Musical Commune

 

I dreamed my neighborhood was rebuilding and renovating after a fire. Neighbors were being more neighborly, leaving doors open, or in some cases off the hinges entirely. One could walk in and say "howdy," begin rooting around in the fridge for something to eat or sleep with a neighbor's daughter without a second thought. 

I walked in to one living room where the whole family was sitting around taking turns leading the group in song. First one, then another, would start playing something on acoustic guitar and singing a verse or two, then the rest of the group would join in for the chorus. One bearded fellow had quite the charismatic, boisterous voice and a dramatic fingerpicking style that garnered a round of applause.

"Way to go, Jose Feliciano," one of the brothers said, jokingly.

It didn't matter how terribly awful one played, all were encouraged to give it a try. I wanted to join in, but I wasn't familiar enough with the material. I wished they had a hymnal or something with the words, so I could at least fake it. Some of the songs were originals, so the words were known only among the family members.

Next door, at Jeff's old place, a family had renovated the dining room area. It had come out pretty nicely, and was set up like a restaurant, with ample seating for about 50 or so people. The room was filled with the sound of clinking silverware, and a lively discussion across the many tables gave it the air of a religious group during social hour.

I was seated next to Chris Knoll, who looked exactly like he did in the cult days: bearded, jeans and t-shirt, laughing and smiling with his chipped tooth. He handed me a bottle of wine, which I promptly knocked over, spilling half of the contents on the floor. No one seemed to make much of it, though I felt quite embarrassed as I grabbed some napkins and towels to clean the floor.

As is usual in a dream, the small spill turned into a floor drenching mess. I kept having to get fresh towels as I crawled under each and every table, making sure that I got all the little pools of wine from around the table and chair legs.

"Hey, at least this wine works well as a floor cleaner," I joked to a pair of legs under the table.

"No problem," said the person who the legs were connected to. It was the host, jovial as ever, unperturbed by my knocking about under the table.

"They did a nice job with the floor," I said. "This tile is much nicer than the crappy asbestos stuff they had in here before." I was referring to the gummy old faux brick red linoleum that was exactly like the stuff I'd had in my house in Paradise. 

As I finished up, I noticed that the nice tiles had stopped in the kitchen, where the old flooring was still in place. The insurance only paid for the flooring in the rooms that had burned in the fire, apparently. My compliment, I realized, sounded more like a slight, and once again I felt the crimson tinge of embarrassment creeping up my from behind my ears.

Somewhere in a lower part of the house, Robert Eckerman, a group leader at Sutter-Yuba Behavioral Health, was sitting in his newly appointed office. He had a small pickup parked right outside the door. Without asking, I jumped in the truck and started backing it down the driveway. 

I was only intending to move it a few feet, but I soon discovered that the brakes were nearly inoperable, and it required all my weight pressing down on the pedal to get it to slow down. I decided to just go with it, and I took the truck on a tour of the neighborhood. I knew I could slow down eventually when the road leveled out.

In my travels, I saw a man and his son heading down to the creek to do some fishing. I rolled down my window to talk to him.

"You'll never catch anything down there," I said to the man.

He looked up at me and produced a fish, still squirming on the line. It was a rather large bluegill, and the man smiled at me proudly as he waved it in front of me. Apparently, he'd already been to the creek once and was now going back with his son for a second trip.

I eventually got the truck back to Robert and proceeded to stroll through another neighbor's front door where a family was making dinner. I grabbed a tortilla from off of the stove and started making a burrito with some of the ingredients that were in pots. The husband looked at me approvingly, and I took a bite, nodded and thanked him. 

"This is a lovely place you have," I told him. "Such a nice neighborhood, too. I've met some great people in the last few days. Some really nice people." 

I was perhaps a bit too emphatic about the "really" part. It had been his daughter that I had slept with a few nights before, and he eyed me suspiciously after that. I left soon after that, fearing that I'd pushed the neighborly thing too far.

Next, I found myself in an older couple's home. A lot of landscaping was still being done on the exterior. There were muddy piles of dirt everywhere and freshly excavated areas carved into the hilly terrain. It was going to be nice, eventually, you could just tell. 

I tried not to get mud on the floor as I walked around their house. The lady was kindly as she shooed me outside, where I saw the husband and followed him down to the garage. It had been freshly rebuilt and stocked with tool boxes and workbenches.

"What a great garage," I said enthusiastically. "Say, if you need a hand with this earthwork, I know a guy." I was thinking of Stan, my neighbor to the east. Stan is Polish, so there's a little language barrier, but he works cheap and is very good with his Bobcat. It would be a good fit, I thought. 

....to be continued (or not). That was about it, really. I have a tele-therapy session at nine.