Dream from last night: I was getting ready to seasonally
jettison the sociological dregs of Peoria and embark on a book signing tour in Ireland
( being a writer who is soused half his
waking hours and can still ineluctably quote
rote passages verbatim from Joyce’s Ulysses does have its benefits). My plane was scheduled to leave later that
afternoon and for some reason I inexplicably go into the bathroom culled from
childhood and cut my long hair, the
ricocheting image mirrored back to me reflecting exactly that of Jason Priestly
circa 90210 renown. When I was in high school I used to go through a cylinder
of Aqua Net a week so that my hair would be caked with this intractable plateau
arched above my forehead like a balcony at a sophomoric thespian dress rehearsal
of Grease. With my high school hairdo I continue to pack for Ireland finding
myself seated on the backsteps of my childhood home with my friend Tim Flanagan.
Somehow all the diva’s (beautiful untouchable high school seniors to our
listless libido freshman) pedaled by on banana seat bikes. Tim was always coy
around the opposite sex but he turned to me and brazenly proposed that he, “could
too” get Martha, Holly, Vanessa and Julie to lift up their tops like mermaids.
I told him there was no way he could achieve that but Tim, with a confidence
seldom exhibited sans consulting the oracle
of the standard Dungeon & Dragon ten-sided dice, waltzed over and
said something and the next thing these sirens were giggling and doffed their
(replete with shoulder pads)tops. While I was optically sliding into second
base I heard my mom’s voice maternally beckoning me to come inside. I told her I still had to pack
for Ireland and mom informed me that, “ It’s time for you to know our greatest
family secret.” Mother then told me that Elvis Presley was still alive and that
I was his grandson and that he wanted to meet me before I went to Ireland on my
book tour because he was getting old.
Akin to the sloppy late-night cable cinema of my youth, the
dream then jump cuts and I find myself outside Granpa Elvis’ house, which was
this three story log-cabin on a secluded southern strip of land next to a waterfall.
The portion of the house I entered was adorned with all these black and white
frames of Elvis in the late 50’s. The room was flooded with beautiful yet disconsolate
loners that were artistic and heavily harbored Bohemian vibes. Mom looked at me
and informed me, “That I wasn’t allowed” to hit on any of the females because ‘everyone
was family and they are all my second cousins.” Before going into the next room
I saw Elvis next to my late-father. My father died suddenly twelve years ago
this February and it’s always nice when he appears in my dreams. Grandpa Elvis
gives me a hug, but, understandably I want to hang out with my father. I give
dad a long embrace, tuck my nose into his shoulder, sniffed his powdery
after-shower scent. My father and I go
for a hike trying to scale the abutment of the bucolic waterfall behind Grandpa
Elvis’ house. We get half-way up the
side of the waterfall when we get stuck in this mud whose color can best be
delineated as ‘neon-taupe.’ We turn around and scale down to the side of the
landscape and I tell my father how much I miss him. When we get to the bottom
everyone is partying outside. Elvis hands me a beer (a Schlitz tallboy) and fires
up a cigarette. Elvis then turns to me and inquires if I would like to fire his
gun. My dad (keeping with the corporal
integrity of his earthly persona) refused to fire buy I accepted the invitation
and started firing along side Elvis. Elvis kept insisting that I call him
Granpa and we kept drinking more Schlitz and smoking more cigarettes all the
while my anxiety that I was going to miss my flight to Ireland. I asked Grandpa
why he decided to hide and he rhetorically retorted, “With all the shit that
was going on, wouldn’t you?” The dream ended with myself firing Elvis’ gun at a
bowl of cherries (or maybe they were enhanced renaissance grapes). Elvis then
began to get drunk and fell down. As I helped grandpa up I asked if he was okay
and the last thing he said to me was, “I know man, tallboys.” (referring to the
beer) all while laughing.
I don’t know much about elvis, except that he died the same
year I was born. You can imagine the
shock when, after waking up and wikepediaing his name, I discerned that dream I
harvested about Elvis Presely transpired in the waning hours of what would have
been his 79th birthday. Unreal. Alright dad, elvis and Ireland, time
for this wayward writer to crack open a tallboy and get
some work done. Succulent Sobriety 2 starts t’morrow….
