It was night and I was working on a long thin boat. My job was to lie flat on my stomach on the front tip of the boat and guide it. My boat and other boats were traveling on a river which rather seemed like a canal in the swamps of Louisiana. Men on every boat were supposed to help each other by hollering back and forth. But the river was extremely dark. I couldn't distinguish the cries of the men on the other boats and I couldn't tell where we were going. I thought I could discern the silhouettes of some trees. Thinking we were headed toward a bank, I became concerned my boat might ram into the shore.
I stood and walked to the back of the boat (which actually appeared to be somehow connected to the shore). I walked onto shore, where I could see a restaurant, inside of which, sitting at a bar, were two fellows who were supposed to be guiding other boats. I became very upset because they weren't on their boats. I ran into the restaurant and demanded to know why they weren't on their ships.
The two fellows and I sat down at a table together and one of them said something about some marijuana. I thought I might like to smoke some marijuana, but I didn't have any. It looked as if he had some joints lying in front of him.
After some other people sat down with us at our table, I heard a black waiter (about 20 years old) offer to sell some marijuana to some people sitting at another table. Selling marijuana in a Louisiana restaurant seemed brazen to me. Nevertheless, when the black waiter walked over to our table, I asked him how much some marijuana would cost. He looked at me and said it would depend on whether I wanted to buy red, black or white. I said, "Well just give the price for a joint for all three of them."
First he said something about the black and then he said the red would cost $40 for two joints. I was astounded, but I began to see why he could be so open there: he was making so much money that even if he were arrested, he could buy his way out. I just scoffed at the idea of paying so much money and I was just about to tell him to go away when he sat down at my table. Apparently, he had some lower prices.
I stood up, walked over to a booth and sat down at a table with some different people who all appeared to have been drinking quite a bit of alcohol. The fellow on my left was talking about some experience he had had which appeared to be a dream. I became quite interested in listening to his dream and I realized it contained several symbols. One symbol was a girl who was a friend of all of us there and who was also in the restaurant. The fellow telling the dream began drawing a picture of the girl on a piece of paper on the table. He drew her head, but left the top of it open so a cloud appeared to be coming out of her head at the top of the paper. I said, "I had that same dream. Why haven't we talked about this kind of stuff before."
I thought to myself, "These people don't know how deeply involved I am in dreams. I should probably slowly inform them of the fact."
No one was paying much attention to me. Up until then, I myself had felt quite groggy, as if I were intoxicated or drugged, but suddenly things became clear to me. I looked around and realized all the other people were groggy from drinking and using drugs. Since I hadn't been drinking or using any drugs, my grogginess was quickly beginning to dissipate.
The girl (about 20 years old) whom the fellow had been describing in his dream walked up to our booth. Since the booth was full and I was sitting on the end, I let the girl sit on my knee. She had blonde hair, was about 5'5" and was very thin, almost anemic, yet still very attractive. She had a small glass which contained some ice and brown liquid which looked like whiskey. Quite intoxicated, she said she was going to quit drinking at 1:30. I patted her on the back and asked, "For the rest of your life?"
I thought she might need some encouragement if she were going to try to permanently stop drinking alcohol. I told her I had quit drinking alcohol many times. I said the last time I had quit had been two months ago. Since I hadn't drunk anything today, I had made it through another day. I might have done a lot of foolish things today but at least I hadn't drunk anything. That meant today had been another successful day.
I almost added that before I had drunk something alcoholic two months ago, I hadn't had a drink for six months, but I thought there was no point in bringing that up because the significant date was when I had last drunk alcohol two months ago. Whatever had happened before that date wasn't really important. What I wanted to point out to her was that for alcoholics, the major goal was to simply go through one day at a time. The simple goal and achievement of one day of sobriety at a time was what really mattered.
No one else seemed to pay any attention to what we were saying. I looked around the table and realized that everyone was a close acquaintance of mine and that each person had some kind of alcohol in front of him which he was drinking.
Copyright 2011 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
