I was anticipating a trip abroad, Europe somewhere. Before leaving I wanted to entrust my notebook of important ideas to a friend.

“Here you go,” I told him somberly.

We leafed through it together. I wanted to make sure he understood my notes, my lists, my half-assed sketches for short stories or plays.

“And here’s my gun,” I said as I got up to leave, pulling it from the back of my waistband. He accepted it without concern or hesitation, as though I’d handed him a set of keys. “Don’t use it!” I warned as I walked away.

He called out to me and asked if I could bring him back two chocolate eclairs. I said yes, although I thought this was kind of a pain in the ass. Carrying them gingerly in their little box through the airport, onto the plane. Another friend who sat nearby asked me to bring him back a large coffee-table book on the subject of Italian theatre.

We were hosting a party. It was our home but it didn’t resemble our real home.. I was in a hurry pouring margaritas into little glasses before the guests arrived. When they did some were people I recognized, others not. J. L. commented on the large quantity of mites and mite dust. There were two people with guns I didn’t know. I sensed that they had some kind of extremist political views. They went out on the balcony to smoke. It reassured me to see them sitting out there, facing away, not an immediate threat to anyone.

We were getting the band together, or back together. Mike and I went into a bar and auditioned a friend of ours to sing. She stood near the bar and sang an old Irish folk song beautifully. I decided to arrange it as a country song. As we left Mike smoked a cigarette. Later, he and I were hunkered down somewhere, like a strip mall, getting ready to do something or for something to happen. I realized we were holding assault rifles. I got up, alarmed, and told Mike we had to get rid of these guns and leave, or people would think we were terrorists. We hurried out of the parking lot as authorities were swarming in.

Remarkable dream. I was at a car race with familiar people - maybe C.W., C.K., others, I don't know. It was essentially a stock-car race, but on a road course. A fascinating, sinuous track. And the cars were older muscle cars for the most part. We were perched on a jutting hill at a corner, with views of the cars approaching and the cars going away. For some reason I was aware that Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go, was in the race. During the warm-up lap, I saw his car approach. For some reason I knew what car to look for, a '70s-era boat, slightly pimpy but modified for speed. When he drove by I cried out, "Go Chuck! Yeah Chuck!" I hoped that he'd see me, even hear me somehow, but I was not confident that he did. I perceived his characteristic sunglassed, grinning face as he drove by.

When the race began I was terrified by the pace and aggression of the driving. It impressed upon me the audacity of the drivers and the arduousness of their task. I gazed up the track and saw an accident start to happen, the terrible inevitability of the chain of events. An official was walking right by the track, in the same direction as the race, unaware of the chaos unfolding behind him. At this moment I noticed that he, and other officials near him, were black. He was brutally clipped by a fishtailing car. Suddenly, as though this awful event were their cue, other officials around the track pulled out guns. They, too, were black. They declared that they were taking all the spectators hostage. It seems they had some kind of radical slavery-reparation agenda. Immediately I was shaken down and fearfully produced all the money in my wallet, about $200. Armed men were posted strategically throughout the crowd, to keep watch over us, make sure we didn't try anything funny. It grew apparent that this group had somehow posed as an independent race organizing outfit and had subcontracted the running of the event from the governing body. I thought we were good and fucked, gonna die. At one point I managed to surreptitiously dial 911 through my pants, on the cell phone in my pocket. I heard the operator's voice answering, inquiring, as though she were on speakerphone. I was terrified that one of these sentries would hear it. Finally, and seemingly against all odds, some sort of settlement had been arranged between the group and authorities somewhere and we were released.

I was playing some kind of tricky song on my guitar, a song I'd written. It was in five-four time. I was playing it for my mom and dad, who were seated before me in chaise longues on an unfamiliar lawn. The guitar became a gun and in the dream's logic I played the song by holding and firing the gun somehow, in the air. I made sure to cradle the gun carefully and point the muzzle in the air, away from my parents. I was having difficulty so had to try again and again. At the same time, my dad was giving me money, a few hundred dollars. I thanked him profusely and kissed him on the forehead, still holding the gun.