FFP#4 – My Dream

I am a white man.

I am a white man with a wife who is also white. A car. A house. A library card that rarely gets used. Three credit cards. A coffee card that’s been punched six times. In my closet: five suits, khakis, ironic t-shirts, five pairs of shoes. One pair of slippers. A dog that brings me my slippers. I work in an office, surrounded by cubicles, white walls that make me invisible. Invisible but not powerless.

I take ballroom dancing lessons.

I’m invincible but not immortal.

I go to church.

I don’t want to pay my taxes but I do.

I follow the law.

I vote.

I like to drink milk.

No one calls me anything but “sir.” Sometimes I get called a prick but that works too. I might be a prick but I’m not powerless.

I’m writing the Great American Novel about consumerism and middle class families and guys named Joe. About values. Mortality and morality. Freedom and fatherhood. I have two children. As long as they live under my roof they have no rights. Privacy and desire are not allowed in my house.

Desire cannot be found in my house.

Procreation is not recreation.

I keep the Bible on my nightstand. I highlight my favorite passages. The entire Old Testament is neon yellow. It helps me sleep. When I dream, I’m flying a plane. Below me the world is tiny, nondescript, green. A dream within a dream kind of world. I taste the cold air in my mouth and I feel young again. I’m wearing a neck scarf and goggles.

When I awaken, I’m in a v-neck and shorts. My neck is too thick for a scarf. My neck is as wide as my head. My chin has vanished. Reverse discrimination, I tell you. The mirror lies and the illegals are having too many babies because procreation is recreation and there are no rules under their roofs and all the poor people want my money.

When my novel becomes a bestseller, that money will go to welfare queens and food stamp jesters and opium kings. It will become a book club selection for illiterate housewives.

I’m going to shave my head. I will look like a giant baby whose only desire will be to eat and sleep and get changed and then I’ll die and there will be no desires when I’m in heaven and Jesus will know me and He will say, “Welcome home, prick,” and we’ll laugh. We’ll laugh because we won. I may be dead, but not powerless, I think to myself and then I dream that I’m a bumblebee.

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