Four Dreams The Author’s Friends Insisted On Telling Him About

Well, so get this. I was in this paintball game, right? And the teams were me and Julianne Moore against my friend and his mom, who was also Julianne Moore. And we were winning but then my Julianne Moore started getting all up in my face and shooting me in the head and torso. So basically I was like, ‘yo, Julianne Moore, you’re on my team! Stop shooting me.’ But she said ‘Wrong again! I’m the other Julianne Moore. The one who’s not on your team.’ She wouldn’t stop shooting me and it really hurt, so I got the hell out of there and had a big, delicious brunch, because it was brunchtime. Then I woke up.

I’m on a road trip, right? And for whatever reason I’m driving from Maine to Los Angeles, because in Maine there was some kind of dictatorship going on I needed to get away from. Anyway I’m driving and the whole way out to California the radio was stuck on a station that played only audio recordings of early season Law and Order Criminal Intent, in Spanish. I mean I wasn’t really sure what show it was an audio recording of until the guy was like, ‘El va a ir a la carcel. !Tenia intencion criminal!’ When I tried to turn it off it played Ray LaMontagne songs. When I turned it back on it played 21st Century feminist critiques of John Updike. Then I woke up.

I was swimming, and I got stuck underneath a whale. And I thought I was going to drown because the whale was very heavy. It was very much what I imagine being trapped underneath a tractor might be like, only underwater, and with a whale in the role of a tractor. I thought I was going to drown. Then basically the whale looks at his watch and he says to no one in particular, ‘Man, where did this day go?’ Then I woke up.

I was having heterosexual sex with a very attractive woman with very nice bosoms. She said to me, ‘yes, keep doing it that particular way because that’s the way I want you to continue doing it.’ By it she meant having heterosexual sex with her. And I am really putting it to this attractive woman, who is probably a movie star or someone I saw while shopping for clothes, when her bosom phone rings. I pick it up and sure enough on the line is Vice President Biden. He says, ‘this is Vice President Biden. Are you sure that attractive woman you are having heterosexual sex with is as attractive as you seem to think? Are you sure she is not a reasonable real life equivalent of the girl from Scooby Doo who was not attractive?’ And I said ‘Who, Velma?’ And Vice President Biden said, ‘Yes, Velma.’ And I looked at the attractive woman and she didn’t look anything like a real life Velma, so I told the Vice President as much and he said to me, ‘Ah, my mistake. As you were.’ He hung up. So I went back to my heterosexual sex and all of our primarily African American neighborhood could hear our cries of passion. Then I woke up.

-AM ’14