The Feet of God
5 - DREAM A LITTLE DREAM
I
drifted to the shadows where dreams are conjured. I found myself in a strangely familiar
country bar & café, all dank and dark, with faint odors of stale beer,
smoke and Lysol.
To one side of a big empty room of knotty pine and nicotine stains a deer head
was mounted on the wall, next to assorted dead trophy fish and framed pictures
of snowy mountains and icy lakes. Dozens
of tables was set with paper placemats and red glass candle holders wrapped in
white plastic netting and white glass vases filled with red plastic geraniums.
I turned and now the long bar was lined with huge men standing with their
elbows bent, legs comfortably stretched out, and boots on the brass rail, all laughing
and drinking. I wanted a beer so bad I
was drooling. I jumped and jumped to get
the bartender’s attention, but for some reason I was too small.
The distinct aroma of home-styled cooking
wafted by, so I turned my attention back to the dining area.
Here tables was now filled to capacity with happy folks stuffing themselves no
end with fried chicken and chicken-fried steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, mac
and cheese and black-eyed peas. Girls in
white aprons carried pitchers of beer and baskets of dinner rolls and
cornbread. The joint was packed with
piled-high hairdos, big belt buckles, and Stetsons.
But I was feeling pangs of hunger and thirst, and loneliness, and there wasn’t
no table with room for me. As my stomach
churned in discontent, I moseyed on back into the bar to try my luck again at
ordering a frosty cold one to ease my problems.
On the way between the dining room and the bar I noticed a rainbow-lit
jukebox. I stopped and dropped my spare
change into the slot to play a tune.
When the music started playing all the cowboys at the bar turned and
glared at me. They’d been watching a
football game on the bar’s TV when the jukebox cut the sound off. No one would smile at me here.
I turned away yet again, trying to become invisible, when the music died and
everyone evaporated and I found myself alone in an empty fog.
Wait!
Something was moving toward me through the haziness. Little Billy Peevy stepped out of the
clouds. Billy was a neighbor’s son from
the trailer park in Bakersfield where I used to live. Only here he was un-customarily without his
clothes on, and brazenly parading around naked as the day of his premature
birth. Before I could rebuke him for his
immodesty he stopped and gazed directly at me with those steely gray eyes of
his. He closed his fingers and brought
his hand up above his eyes. He began to
scan the horizon.
“Are you lost, Billy?”
He pointed at me and again he searched the far horizon.
“Am I lost, Billy?”
Then he held up a middle finger.
“I’m supposed to go do something?”
He smiled at me and he begun to pee.
Wherever he peed, palm trees sprouted and orange trees blossomed and
fragrant flowers bloomed.
“I still don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
Billy turned sideways.
“Uh, do you mean Florida, Billy?”
He just stared back at me then furiously played a harmonica.
“I don’t get it, Billy. I’m supposed to go to Florida? For what?”
*POOF*
Just like that, the little shit disappeared.