I had come to visit Jon and Cathy at their mobile home. They both seemed surprised to see me, mainly because it was about 6:30 a.m. But they were friendly and after I sat down at the kitchen table, Jon gave me a plate of vegetables to eat. I had been thinking of moving in a house close to Jon and I realized if I did so, I would probably often be dropping in on Jon like this.
Someone else was at the door. I answered it and found standing there a man and woman (probably in their 50s). They walked in and sat down. I thought they were Cathy's parents, but I was unsure until I begin talking with them. I remembered that I had met Cathy's parents once before. Although the woman looked like Cathy's mother, the man looked different. But after I talked with them a while, I realized the woman was actually Cathy's mother, the woman I had met before. Cathy's father, however, had died, and this man was apparently the new husband of Cathy's mother.
I was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable because I figured I was intruding on the family. Plus I finally realized it was Sunday morning and that the family seemed to be dressed to go to church together. Jon seemed to sense my discomfort and he reminded me that he didn't go to church. Jon was standing on the other side of the room and didn't have a shirt on. He didn't seem as muscular as he used to and his chest seemed a bit flat.
A television was on in the room and a soap opera was playing. I watched it a while and then asked Cathy if the soap opera played on Sundays now. She said that it played seven days a week. I thought about how difficult that must sometimes be for the actors. It appeared that Cathy was a fan of this particular soap opera.
Finally Jon put on a clean, button-up shirt and he and the man walked outside to work on something. I remained seated at the kitchen table, and became intrigued with a small, black kitten playing with my hand on the kitchen table. With its two front paws the kitten grabbed the index finger of my right hand and held it firmly. It didn't use its claws, so there was no pain for me. But I was amazed at just how much strength the little kitten seemed to have in its paws.
A second, larger, black cat jumped on the table and also wanted to play. Then the larger cat jumped off the table and began playfully attacking my feet.
Since I knew Jon was outside working on something, I finally decided to go out and help him and I walked out. The mobile home was sitting next to a busy road. Across the road, Jon had a large semi-truck and trailer along the side of the road which he was trying to do something with. He also had a large dump truck which he had left sitting unattended in the middle of the road. I walked over to the dump truck, thinking I might be able to move it out of the road. The door of the dump truck was open, but I didn't get inside. Instead I began pushing it. I saw cars coming toward me, but another man was there directing traffic. Nevertheless it was obviously very dangerous for the truck to just be in the middle of the road like that. I began pushing the dump truck out of the road.
***
I was in my car pulling on to a highway to head back to Dallas. But after I had turned right and pulled onto the highway, I realized I was going the wrong way on a one-way road and that cars were headed toward me. I was about to back up, but then noticed a small truck and a semi-truck had followed me onto the road and were likewise going in the wrong direction. Finally, however, I turned around and headed in the right direction. The drivers of the two trucks looked perplexed and I wondered if they were angry at me.
***
I was in some kind of department store and a man (probably in his late 20s) was giving a talk about cameras. Apparently he was offering free lessons in picture-taking to people. An older man stepped up, answered some questions and was told he had won a free lesson. The two men then walked to the front of the store to arrange the final details.
The younger man then returned and I decided I would try to answer the questions so that I might win a free picture-taking lesson. I quickly realized the man was keeping track of my answers and that I must make a score of at least 50 before I would win the free lessons. He asked me several questions and I quickly realized just how little I knew about cameras. Although I tried to answer the questions as well as I could, I realized I wasn't doing so well. But it seemed the man wanted me to make a score over 50 and he seemed to be manipulating the score somewhat.
Finally he reached the last question and he asked me about taking pictures in the "ombre." I figured "ombre" meant shadow, but I was still uncertain how to answer. He gave me a hint and he asked me something about whether it was dark out when it was raining around Halloween. I quickly said that when it was cloudy, it was darker. I realized my answer was rather simplistic, but he seemed satisfied with it and he began making some calculations on his paper. Finally he finished and asked me to walk to the front of the store with him.
We reached a counter and he asked me a few more questions. But I had a difficult time understanding him because he seemed to be speaking some kind of difficult slang. I wondered if he was from New York. He wanted to know where I lived and I told him Dallas, although I had written Portsmouth on the form he had been using. I tried to explain to him that I used to live in Portsmouth, Ohio but now lived in Dallas, Texas. He walked behind the counter and gave his calculations to another store clerk, who then told me it would cost $10 for my camera lesson. Although I had somewhat suspected that something like that was going to occur, I acted surprised and indignant. I began complaining about the signs in the back of the store advertising a "free" camera lesson.
The original fellow walked back out to the counter and I poked my finger into his bare arm. But the second man looked at me threateningly. I began saying that I was going to go back and tell all the other people waiting to take the camera test that the whole thing was a fraud and that it wasn't free at all. I headed back to the back of the store and the original fellow began walking beside me.
Copyright 2004 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
