Saturday, August 31, 2013

I dreamed that I couldn't find my phone. I hunted for it everywhere.

I dreamed that I was looking for my college boyfriend, Lou, who was sexy and older (20!) and had a beard and came from NYC. I was 17 and a waif from cold and frozen upstate New York. We were in Florida, surely the most exotic location for college we could imagine: Spanish moss, silver fish the size of saucers, the blanket of humidity, the warm delicious ocean. And orange groves, lots of orange groves, sugar cane, and cabins on cinder blocks where Black folk lived. Whites only drinking fountains. At school the Black kids sat over there, the white kids sat over here. Cafeteria food with grits and fatback in the greens. Cornbread.

And drugs, lots of drugs. Music too; The Rolling Stones, Cream, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendryx, 13th Floor Elevator.

Lord, I was such a child. I didn't know it but Lou and his buddies were messing with heroin. He kept me ignorant of it. And he used condoms.

Years later I saw him in NYC and he was on methadone. He had a gold front tooth. In my dream I'm looking for him. Wondering if he's dead. Wondering if he got out alive.

When I went home for the summer, he sent me roses and a card that said, 'Don't let time kidnap you'. I still don't know what he meant. He's still showing up in my dreams.

3 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Where did you go to school, love? I didn't know you'd lived in Florida.
A friend of mine (now gone from us) had a husband who was using heroin and she didn't know for the longest time. I used to close my eyes to my husband's rampant dog-like cheating. And he, too, used smack now and again and I didn't know. Ah, sigh.
We see what we want.
I hope Lou is still one of the living, grinning wide with a gold tooth sparkling in the sun. Funny how certain people come to us in dreams while others, whom we love like fire and water never do.

Birdie said...

It really brings up a statement my mom always said to me and now I say to my kids. "If I knew then, what I know now..."

But we love our wild and reckless men when we are young and oh, the thrill!

As an aside, on my palliative patients had silverfish in the home. Those suckers move like a bat out of hell. I ended up bringing one home on my laptop bag!! After that there was a notice to all staff to keep personal belongings off the floor. Ug.

beth coyote said...

Mary-Stetson, in Deland, inland from Daytona Beach. Ha!! As for Lou-I hope he got to live to be old with grandkids on his knee, tho I doubt it.

Birdie-wild men, indeed. As was I.