Read Some Stewf

John Denver Spreads His War on Terror

I submitted my John Denver dream to fellow Oaklander Iris AlRoy who is collecting dreams for an art project. My apocalyptic beach tale fits nicely in the “Celebrity” category.

Dream #91: John Denver’s War on Terror

In which I’m at a bookstore and see John Denver. He seems to be employed there. He’s packing boxes or sticking price tags or something. I walk up to him directly and we greet each other like we’re old friends. I have a memory of hanging out with him in Sun Valley and this is the first time in years since I’ve seen him. We chat a bit and he’s glad to see me too but there’s a sadness behind his otherwise cheery expression. He sets a book down in front of me.

Dream #66: Dad

In which I sit in our burgundy ’89 Volvo, the one Mom kept so guarded and clean that it looked no older than a year when it was sold last month. Being the youngest, I often sat cramped in the “way back” on family vacations to the cabin or Sun Valley — looking out the rear window at the cars that followed us, conjuring up my own stories of their occupants.

But now the picture displayed in the window is a rolling movie of Mom and Dad’s retirement. They play tennis and host dinners, but they also embark on fanciful journeys to the tropics in hot air balloon and helicopter. Dad seems distant in all the scenes, not full of vacation glee that was such his trademark. He is separate from the experience.

Soon I’m talking to Dad through the window (much like Frank, his favorite singer, in Dream 21), but there is less talking and more showing. He pulls from a black satchel his life’s creations: the magazine he built with his bare hands and ran successfully for more than 15 years, photos of the families that he counseled while bishop, photos of our family, a diagram illustrating the mountains of accumulated trash picked up from the gutter or park while on his daily jogs. And then he shows me stuff I’m sure he never created, but could have, given more time: stacks of fiction literature, magic tricks, art, a pencil-sketched flip book in which the most exquisite lettering I’d ever seen dances across the pages. As he reveals this last creation I break into uncontrollable tears.

The image on the window fades and is replaced with a black and white film, already in progress. Struggling to recall its title, I soon realize it’s nothing I’ve seen before. It looks like a Rat Pack flick, only Dad’s in it, and all his friends. I can’t make out the plot, but there’s a lot of David Mamet-style dialogue. It’s clever and funny. At one point in the film the door of the longest coupe in the world opens and out walks a 15-year-old James in a white Casablanca blazer. I wake.

Dream #21: Advice for Frank

In which I’m watching a Sinatra movie. It pauses suddenly during a party scene and Frank begins talking to me, directly, from inside the TV screen. We chat for a bit and I warn him that though he’s able to throw caution to the wind in these early days of life, there will soon be a time when he’ll wake up with his first hangover, so he better drink lots of water tonight. I wake.