WADING THE SHALLOW END OF THE GENE POOL

Originally pubished on October 8, 1996

Yeah, I read about the code, haven't used it either, or have I? Wait a minute, seems I did, but it flubbed, or no, I found a page that boasted it, but my viewer did not register the change, yes that's it, and I never dwaddled around trying to find out why.

Do you have to put in a full day today? The 8500 is in the shop. They ordered a new logic board which will be delivered on Monday. Hopefully that fixes it, and by the middle of NEXT week I'll be busying reloading software into the bubba box in NATIVE POWERMAC CODE!!!! WHOOOOOOPEEE!

Left foot has swollen up like an elephant's tootsie, but I'm hobbling around pretty good, yet without stamina. Upstairs, downstairs both feet give out in short order, and I don't want to aggravate too much these poor dogs with 265 pounds of brute force hunkering down onto them one step at a time. No red streaks up my calf, no hint of internal bleeding or other catastrophic parlay.

Woke from a bizarre dream this morning. Starts with Sue and I seemingly younger, she pregnant and bulging, me tattooed and as rich in ugly righteousness as I scare the camera today, strolling into a staid smalltown church of about forty people in the middle of the service. The whole batch of them stop their hymnsinging to turn and stare like idiots in the breeze. We sit sheepishly at the very back in a section of those common metal fold-out chairs behind the last pew although there is plenty of room in the the wooden section, but why presume.

The stark surroundings of the church prompt me in the dream to question Sue in self-conscious whisper if this were indeed a Methodist church (Sue's heritage. I was raised primarily in High Episcopalean diocese.). I looked around and saw that the pews were liberally integrated. Several Negro faces. Several Asian faces. Maybe even a Hispanic face. I was counting, just noticing the rainbow. All were visibly shocked by our arrival. I checked for dress code violations. Several men were without jacket, just short sleeves and ties, just as I was wearing, but none sported tattooes of course.

Perhaps it was only the extreme tardiness of our intrusion, for the service soon ended, the offering plates passed. I noticed I was carrying a fistful of change in my hand and as I dropped it into the plate the jingle of coin skirting over coin was long and impressive to several who were charting our every blink. The offering was the last event of the service, and since we were in the back of the church right next to the door, gawking folk were beginning to file past us with oooohs and aaaahs at the clink clink of what seemed an endless stream of coins dropping from my closed fist.

The first to speak was a black man that I had to look up to see, although I recognized the voice, and then the face as the wizened but genteel man who played the boss in the fact-checking department of a big publishing house on the shortlived Herman's Head sitcom, a black man, who simply said to me, "Hello Gabriel, it's good to see you here."

It was at this point that I knew that this was not the beginning of the dream at all because prior to the church scene, this black man (wish I could remember his name on Herman's Head, or better yet his real name, but only Bernard comes to mind, and uh, that's my neighbor Chisley's given) had greeted me as the principal in a typical highschool scenario as I registered there.

Geez, back in highschool, but married with pregancy, seeking refuge in a bland Methodist culture...a wacky dream, but it doesn't end here. After this first greeting, my polite smile, a knowing nod, I am still cha-chinging coins but finally empty my palm just as some other black man comes dashing through the foyer door to where I am now standing with a shout directed straight into my face, "Now I KNOW God made Jesus a white man!"

I take this in, and squinch up my face before retorting, "No, Jesus was a Jew in diapers." Everyone in the now-crowded foyer hushed and turned the phrase over in their minds. I stared straight at Herman's boss, principal and deacon one might suppose, as he repeated it out loud with full affirmation, and I feel welcomed at last, and the dream then shoots to a pool scene. By the way, the Herman's head dude is not the preacher. A white man of no consequence suited up in that role, but his was a nearly silent part in the dream, but obviously this other character was the center of respect in this exchange.

The pool scene was a drag. Outsiders, insiders, debutantes, jocks, nerds, inepts, me and a preggy goodlooking Sue slippery and machiavellian in god-issued trunks and bikinis. The pool was huge, larger than most but certainly no football field. Positioning, bravado, and social powerplay the only game in town. Kids I recalled now from a quickscan of the schoolyard when I'd signed up earlier just before the church scene were all here. There were a series of poolwater confrontations in the dream, but none I recall clearly except the last one, when a secondary member, maybe third or fourth lieutenent down the dominant male rich kid insider's hierarchy suddenly announced he was well on his way to notching Sue, and there was nothing I could do about it because she'd agreed to swim as his partner in the"big race".

I knew it was time to wake up. I know this kind of dream. I never win. This is the eternal chase, one confrontation after another with no clear resolution. I am never fast enough to fully escape nor fast enough to catch a culprit when in a rare twist I am in pursuit of them. A variation on the roadrunner and coyote theme no doubt. Thousands of these futile dreamchase scenes have logged in my head over the years, childhood and adult. The best resolution is simply to wake up. And I did. But the feelings I felt in protecting a pregnant Sue were quite warm and fuzzy. I was particularly touched by that portion of the dream...

I do love her even if I am sterile and talentless. Why she loves me is still the mystery dance my dreams have not revealed...

GT