Toil and trouble

In an orphanage, it’s a big, creaky building much like an old house. I am my current age, but all the rest of the kids are little kid age. The place is run by a group of witches, that look like the Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy characters from the movie Hocus Pocus. I am upstairs with a group of kids and the witches start chasing us. The kids run down the staircase that winds down several floors and I follow, then stop and turn around. I stand on the stairs ready to fight so that the kids have a chance to get away. But then I jump over the handrail and onto a large pipe across from the rail. The pipe has large brackets ever couple of feet when the pipe changes direction or gets smaller as it descends. I slide down the pipe, past the kids, to the bottom. I have to get out. I jump of the pipe to duck out a back screen door, but see two of the witches outside in the alley catching rats to eat. I turn back inside. When the witches go past, I leave the house and cross the alley to a gravel parking lot. I walk up to a parked van with several punk, tough looking guys. I try to convince them to help me fight the witches. I don’t know if they are normal guys or warlocks.

Worst park ever

I am walking through a large obstacle course. It has the structure of a wooden roller coaster. The obstacles are spread out over where the track would be and are staffed as if it is an amusement park. I see Mr. Clean logos on the pipes running along the side. A girl with a hose tries to spray me, but I duck. Then there is a line of people waiting to complete the next task, throwing a ball through a hole next to a clown face on a hanging tarp. Kids are trying to sneak past people legs to cut in line. Teenagers are paid minimum wage to run the booth and wear the clown outfit.

I pull Stacy out of the road.

Flirting doesn't pay

Me and another guy are walking through a park. We stop at a stone table where some some girls are playing cards. They are piles of chips changing hands with each round. The girls flirt, thinking that the guy I’m with is rich. One asks me something and I reply, “His rich friends don’t give me any money.” Then I say, “what’s your name?” The first girl thinks I’m talking to her and starts to answer. I interrupt, point to her friend and say, “No, I was talking to her.” The first girl is upset, but the second is flattered. People start to gather around, I think they are watching the card game. But they are really starring at me and the guy I’m with as if something is wrong with us. I think that we look normal, but the people are acting like we’re too normal. We slowly walk through the crowd and start to leave the park. When we reach the street, we are arrested by a single detective in an old fashioned cop uniform. He throws us into the back of a truck that has school bus type seats in the back. It is full of other prisoners. The truck starts moving and I fall off the back. I grab a hold of the bumper. And hang on for dear life as the truck tears down streets and around corners. The truck stops in front of a small concert hall. The detective is leading the guy I was with inside, he is wearing a suit. I follow them, but stop because I am wearing prison stripes. The truck that I just let go of, tips over onto its side as if in slow motion and then it flips upside down and slides down the street.

Party time

Picking the strings of an electric guitar with 2 black kids lying on the floor of my childhood room with me. It sounds like I can really play along I am just running my fingers along the strings. I turn the guitar upside down and play the top of the neck instead of the base. It actually sounds pretty cool. Then a tall man enters complaining about the noise or type of music we’re playing. I’m scared of this guy, who is he and how did he get in? He steps into the room from the doorway. Suddenly, Dad is behind him and sneaks his arm around the guy’s neck. Dad’s hand is about to close over the guy’s mouth. It looks as though is going to jerk the guy out the room while gagging and choking him. I am relived that Dad is there to rescue me. Then I see a look of concern on Dad’s face, as if he can’t hurt anyone. He hesitates, then lowers his arm before it even touches the guy. Instead Dad and the guy back out of the room. I don’t hear anything and worry if Dad is ok. I jump up and run into the hall. I see a group of young guys standing by the front door and living room talking to Dad. David and John from Cleveland are trying to explain why they brought their friends to our house. Dad is ready to kick them all out. Then I see another guy on his knees in the hall bathroom, he pukes into the hall toilet. I tell Dad that these guys can’t go anywhere. Dad already realizes that they are no shape to leave. The same guy in the bathroom or another one of them throws up on my shoulder.

Go to a house in a suburb with Sharon. It is her parent’s house (I don’t know if it is her Mom or Dad’s place). There is an old man next door hitting golf balls into a pitching green. The entire lawn of his backyard is covered in golf balls. We go inside and hang out at the kitchen or dining room table. We make plans to go out later, discuss which bar we want to meet up at and when. But there is a TV show on at 9 that I want to watch.

Decorate

Stacy and I are loading my stuff into the back seat of a car. There are two cardboard boxes about the size of the ones that printer paper or maybe cases of bottle beer come in. They are full of liquor and I am nervous about taking them. I try to give them to PJ who is standing in the driveway. But he doesn’t really want to put them in his house. I don’t want to have to put them in my locker at school, so I don’t know what to do with them.

In an office, a man is showing me three instruments that used to catch criminal. He points out the first two and tells me their names. The third he calls a “criminologist” and it is a white rectangle the size of a thick pad of paper with a thin hose coming out of the front top. There is a pen or microphone attached to the other end of the tube. Either by writing or speaking it records something on the pad.

A tall, black guy drops off a large roll of worn paper at my desk. He drops it on the floor behind my chair, we speak for a moment then he walks off. I unroll it and it is the Walt Disney World Pirates of the Caribbean Poster that I used to own. I hang it on the cubical wall behind my chair, then move it to the wall to my right. Someone says cool poster and I look around my cube and see Krissy. My cube wall extends and is also a wall of her cube. Is has the effect of creating a narrow hallway from my desk to hers. I offer to remove the poster, in fact I want to move it because I don’t want to share it with her. But she likes where it is hanging.

Access

On a monorail at an airport. A woman runs up but the door is closed and she misses the train. It pulls out and travels above a freeway. I hear someone say, “Those girls are naked.” I look out the window and there is a large group of girls standing on a rooftop deck. Some are fully dressed and some are topless. They look as if nothing usual is going on. The group is walking towards a stairwell in the center of the deck. My eye goes to one girl wearing nothing but black underwear that almost looks like a swimsuit bottom. Her breasts bounce as she walks. I scan the rest of the group and notice that most of the other girls look much younger or at least have much smaller breasts. I think what if those girls are just kids and look away. As I turn my head, I notice that several of the girls have crossed their arms across their chests.

I am walking along the sidewalk of a town that does not allow liquor to be sold after midnight. I go into a restaurant and ask for a table. The hostess tells me that they are closed and I ask, “What about the back room?”

Timing

Going to a movie with Blambo and a group of other people. They all want to go to an earlier showing.

I am in line to go through security at an airport. I am carrying a tennis bag with a fitted, zipper pocket on the side for a tennis racket. There is a taped grip handle sticking out of the fitted sleeve of the pocket. Security personal set my bag on the ground behind the conveyor belt instead of sending it through the x-ray machine. A woman in front of me is looking at typed page with several other typed papers stapled to it. There are corrections marked in red. She or one of the security guys flips through the pages. Her boss calls her into his office to go over the changes, but he is really going to sexually harass her. I don’t know how I know this and there is nothing I can do.

Let's meet later

I’m with Mom and Dad sitting in our old van with the thin stripes down the sides. The stripes are the colors of a rainbow, but not in a rainbow pattern. The van in parked along a deserted sidewalk down the street from an office building. Danny and Sharon walk by and almost keep going until I climb out of the van and call their name. They say hello and keep walking as if it is no surprise or big deal to see me. I go with them towards the building to go up to their office. Either Brooke or Stacy is with me. I turn back and tell Mom and Dad to come along. They start to follow, leaving the van doors open and unlocked. The interior lights are also on. Danny and Sharon continue walking to the building. I follow slowly, waiting for Mom and Dad. Danny, Sharon and Stacy or Brooke enter the building. I make sure Mom and Dad are following, then enter through tall glass and brass doors. I see the group across the crowded lobby. I catch up to Danny and Sharon as Mom and Dad enter. They are wearing 70s gym shorts and T-shirts that are way too tight. The shirts have banded collars and characters on them. I think Dad’s is Woodstock.

Wheel and deal

I’m standing outside of a fast-food restaurant driving to buy weed from the cars that pull up to order at the drive-thru. But the drive thru speaker isn’t behind the building, it’s at the same side as the window and across the parking lot. So when a car pulls up to order, they stop at the curb away from the building and order through their passenger-side window. A car or two pulls up and I try to buy weed from each driver. I have a password which a rap lyric to a song that was popular a few years ago. I say it to each car, expecting the driver to hand over a bag of pot. I beat up town car pulls up and I try a different lyric. The driver is an ugly black man with a pug face and a two-inch afro that is grey in patches. When I say the password, he asks, “What do you want?” and I ask if he has any pot. He hands me one very skinny joint and says “that’ll be 30 bucks.” I think he’s nuts and offer 15 which I still think is too much although I’m not at all sure how much a baggie costs in NYC. He goes off on my offer and almost starts to yell about the primo quality of this marijuana calling it by a descriptive name based on where it was grown. I’m a little worried by his outburst. Will he attract attention or is there a chance he might freak out and attack me? I also wonder if the pot is really that great. So we settle on a price of $20.

Late to tailgate

I am waiting to write the specials on a chalkboard in a restaurant.

Talking to McKenzie, we’re both going to a Jimmy Buffett concert. He tells me he got his ticket for 50 bucks and holds up two of them. He his taking his girlfriend. I say that I paid like 500 dollars for my ticket and ask how he got his so cheap. He says he used Priceline.com. I’m going to the concert alone, so we decide to meet up for the show. I have to go home and change first. It’s alright after 8:30, so I better hurry. I pull into garage, it is raining. Then I’m leaving house in a hurry to meet him. I am wearing a gray sweater and black slacks, not right for Buffett but it’s too late to change. It’s already 9:10. I try to grab some beer in the garage, but there is only melting ice in the cooler. I find the receipt for my ticket in my jacket packet. It only has a total of like 60 or 70 bucks, but it’s hard to figure out because there are two columns of numbers.