I Have to Quit Commuting (originally published in The Burlesque Press Variety Show)

by Wayne Cresser

I Have to Quit Commuting (and reasons wherefore)

 

The special effect: now and then I dream I am trying to drive a car from the back seat. I am alone in the car and the whole tableaux__ me, the car, the road and all the light of the world__ are rolling into a vanishing iris wipe.

I dream sometimes that I forget in which direction I am headed. The road splits. I panic and take an exit unknown to me. It makes no difference at all.

The entropy effect: sometimes I dream that my car changes from a thing I can drive to a thing that cannot be driven: a typewriter, a toothbrush, a ham bone. This happens while I am driving and sends me into a screaming red panic.

I dream I’m returning to my car and it’s not there. Nothing’s there. I need help. I park myself in the vacant spot and try to flag down strangers. They turn tail from me and run.

I dream I’ll have to teach Jack Kerouac’s On the Road every semester for the rest of my life. This happens when I’m awake and then, I want to lie down for awhile.

The doppelganger effect: sometimes I dream that the car I know has been replaced by a car I don’t know, but in many ways, it’s the same car, except for the menacing grill.

I’m in the back seat again. There’s no front seat and I’m trying to reach the gas and the brakes with my feet. Sometimes they are bare __ my feet I mean. Sometimes in slippers. The steering wheel is in my hands; we’re floating in space.

I dream that I fall asleep while driving, and then I dream that I am still driving. No wait. Not a dream.

Not a dream: I tell her every last word of this and I add what I know to be true. Dream changes are not like real life changes, not like unexpected happenings that can alter everything for a person or a family or a culture. That stuff is serious. I am not a fool. But sometimes I get frightened.

The calming effect: she says that I should dream lucidly and take control. “The next time the rubber meets the road,” she says, “you just gotta step on the gas and be a hero, hon. That’s all.”

That’s all.