Potatocide/T1J, Ticks, & emigranTs/An Alkie, Drunk/Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said: The Motion Picture

Monica Lewinsky was walking along a rocky mountain path all by herself, carrying in her arms an enormous Yukon Gold potato, when a man with a machete-sized butcher knife leapt out and attacked her. He tried stabbing her through the potato, but it got stuck in the tuber. After failing to pull it free, he ran away.

* * *

It was the early '90s. The YouTuber T1J

took his dog for a stroll through a boggy grassland. Walking through the long, moist grass, the dog picked up a number of ticks.

Back in town, T1J ran into a Haitian emigrant who spoke little English. The Haitian cleaned T1J's dog free of ticks, free of charge.

The Haitian worked as a cook at a "greasy spoon" diner owned by Vera Miles.

Dilapidated and unsanitary, the diner was failing.

* * *

The end times were upon us. A species of flying, biting insectoids of unknown origin appeared in massive swarms, attacking and draining of life-force all beings they encountered — even ghosts.

One of my sister's drunking buddies, having run out of booze, left the safety of the enclosed shelters to procure more. Contact with him soon ceased, phone and text messages going unanswered. My sister went into a frenzy, intent on venturing out to find him. We were forced to restrain her, heedless of her desperate pleas.

* * *

In the '70s, my mother wrote an adapted screenplay of Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. It was an adaptation in name only; the plot and characters were wholly original. The screenplay was picked up by a major studio and made into a movie starring Yaphet Kotto and Leslie Nielsen.

Kotto's character was the primary antagonist, a hitman hired to eliminate a number of different people. Nielsen's was the decoy protagonist, a detective tasked with apprehending the hitman.

At some point in the film, the hitman sent the detective sliding down the side of a skyscraper to his doom.

101 Ways to Accept Payment for Stolen Money

In a big city, amidst traffic, a work crew was excavating the street. Having broke through the asphalt, they uncovered in the underlying earth what were assumed to be a number of fossilized angel skeletons.

(O hai, influence.)

Right away I could tell these weren't the remains of real angels — the skulls were oversized and exaggerated, the skeletal structure cartoonishly simple and lacking articulation — yet for reasons I couldn't fathom, everyone believed these to be genuine angel fossils.

The dream switched gears. I found myself watching a woman as she rose from a sea of blue paint. She was Hispanic/Latina and incredibly voluptuous.

(Due, in part, to silicone.)

I felt my slide whistle rising. But as the paint ran off her body, I could see she was covered in tattoos. There were tattoos running down her arms; four large tattoos on her back; several tattoos on her backside. Since I find heavily tattooed women gross, my carbonated soda went quickly flat.

What follows is fragmentary, imperfectly recalled.

I was in the hallway of a shabby motel/hotel. An oldtimer

(man, woman, don't recall which)

had accidentally dropped some cash. Some fugly punks — one of whom reminded me of Lil Wayne

— tried stealing the money. I scooped it up before they could snatch it and took off. Through the turning, twisting corridors I ran, trying to catch up to the oldtimer, to outpace the punks.

I don't recall the intervening details, but I eventually found myself inside a clean, upscale bar/restaurant. Now I was an old man. I was seated at a table, and seated with me at the table was ... Somebody™.

I was led to believe that by passing the oldtimer's money over to Somebody™, the oldtimer would get their money back in due course. As I exchanged the money, however, Somebody™ gave me a cheque in return. I then realized Somebody™ was in cahoots with the punks I'd met earlier, that he was paying me for stolen money.

(Dream logic, amirite?)

Billy Dee Williams, who was working there as a server, carrying a platter laden with hors d'oeuvres stuck with fondue forks, happened to witness this transaction. Incensed, he took the fondue forks and attacked Somebody™ and his punk cronies, stabbing them with the forks.

I recall the tattooed bimbo making a brief, unremarkable reappearance. I weighed the pros & cons of making a weiner-taco with her.

(CON: Fugly tattoos, are Fugly. PRO: Phat ass, is Phat.)

Then the dream ended.