I woke up at my girlfriend’s apartment around 7:30 a.m. Her son has his own bed, but he will wake up crying in the night and he wants to sleep in the big bed with Mommy. I did my best waking up not to disturb them both because they were sleeping.
I had a strange dream in the night. It brought back memories of an old friend. Someone I hadn’t talked to since I was a teenager. Someone who wasn’t really a long-term friend, but I knew that they were still around because someone mentioned them not too long ago. This was my dream:
Walking along a street near a school, a beat up old car with 4 people in it stops alongside me, they seem like adults who never grew up, they all appear 5 or more years older than me. The driver says they know me. I get in the car. We drove to an old dilapidated house. I find out it’s my old friend Anthony Z’s older brother. Anthony’s brother drives the car, more like jumps the car, down a rock wall after I get out. The house leads to a grassy hill that ends at water, like a lake. I leave after spending some time and seeing my old friend Anthony. I have to cut through a graveyard 🪦 and then I wake up.
At 8:00 a.m. I was ready to leave. I gave my girlfriend a kiss and I said goodbye to her and her son and drove to Lynn to play handball.
It was only Mark, Mike, and myself at the handball court so we all played singles. I won every game, except towards the end where Michael beat me making him the champion of the day. Mark was not happy about his losses and stomped his feet and put on a temper tantrum. I was able to eventually pacify him with some soft spoken kind words. Once again we were all friends.
I went and hung out at my mom’s house with Charlie and the cat wheezy around 2pm. My mom was not there, so I let myself in. Katie, a girl I had grown up with, and who I lost touch with over 20 years ago, had passed away from some form of cancer. I wasn’t even aware until my friend, who was living in Virginia, contacted me on Facebook Messenger a few days ago and asked me if I was going to the celebration of life. I told her I wanted to go and she officially gave me the invite.
My mom came back around 3:00 p.m. and then we began discussing some of the things that had happened in the past since I was going to Katie’s celebration of life. I didn’t know who was going to be there but I figured it would be a lot of people from my childhood. My mom and I discussed some of the weird tragic things that happened in the Grove. Such as the child molesters who molested and videotaped a lot of the kids I grew up with. There have been a lot of tragedies around us. It was almost like a dark cloud hungover The Grove and the surrounding area. Sometimes I wonder if that darkness comes from the great swamp, behind Asbury Grove.
When I went to the celebration of life, I saw people that I hadn’t seen in a couple decades or more. There was even a picture of my sister with Katie on one of the vision boards. My sister died of a drug overdose in Florida at the age of 18. It was a strange and exciting experience to see all these people I grew up with, all grown up. It felt as if time was standing still. After about 2 and 1/2 hours and some group pictures I knew it was time to get back to my life. I drove back to my girlfriend’s apartment around 7 p.m.
The crack addicted couple who we constantly hear fighting in the street, showed up across the street after midnight. The woman was yelling. My girlfriend and I peeked out the window. While the man was sitting against the building on the ground, the woman pulled her pants down and put her crotch in his face. He got up and began walking away. The woman said, does my cunt stink! The woman continued yelling about getting a hit of crack and slamed her hands on the hood of my car. It seems my vehicles can’t catch a break in this neighborhood. (About a month ago my truck passenger side rearview mirror was smashed in the middle of the night.) Soon the noise outside died down, and I was fast asleep once again.