a dream of somebody I used to know

I dreamt that I was out walking in Berkeley, as I do daily. I plan to see Chiraq, the new Spike Lee movie  set in my home city of Chicago. This movie is only showing, at least in the East Bay, at the Elmwood Theater along College.  I had intended to go today, walk there, walk back. After the relatively heavy rain overnight, with water pleasantly gushing along gutters all over town when I went to a brunch party this morning, the sun came out. Suddenly, a great day for walking in sunshine!

So I had intended to walk to see Chiraq. Then I dozed off. Now that it is dark, I'll go another day.  I am comfortable walking in the dark in Berkeley. I just prefer being out in daylight.

So. I was dozing, asleep here in my home, but in my dream, I was walking along College Avenue, having just left the movie theater. I had gone with a friend and he and I were choosing where to eat.
We went up the west side of College Avenue a couple blocks and we walking 'back' on the east side of College, taking out time, enjoying the date. All dream. It seems so real to me as I write about it. Maybe my being transported over to College Ave and, in an alternate reality, went to the movie.

One reason I am drawn to the film is I want to see aspects of Chicago I never knew well but I have still seen.  I knew Chicago quite well, because my dad knew it well. and I grew up on the South Side, which is a completely different city than the North Side. I am sure the city is different in ways I don't know for blacks but I have seen the poverty stricken neighborhoods portrayed in the film. I guess in my being, I was already drifting through the streets of Chicago as I was imagining seeing the movie.

Walking along the east side of College, I passed a restaurant that had its windows open to the warm late afternoon, little 'keyholes' on either side of the restaurant's entrance, with tables tucked into the keyhole. As I came to this particular restaurant, I thought I saw someone I used to know. I looked once, then did a doubletake. Yep, it was him. I was going to keep on walking, not acknowledge him for this person has shunned me for years, screening my phone calls. He has shown me a foul temper many times and even in a dream, when I thought I saw him a few inches away from me, just on the other side of a railing separating the sidewalk from the table and chair where he was seated, I instantly resolved to keep walking in silence and not to acknowledge I had seen him.

He saw me also and he was unable to restrain his temper. Such behavior actually fits my occasional experience of him. Although he liked to complain and criticize me, even having the unenlightened gall to tell me I didn't do my personal work (how could he have done his personal work if he was going around projecting what another's work should be and further projecting that it was not done?!  This is a question I pondered to him and he never responded and, once again, I am forgetting that I only saw him in a nap dream.).

In the dream, I saw him and looked away, kept moving. I did decide we would not try to get a table at that particular restaurant but I thought no more of him. I am talking about a few seconds, at most, of a dream.

When it registered with him that I was passing, he gasped loudly in a tone I experienced as anger. He removed any doubt, for me, that he was angry by jumping up from his seat, throwing his napkin on the table. He threw it as hard as he could, but a cloth napkin does not throw hard and I sensed that it angered him that the napkin had landed silently.  In my dream, he was giving off lots of angry energy. He jumped out of his chair thew down the napkin forcefully and then began he to run towards the inner part of the restaurant, as if he were going to exit the restaurant to angrily yell at me. The woman he was with, along with a couple other humans that did not come into focus in my dream, looked up questioningly. If they are dating, this dream couple, she must know about his temper. He didn't have to do anything. I had not spoken to him, had intentionally avoided eye contact and I had done my best to give no inkling that I had seen him. No matter. He had seen me and he was angry. Of course this is my dream so it's not about him. At most, it is about my experience of him, of his anger. And it is about the pain I still feel over his severing even the bond of acquaintances.  I know his rejection of me is about him but obviously it's still working me.

I don't recall having ever dreamt about this man before. I don't dream much about people I know in this world. I don't recall many dreams, only when they are vivid. The sting I felt as this dream version of this guy became angry with me for existing, for walking the earth and inadvertently running into him was intense. And I know what the pain is about.  He dumped me in anger and I want him to be my friend, to express regret over the choices he made in relation to me and to start anew. I guess my dream was signaling to me that he is not going to let go of his anger. I need to do what I did in the dream:  avoid his anger.

I don't know what happened next because I woke up when he jumped up and threw down his napkin. I woke up because when he jumped up, my being started. I felt alarm that he was jumping up from his table and coming angrily to me, to yell at me. I awoke when I felt fear of that anger.

Chiraq is about gang violence in Chicago. Chicago's crooked mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, who suppressed a video of an off-duty cop popping sixteen bullets into a kid who was walking away from the cop and not any threat to the murdering cop. A real journalist sued under the Freedom of Info Act after the city flat-out refused a couple dozen FOI requests for the video, a public record the public has a right to see. Rahm ordered the city prosecutor, the city police department and his own underlings to suppress the video because he faced a close vote for his re-election. He had initially won on a campaign pledge to reduce violent crime. He was afraid, apparently, that a video of a cop killing a kid for absolutely no reason, it might affect his vote. Then his city attorney negotiated a five million dollar settlement with the murdered kid's family, extracting their agreement not to make the video public. Thank goodness for that real journalist and the judge who ordered the video released. The cop was immediately charged with first degree murder and Rahm, seeking to deflect the intense criticism of him that has arisen, fired the top cop.  Rahm also seems to have a foul temper, ya know?!!

Rahm vociferously objected to the name of Spike Lee's latest art work, his new movie Chiraq. Of course Lee's title points to the senseless dangers in Iraq, a clever comparison of the gang culture in Chicago, which is a product of our larger, unjust culture, similar to how Iraq's culture has now been very negatively impacted by our culture's interference.  I love it that Rahm thought he could bully a filmmaker into changing the name of his art. And I have always loved Spike Lee's work, ever since "She's Gotta Have It". His "Do the Right Thing" is a major artistic achievement.

So I've been dreamily anticipating the film, anticipating seeing familiar sights in the city I grew up in and, well, just fancifully looking forward.

My glimpse of heaven appearaed in my dream, but not in heavenly fashion. His anger, the way he was instantly huffing angry loud breaths, jumped up, threw down his napkin so hard I jumped (in my dreamy way).

And then I woke up. I was not in Chiraq. I was not in the presence of ill temper.

It seemed so real. A faint part of me wonders if i went to the movie, did see him but did not consciously notice him, so then I dreamt I saw him.

Like an art film only my dream.