I will never understand the necessity of dreams. I understand how a dream is created in the mind, but it's those same dreams that scare me out of sleeping some nights.
I gather that every face, every location, everything in a dream is extrapolated from a lifetime of memories. It all jumbles together until you're unable to recognize anything. Faces of loved ones are misshapen and constantly shifting in the dream world. But my lack of recognition is not what frightens me. It's how I act in these dreams. There's a monster in my subconscious, and it's name is Andrew.
Scene:
Me walking alone down the middle of a street. Decrepit houses line both sides of the road in clumped masses. The street may be sloping downhill whilst simultaneously climbing to a peak. It may have been mid afternoon or dusk. I have a smile on my face and I pause to light a cigarette. I pass by a group of guys lounging on the front lawn of one house. I can feel the cold stares I'm receiving from them as they all go silent. I'm twenty feet away when the youngest is sent stalking after me. Since this was my dream, I knew where he was; I knew he was following me. I knew this was his initiation into the "sit-in-the-front-yard-on-these-ratty-old-sofas" gang.
He broke from is stalk into a jog and yelled, "Hey!" I wheel around and the kid approaches me, his brow wrinkled in fury. He can't be older than fourteen. He's reaching across his body with his right hand. It disappears under his shirt and reappears moments later with glinting steel. Down the side of the gun barrel are the stenciled symbols: Colt Auto .45 . "Give me your money," he says.
I'm broke, I tell him. He cocks the hammer, which I've always found to be a silly action on a semi-automatic pistol.
"Give me your fucking money," he growls again. He's inching closer. I open my palms outward towards him briefly in the international sign for please don't fucking shoot me in the face. I have no money. That's the honest truth. In my dream, I recall having just spent quarters all counted out in stacks of four to pay for the pack of smokes in my pocket. That, my zippo, cellphone, and my empty wallet are the only things I'm carrying.
I don't have any money, I insist. He's livid now. Does he think all white people are walkin' around with stacks of bills in their front pockets? He's within arms length from me, the pistol twitching at the end of a scrawny limb. I know he's about to shoot me. His fingers dance on the grip and he resettles his trigger finger.
That's when I make my move.
I slap the gun with my left hand in an inside-to-outside movement, clutching around the cold barrel, and making sure it's pointed at the empty street behind me. There's a nerve cluster right below the elbow joint on the inside of the forearm. It helps control your ability to make a fist (try it now... make a fist and feel the muscles contract in your arm). That's where I hit him with my right, chopping my hand into his arm. Unable to keep a grip on the gun, his face contorts and he yells. I smash the pistol into his young face, see the spew of blood from his nose. His "friends" are rousing from their resting places like slinking cats. I know the 1911 holds seven rounds. Excluding the whimpering, bleeding child at my feet, there's six of his gang about forty paces away. One scrambles for his weapon, and I shoot him dead from a single shot. I pick them off one by one, as they spray wildly into the street. Asphalt chips and the metallic pang of parked cars fills the air. One stray round catches a tire, which deflates almost immediately. I drop to a knee and make two more kills. There are two rounds left in the gun, and only one of the gang is still standing. Gun smoke and vibrations whirl and bounce off the houses. The last one is sighting his pistol on me. I shoot faster, taking off three fingers of the hand gripping the pistol. The round touches off the dormant rounds still inside his clip and a concussive blast knocks him flat. There's one round left.
I clear the chamber. Hold the single round with its hollowed tip up to the streetlight. The child at my feet is whimpering. I dismantle the pistol and gently place the round in front of him. I turn and start walking, reaching in my pocket for my cellphone. Before I wake up, I've reached '911' and explained to them what just happened.
There was an attempted mugging, and I protected myself, I state clearly in the receiver, I'll wait for police to arrive and give them my story. Send the Coroner.
I squat down by the child and he looks up at me with his broken face, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Why?" I ask.
And then I wake up...
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