I am so American I must hold my head. Last night while dreaming I held a shot gun in my arms and discussed its beauty with a medical doctor–though not a real doctor–he was a TV Landdoc but I don’t remember which show he comes from. We were standing together outside the dream world hospital and we each had a gun and we were mutually excited about the prospect of duck hunting. I remember my gun was oddly shaped like a golf club. It was probably a white cane before it became a Remington. Then the doors of the hospital flew open and a gruesome retinue appeared. There was a former boss of mine (who will remain nameless) and a life long friend who I first met 30 years ago at the Iowa Writers Workshop. There were several people who I knew I “knew” from various periods of my life but they weren’t clear. And then the dreamland camera focused on a character who I can only call “the central scrutinizer”–a tall, thin man with a small wooden box over his head with a square slit where his eyes would be. His job was to interrogate my friend from the Writers Workshop and my pal had to sit in one of those little tents you see as the backdrop for a Christmas creche but there was no manger or baby Jesis. The rest of us were told to stand far away while the scrutinizer with his box head and eyeball slit was given the okay to cross examine my friend about his life. We all sat far away like passengers in an overcrowded airport whose flights have been delayed–we sprawled on the floor and leaned against walls. Box man asked my friend if he had written anti-American poetry. You could scarcely hear him. My friend who in real life has a hearing impairment couldn’t understand the question. I got to my feet and walked straight up to box man and stared into his little eyevall slit and told him that he had to speak up because there were lots of hearing impaired people. The others were horrified that I dared to confront the scrutinizer. But then he was gone. My friend came out of the creche and made a joke about feces. Say what you will, authority counts on the public to obey its orders to sit down. In real life I have never gone duck hunting.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 