A romantic nightmare
Last night I had a dream that my middle school friend Ryan was going to jail. You see, a few weeks ago I got word that he was being sued by the state of Texas for spamming. So unfortunately, this dream stemmed from reality.
I first met Ryan when I was in the lunch line. He was the new kid in school having just moved from Wisconsin to Ann Arbor. It was one of the first days of the eighth grade, arguable the oddest and most painful of adolescent years. He was one of those early blooming teens with a voice that had already started cracking and the ability to grow a peach fuzz mustache if he so desired. Quickly becoming a member of my group of friends, we elected him to go buy, lighters, cigars, dirty magazines and all of those other contraband items sought after by young teen boys. I remember getting into a lot of trouble with Ryan. We used to have these sleepovers at his house where we would sneak out late at night and light off fireworks on peoples porches. I remember going out one night to watch the U of M coeds participate in the annual naked mile run. I’ll never forget being in the shed outside of his house smoking a joint for the first time one Friday night. I also remember watching him get into fist fights and asking out girls who were, at the time, way out of our league. He had confidence that always seemed so reckless. We went our separate ways in high school, there was no real falling out, we just went different directions as so many high school friendships seem to. One of the last times I spoke with him was when I drove him home at six o’clock in the morning after our schools post graduation all-nighter. We shared an American spirit cigarette and had a conversation that was lighthearted and comfortably superficial, we ignored the fact that we had done a lot of growing up together.
I haven’t seen or spoke to Ryan in years, but I’ve heard rumors about how he had made more than a million dollars with his new internet business. I doubted the rumors at first, but the more I thought about how ambitious he was in the past, it all became very believable. Mutual friends told me that he had moved to Texas where he owned a large house in the suburbs and drove a jaguar. I heard stories about his office and the gaggle of young female assistants that he employed. The validity of all the stories was confirmed when I ran into his step mom a year or two ago. She told me that Ryan was financing the start up of his fathers new welding company, and that not only had he helped them buy a new car but he was also helping them pay the mortgage on the house that he grew up in.
I don’t know if Ryan is really going to jail or not. But the weird thing is that the prospect of him going to jail (and I always felt that it was a prospect) never concerned me that much. Last night I dreamed that I was in that house with him, helping him pack his bags for jail. I dreamt that I was the one who was going to give him a ride there. He was dressed up in a suit getting ready to serve a long sentence in a Detroit prison. He started crying and I grabbed him and cried with him. He said “I don’t want to admit that this is happening to me”. I was so scared for him. It wasn’t a very detailed dream, and I don’t remember anything really horrific happening in it, I just remembered it feeling so dreadfully tragic.
It’s weird that when we sleep, were capable of feeling such intense emotion
I first met Ryan when I was in the lunch line. He was the new kid in school having just moved from Wisconsin to Ann Arbor. It was one of the first days of the eighth grade, arguable the oddest and most painful of adolescent years. He was one of those early blooming teens with a voice that had already started cracking and the ability to grow a peach fuzz mustache if he so desired. Quickly becoming a member of my group of friends, we elected him to go buy, lighters, cigars, dirty magazines and all of those other contraband items sought after by young teen boys. I remember getting into a lot of trouble with Ryan. We used to have these sleepovers at his house where we would sneak out late at night and light off fireworks on peoples porches. I remember going out one night to watch the U of M coeds participate in the annual naked mile run. I’ll never forget being in the shed outside of his house smoking a joint for the first time one Friday night. I also remember watching him get into fist fights and asking out girls who were, at the time, way out of our league. He had confidence that always seemed so reckless. We went our separate ways in high school, there was no real falling out, we just went different directions as so many high school friendships seem to. One of the last times I spoke with him was when I drove him home at six o’clock in the morning after our schools post graduation all-nighter. We shared an American spirit cigarette and had a conversation that was lighthearted and comfortably superficial, we ignored the fact that we had done a lot of growing up together.
I haven’t seen or spoke to Ryan in years, but I’ve heard rumors about how he had made more than a million dollars with his new internet business. I doubted the rumors at first, but the more I thought about how ambitious he was in the past, it all became very believable. Mutual friends told me that he had moved to Texas where he owned a large house in the suburbs and drove a jaguar. I heard stories about his office and the gaggle of young female assistants that he employed. The validity of all the stories was confirmed when I ran into his step mom a year or two ago. She told me that Ryan was financing the start up of his fathers new welding company, and that not only had he helped them buy a new car but he was also helping them pay the mortgage on the house that he grew up in.
I don’t know if Ryan is really going to jail or not. But the weird thing is that the prospect of him going to jail (and I always felt that it was a prospect) never concerned me that much. Last night I dreamed that I was in that house with him, helping him pack his bags for jail. I dreamt that I was the one who was going to give him a ride there. He was dressed up in a suit getting ready to serve a long sentence in a Detroit prison. He started crying and I grabbed him and cried with him. He said “I don’t want to admit that this is happening to me”. I was so scared for him. It wasn’t a very detailed dream, and I don’t remember anything really horrific happening in it, I just remembered it feeling so dreadfully tragic.
It’s weird that when we sleep, were capable of feeling such intense emotion