5/1/5: Jam Master for a Day

I don't have all that much to report today. Another Pleasant Valley Sunday, I guess.  But we do have a couple of announcements:

1. Congrats to the Koises on the birth of their first child, a daughter born Friday night.  The baby came right around when it was expected, freeing up the rest of Dan's summer for softball. Well done, baby.

2. We have been getting some very nice submissions to the verbungle.com "Pin the moustache on Hans" contest.  Keep 'em coming. Deadline is Sunday night at midnight.

3. Here's a hint for Friday's GISG. It's one word, but it could have been two. It's on the first page of results. The word(s) makes me laugh just to say it.

4. We have a fine new tale from the suburbs today.

That's about it. Hopefully the clouds will hold off long enough for us to play some softball on Sunday.

Here's the start of a true story:

I know I’m stuck in a dream and I don’t want it to end. Once you wake up, that's it. No way you can fall back to sleep and go back to the dream again. Not even in the movies do they pretend you can do that. Alright, maybe in the really bad ones.

What they do in the movies and you can also do in real life is wake up from a dream and realize you were dreaming but not realize right away that you're dreaming again, or rather still dreaming. A dream within a dream.  Happens all the time. I woke up from a dream in this dream I'm having right now, and the first dream had been a really good dream.  I don't remember what it was about exactly. I think I was a teenager, sitting on a park bench making out with a girl for hours on end. The way you do when you're a teenager. You just keep at it until it's time to go home. You could probably make out for seven days straight if you didn't have anyplace to be. And I didn't have anyplace to be.

So it was a good dream. For all I remember, it was better than the one I'm having right now. But it's hard to say for sure.  This is good, too.

I'm kinda sad to know this is a dream. I guess it's possible that I'm really living this day, and all these things are happening, but I don't really see a way. Too much has happened, and my memories of most of it are way too vague for stuff that supposedly took place in the last few hours. If I thought it were real, I'd probably get real nervous, like the world has gone crazy and nothing's impossible. If nothing's impossible in the real world, there's no point in dreaming anymore.  And that's too much to think about.

So I woke up from the dream where I was making out with the girl, and of course I was a little disappointed that it was over and it had only been a dream. But that disappointment went away quickly, because I knew right away it was going to be a great day. The sun was out already, high in the sky, and it was a Saturday. I guess that means it's still a Saturday.

So I jumped out of bed and I started packing a knapsack. I made a couple of sandwiches. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. I packed a couple of extra T-shirts and a towel, and I left my apartment. See, right there is some proof that this is a dream, because my apartment from this morning isn't the apartment I live in now.  It was like some hybrid of a couple other apartments I've had over the years. Although for the life of me I can't remember what the apartment I live in now looks like, so I guess it's possible it's the right place.

I left my house and the next thing I remember I was riding in a car with a bunch of friends. We were heading to Philadelphia to see a concert. It was a perfect day outside, maybe 74 degrees. Room temperature, as my friend Rick used to say. So I was riding in this car, surrounded by my friends. They were good friends, specific friends, but they came and went and became other friends a couple of times, and it was around then that I started to suspect it might all be a dream.

But I felt so good, and I was so convinced that this was going to be one of the all-time Saturdays, that I didn't want to acknowledge that maybe none of it was really happening. I wasn't about to call anybody's bluff. I was sitting in the shotgun seat, and we were passing a 40 oz. Budweiser around. The guy behind me kept smacking me in the back of the head, hard enough to be a little bit annoying but on a day like today who could get mad? I think Deion was driving. He has this habit where when you come up on a big curve in the road he'll just drive straight instead of following the curve.  He'll be halfway into the oncoming lane, hoping nobody's coming, and then when the road comes curving back around he'll just keep going straight until he's back in his lane again.  He kept doing that on the way there, but I didn't feel nervous at all. I just knew it was going to be a terrific day and nobody could screw it up.

We were talking the whole way, and blasting the radio, and passing the bottle around, and then Deion lit up a joint. We smoked the joint and we started talking about the concert. We were all giddy to be riding in this perfect car on this perfect day, healthy young men who knew the world belonged to them on days like this. I think at some point in there Brady took over the driving, or probably Deion just became Brady, because this is a dream and people become other people all the time in dreams. But as far as I was concerned, Brady just took over the driving and Deion got in back with the rest of the guys.

We got to the venue, parked the car, and we drank about three Bud cans apiece in the parking lot. Nobody was in a hurry. For a few minutes, we tossed a frisbee. I remember making one great running catch, one of those catches where the frisbee is so far ahead of you that you think there's no way you'll ever get there, but you keep running anyway because you've got nothing else to do. And the frisbee's just hanging up there in the air, compelling you to keep running. It's practically calling out to you with words of encouragement: "Come on, push it! Run! Almost there!"  And on this particular catch, I realized with about twenty yards to go that I was going to make it, so I recalculated my speed and slowed down enough so that I could make the catch look good. Sure enough, when I caught up to the disc it was ankle high, and I just reached out and snagged it with one hand. My momentum kept me going for another ten strides or so, and the guy who tossed it, I think it was my friend Brian, gave me a nice little round of applause.

The next thing I remember, we were inside the venue, and it was a rather delightful ampitheater setup. I think I saw a sign that said "Live Aid" on it, but I disregarded it, because Live Aid was in like 1985 and now we're in 1992 or something. Jesus, I don't even know what year it is.  Anyway, we were here to see RUN-DMC, and we were totally fucking excited about it. I know it's been a long time since RUN-DMC ruled the world, and I know that it's kind of the end of the line since Jam Master Jay got killed a few years ago.

But for some reason none of this matters.  It feels like we're seeing them in their prime, and everyone is practically jumping up and down as we wait for them to take the stage.  An announcer comes out and he says, "Ladies and Gentleman, RUN-DMC!" And we're all going nuts. And Run and DMC are lifted out of a hole in the stage on some hydraulic platform thing.  They're standing next to each other, with their arms frozen together in a high five.  Then they jump off the platform onto the stage and they start rapping.

Of course we know every word. We're rapping along with them, and they get to the part of the song where they go, "Run...DMC...and Jam Master Jaaay!" and all of a sudden another platform comes out of the stage, and sure enough there is Jay, alive and well like nothing ever happened. We're going absolutely bananas, and the people around us are cheering too. But they're just cheering like Jay's appearance was an expected part of the show. I feel like shaking them by their collars, telling them they're seeing a fucking miracle, because Jam Master Jay DIED a few years ago, and now he's onstage in front of them, spinning his turntables and even taking a turn on the mic here and there. My friends and I seem like we're the only ones who appreciate what's happening on this stage today.

The concert goes on for another hour or two, and we all get our money's worth. Jay's resurrection wasn't a gimmick, it wasn't a hologram, it wasn't a stand-in. He's alive again, and there's no explanation offered. It hits me for a second that it must be a dream, but I don't want to derail it so I say nothing. I just soak in the moment.

After the show, the announcer guy comes out onstage and calls my name out.  He invites me up to participate in a basketball shooting contest. I run up there as some workmen set up a basketball goal in one corner of the stage. First I hit a free throw for $100. Then he asks if I want to "chance it" and shoot from the top of the key for $1000. I already know it's my day, so I nod confidently. I take two dribbles and then I shoot. It hits the front of the rim, bounces off the backboard, and drops through. Then the workmen set up a bunch of palm trees in front of the basket, so it's almost impossible for me to see the rim at all. The announcer guy asks me if I want to chance it again for $5000. 

"That's a nice chunk of change, Bruce," I say to him, grabbing his microphone so the crowd can hear me. "But those trees are going to make it awful difficult. You know what? I'm gonna give it a fucking shot."

The crowd goes nuts. I've won them over with my stage antics.  I think using a swear word was what put me over the top.  I take the ball, the $5000 money ball, in my hands, and I squeeze it with all the love in my heart. It's a red, white, and blue ball, brand new out the box but somehow perfectly broken in. I take two dribbles, and right as I'm about to line up the shot, I turn to the crowd, tuck the ball under one arm and raise the other arm over my head again and again to get everybody riled up. They're going crazy.

I turn back to the hoop. I can just barely make out the orange of the rim through all the obstacle trees they set up. It's an impossible shot, I know that. The crowd knows that. The path between the trees where I'm going to have to shoot the ball is probably only an inch wider than the ball itself.  It's a fool's game, taking a chance on a shot like that with $1000 sitting in my pocket.

But I know something the crowd doesn't. That the announcer doesn't. This is my dream. And if Jam Master Jay is onstage, laughing and bobbing his head like it's 1985, I can make any shot I want to.

I take another couple of dribbles. I'm not nervous or anything; it's just that this is my time and I want to milk it. A pleasant breeze comes in and blows some of the hair away from my forehead. I spin the ball in my hands and cradle it like Adrian Dantley. I'm not gonna shoot 'til I'm good and ready.