Day 75

Had a dream last night where I woke up in my hometown, it was winter, just after some kind of snow, as the ground had a slight layer to it, but the weather must have broken the next day because it rained on and off. I was walking from probably the highest point in the town, up by the junior high, close to the hospital, but now everything had crosses above it like you see on the sides of southern highways. Some were big plastic crosses, with lights on their bases to see them light up, others were fairly plain, even all of the telephone poles had the cross beams refitted so that they more closely resembled crosses. I started from the junior high, I remember the road was jagged under my feet, like it had just been torn up for repaving. I had a video camera, the kind with a fold out screen on its body and a strap for easy holding in your right hand and I held it out in front of me, the screen out, capturing pictures of all of the crosses. All the while I hummed a tune, and sometimes sang, a song I wasn't really sure of. It was slow, with sustained notes, that would build quickly into high notes, and then drop right back to low again; the only words I remember singing were "And everybody on the bottom goes:" and I started to hum again.
I walked down the hill, capturing the crosses bolted to the roof of the high school, the hospital, above some of the better looking houses, getting sustained shots of the telephone pole crosses, before someone was walking in the same direction as me. It was an older woman, I didn't look her in the face, but I closed my camera and tucked it away and stopped humming so loud. She watched me, but I didn't look her in the face, and doubled back to the highschool and ran down the road leading to the front face. The rain storm picked up here and the clouds grew heavier, everything in a sea mist green color, the windows of the high school darkened to near blackness by it. I continued to walk, still humming, and made it to my "house", which was not my house. It was the first house I remember, the one in front of Jefferson. My mother was waiting there, on the front step and all she could say was "Sorry," and we walked together across the street, to the house where a friend in my youth lived, Jeremiah was his name, and we burned ants on his stoop and ate cheetos or maybe cheez-its. Jeremiah's house was wrong though, its entire facade was shifted, the front door not facing the street, and the back of the house with only two high windows that looked like eyes faced us.
My mother said, "Sorry," again, and then gestured toward the home, referring to us, both my sister and I that this is where we were going to live on. We walked on the gravel drive, towards one side of the house, the bulged out like a warped wooden tumor, a false front door bolted at a strange angle til we made it to the backside. We didn't go inside, instead stood there for a moment longer and I pulled out the video camera once again and pointed it to the house, and from it I could see inside, not in an x-ray sense where I could point at it and see inside, it was like there was already recordings of the interior of the home, done by myself. I was walking int eh front door, and everything was dark, light coming in from near opaque green glass windows. And I swept the first floor, a study to the left, with full bookshelves, then a kitchen with no oven, and then around to the second level. All of the place had wooden floors but they were scratched thin and rough with heavy lines like something abrasive had been dragged across every surface. In the upstairs I walked around for a little while, but didn't go into any rooms the recording stopped when my mother said, "Sorry", one more time and she stopped the car. We were in front of the starline building and she and my sister got out, and she told me to drive the car back. She threw me the keys and I climbed from the passenger seat to the driver's and made it back to Jeremiah's house, which was mine now. It was colder by the time I made it back, the rain wasn't coming but everything seemed to emanate cold. I leaned against the tumor side of the house and tried to false front door, but it wouldn't swing open.
By now I was real anxious for my mother to come back. I tried really hard to remember when and where she said she would be coming back, but I couldn't picture it. I walked to the very end of the boundary line and looked back and forth, watching the people whose silhouettes looked like my mother's when they rounded the corner, but then the light would shift just enough and their hair color would change and they would grow a few inches in height. It got so bad that I walked away from the house that was mine now and paced up and down the road a little bit, up to Roga's place, who I was friends with when I was eight, and then to Jimmy Riley's with the big lion statues, sticking my head around corners like I would see my mother strolling towards me near the end of each block. I didn't.
After several moments of walking I doubled back to my old house, the one across from Jefferson School, and I sat on the front porch there for a little while. I brought out the camera again and opened it up, pointing it towards the bay window, and for a while it was just crosses, ones similar to those I got earlier. I kept skipping forward and the rain came back, I hunched over the camera to protect the screen. I skipped past all the crosses til the image of our very old kitchen from house came up. This was from a very long time ago, as my little sister was sitting in her pink high chair, one years old. She still didn't have any hair, and there was a pink cake with candles in front of her that kept her transfixed. My father mouth came down and blew them all out and a group of people clapped. I held the camera the best I could, as I had started laughing when, after my mother and father removed the candles, and Maddie stuck her fingers into the cake, pulling up a glob of frosting and deep chocolate colors and smearing it near her mouth. I laughed and went to the front door. I didn't hear anything, but knew someone was there, and tucked the camera away. At the door was Brendan and he nodded at me and I nodded back. We left out in the rain and walked up the street to the high school, right across the street from Jefferson. We walked up to the dark green glass windows, staring at all the people inside. We were late. And we didn't know what to do, knowing the front door was locked, and we stared, until someone in this cramped, dark room, with bodies shoulder to shoulder, turned and bent down to face us. He knocked on the glass, softly, and the look on his face was pleading, but I couldn't tell if it was for us to get inside or for us to let him out.