Chronicle of a Death Avoided
Kafka, Dickey, and the red, red kroovy
This week I dreamt I was sentenced to death.
At first, I took it in stride. “So you’re going to kill me? What do you want me to do, cry about it? It’s just life.”
I wasn’t completely unphased by my impending demise, but pretty close to it. I was mostly concerned with not appearing concerned, with saving face, which was weird because there was no one to impress because I’d been locked in a cell in a dark, dank dungeon (like there’s any other kind).
In my dream I was back in high school except I was going to some super strict, heavy-duty institution in Ireland. No one had accents or anything, and Ireland has no bearing on the dream itself.
In the face of death, I remained stoic and accepted the fact of my execution.
But as my execution approached, I started to ask questions, like, “So why am I being put to death?” and “What did I do to deserve this fate?”
As it turns out they wouldn’t tell me why I’d been slated for execution and as far as I could tell I hadn’t actually done anything that would warrant being killed. But I assumed I was probably guilty of whatever it was they were charging me with. Even if I hadn’t done it, I’d probably thought it, which nearly twelve years of Catholic education had taught me is pretty much the same thing.
I kept asking questions, which had no impact whatsoever. “Look, you’re being executed and that’s that,” they said. It was like this machine had been set in motion that could not be stopped. It was like asking questions of an engine block or a refrigerator—a big waste of time. Very Kafkaesque, this dream.
But as I sat in my cell the façade of my stoicism began to crumble: I didn’t want to die.
With my execution just a few days away, my captors sent in a priest who was a swarthy guy with dark hair and a dark beard, kind of cross between Mr. Iacobucci, who taught physical education at my high school IRL and Harry Ellis, the slimy, coke-snorting ad guy in Die Hard.
“Look,” I argued, “you can’t just kill me.”
“Actually,” the priest said, “we can and you need to come to terms with that.”
The sleazy priest was nice, but stupid in the way of people who have absolute faith in their convictions.
As our discussions continued, I became less willing to accept my fate. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
One day (time was meaningless in this dream) we took a walk up a hill so steep I thought I might fall off, which I thought might be preferable to being put to death.
“Look,” I said, “how can I make my peace with myself, my family, and my creator if I don’t know what I’ve done?”
At this point, I saw the first flicker of doubt cross the priest’s face, and I knew I’d turned his thinking around. It was only a matter of time before I would be free.
And then I woke up.
Unlike the vast majority of my dreams, this one stayed with me, and I’ve been thinking about it all week. I think it has something to do with COVID-19.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I had a fatalistic view of things. I was terrified on all fronts: for our country, for my family, for myself. I was afraid the pandemic would shut down the global economy. I was fearful of contracting the coronavirus while I was out grocery shopping and bringing it home. And I was certain that if I did get COVID-19, I would be be one of the ones who died alone on a respirator. That would be my death sentence.
When the stay-at-home order came here in California, I took it seriously. I hardly left the house except to exercise and get groceries. Watching news reports from places like New York and Italy, I started to question whether I was taking it seriously enough. For a while I stopped going for walks until the restrictions loosened up. I accepted my fate and that was that.
Eventually, I snapped out of it. With more education came less fear. I stopped wearing gloves every time I left house. I stopped treating the people I passed on the street like plague carriers. After sitting empty all spring and summer, I started going to our studio to work on my book projects that will be due next year, pandemic or no pandemic.
It’s a far cry from traveling on air planes, eating in restaurants, and going to punk rock shows, but it’s better than hiding in my condo and waiting to die. Going for long walks on the beach or in the neighborhood these last few months, I felt more alive than I have all year.
Yesterday at 12pm everyone in California received an emergency alert on our cell phone reminding us that the new stay-at-home orders had gone into effect.
I will follow the orders to the letter, I will stay masked up, but I’m not going back to that dream of death, not when there’s so much to live for: making meals with Nuvia, watching Annie try to hide her new crush from us, walking someplace my brain and body have been to many times before and seeing something new.
Maybe the sleazy priest of my dreams isn’t the coronavirus. Maybe it’s my finances, or social media, or my work-in-progress (now there’s a terrifying thought). But the point is, I’m not going to kneel before the executor and say, “Off with my head!” I’m going to make the most out of every day in some small way until this terrible thing is over.
The Truths That Matter
I stumbled across this essay at LitHub earlier this week and was completely captivated by the story of the son of a WWII pilot who reckons with the life and legacy of James Dickey, the poet and novelist who won great acclaim with his poem “The Firebombing,” which he burnished with stories of his exploits as a WWII combat pilot that turned out to be lies. The essay has all kinds of interesting twists and turns that include the time the author interviewed Dickey as a young reporter, and getting to know Dickey’s son who was also a journalist.
Dickey is best known for the film that was made out of his novel Deliverance. I’m low-key obsessed with his novel To the White Sea, which he wrote at the end of his life and is one of the harrowing works of war fiction I’ve ever read. (Did you know that the Coen Brothers were going to make a film based on the novel and it has very little dialogue?)
If you read the essay please let me know because I’d love to talk about it.
Sofa Update
The sofa I wrote about at length last week is gone. The new one hasn’t arrived. My living room looks like a yoga studio. This is not an ideal situation.
Donate Blood
Here’s something you can do for others and yourself: become a blood donor. Last week I donated blood at the American Red Cross. My friend Paul (Hi Pau!) recommended I download the Blood Donor app from the American Red Cross to speed up the process.
Once you set up an account you can use it to find a location near you that is having a blood drive and schedule an appointment. Then on the day of your appointment you can fill out a rapid pass by answering the questions in advance. (It takes about ten minutes to answer them all.)
My appointment was at the main Red Cross Center here in San Diego in Kearney Mesa. After checking in I was taken to a large, well-ventilated room with high ceilings. They took my temperature and vitals and then took my donation. The whole thing took a little over 30 minutes.
The Red Cross is currently screening all blood donations for COVID-19 antibodies. If you ever had the coronavirus, you will get a positive result, and they will notify you through the app. They also notify you if the result is negative, but an antibody test should not take the place of a coronavirus test because it can take one to three weeks for antibodies to form.
As you can imagine, donations are low this year due to the pandemic and every drop counts.
Love the dream -- I say turn it into a short story --