his shirt off, he should've gone to Athens, made something of himself. He had so much potential, and the mechanic, he says he waited his whole life for his friend to make good on it. His family owned a furniture company. The building on the waterfront. Yeah, I know it. His family gave him a job. And he'd go visit his friend and he'd just blow it off, go have lunch with him for the rest of the day. His family had over 100 employees. And they reached the point when they had to decide whether to keep the company going, and they shut it down because, you know, he just wasn't interested.



I stayed for at least an hour. Said take care and good luck with the details on the new race track.



Got home and someone had tied my dog to my front porch. My neighbor left a post-it note, found Dylan in her front yard. The bastard, he did it. He jumped out the fucking window. Jesus.



Thought about the mechanic. How in another decade I would pull him to my breast and kiss him telling him the things I can't say with words. How every time he cursed his friend I felt like crying I know how much he loved him how he waited his whole life for this guy who had it all to wake up and take life by the balls how he busted his ass to overcome that least likely to live past age 17 to have this cluttered little shop all lined with pictures from 1972 memories of back when he raced and the whole time he watched his friend, this guy with all the charisma in the world, the world on his plate, and no hunger just fuck it up and he loved him he fucking loved him so much he hated him and he died, he died without making good on any of it and the hope and the waiting and the memories it was such a waste and he'll never know what to do with that, you just don't get over that, I know, I know.