Tim and Chris at Target and my stolen delivery truck

 

I was in Santa Monica, semi-homeless and roaming about doing whatever it is we homeless do: scouting out places to camp out, scavenging for scraps of leftover things with which to build a shelter, and stealing vehicles, apparently.

I'd run into Chris Knoll and his son, Tim at a Target earlier in the day. Tim was a troubled teen in the dream. I'm not sure what he's like in real life, but in the dream he was the sullen, sulky type. Chris was having to rescue him from having one of his "episodes" in the Target.

I tried to help out, first thinking I'd talk to him, one former sullen, sulky teen to another. Quickly, it became apparent that I might have to belt him one, you know, a kind of "Snap out of it!" type of moment. He was doing this little fainting routine, where he'd go all limp and just lay about on the floor. 

Chris intervened and tried to talk to him, taking the approach I'd seen him employ many times in his dealings as a church counselor --  one of firm but reasoned intelligence. I could just tell that this was being wasted on the youth and that a belt in the mouth might have achieved better results. Kids just don't appreciate subtle logic.

Later on, I was downtown, walking the streets of Santa Monica. I saw a deer with a collar on it's neck, roaming about in traffic, looking scared. I thought this struck me as tragic, since it was obviously someone's pet and it wasn't going to survive long, what with the city buses and all. 

He kept darting in and out of the busy afternoon traffic and, just when I thought he was a goner, he'd pop up again somewhere else, sprinting for his life. Soon he was joined by a few more deer who were similarly fearful, and they formed a small herd. 

A group of police officers and bystanders rushed them and attempted to take them down, tackling the deer against the wall, in true LAPD fashion. It looked excessive to me, but really, those deer needed to be stopped. It was ineffective, however, and the deer soon popped up again elsewhere, having slipped through the mob's grasp.

About this time, I was looking around in the parking carport of a run-down apartment complex. Still  scrapping, as always. I found the remnants of a torn sleeping bag, which I inspected and deemed worthy to roll up and procure for myself. I encountered another homeless guy, a long haired, bearded fellow, larger than myself, who I thought might challenge me for the prize, but it never happened. 

I looked around some more in the apartment's stairwell and decided to vacate. The stairs were burned out, and an entire section was missing, leaving an impassible gap in the staircase. I wondered how the people living there managed to get to the upstairs apartments but soon judged the whole area as being too sketchy, even for the likes of homeless me.

I procured some transportation in the form of a tanker truck of some kind. It was suited for liquids, but I felt that the contents of the storage tank was likely sardines or cherry tomatoes. Earlier in the dream, I had been in a processing plant that had these items as the main product, leading me to this tenuous conclusion. 

The truck didn't handle very well. It was top heavy, and the weight would shift treacherously when making turns. I had to put my feet out on the pavement to stabilize it, or it would have capsized for sure. To make matters worse it had handlebars with brakes and a clutch, also a kickstand on the left side of the vehicle, which pretty much made it a motorcycle shaped like a 10-ton bobtail delivery truck. 

I drove it around for a bit and decided to circle back to the apartment building where I'd found the sleeping bag. I parked it in front of the building, employing the kickstand so it wouldn't tip over. I was afraid I might encounter the large, hairy fellow from earlier, but that never happened. 

Eventually, I woke up, somewhat agitated about my lack of success in achieving anything noteworthy in this disjointed dream.