James Reed, slacker extraordinaire

 

Let me just say that the behaviors and attitudes, actions and appearances of the people in my dreams in no way represent or reflect their actual personalities or character. My brain uses these people, or aspects of them, to play out roles in whatever drama it has cooked up, intended to teach a lesson, to fill a need lacking in my day to day life, or just for entertainment. 

In real life, James Reed is a type A, hyper-focused overachiever. He takes the Biblical injunction "whatever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might" seriously and will spend 24/7 obsessing about his latest fixation. Whether it's his job, his dog training enterprise, his band, his beer, his home or automotive renovation projects, or some piece of musical or computer equipment he is wanting to purchase, when something piques his interest, he is all about that thing.

When he's in, he's all in, but when he loses interest, he doesn't mess around either. The lifespan of one of his obsessions can be mercurial: short, intense flurries of activity, followed by a period of complete disinterest and neglect, as he moves on to to his next conquest. That's James in a nutshell.

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In my dream, James and I were working for Joellen, one of our former bosses at YC Honda, in one of her side enterprises, a hotel chain with an automotive service department theme. The housekeeping staff wore the blue and gray Honda uniforms and cleaned rooms in teams that resembled pit crews. You'd have five people cleaning and stripping a room, and it was supposed to take a total of 5 minutes to complete the job.

It came as no surprise to me that James had mastered the art of slacking on the job. As captain of the pit crew, he set the pace for the rest of the team. He knew just how long he could get away with taking breaks before the inactivity would be noticed and logged. He spent every millisecond of that time actively engaged in non-work activities, like watching TV or lounging on the beds in guest rooms. Uncannily, he'd know exactly when Joellen would be arriving, and he'd call everyone to action, and there would be a great bustle of activity as we all took to our various jobs.

We were in a guest room honing our craft, doing one of our fake work drills, creating the illusion of activity, when I saw a fishing pole sitting in the corner of the room. I got the idea that I'd like to go fishing, since the room was only about 100 feet from the beach. I ran this idea past James.

"Not a good idea," he said. "They are sure to spot you standing out there on the beach."

"What about if just cast out from here?" I offered. There was a window that faced the beach, and I was determined to take my slackerism to the next level.

"I'll allow it," he said, "provided you can reel in at a moment's notice." He was tough, but fair.

I looked around the room for some bait to throw on the gigantic treble hook, but all I found was a hotdog and banana sandwich. I tried putting some bits of banana and bread on, but they were too flimsy and kept falling off. The hotdog stuck, though, and I managed to get one good cast in. I set the pole down in an unobtrusive spot and waited for a bite.

No bites came, however, and soon it was time to switch rooms. In order to get to the next cleaning assignment, it was necessary to walk down a short alleyway. I had to pee, so I dropped trow right there in the middle of the alley and began to urinate, squatting in such a way as to appear that I was just bending down to pick up my car keys or something. 

At that moment, mid-stream, a police officer appeared at the end of the alley accompanied by some of the hotel staff. I quickly stood up, but my pants didn't fully come with me. As the officer approached, I was still fiddling with my underwear and trying to get myself tucked in. Luckily, the officer didn't appear to notice, and he greeted us with a garbled stream of nonsense that seemed to be amiable enough, though completely incomprehensible.

"That was a close one," I told James after they had passed. 

"Close one, nothing," he said. "Did you not notice that he was completely demon possessed?"

I hadn't failed to notice that there was something off about the officer. He had one lazy eye and one partially dead eye, mostly white like a poached egg. His "good" eye was the lazy one, so it was hard to tell what he was looking at, or if he was seeing anything at all. Still, he seemed nice enough, and he hadn't busted me for peeing illegally, so I wasn't quite on board with the demon possession assessment.

Back in one of the rooms, James and I were watching a surf documentary from the 60s. The room was a wreck, and we were sprawled out on a very disheveled bed. The narrator kept droning on about this being the heyday of the white American teenager. James concurred, and although he always self-identified as red rather than white, the pride in his voice was obvious. James' hair is copper colored and his complexion is that of a beet with a sunburn, so he is anything but white.

It seemed as if hours had passed since our last drill. I had a sudden sense of urgency, an intuitive feeling that Joellen would be appearing at any minute. I nudged James, and we both sprang into action. We made the bed in a sloppy, haphazard fashion and picked up a few Doritos from the floor. I suspected that even if Joellen were to actually show up for an inspection, that somehow, like the cop, she'd fail to notice our transgression. James would likely distract her at the door and misdirect her attention to an  area of the room that had somehow remained clean.

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It seemed like there was more to this dream, but I'm struggling to piece together the final elements, so I'll have to leave off for now. If it comes to me later on, I will revisit this post. Until then...