I’ve been sick in bed with a nasty intestinal thing, accompanied by a high fever. When I was a kid, I had high fevers, and they were always accompanied by really great hallucinations. I had a very intense dream the morning the fever hit, and this time I was able to write most of it down before it evaporated.
Rita and I were driving in Charleston SC, and lost. Arrived at an intersection where streets came together strangely, and there was a restaurant so we went inside to look at a map and get our bearings. There was a chef there who I recognized – a tall man who I’d met at Jon Carroll’s. I asked his name, and he told me but it was garbled. We talked for a while and then he disappeared back into the kitchen in mid-conversation.
There were a lot of people eating at big long tables, huge piles of golden fried chicken which was referred to as “the baked dinner.”
I kept waiting for the chef to came back out. Other chefs walked by on their way out of the kitchen.
A man walked in, and as I was thinking, “Isn’t that Elvin Bishop?” Then Michael Bloomfield walked in, accompanied by a couple of other guys. One of his companions recognized me and introduced me to Bloomfield, who was very big and had very big hands; when he shook my hand he only took a couple of my fingers. Nice man, tho.
“I guess we ought to eat here,” I said to Rita.
Still waiting for the chef to return.
I looked into another room and there was Blair Jackson, talking to a man I don’t know. I walked over and sat at his table. Blair said he was there for the wedding of (mumble), and I said, “Ah, so there will be a lot of us around.” The man sitting with Blair pulled a large television set in front of his face, and then the TV screen showed an amateur rocket launch of sorts that appeared to be the lifting of a large, rectangular concrete object a few feet into the air in a cloud of black smoke.
Feel free to post your interpretations!