I was plunged into a Don DeLillo novel, sometimes as an observer and sometimes a character. It concerned a group of people who had certain magical abilities, notably to disappear. There was also some top secret government operation going on. A person in charge, trials and tribulations. Peril. The group was somehow involved. They’d been together, or worked together, for many years. Naturally there was a history of shifting romantic entanglements. But all remained friends. There was something vaguely sinister about what they did, what they were capable of. Or maybe not. I perused a photo album of their times together. There they are seated at a banquet facility. A wedding perhaps. There were pictures of them in little groups of three or four. I thought, this is a running theme in DeLillo novels. A murky world below the one we all inhabit. Shadowy figures up to something or other. I struggled to remember the plots of his other books and reproached myself for not paying enough attention while I read. A recent one largely took place poolside at a resort or country club, that I knew. I couldn’t really remember what happened though. The phrase reread DeLillo popped into my head, as though this were something other people habitually did and I could—and should—do too. A voice in my head, someone else’s voice, declared that DeLillo’s dialog is brilliant in its depth of understanding of the voices of real people in the real world, and I thought: is that really true? The group was now gathering on a wide trail in the woods, hikers and tourists passing by. They were all to disappear one last time, one by one. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. One woman began. An object she touched, a stone maybe, disappeared first. Then slowly parts of her did too.

I was to travel to the moon. The arrangements had been made; I was a member of an astronaut crew. I worried about the takeoff, the G force. Fuck it, others had survived and I would too. What provisions are made for pissing and shitting? A system of tubes I guess. We’re all in the same boat. I was going to the moon! Zero gravity in the craft. The dutiful floating about, maybe drink a bubble or two. But on the surface there’d be enough to stand on the chalky, silty surface. I’d be on the fucking moon. I felt a stab of terror. On the moon! A big cold rock in the bleak black of space. To get back home I’d have to trust the machine, this precious tangle of rods and bolts devised by hapless man.

My dream became lucid. I was in a room full of people, maybe a party. I didn’t recognize any. I thought: this is a dream, and since I can control my dream once I know it’s a dream, what should I do? I decided to try to find my mother’s face in the faces of the strangers. She did not appear. One person slumped against a wall and slid down, sitting on the floor with their head down.

It’s the aftermath of “Apocalypse Now.” Captain Willard is back stateside and the higher ups are giving him the hero treatment: your country thanks you for what you’ve done, earnest and firm handshakes. Yet he is troubled, even angry. And the brass is on to it. He’s giving vibes he might break down, kill some people—or even worse, tell his story. He never had anything to lose, you know? Heck, that’s why he was chosen in the first place. There’s whispers of what to do. Get rid of him? Take him out before he becomes a problem? Or flatter and coddle him into complacency? This sequel is called “Contingency Plan.”

The origin of the people’s resentment of elites was the establishment of monotheism. Before then the gods belonged to the people. There were no intermediaries like bishops or priests, no one to pass down laws.

Some jazz piano was playing and I identified it as Thelonious Monk. He played a characteristically heavy-handed, off-kilter note: donk. “Monk’s playing is funny, but in a good way,” I remarked to no one in particular—or maybe someone was there, or I imagined they were there. Then I said, “Also funny in a bad way. But funny in a good way, too.” 

We got together to play like we usually do but we were seated around a dining table. I was trying so hard to remember this one tune I’d learned that I was going to play that night. It was a fun tune, interesting, somewhat unexpected; those were the contours of it in my mind but I could not grasp the title. Someone laid out a huge pile of blow. “Whitey,” I stated, remembering what those California people called it. Lines were cut and a fussy little strip of paper, not quite wide enough to roll into a proper straw, was passed around. There was sugar everywhere, too, mixed up with the coke. As I got ready to do mine I wondered if it was OK if I snorted all this sugar. Was it bad for you? For the delicate tissues of the nose and sinus? I still couldn’t remember what the song was but I remembered it after I woke up, a song I planned to play in real life: Sultans of Swing.