Ghost...
I was sitting on a couch in a Hamburg shopwindow watching the sun come up. Or it might've been Amsterdamm. Some northern europa burg and me in a whore's front parlor, in fact, me the whore. I cannot say there was any inference or reference in it, I cannot remember what I was wearing or anything about the trade. That is the nature of dreams, they are what they are, and you just roll with them, if they are not believable your brain changes the channel or you wake up, at least I do.
And this was one of those extraordinarily vivid dreams in which some signifigance is imbued. That is, the sort that wakes you up, out of a sound sleep, not because they are too bizarre or incomprehensible, rather the reverse. Because they are so streamlined and to the point that they are like a mental kick in the head.
At any rate I gave it no thought at the time. I was just there, in it. And it was somewhere up north, robins egg blue sky, slow dawn coming at 4 or 5 in the morning, small birds twittering and the buildings all high narrow brick built affairs of 3 and 4 and even 5 stories with fancy stepped eaves and ornate door and window treatments, and me sittting there watching it all about 4 feet above the pavement in a wide first floor shop window.
There was no one about. A hint of sea in the wide emptiness beyond the immediate houses to the north. a smell of salt. And other than the birds not a soul in sight. The sun was not yet visible, it might'nt be visible down this narrow canyon of a street until midday, if then, but the sky overhead was growing gradually brighter.
Someone turned the far corner and headed kitty corner across the street towards me. Who's this then? And why? The figure came on and resolved into a girl, a young woman, wearing a belted tan raincoat and a head scarf. It was Julia Anson.
And she came up to my window and paused, looked in at me, though with no real connection, no eye contact, and she was crying.
I did not know what to think. My situation was my situation and it was not particularly onerous or severe. I was not badly treated, I had shelter, was warm and dry, and possessed a modicum of status. It is certainly kind of you to feel bad for me, that I had not more options and scope in life, that I was roped into a mean lifestyle, but it is not necessary to cry about it, I certainly am not.
The tears rolled down her face, she looked absolutely foresaken, and after half a minute or so she turned and walked on, passing immediately out of my sight. No words or thoughts had been exchanged, but I felt from her a great sadness.
And I woke up. Well that was weird. I had not thought about Julia Anson in a donkey's years. I'd known her from about 6th grade. She was one of them all A chicks. Someone who could do no wrong, academically, and she was also one of that crowd that lived over on Thales St. She had about 8 or 10 younger siblings, nice catholic family, as were'nt we all. She had a disposition that was sunny beyond all imagining. That is whether from family or friends or just native disposition I never ever heard her use a cross word, much less swear, nor seen her express anything else other than joy and manifold satisfaction with the world and all our places in it in all the short time (6 or 7 yr's) I knew her.
And I did not know her at all well. I knew her to speak to, as a classmate, and that was about it, though I also knew at least two of her brothers as people I often played in scratch football games with. There was one thing about her affected me personally and that was that she never expressed anything other than amity and good fellowship towards me personally. Never a hint of distaste or the slightest nose wrinkle, much less a look of sly amusement. Nowadays I look perfectly white, I don't know why, I've got hair practically down to my elbows, missing half my teeth, and lord only knows what gross melange my personal dialect comes across as, but back then the tarbrush stuck out a bit, I know, I've seen pictures, and the most usual misguess as to my origins was greek or italian. And she was one of the 4 or 5 girls I knew from whom there was never a twitch of racial amusement, either way, for or against. Of course I did not know the actualities of the thing back then, the ins and outs of origins and animus, but still you know, and notice, things.
At any rate I thought her one of the best people. Not because of any pretensions on her part. Just because she was, and a real example to the rest of us.
I did not love her. Despite this glowing catalogue of positivity she was never a hearthrob of mine. In fact, of the 10 or 20 girls I was likely to meditate upon during my more sensual liesure moments she came in about 10th or 20th. Not a large number at the best of times. Call me a snob but I've never been sexually attracted to social and intellectual inferiors. So when it came to masturbation she did not figure largely. Last on the list basically. She was of a type, physically, that did not appeal to me. Not particularly tall, or short, or thin or fat but rather prototypically blonde, or brunette, cupric etc, and against the grain of what turned my propeller. And she herself was totally fixated on another.
Her next door neighbor Mike T. She followed him like a dog, she adored him, and he treated her like ho-hum, if I have nothing better to do, meanwhile I'll chase Rochelle Toma like a dog in heat. Julia was still chasing Mike right out to the far end of High School, him captain of the swimming team, she on the cheerleaders, and he treated her, I gathered, like a groupie.
So why she should turn up on my doorstep, so to speak, made no sense to me. Granted, I had the same first name as her old flame, and was of a size and colouring, but that was about it. I just put it down to sympathy, my being stuck in endless complications and conspiracies as a result of my split brained c***dhood.
And I thought no more about it. For about 3 years. Gee that was a strange dream! Wonder what that meant?
Until my father died. Stepfather actually but that's not of importance in this, he croaked, shuffled off this mortal coil (lemme see now...) 18 yr's ago, possibly 20, my mental calendar is spotty at best and actual year dates I do not remember. He was born in 36 and lived to 55. Then.
And the day after or before the funeral one of my stalkers, Tom Debrette, showed up. I have 2 or 3 of them. Don't ask me why, they show up at odd intervals in my life and I do my best to discourage them, short of physical v******e, and I've used that on 2 of them. In fact I'm sure there would be more of them if not for my casual facility with brick and gun and knife. The how and why of a man having stalkers is another of those things I could hair split endlessly, is it this or is it that, but it's pointless, moot. I'm 5,000 miles away from the scene now, and anybody shows up on my doorstep out of the blue unasked is going to have to account for why. It's one of the reasons I live here
In any case he caught me at home and what with one thing and another there was no polite way to keep him out, and no way of being impolite about it unnoticed, as there were too many people about. Indeed I did not even tell him about it (dad's rude departure from this vale of tears) until Ma chimed in with Oh yes his dad died yesterday, like it was'nt her husband and like I gave a big rats ass for the man who'd probably done more to get me in the jam I lived in than any other person on the planet, outside of my own schizo self.
So I sat there and made small talk with him, and drank a beer or three, nothing too heavy, funerals take all the fun out of a glass, at least they always have done for me. And it came to me to ask him about her, small talk, it's not like I ever discussed anything serious with these people, and because that dream had been so striking and I never, as a rule, dream about my peers and contemporaries, and he'd been a part of that crowd from Thales St., he'd been her would be boyfriend's henchman for the longest time.
So whatever happened to Julia Anson I said, what's she up to these days?
OH says he "She died. 3 yr's ago. Why do you ask?"
Ah I seen one of her brothers in the street last week and it jogged my memory, she was a fairly pretty little thing. Dissembling along, shocked to the core, because the timing was right about when I'd had the dream. And I was never a one for obituaries, and had no other old school connections that I passed the gossip with.
And he went on to tell me how she'd married Tim Trask, the second string football quarterback, and after 10 or a dozen yr's got cancer and after a long and agonizing illness expired in a great deal of indignity and pain. Not my idea of a good time or a fun story but he seemed to relish telling it. I'd just as soon not have heard it and heartily regretted having brought her, as a subject, up.
And the dream suddenly made sense. She was not shedding tears over me at all, she was crying for herself, for lost chances, for what might have been. I could've had you instead, was what I think it was. I much resembled physically both her old heaththrob and the man she'd eventually married but as far as women went was known to be a softer touch than either, and at the time we'd originally met I had not yet fixated, no girl or woman had yet put a mark (that I could remember) upon my heart, I'd never even been kissed. Emotionally, and sexually, I was a tabula rasa, terrae incognita, a genuine virgin.
It quite shocked me. To this day there is no doubt in my mind that I had seen a ghost. Been visited by one in passing as it were. Hello goodbye (remember me....
And I do. Without regret. She was a good person and anything I could have done for her I would have, back then or now, even if I was not naturally attracted.
________________________________________________________________________________
True story. The names have been changed of course. I'll publish this one somewhere. Mike for .... Linda .... had a polish last name and looked just like a poster c***d for The little dutch girl. Perfect, all she needed was a tulip and a dyke and some voluminous blue skirts to do advertizements for the netherlands. And she was totally devoted to...., whom she'd probably played doctor with since the cradle as they were next door neighbors. I'd wager anything you like that as far as the act is concerned he took her virginity, in her mind at any rate, very early on, and he was completely blase. Oh yeah, she follows me around like... ended up marrying --- ----- instead and dieing...as stated, and the three of us was of a size and shape and coloring, and all related to me by --- -------, who showed up on my doorstep as regular as clockwork every 2-3 yr's even though I'd once put a knife to his throat and another time shot a gun off quite near him without warning (BACK! BACK OFF NOW!!!), across his bows as it were, in a confined space. He just looked bemused and stuck his finger in the hole in the cabinetry. I still don't know whether he's gay or thinks I'm some sort of lucky charm but I do know he was one of them I was always prepared to stick a knife or blow a hole in. Just something creepy going on there, that I did not encourage.
And this was one of those extraordinarily vivid dreams in which some signifigance is imbued. That is, the sort that wakes you up, out of a sound sleep, not because they are too bizarre or incomprehensible, rather the reverse. Because they are so streamlined and to the point that they are like a mental kick in the head.
At any rate I gave it no thought at the time. I was just there, in it. And it was somewhere up north, robins egg blue sky, slow dawn coming at 4 or 5 in the morning, small birds twittering and the buildings all high narrow brick built affairs of 3 and 4 and even 5 stories with fancy stepped eaves and ornate door and window treatments, and me sittting there watching it all about 4 feet above the pavement in a wide first floor shop window.
There was no one about. A hint of sea in the wide emptiness beyond the immediate houses to the north. a smell of salt. And other than the birds not a soul in sight. The sun was not yet visible, it might'nt be visible down this narrow canyon of a street until midday, if then, but the sky overhead was growing gradually brighter.
Someone turned the far corner and headed kitty corner across the street towards me. Who's this then? And why? The figure came on and resolved into a girl, a young woman, wearing a belted tan raincoat and a head scarf. It was Julia Anson.
And she came up to my window and paused, looked in at me, though with no real connection, no eye contact, and she was crying.
I did not know what to think. My situation was my situation and it was not particularly onerous or severe. I was not badly treated, I had shelter, was warm and dry, and possessed a modicum of status. It is certainly kind of you to feel bad for me, that I had not more options and scope in life, that I was roped into a mean lifestyle, but it is not necessary to cry about it, I certainly am not.
The tears rolled down her face, she looked absolutely foresaken, and after half a minute or so she turned and walked on, passing immediately out of my sight. No words or thoughts had been exchanged, but I felt from her a great sadness.
And I woke up. Well that was weird. I had not thought about Julia Anson in a donkey's years. I'd known her from about 6th grade. She was one of them all A chicks. Someone who could do no wrong, academically, and she was also one of that crowd that lived over on Thales St. She had about 8 or 10 younger siblings, nice catholic family, as were'nt we all. She had a disposition that was sunny beyond all imagining. That is whether from family or friends or just native disposition I never ever heard her use a cross word, much less swear, nor seen her express anything else other than joy and manifold satisfaction with the world and all our places in it in all the short time (6 or 7 yr's) I knew her.
And I did not know her at all well. I knew her to speak to, as a classmate, and that was about it, though I also knew at least two of her brothers as people I often played in scratch football games with. There was one thing about her affected me personally and that was that she never expressed anything other than amity and good fellowship towards me personally. Never a hint of distaste or the slightest nose wrinkle, much less a look of sly amusement. Nowadays I look perfectly white, I don't know why, I've got hair practically down to my elbows, missing half my teeth, and lord only knows what gross melange my personal dialect comes across as, but back then the tarbrush stuck out a bit, I know, I've seen pictures, and the most usual misguess as to my origins was greek or italian. And she was one of the 4 or 5 girls I knew from whom there was never a twitch of racial amusement, either way, for or against. Of course I did not know the actualities of the thing back then, the ins and outs of origins and animus, but still you know, and notice, things.
At any rate I thought her one of the best people. Not because of any pretensions on her part. Just because she was, and a real example to the rest of us.
I did not love her. Despite this glowing catalogue of positivity she was never a hearthrob of mine. In fact, of the 10 or 20 girls I was likely to meditate upon during my more sensual liesure moments she came in about 10th or 20th. Not a large number at the best of times. Call me a snob but I've never been sexually attracted to social and intellectual inferiors. So when it came to masturbation she did not figure largely. Last on the list basically. She was of a type, physically, that did not appeal to me. Not particularly tall, or short, or thin or fat but rather prototypically blonde, or brunette, cupric etc, and against the grain of what turned my propeller. And she herself was totally fixated on another.
Her next door neighbor Mike T. She followed him like a dog, she adored him, and he treated her like ho-hum, if I have nothing better to do, meanwhile I'll chase Rochelle Toma like a dog in heat. Julia was still chasing Mike right out to the far end of High School, him captain of the swimming team, she on the cheerleaders, and he treated her, I gathered, like a groupie.
So why she should turn up on my doorstep, so to speak, made no sense to me. Granted, I had the same first name as her old flame, and was of a size and colouring, but that was about it. I just put it down to sympathy, my being stuck in endless complications and conspiracies as a result of my split brained c***dhood.
And I thought no more about it. For about 3 years. Gee that was a strange dream! Wonder what that meant?
Until my father died. Stepfather actually but that's not of importance in this, he croaked, shuffled off this mortal coil (lemme see now...) 18 yr's ago, possibly 20, my mental calendar is spotty at best and actual year dates I do not remember. He was born in 36 and lived to 55. Then.
And the day after or before the funeral one of my stalkers, Tom Debrette, showed up. I have 2 or 3 of them. Don't ask me why, they show up at odd intervals in my life and I do my best to discourage them, short of physical v******e, and I've used that on 2 of them. In fact I'm sure there would be more of them if not for my casual facility with brick and gun and knife. The how and why of a man having stalkers is another of those things I could hair split endlessly, is it this or is it that, but it's pointless, moot. I'm 5,000 miles away from the scene now, and anybody shows up on my doorstep out of the blue unasked is going to have to account for why. It's one of the reasons I live here
In any case he caught me at home and what with one thing and another there was no polite way to keep him out, and no way of being impolite about it unnoticed, as there were too many people about. Indeed I did not even tell him about it (dad's rude departure from this vale of tears) until Ma chimed in with Oh yes his dad died yesterday, like it was'nt her husband and like I gave a big rats ass for the man who'd probably done more to get me in the jam I lived in than any other person on the planet, outside of my own schizo self.
So I sat there and made small talk with him, and drank a beer or three, nothing too heavy, funerals take all the fun out of a glass, at least they always have done for me. And it came to me to ask him about her, small talk, it's not like I ever discussed anything serious with these people, and because that dream had been so striking and I never, as a rule, dream about my peers and contemporaries, and he'd been a part of that crowd from Thales St., he'd been her would be boyfriend's henchman for the longest time.
So whatever happened to Julia Anson I said, what's she up to these days?
OH says he "She died. 3 yr's ago. Why do you ask?"
Ah I seen one of her brothers in the street last week and it jogged my memory, she was a fairly pretty little thing. Dissembling along, shocked to the core, because the timing was right about when I'd had the dream. And I was never a one for obituaries, and had no other old school connections that I passed the gossip with.
And he went on to tell me how she'd married Tim Trask, the second string football quarterback, and after 10 or a dozen yr's got cancer and after a long and agonizing illness expired in a great deal of indignity and pain. Not my idea of a good time or a fun story but he seemed to relish telling it. I'd just as soon not have heard it and heartily regretted having brought her, as a subject, up.
And the dream suddenly made sense. She was not shedding tears over me at all, she was crying for herself, for lost chances, for what might have been. I could've had you instead, was what I think it was. I much resembled physically both her old heaththrob and the man she'd eventually married but as far as women went was known to be a softer touch than either, and at the time we'd originally met I had not yet fixated, no girl or woman had yet put a mark (that I could remember) upon my heart, I'd never even been kissed. Emotionally, and sexually, I was a tabula rasa, terrae incognita, a genuine virgin.
It quite shocked me. To this day there is no doubt in my mind that I had seen a ghost. Been visited by one in passing as it were. Hello goodbye (remember me....
And I do. Without regret. She was a good person and anything I could have done for her I would have, back then or now, even if I was not naturally attracted.
________________________________________________________________________________
True story. The names have been changed of course. I'll publish this one somewhere. Mike for .... Linda .... had a polish last name and looked just like a poster c***d for The little dutch girl. Perfect, all she needed was a tulip and a dyke and some voluminous blue skirts to do advertizements for the netherlands. And she was totally devoted to...., whom she'd probably played doctor with since the cradle as they were next door neighbors. I'd wager anything you like that as far as the act is concerned he took her virginity, in her mind at any rate, very early on, and he was completely blase. Oh yeah, she follows me around like... ended up marrying --- ----- instead and dieing...as stated, and the three of us was of a size and shape and coloring, and all related to me by --- -------, who showed up on my doorstep as regular as clockwork every 2-3 yr's even though I'd once put a knife to his throat and another time shot a gun off quite near him without warning (BACK! BACK OFF NOW!!!), across his bows as it were, in a confined space. He just looked bemused and stuck his finger in the hole in the cabinetry. I still don't know whether he's gay or thinks I'm some sort of lucky charm but I do know he was one of them I was always prepared to stick a knife or blow a hole in. Just something creepy going on there, that I did not encourage.
8 years ago