Thursday, September 19, 2002

Jackpot

Dave and I are in a huge arcade. He is in a corner playing a video game and I walk past a row of slot machines. But the one I play is odd because I pull a handle in the middle of floor all by itself, then walk through the arcade and around a corner to the actual machine which by the time I get there is already about to stop spinning it’s wheels. I walk back to the handle to try again. After I pull, I walk back to the machine and there is a crowd around it. All three wheels have hit the same crazy symbol, something like Super Jacks represented by a giant “J”. There are large silver coins piling up inn front of the machine. But I never hear the cling, cling, cling of the coins falling that I love so much. I start running my fingers through the coins, even digging them out from beside the machine where they are over-flowing. There is a digital read-out right below the wheels that reads how large the pay out is. It is a 1 or 5 followed by 6 or 8 zeros. I leave to find Dave or because I have a job interview. When I tell Dave about all the money I won, he doesn’t believe me and won’t come with me to look or help pick up the money. He says there’s no way I won whatever thousands of dollars in an arcade. When I return to the machine, the pile of coins is gone. I turn to the manager who is nearby arranging large plastic cups of pennies. I ask him where he put my money and he just shrugs and says something. Only then do I realize that the crowd has disappeared with my money.

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Messy

Brooke is trying to find a parking space is a dark lot. It has a college feel. She pulls around the lot and drives over a curb to get in a space. There is a building in the middle of the lot and on the opposite side is a small group of people. Brooke and I join the group under the awning they stand under. A maintenance man is repairing the aluminum structure of the awning. I notice it buckling or tearing and wonder if everyone is in danger if it collapses. But no one looks concerned and I forget about it as Brooke and I leave the group. Brooke then tells the maintenance man that he needs to fix something else and get a memorial built over her. He dismisses her. Brooke huffs away very upset. Seeing this, the man tries to find out how he can help. But Brooke is already walking away, she is too upset to respond to my calls to her. The maintenance man asks what denomination we are. I reply Judaism and he tells me a phone number. It is some numbers and the word guilt followed by more numbers. (something like 010-GUILT-22) He says it is the number of the counselor or someone in charge of that department.

I have just moved into a huge apartment. It seems to be one giant room that has a series of rooms built into out of plywood. There are also random structures made of the same wood for example a palm tree. I follow two guys (my new roommates) running through it. We crawl through tunnels and up ladders. There are toys and junk all over the floors and the kitchen is littered with beer bottles on every surface. We end up sitting on the second floor overlooking all the way down to the first. The ceiling is huge. The walls are decorated with balloons and posters. One giant one reads, “All you need is” and a bigger one below it says “Love.”

I show up to work in a kitchen as a dishwasher, but I am wearing slacks. I roll up the sleeves of the thick dress shirt I am wearing and survey the place. It is a mess. There are dishes and food stacked everywhere. My Kenneth Cole shoes with the worn soles are sliding through a layer of grease and slime on the floor.