JR Dream
I was back in high school, riding the elevator (we had no elevator) down to the main floor to leave. I was with someone, Danny M., maybe, and there were no doors on the elevator. It was a fairly long ride and we were engaged in some pretty earnest conversation. Though it was a long ride, I could see that we were approaching the main floor awfully quickly. Instead of lurching to a quick stop though, the elevator reached the main floor and immediately and smoothly went into reverse, backing (for me) horizontally down the hallway, again, very quickly. I kept turning my head to make sure we weren’t going to hit anything (again, I could see out. Glass elevator?), but without incident we ended up in an appropriate place for an elevator to stop.
I realized at this point that I’d left my stuff in my locker. Instead of taking the elevator back, I ran the five flights of stairs (my HS had only four floors) back up to my locker, weaving in and out of all the people coming down. The stairs began very wide and elegant, old fashioned, but well kept. As I went up, the treads became narrower and more beat up. I reached my floor and saw that magic was being performed (Harry Potter style) at a locker half-way down the hall from the stairs. Whoever it was, had recalled the original locker owner’s name/symbol, and when I expressed interest /confusion, he showed me the way it was done. Two fingers from each hand up, the two index fingers touching at the sides of the tips, and then pulled about a foot apart. His fingers glowed a pale blue after the move, but the result was a red-orange firey glow above his locker, showing everyone present (2-3 of us?) a previous occupant’s name/symbol. I ran to my locker practicing the move and seeing my hands glow the pale blue indicating a magic user. Looking down, I could see the faint blue glow on much of my body. At my locker, I tested the maneuver with success, but I had to back up to see it above the locker. I don’t recall the name now, but it was sinister. Somebody with a bad reputation from years before (a Voldemort-like negative reputation, but on a smaller scale). This move also apparently opens the locker as I don’t recall using a lock. Bulky backpack in hand, I raced back down the stairs, horrified at what I’d learned about my locker’s previous occupant, and anxious to get OUT.
Outside the doors, there were people still waiting for their rides/busses, though I had been a long time on the elevator and stairs. They turned their heads when I bolted out of the building (which now resembled my old middle school). Next, I’m heading south on Western Avenue in my Mustang, convertible top down, and I come up next to JR (!!!), riding a motorcycle (???), with his little girl, now a little boy, riding with him. We ride side by side for a while, he’s happy to see me, and I to see him. Eventually, I reach out and touch his leg and he takes my hand, all while still driving down Western. Now my convertible is a horse (pony?) and he and I are kissing, my hands weaving through his hair and my feet up near the horn of my horse’s saddle. We turn off into a park to the east of Western and park (back in the Mustang again). Don’t know where the kid has gone, but JR and I are doing a lot of intimate talking and kissing. I’m sitting on the edge of the passenger door of my car for this, while he stands outside the car. It’s easy to wrap my legs around his legs, my arms around his neck and wind my fingers through his hair and we are both having a really good time with this, happy to finally have connected. Somewhere in my head, I realize that I have a boyfriend (Eric), but this isn’t a problem or concern. The current situation feels just right.
The park’s parking lot, fairly empty when we arrived is filling up, and a line develops, of mostly black women for some event. We don’t pay any attention to them, but at some point, I turn my head to see a beautiful black woman in a pale sweater sitting in my driver’s seat. She’s not watching us, but … JR indicates she’s a friend of his and is trying to tell him that she wants to meet me, make sure I’m alright for him. But now she’s gone, and we walk hand in hand off through the park to find her among the many hundreds of black men and women present. I spot her, and point her out to him, but we proceed toward the far north west corner of the park. There is a row of chairs set along the perimeter fence of the park and almost to the corner, we meet up with her under a tree. She just looks at me, so I extend my hand and offer my name. She shakes my hand, but doesn’t speak. There are other, older women seated in the chairs, and they have taken great interest in the situation and are visiting animatedly about it, no discretion or privacy here. They seem to find it funny.
Now, we’re in a house. The beautiful woman’s or maybe her mother’s. There are several people seated around, watching TV? Two women begin doing dishes in a really old, deep welled, ceramic sink. Not dishes, they are cleaning the sink. Though unspoken to me, I realize I’m supposed to do one half of the sink in a sort of competition. If I do well, I’m more likely to gain their approval to be with JR. I scrub and scrub and dirty brown suds cascade down the drain. JR watches closely over my shoulder, and I turn to tell him that I don’t normally keep this clean a house, or won’t, indicating that assuming I pass, we’re going to live together and I don’t expect to have to clean for him all the time. I don’t want him to expect it either, but there’s no anger about my statement, just fact. I’ve managed to get off some really old grime, but glancing at the other side, it seems to really shine. There are little trinkets in the soap dish, and I clean these too, finding a little ceramic kitty creamer. The neck fits into a hole in the shoulders and turns to look forward, securing the lid which is the kitty's head. The creamer will come out kitty's paw when it's held by the curled tail. I’ve had one like this before and I tell the old woman that lives here. This might score me some points on the approval scale. I find homes for all these things, including a Santa head candy dish (Santa’s beard forms the bowl), that is currently being used to house loose change, mostly pennies.
A commotion begins in another room. A young black man is talking and gesticulating and I’m now in there, ostensibly to put away some mis-matched silverwear and wooden-handled steak knives in a clear plastic box with a hinged lid, but I'm really eaves-dropping. He seems to be a gangster and there is some sort of trouble.
And I’m awake to the radio-alarm, with a popular black male singer’s tune matching the gangster-dude’s mood. And I guess, even though JR and I have virtually nothing in common, there’s still an attraction there, however one-sided it may (or may not?) be, else why would I be kissing him in a dream?