In my dream... ... Ive just completed my elementary run in Bus 134... only its not my run. Its way out in the Shasta Valley, along narrow, meandering one-land dirt roads (not gravel, but actually just packed dirt), out far from anywhere. I dont know what school the kids were from, but Ive delivered them all to their ranches and houses safe and sound. Im stopped on the shoulder at the intersection of two dusty one-lane roads to check the bus. Its hot, and all the windows are open. The entire inside of the bus is covered with a fine layer of red dust from the roads. Theres a little time before I have to start my next run, so I decide to leave the bus parked there at the edge of the road and walk half-a-mile ahead to a convenience store to get a beverage and a snack for the drive back to town. As I exit the bus, I start to lock it, but then make a conscious decision not to lock the entrance door - the emergency door is unlocked, so if someone really wanted to get in, they could. Besides, theres no one around for miles. Its a ten-minute drive to the nearest house, for crying out loud. I walk along the dusty road to the convenience store. It is a strange combination of rural mercantile and convenience store - it has antique guns in the counter case, and five-pound jars of mixed macadamia nuts and cashews, and boxes of stale sandwiches, and everything is covered with a fine layer of red dust from outside. An old friend is there to shop, but when I go to speak to her, I cant find her - shes vanished. After ogling for a bit over the glass counter case filled with museum-quality flintlock pistols and mid-19th century bird guns and Winchester Model 1876 lever-action repeating rifles, I decide on the mixed nuts because I like macadamias and cashews... but also because I am beginning to sense that I need to get rolling. Its hot and dry outside, and I want a beverage. I go to the cooler, which turns out to be an open table with many rows of channels to hold bottles, and not cool at all. I want a Diet Coke, but there are only four bottles scattered about the table and none of them are diet. I ask the clerk (who was a wise-looking older man in a light cowboy shirt and battered straw hat when I walked in, but who has turned into the payroll clerk from ACPS Transportation) if there are any Diet Cokes, and she says they put them away at closing time. Is it closing time? I ask. No, she says, but Im leavin. Youll want to get yourself back to town before the zombiestorm hits this afternoon. Radar shows its comin down from Washington a whole lot faster than expected. Suddenly, I become aware that Ive left the bus unattended for quite a while, and Im increasingly concerned that I chose to leave the bus unlocked. Even though its the middle of nowhere, Im intensely but vaguely concerned about....something. A tiny-but-insistent-niggling-suggestion of panic is stirring in the very back corners of my dreammind, pacing urgently in the twilit places just outside the edges of my awareness. I decide to leave without the soda. As I walk briskly along the red-dusty road toward the bus, my dream shifts.... ....and I find myself driving a borrowed Jeep into the bus lot, where I know I had to leave a building project unfinished to drive my route. How I know Ive borrowed the Jeep I couldnt say, but its not mine, and I cant remember from whom I borrowed it. I park and get to work... but the work Im supposed to be doing isnt driving a school bus. Im supposed to be installing double metal gate posts that I welded together with a steel brace earlier (my dreammind remembers doing the work, but I havent seen it in the dream) on the face of a curb running along the back of the shop, but even though I tested them before (and my dreammind remembers doing it), they dont line up correctly. Theres a storm drain close to the installation point, and the pavement slopes downward toward it. I realize that one of the posts is too short to reach the ground, and I cant get the gate mounted properly. I try turning them around, and realize that I have welded them together backwards. Just at that moment, the Director of Operations comes out of the building and asks how its going, and I tell him I need to back up and start anew because of a fitting error. He says You dont have time right now - I think you have to get to your next run. I check my watch and see that hes right. My former lead driver (from when I was on 134) walks up on her way to her own bus and stops to ask what the deal is. I tell her that I didnt have this trouble when I measured, and that I put them together with the holes on the wrong side. She says Never mind that now, youll have to take Peters Jeep (My waking mind doesnt actually know anyone named Peter with a Jeep, but in my dream I know exactly who he is and what this fellow looks like - middle-aged, tall, fit, bald, well-dressed. Hes almost Assistant Director Skinner, from X-Files...but not quite). My dream shifts again, and Im supposed to be meeting Peters college-age son, whos going to borrow my car while Im driving his dads Jeep. I pull up in front of their house driving my own car. The house it set back from the street, enveloped by a stand of tall pines and scrub brush. Its dark, theres some snow lingering on the ground from storms past, hunkered down in sheltered, shady spots, but the road is clear and dry. I know this is where Im supposed to pick up the Jeep, but it seems like theres no one there: no lights, no movement. I turn on my cars radio, and its the news. I hit the off button. I dont want to listen to that stuff. Peters teen-aged son drives his dads Jeep past my parked car into the entrance of the driveway and stops, letting a young guy out. He has bleach-blond hair and an slick look about him that immediately puts me on-guard. I can tell he thinks hes going to drive my car, but I know its not Peters son, and I know this slick kid is not ever going to drive my car. Ever. The Jeep, driven by Peters son, continues up his driveway and drives all the way back to the house. I get out and walk up the driveway past the bleach-blond kid as he strolls toward my car. He absolutely reeks of cologne, his clothes are Fancy-College-Frat-Boy Wear and his hair has been gelled to a point somewhere just beyond the crispy-crunchy edge of sanity and reason. He looks surprised when I walk by and dont hand him the keys. Then he starts acting huffy. I can hear him smack his lips behind me, trying to think of something to smarty or smarmy or snippy say. That guy is...NOT...driving my car, I think to myself. Without turning my head or looking back, I raise my keys up over my shoulder so he can see them and press the lock button twice so the lights blink and the horn says meep-meep. As I lock the car, I can see his shadow on the driveway, cast by the amber lights of my car. Hes standing arms akimbo in the road. I can almost make out his indignant duck-face pout in the shadow. Peter is coming out of the house and we meet by the door of his Jeep. The Jeep is dirty, and covered with a fine layer of red dust. Peters son is already standing next to it, keys in hand. The woods are dark on either side of us, and its a little creepy. There are little remnants of plowed snow-berms lingering at the edges of the drive where the trees provide shade during the day. Theyre full of rock and gravel and dirt and pine needles, and I sense they are a sad little hangers-on from the big snows of past weeks. Whats going on? Peter asks. Ive given permission for your son to drive my car. This guy (I indicate Gel Boy, who is standing near my car down on the street) is not going to drive it. Just your son. But we need to take two vehicles, Peters son said. Thats fine - you can still drive my car. But it has to be you. Its my baby. Ive put over a hundred thousand miles on it and it needs to be driven by someone I trust. Okay, okay - Tim can drive my car, Peter says. Tim? Im surprised. He doesnt look like a Tim. Peter says: Well, there are those who call him Tim... ...and the alarm goes off.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 00:55:46 +0000