Monster

Fucked up dream last night. Started with me at the house I used to live in when I was a kid, but I was my current age. I have a lot of dreams like that--some kind of Freudian regression thing. My dad is sitting in his leather Lazy-Boy, as he was during much of my youth, and I'm asking him for legal advice. My dad is a judge (in real life, too--only he's retired), and I've got to go to court later that afternoon, because I've sued all of my ex-girlfriends. For emotional distress, I guess. But, as I talk strategy with pops, I can't remember why I brought the suit, so I decided to drop it.

My ex-girlfriend, [Name Withheld], shows up with her new boyfriend, who, like I was, is older than her and also named Duncan. We chit chat for a bit, then she tells me that they've adopted a baby. Well, more like they've found a baby. She produces a bundle (or, if you've read Edward Albee's “American Dream,” a bumble), that is completely swathed--not even a face showing. I'm taking her word that there's a baby inside there. Apparently, it's got some kind of birth defect and/or Down's Syndrome, and was unwanted, so she and Duncan II have taken it for their own, like a stray kitty. It's all very Eraserhead.

“Well, we're going clubbing,” she announces. I try to be the voice of reason, telling her that having a child is a huge responsibility, and you can't run to the nightclub every time the mood strikes you. She says, “quit judging me” and tells me she's plenty responsible and she loves her baby.

All this talk about the anonymous baby leads me to ask: “Just what is its name anyhow?”

“Monster,” she says.

So we get into an argument about the propriety of naming your kid--deformed, retarded, and over-swaddled--“Monster.”

The dream ends by transmogrifying into a classic dream of mine, wherein someone is coming to get me--in this case some kind of police SWAT team--and I've got plenty of guns to choose from to “defend myself,” but I can't seem to find the right bullets. I decide on the .45, and finally find seven rounds to put in the magazine. I'm nervous and shaky and have a hard time getting them in, but by the time I wake up, I'm standing behind a closed door, waiting to shoot through it at the first sound of footsteps