Monday, August 6, 2012

I Have a Dream: Cocaine and a Golf Cart

I'm somebody who has very vivid, involved dreams. I've had so many crazy dreams I can't remember them all including the time I dreamt I was let loose to cause all sorts of damage in a giant mansion made of marble only to get chased around by Herman Munster, or the time I dreamt I insulted the head of the Chinese mafia and spent my whole dream running away from their assassins.

"No freeeeeeeedddoooooom!!" That's their anti-Braveheart victory yell. Yeah you don't want to mess with a people who are that excited about government subjugation.

Karate by blmurch, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License  by  blmurch 

But last night I had another very complex, detailed dream and I decided to write it down immediately while it was still fresh in my head as it was pretty entertaining. I dreamt that my old homie Mac and I had beef for some reason. I went to go kick his ass while he was in school, and found him sitting in class at his desk. I went straight for him but he saw me coming, got up, and threw the first punch. We started going at it pretty violently and since we're both big guys, we ended up a bloody mess by the time the cops came.

All the witnesses told the cops I was the one who came looking for trouble, so I was arrested and thrown in a holding cell. In there, I met a thin, serious Middle Eastern man. He told me he was planning on robbing a bank and asked me if I was interested in joining him in this endeavor. I said maybe, so he told me he had a fool proof plan and told me to meet him on an old abandoned street in Harlem where he would give me said plans. Once I saw how great they were, he explained, I would beg him to let me in on it.

So a few days later, I met him in the abandoned street where he showed up in a very nice, old style, pin striped suit. Though he was always composed even in the holding cell, clothes-wise he definitely looked a lot better than when I first met him. He was very brief and serious. I doubt this fool ever cracked a smile in his life.

"Hey what's up. Here are the plans," he said as he handed me some folded up wads of paper. He then walked away without even waiting for a response. I partially unfolded the papers to glance at his highly complex bank robbing plans. I could see some words, blue prints, and calculations, but not being much into well thought-out plans, I folded them back up and threw them in my pocket.

Then from across the street, my eyes spied a golf cart that was just sitting there. It wasn't an ordinary golf cart, it was a mega sized one that I don't think exists in real life. Now there's something that interested me. I rushed over, started her up, and started joy riding around Harlem. As I was rollin down a huge street about to hit a red light, a black guy spotted me from the sidewalk, yelled out "hey!", and made his way over.

Not even close 


I didn't want to talk to him, but he timed his sprint perfectly and next thing I knew we were face to face as he put his right hand on one of the golf cart polls that held up the roof. "Gimme a ride," he said. I didn't have much choice, and I didn't really care either. So I said "OK." He sat down in the passenger side. "Sup man, my name's Raj," he said as he stuck out his hand for me to shake. "Brick" I responded.

At first Raj seemed pretty disinterested. He just wanted a ride and was merely being courteous in part because the situation called for it, in part because he had no reason not to be. But over the next few days Raj and I got pretty close. It turns out we did more than just get him to his destination. We started hanging out daily as we would joy ride around Harlem at top speeds in the golf cart with no specific plans in mind.

We would run across friends of Raj, and gave them rides to wherever they were going. When they got off Raj would tell me about each one. "Don't be impressed by that guy; he's a punk. You notice how when I asked him questions about his story he started deviating hardcore?" he might say. Or, "me and that guy go way back" as he would detail the crimes and hijinks of our latest passenger.

Raj shared his philosophy about how to live and act with me. He was very street wise, and the stuff he said made a lot of sense as philosophies based on real life experience usually do. Though Raj and I became instant friends, I had no delusions about who he was.

Under his chill demeanor, he was a badass gangster, and spoke with authority. He decided where we went and what we did; after all this was his world, and I knew that with him around all was groovy. We kept hitting up a local candy shop where Raj would purchase drugs from the guy behind the counter.

On our third day of chilling, we ditched the golf cart and got a ride from one of Raj's big ass friends named Moe. "This is Brick" Raj said to his friend as I got in the back seat. "Sup man" Moe said in a friendly manner as he gave me a reverse nod (that's where you move your head upwards as opposed to downwards in acknowledgement).

Him and Raj started talking as I looked out the window and enjoyed the ride. Moe kept doing bumps of blow at every red light he hit. His driving became more and more erratic as he started swerving and passing limit lines by several yards. "Yo, take it easy!" Raj said as he hung on to the "oh shit" handle that's located above the passenger window.

But his friend's driving was beyond being corrected by verbal instructions at that point. Finally the car careened across an intersection as he missed a red light and smashed into a parked car on the other side of the street somehow avoiding to get hit by cars going the other way. Cops happened to be right up the street.

They obviously saw the accident, hit the sirens, and hauled over. Raj bailed with the quickness as soon as Moe's car came to a stop, leaving Moe in a dazed state in the driver seat and me in the back. It only took a few seconds for the cops to get to us. There was no point in me trying to run. It would only have made things worse.

Suddenly, I remembered the incriminating  folded up bank robbery plans I had in my pocket. I pulled them out and realized that they were in fact folded up over a quarter of a brick of coke. (Yeah it had been several days and they originally didn't have any coke in them but remember this was a dream.)

"Oh shit," I thought as I threw it all under the driver's side car seat. I saw Moe stumble out the car doing his best to follow the cops instructions. Next thing I knew, a pig leaned into the car, gun drawn aimed right at my face. "Get out the vehicle!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, though I was well within hearing distance. I got out and laid on the ground as instructed. I looked over at Moe. He was already cuffed and being led to the backseat of one of the cruisers. "Man they're pretty efficient," I thought to myself.

"Get up!" the cop yelled at me. "Got anything illegal on you?" he barked. "No" I replied, but as he turned my pocket inside out residual blow fell to the ground. "What's this!?" He immediately proceeded to give me a sobriety test. "Man, this kid is maintaining like a mother fucker! He must do bumps every fucking day!" he yelled to his fellow officers. However my super chill, compliant attitude combined with his years of experience told him I was obviously no gangster.

He made me get down on all fours. "This will help you deal with the effects of the cough in your system," he said as he pulled out a big syringe and stuck it in the back of my skull. "Stay outta this neighborhood. This is no place for a whiteboy like you." He walked away and the cruisers drove off being satisfied with their one arrest. I stayed on the ground and broke out into tears from the emotion of it all. Raj had bailed. It was understandable, after all it was anyone's guess as to what his current standing with the law was.

But still I couldn't help but feel like he had abandoned me. Even if he had just have yelled out "run" as he bailed I would have known that he had thought about me as he fought for his own survival. I knew I would never see him again. The cop was right, this was no place for me. That's part of what my tears were about. A harsh world; a system in place that decided our fates. My new friend was gone forever, that's just the way the world is...

I made my way back to my boy Pun's house where I had been staying to find my homie Nacho and a couple others sitting around watching T.V. I told them all about my adventures with Raj that had been going on for the past couple days. "And one of his chick friends said I was cute," I boasted.

"Ooh that gangster's gonna come back and cap your ass, Brick," Nacho joked. "Damn dude. You always get into these situations without even trying!" he added as he shook his head.

Then Pun, who had been showering, walked in. Upon seeing me he yelled, "Dude! Where the fuck have you been, fool!? I was looking all over for you!"

Not wanting to repeat the story I just shared with everyone I told him, "I been hanging out with this gangster cat. Don't worry I'm a write a post all about it!" And so I just did. ;)





*Don't forget to check out my book! http://mobybrickbook.com 

1 comment:

  1. I got a good laugh out of this piece. Very visual so I could picture what was going on. Thanks for posting it!

    ReplyDelete

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