THAT DAY

I work for hours on Siphonia, my absurd webtour of Earth with its seas drained. Then hours on our house--clean the empty back bedroom, razor the filthy paint-streaked windows, dust, fix two lights, locate the lost drill & brace the ladder, shampoo the rug...

Health next! Bike to the clinic to get my test results. But they won't just show me, they insist I have to see the doctor--and he's unavailable. I wait fuming. At last he sees me briefly to say "only partial results in, and all negative so far." Then why'd they call me and make me come in, acting so mysterious? Wasted half my afternoon and freaked me out. I go home tired and disgusted.

Evening: I watch six episodes of Joan of Arcadia. God calls her to do great things, but she just wants to be normal--a stupid ambition, but God does seem a bit of a stalker. I'd snub him too.

Suzi calls from the basement, fishing to have me come see why she suddenly can't get TV signals. I picture trying to trace the cable over the roof at night and stall her. Feel guilty; but I worked so hard, feel so tired... and intuition says I'll need daylight.

I start Walter Mosley's The Tempest Tales. Different from his usual tough detective stuff. Tempest, murdered, finds himself before Saint Peter. But he won't repent his so-called "sins." Refuses to go to heaven OR hell. Angels and devils gang up on him but he just wants ordinary life. I know the feeling.

Come to think of it, it's all Joan of Arcadia wanted too. But folks just push this tired old god-and-devil thing. It's a sad read for me--Mosley's still debunking the same idiotic dualism, the same hierarchies and rules that Mark Twain lampooned a century ago. Haven't we progressed at all? I'm so bored with a world defined by Mideastern faiths! I want out. Like Joan and Tempest, I want out.

THAT NIGHT

I'm trapped in a Walter Mosley tale. His private eye, an oiled brown muscleman peels off his shirt in every scene he can. Naturally, he's voted President. I'm Sidekick. To better show off Prez (O Terminator torso) I'm written as a white wimp, ugly, sickly, hairy. Very funny, Mister Mosley. Very.	Late one night, the President wakes to roam the Black House (for so 'tis in dark. Shirt? Gone with the Wimp.) Loyal poodle, I blindly heel. Pectoral Prez intuits trouble; hence clucks, and sits at grand pianobench and slowly soweth a melodic ripple. Led by jazzyhunch, he climbs into that wooden T Rex maw to roll on strings like a cat on nip.
I, Poodle, used to spasmodicity in a Mosley PI's MO, just wait til he un- tunes from Clam Piano. Now I crawl in the dulcet bivalve to commune. O fool! For Mosley knows to pace, knows it's time for a jab of farce; and I'm his half a man.	Twang-CRASH! Strings snap, lid slams, legs do a quake fandango til the floor rips, gives way. Dust. Dramatic pause. At last, scraped, bleeding, I claws out of the pit of splinters, jagged wire-- Jazzombie from a music-grave unburied! Very funny, Mr. Mosley. Very.
Oops! Now I lie with kindred visionary Joan of Arcadia, on our basement floor. We Watch me on TV. Twang-CRASH! The reception's fine, I just resent it's me: for I don't get paid like Jackie Chan to be the President's whoopee man. And I smell smoke. A greasy gray reeking cloud creeps in the bay window. Peek but no fire; just bad TV. Worse! Now our show erupts in God as pimples'll bloom after greasy food. A balding tenement resident founds a new sect. The President graylobe knows it all a scam profiting the leader--that's why he's the Prophet, ha ha! What ham you are, scriptwriter Mosley! My.	But in this cult, my President sees the buff new Bod of God. Its nominee for a lite-on-guilt divinity (who I worship, since my Hail Chief do) is avuncular pipe-puffin' Bob. And we keep the Devil but call him Harry. Why? Dualist devils are always Hairy-- Scratch's shaggy shanks, I tell you true, are but Jehovah's beard gone South: kudzu. Very funny, Mr. Mosley. Very. Look, can I wake yet? How long must I relive the pratFall as your martyrboy? Sufferin' Stooge! Not the Archangel Moe but poor Curly, Shemp, Job, Larry. Chosen, straight man, involuntary, just like Arcadia's Joan. Oh, let me go Mister Yahweh Mosley. Let us go.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Tough-guy president peels off shirt: 1: Walter Mosley's tough-guy detective, Easy Rawlins. 2: I passionately hope future generations need footnotes to learn the dream mocks Arnold Schwarzenegger, muscleheaded Governor of California. 3: I hope the dream's not mocking our hopes for President Obama too.
• Piano collapse: God makes Joan of Arcadia take piano. Doesn't help Joan, but her piano teacher (stuck & bitter) resumes playing. I've neglected piano. I'll burn in hell.
• Smell smoke: for days I smelled burning insulation in our front porch. My housemate found a scorched powerstrip & plug in his room. Came close to a fire! How'd I smell it in the porch when he didn't in his own room? More like ESP than scent. Anyway it means urgent intuitive warnings--like God's messages to Joan of Arcadia.
• Smelly threat enters via front window: in a cafe I saw a crazy guy lean in an open window & harass two women inside. Threats & warnings again! But what?
• TV, basement apt: Suzi wanted me to check her TV cable; I felt guilty for stalling. Next morning I found the break, high up the wall--no way I'd have spotted it in the dark.
• Trapped in bad TV: my dream echoes Joan of Arcadia; she feels trapped, stalked by God. Given this fundamentalist decade, it's hard not to feel that way.
• Hotel: Joan's boyfriend works in a hotel; his dad's sick and broke.
• Cult of Bob: the Church of the SubGenius, worshiping "slack"--unlike Tempest's rigid angels & devils, or Joan's God, who preaches free will but ignores Joan's!
• ACTION:
  1. Listen to my intuition! Right about fried insulation; right about Suzi's cable.
  2. Joan of Arcadia's diagnosed with Lyme disease; so the dream hints I better get tested for Lyme (my symptoms sure fit)
  3. Or illness is just my divinely ordained role: the sickly bookish wimp, a comic foil for real men. I'm about ready to burn that script(ure). My patience with butch-worshipers has run out.
• This is Dreamverse #58. Every week, a dream-poem! But maybe not much longer. The clown suit's threadbare, Mister Yahweh.

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