i dreamed . . .

. . . I rode from San Diego to Louisiana in the bed of a monster truck. "What is that music?" I asked the guy sitting beside me. The emotion of the music as we rounded the canyon highway's curves matched the rocky landscape so perfectly it was like the music and the landscape were one, and it was like I was one with the music. He didn't know who the composer was. He'd never heard the music before either.


We arrived at a way station where we transferred to buses. "Now's a good time to use the bathroom," Betty Robin said. "We'll call you when the coffee's ready." Then we were at Wolf's grocery store in Parks. "Who is F-Pete?" a male Doiron cousin I'd never met before said. He said, "Does the F stand for future?" I said, "I haven't a fucking clue." F-Pete towered over the other customers waiting in the check-out lane – hairy all over, his shoulders especially, furry biceps and triceps even, muscular like a wrestler, wearing a royal blue singlet and a white blindfold-bandanna, thin rings of lighter skin up and down his arms from lying in a tanning bed with rubber bands on. I saw Jennifer and Barbara Lasseigne in the crowd, but when I reached out to shake Jennifer's hand, it was so chaotic I managed to shake only her arm. Or maybe she wasn't as excited to see me as I was to see her, even though it had been at least twenty-five years since we'd last seen each other.