To Dream an Impossible Joe

Some bike rides go about five miles too long.

Sunday's two hours of sun left my legs unsteady and a shower cooled me down into sleep mode. After an hour of napping, I awoke to find I literally couldn’t get up. Exhaustion riddled these bones.

I had no choice but to turn out another hour before I started work on my freelance story. Later I’d understand I had no choice for less tangible reasons - this was a dream I needed to have.

Beginning in medias res as all dreams do, I walked between my two apartments simmering over some guy with a girlfriend stealing someone else’s girlfriend. This tale’s progression made the who and why irrelevant; it could have been my girlfriend, for all I know. She had a tight jawline, porcelain skin, a Clara Bow haircut and remained highly anonymous.

It was laundry night, and my newer apartment finally had facilities.

I’d held onto both my current Nashville apartment and now rented a second, a walk-up which I shared with good ole Marjie Korcheck and … my brother Joe.

This was not the Joe of reality, here he wore some scraggly facial hair. was skinny, active and did things around the apartment. The sweatsuits he usually wears were replaced with a red sports coat, a white dress shirt a skinny hipster tie knotted perfectly (did he do that too?). It all matched, and seemed strangely appropriate of the personality I’ve always known lurking behind the fog. His had been cut in a rough approximation of how he’s always worn it

Isn’t it amazing that your brain can build a brand-new version of a person you’ve known your whole life, someone who you saw in every phase. This composite was scarily accurate.

As I shuttled between apartments on two nights – even in the dream, I wondered how I afforded two leases – the girlfriend theft was eating at me. I wish I knew why, but dreams never come with answers. People on the new block were talking about it, although some of those congregating at the apartment building’s security door were definitely echoes or amalgams of familiar people.

And as with almost all it dream appearances, Joe could talk.

As I pulled half-wet boxers from the washer – living without laundry facilities has become such a hassle that my dreams must soothe that open wound – Joe walked into the kitchen behind me.

Joe had put some gourmet chocolate chip cookies on a plate, and told me he bought them. As I pulled out his standard chair at the head of the table, the fact that Joe had just told me he bought cookies hit like a cornered heavyweight.

At that point I was stuck in that limbo where a dream becomes lucid yet the dream takes every action to sustain it. I had to grab what I could , so we shared an extended hug in which I called him my best buddy, and he said thanks in a croaking yet pleasant voice.

Then we got back to the business of laundry and chatting with Marje, who returned from the ether with more details on the girlfriend theft. That impossible domestic group fit well; Marje had gone to the store with him to get the cookies and joked about the cost.

Then, as all the good ones do, the dream fizzled as the mid-day heat elbowed into the cool late-summer twilight I had conjured as a backdrop.

The comfortable new apartment and dream brother in a red coat all slipped away.

Yet hours later, I still tasted those cookies.