Dream #7

I go to Peru to meet with Che or someone like him. He gives me a 3/4 inch video tape case with a large revolver inside. It's a .38 I think. I tell him I'm worried about getting on a plane with a gun. He assures me everything is OK.
I go to the airport with Laszlo and Eszter. We are waiting in the security line. When its my turn I'm surprised and shocked that I still have the video case with the gun in it. The security guy starts to open it and I blurt out that I'm not ready to be checked and will come back. He looks at me like "right" and opens the case. Alarms go off and I'm hustled by security personnel to a dark room. I'm strapped in a chair and questioned. I tell them I don't know why I have the gun and I really don't know but of course they don't believe me. Now they bring out their truth device. My chair faces what looks like an old Pong video machine. A laser shoots out and makes contact with my eyes. The video machine starts producing images which I find very funny and can't control my laughter. I think my laughing convinces them I am innocent. A uniformed security officer with a mustache leans toward me with a box that is about 2 feet high and 6 inches wide. In it are electronic security bracelets and anklets wrapped like you find at Target's toy section, cellophane covers the devices. The devices are the kind you wear when you are out on bail. The mustache asks me if I would, hint, hint, nudge, nudge like to make a $20 dollar donation toward the departments purchase of electronic bracelets and anklets. I say sure but I need to go the ATM in the airport. They let me go. I am in a big hurry because my plane leaves at 7 and I have very little time. I run into a store and give them my ATM card and they give me 20 dollars worth of dimes. I argue that I need bills but they insist they don't have it. I start racing back towards my gate. The airport intercom begins announcing the momentous occasion of Barack Obamas inauguration and talking about its proximity to MLK day. I'm desperate to get on the plane because its 2 minutes after 7 and as I try to slip between two cars my rate of speed has become maddeningly slow. As I squeeze through the cars I see several uniformed NY city riot policemen hurling racial epithets.

Dream #6

I'm trying to get to Manhattan for a construction job. But first I have to cash a 25 dollar check in Queens. I'm with two friends who "know" New York. For some reason I'm the one who knows where the bank is and they don't. We approach a dingy outdoor escalator and put an undetermined number of coins in a rusty coffee can to pay for the ride. The escalator is only 2 feet wide with no rails. In the middle is a dirty, worn steel cable to hold on to. You have to take a ticket at the first station at the bottom and climb up to a wooden platform that leads to the second station which is only about 6 feet away. The platform is a chest high "step up". There is a place to put your foot but its only six inches lower than the platform. No one else seems to have a problem with this olympian style feat but I can't seem to manage to lift my foot to chest high. After several agonizing minutes I manage to get my foot up and pull myself onto the platform. I am suffering under the disdainful gaze of veteran New York escalator riders and transit workers. As I begin to walk toward the escalator I drop my ticket. I look at the ticket taker's face and know he is not going to allow me on without a ticket. No one below is even thinking about handing me my ticket so I climb down and get the ticket. I struggle once more back up to the horribly inefficient chest high platform, show my ticket and begin an endless creaking trip to the top.