NOBODY DIED

Even though I felt like I was at a Wake

8/26/08

My dreams, the ones I vividly remember… are doozies.

This one started with me walking up a street like old 6^th street near where Charles Maund Oldsmobile –Cadillac used to be watching a scene unfold in slow-motion amongst people I didn’t know as they quickly turned into people that I did (know) from the past and present.  There they were, families of people all gathered on the sidewalk, ready to argue over something they didn’t even witness, to the death on the word alone of people they DIDN’T know… never would know even, just being on the side of their own.  Even if that reason… that story they were arguing about was a lie.

I was the witness to the truth and no one was listening because they didn’t want to hear.  They would rather fight and hate than be at peace because it was all in the name of family unity and stuff like that.

The ruckus started simply enough: some cab driver was parking his car when some other cab driver ran into a line of parked cars as if to stack them onto each other.  DEVASTATION.  What a mess and sight. 

As people poured from buildings and passing traffic, coming from all sides of the street like ants at a picnic to fight, even as the police arrived, there stepped 2 so-called witnesses who had “witnessed nothing” because they weren’t there.  They were dressed in stylish dark business suits, one a doctor and the other a lawyer and both WHITE with impeccable personal credentials to state that whatever the truth was indeed was not really the truth in factuality.  The police took their statements and the wrong-doer taunted the people he had hurt into an uproar.  The riot police arrived and in the melee a remarkable thing occurred… The cops wrote the report to state that they didn’t believe the 2 White men and that the riot was justified.  They saw the truth in the words and actions of the righteous. 

And just like that, everything was reversed, calm again and I knew I was dreaming. 

As a former cop and cab driver I know from personal experience that it will NEVER happen that way.  Those “witnesses with the fancy clothes” will always be believed over lowly cab drivers by the police even when their spin makes no sense.  I remember one time some drunk White female ran a red light at Manor Road and Anchor Lane while driving a white compact pickup truck.  She collided with one of our taxis.  She had no driver’s license, no insurance, expired registration and license plates, wreaked of liquor with spilled open containers inside the cab and a bed load of empty beer cans. 

Incredulously (to me) she was NOT arrested or cited by the cops even though there were witnesses to the incident.  Instead he threatened me with arrest for interference and I stood my ground of course by asking for a field supervisor who put a stop to at least THAT nonsense.  You know HOW I AM and if not, you will learn.  The girl still was not cited...

Why do I suppose she wasn't?  The cop explained it was “up to his discretion to issue or not issue a citation if he didn’t himself witness an infraction.  There were at least 5 witnesses who had stuck around and they all saw the same thing but... The real reason he was allowing her to not take a feel sobriety test and let her drive away in that vehicle that clearly should’ve also been impounded?  She was a knock-out with big boobs and very nice legs wearing shorts.  We all thought we knew the deal but it wasn’t until later that I learned that her dad was an APD cop too.  It was a good ole boy thing with them looking after their “families” even when they are clearly wrong.

As I walked by the calmness of what I had just witnessed I saw Arturo, the Panamanian nephew of a long-deceased friend of mine from church.  He was looking straight at me as I walked by and suddenly I asked Zak, my friend from Eritrea, “Is Arturo your cousin?”  I was compelled to ask without regard to the reason even though I knew that they were from very different aspects of this rock called Earth.

Zak said “No way.  I don’t know him.”  I was suddenly sad because we are all cousins unless we are from Mars and even then, we are cousins.

We were at Eyeyu’s house eating Grouper fish he had caught and there were people there that couldn’t really stand each other… actually sitting, laughing, talking and eating together. 

And that’s when the epiphany and significance of the dream, the realness of the life alongside it also, hit me:  Maybe we need the liars to pull us apart so that we can be closer when we get back together.  Maybe...