Living with machines is much easier then living with people.  I’ve done it both ways.  I know.  I suppose it isn’t really any big secret, just something that nobody really cares to think about or admit.  I mean, can you imagine the tension here last night if I’d actually invited a living, breathing human over to share a meal, which ends up being what a DVD is to a DVD player.  Something to snack on.  So, for imagination’s sake, let’s just say that I’ve invited over a machine I met, who we’ll call D - short, of course, for DVD Player.

First, the night’s cinematic torture session would have been like sitting down to a meal that looks good but tastes wrong from the very first bite.  D and I would have sat across the table from each other, smiling politely each time our eyes met, pretending to enjoy the meal when in fact we both knew it was the most vile thing ever to cross our lips.  We would both chew as slowly as humanly possible (or in my date’s case - machinely possible), hoping somehow that our tastebuds would be tricked into thinking that our mouth’s were empty and their work done.

Politeness is the real enemy, you see.  It’s the thing that keeps us smiling and chewing, and gives us all that look of being graciously entertained.  I would have no way of knowing (having not dated in many, many years), that politeness, a real compass when it comes to navigating the human world, is of little use when dining with a machine.  And D, the poor thing, having just arrived in this country and new to dating herself, would have no way of knowing that politeness can be a tool that humans switch on and off on a whim.

It’s politeness that keeps us in our seats for half the movie, squirming all the time.  And politeness again when I pretend to look away as D turns and spits the half-chewed disk into her napkin.  It’s an awkward moment.  I wonder if I should reach out for her hand, but think, What about the napkin?  What if I grab that instead? My politeness has me cornered. 

“How’s your meal?” It’s the only thing I can think to say.  “Everything okay?”
“Oh perfect.  Everything is just perfect,” she’d say, hiding the napkin in her lap.
“Oh good.  Then how about a little desert?”
“No, no, no, no.  I think you’ve done quite enough tonight already.”
“It’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” I say in my best teasing voice.
“Oh really?  Well okay.  How can I resist that?”

I get up to get the desert and catch a glimpse of her emptying her napkin into the case.  Suddenly, everything is just fine.  I’ll worry about what to tell Blockbuster later.

You see, with machines, unlike with people, the night can always be saved.

The two boys are back together, despite the combined efforts of Mother Nature and a slow-leak rear tire that is beginning to get on my nerves.  Call me demanding, but I like a tire that can hold its breath for 50,000 miles without whining.  This consistent I need air attitude is a bit much, forcing me to decide every two days whether to waste two minutes stopping for air or forty-five minutes seeking more thorough treatment.  So far, two minutes always wins.

The roads were nothing more then a spiderweb of ice rinks, and the van, even after thirty minutes of warming up and shaking the ice from its windows, was proving to be no skater.  The trip had mishap written all over it, so I just kept my mouth shut as we began a wild slide that only ended when the two of us were sitting side by side in a restaurant, eating greasy hamburgers for lunch.  Who am I to argue with destiny?

“The fries need more salt,” my son says.  I almost tell him to just rub them around on his greasy fingers, which already have enough salt stuck on them to season every spud in Idaho.  But I see he’s smiling.  He’s only joking, attempting to hone his budding sarcasm skills.

I did have an opportunity, while we were ordering, to come up with a new theory.  Or maybe it’s no theory at all, but just a reflection.  I’ll let others decide.

While I waited for my son to make up his mind, I found my gaze drifting away from the gigantic hamburger pictures and the faux shakes, spinning on strings all around my head.  And then, through the slightly hazy fog of grease, I spotted a monitor near the end of the counter.  It seems I’m on television.

And suddenly it’s time for theory.  Or reflection.  It’s simple.  If you take any unshaven man in a bulky jacket and ski cap, lean him on the counter of any restuarant, convenience store, or gas station, and then play this image on a television mounted from a ceiling, you will reduce that man into looking exactly like a desperate, potentially armed felon.

It must be some sort of translation error that happens along the way.  Something must get distorted somewhere between here and there.  I don’t think I look like a felon in real life, but I sure did just then.  Was it the clothing?  No, they seemed normal.  My facial appearance?  Couldn’t be, you could hardly see my face at all (which did seem cleverly felon-like of me, I thought, and a possible flaw in my theory).  Maybe it was based purely on location.  Hmmmm.  I wanted to take off my coat and hat and stick them on the next guy in line, just to give it a test.  In the name of science and learning and higher understanding.  All that stuff.  But I held back, not wanting the challenge of having to explain myself to not only the man, but my son, who would surely wonder what the hell? Or whatever the eight year old equivalent is.

Who am I to fool around with the future of the scouting program?  It just doesn’t seem right.  An organization so rich in history shouldn’t have to suffer an embarrassing coup d’etat attempt from a troop of hastily organized magicians.  If I do nothing, everyone prospers.  The scouts keep their uniforms and their pledges, and JK Rowling keeps her hoards of cape wearing followers.  What would I do with so many kids hounding me anyway?  Sounds like a horrible imposition.  Can you imagine the mail?!  And between you and me, I’m not sure my magic would hold up well under such a load.  I might be labeled charlatan, driven from town by a mob of angry, plastic wand waving children.  The scouts, no doubt, would assist by directing traffic.

It’s not that the idea isn’t a good one.  I’m just not the man for the job.  As much as I hate to admit it, a few of my leadership skills leave something to be desired.  More specifically: I was never a very good scout.  I joined the ranks, but never thrived.  I fell for every snipe hunt.  My matches would never light.  My jackknife blade snapped in two.  But I liked scouting, despite the setbacks.  When my hat would drop through the hole in the outhouse, I tried to smile.  And when every hike led straight into the heart of a poison ivy patch, I remembered that it would all be over soon enough.  I assured myself with the fact that I was only a Tenderfoot, that honorary rank given to each and every scout upon slipping into the uniform.  How could I possibly be expected to know all these things?  I would remain a Tenderfoot my entire tour of duty.

One of the funny things about being a man is that all of this stuff that crams into our heads doesn’t really begin to work its way back out for at least twenty-five years.  There’s this unexplainable gap between “remembering” and “knowing”, like converting memories into knowledge is some sort of arduous challenge.  For example:  I have always remembered the struggles of scouting, but was never able to use these memories in any timely manner.  The ground was literally thick with subtle clues - Structured life is not for you, young Tenderfoot. And other clues, not so subtle - Military life disagrees with your temperament.  Be not a fool.  Walk another path. I saw the clues.  I even read the clues.  But it wouldn’t be until much later that I knew the clues.  Upon turning eighteen I would hike directly into the military like it was the biggest patch of poison ivy in the woods.  But that’s a different story, for a different time.

Maybe if I’d only had the stern, knowledgeable, guiding hand of Lord Baden-Powell, Scouting’s founding father, pointing me in the right direction.  Maybe then life wouldn’t have been so oblivious.  Surely he would have instructed me in the proper technics of understanding life’s direction.  I mean, just look at him, shaping those boys right up.

I first met Economic Recovery while walking along the edge of the dump near Bay Lake, Minnesota.  My grandma and I were there together, looking for arrowheads.  She was still young then, as grandma’s go, and seemed to scamper up and down the mounds of earth as easily as I did.  But I didn’t really see that then.  Back then, all I knew was that for some mysterious Indian reason, she would find arrowheads and I would not.  It’s hard for a boy to be bested by his grandma.

I tried to sneak off and find my own secret spot.  Some place that was fresh and full of arrowheads.  Some place that grandma hadn’t been, and that was when I spotted the other woman, walking right at me with huge, long steps.  She seemed to take no notice of the dump at all, and I thought she might actually not see me.  Maybe she’s lost, or blind, or both, I thought.  Maybe she wants to scare me off or thinks I’m just another piece of trash, thrown out for the crows to peck at.

The woman stopped directly in front of me, hands on her hips, and stared at me through icy blue eyes.  I liked her immediately.

“We’re looking for arrowheads,” I told the woman with childlike boldness.

“No you’re not.  You’re looking for me,” she replied.  She handed me an arrowhead, then slipped past me, walking away as quickly as she had come.  At the time, I had no idea who it was I had just met.  Her statement had been a curious one, no doubt, but I had my arrowhead and my curiosity soon disappeared.  Suddenly I felt worthy of my grandma, whose pockets, I knew, would be bulging with arrowheads by now.  I rushed off in search of her.

Summer at grandma’s meant being surrounded by old people, so naturally my arrowhead became my new best friend.  I would carry it around in my pocket, reaching down constantly to reassure myself it was still there.  I would take it out, making up games like The Last of the Mohicans.  I convinced a little girl to play spin the arrowhead, but all we did was take turns spinning it, not really knowing what else to do.  I would take it out and put it back and take it out so many times that the pocket wore out on my jeans.  I would show it to everyone, even if they’d already seen it a hundred times.  Sometimes I would pretend to cry and tell grandma that I’d lost it, and then watch them search all over the house.  I’d sometimes sneak out late at night, after everyone was asleep, and dance around in the moonlight with my arrowhead.  Once, a stray dog wandered up while I was dancing and sniffed my leg.  I held out the arrowhead and he licked it, which I knew was sure to be good luck.

My imagination rolled along so well that summer that I completely forgot about how I’d come to own such a fine arrowhead.  The strange and confusing woman was completely gone from my mind.  Instead of her, I would make myself the hero, the lover, the explorer and warrior and brave archeologist who unearthed the past and made all things possible.  The world revolved around me, and for one summer, I revolved around the arrowhead.

The summer passed quickly.  Grandma packed me up and put me on a bus and sent me flying into the next fifteen years.  I’m sure she hugged me many more times before she died, but for some reason, I only remember that one particular hug.  Maybe it was the arrowhead, sitting in my pocket, ready for its bus ride, that helped make everything so vivid.

But my fascination for arrowheads, like the memory of my grandma’s hugs, would fade over the years, and slowly be replaced by something else.  Arrowheads had been fun to search for because you didn’t see them everywhere.  They had been elusive and mysterious, something you kicked up in the dirt.  Fun for kids.

Money, on the other hand, was incredible.  I suddenly realized that money was all over the place, and just like arrowheads, you couldn’t seem to get your hands on enough of it.  I began to realize that wallets everywhere were filled with the stuff.  I eyed women’s purses and imagined the crisp, fresh bills.  I watched four ton, steel trucks pull up next to the bank, filled with money, and then sat amazed as armed men, whose only job it was to protect the money delivered the money into buildings filled with people whose only job was to count the money.  Banks seemed like churches, where someone who loved money might go to worship.  I started a savings account and pretended I was depositing my soul.  I became a regular at the local coin shop - Coins! Coins! Coins!  I could tell you how many dimes were minted in 1970 and the number of serrations on the edge of a quarter.  I would count dollar bills in my head to fall asleep at night, and then dream that God would come to me:

“How high can you count, my son?” he’s ask.  He’d take out his wallet and run his thumb through a stack of bills that, as far as I could tell, stretched to eternity.

“All the way, God!” I’d shout.  “All the way!” I’d wake up happy and refreshed, knowing that God obviously had big plans for me.

: : Part 2 : :

When God walks into your dreams, everything changes.  You can ask anyone about that and they’ll say the same thing.  About the only thing that changes is what he says to you when you see him.  Some will run off and become ministers and change the world.  Others will team up, hop on bikes, and ride around neighborhoods, telling everyone about their own particular dream.  Sometimes God might tell someone to shape up, or watch their diet.  He might tell them to live in a trailer and take in stray cats.  There’s a whole lot of different things God might decide to tell people in their dreams.  Sometimes everyone in the whole church is dressed almost identical, so he must talk about fashion once in awhile.  He even goes so far as to tell some people to stop having sex, if you can imagine that.

But God never went that far with me.  He mostly just stood there and thumbed through that thick stack of bills, smiling really big.  A big, handsome, toothy smile, like anyone would have thumbing through such a thick wallet.  He never once told me how to dress, or where to live or what to eat or anything at all about cats.  And if he ever said anything about sex, I never heard him.  I might have been just waking up, and getting to that part of the dream where you still see the picture but lose the sound.  Or maybe I was just too busy staring at all that money.  He might have said more, but I don’t think so.  No, I think it was mostly just about the money.

All through grade school, into high school, and then into college, I would look for money.  I would look everywhere I could possibly think of.  Obvious places, like under couch cushions and the cracks of chairs.  I’d empty out my parent’s dresser drawers, looking for hidden stashes.  If I went swimming, I’d dive to the bottom of the lake and feel around in the mud.  There was no end to the number of places money might be hiding.  The branches of a tree, buried in the yard, under the dog’s collar, between the pages of every book in the library.  I looked through them all.

I would walk around with my head down, staring at the ground, thinking that maybe, just maybe, a person might pick up a few extra bucks the way my grandma had once picked up arrowheads.  She’d had a whole shoebox full.  I only dream of being so lucky, and continue to walk around with my head down for many years, until one day I look up and realize I have somehow ended up in college.  Broke and alone, I have no choice but to seek employment.

Getting a job has always been easy for me.  I like to think that it’s all been part of the plan.  Just more of the dream, only the awake part.  It’s been so easy that once, a long time ago, I walked into a Burger King and asked for the manager.

“I need a job,” I told her, after filling out an application.

“What makes you want to work for Burger King?” she asked.

“I’ve never worked fast food before,” I told her.  “I think it’d be funny.”

She thought for a second, then said, “See you in the morning.  Wear black shoes.”

But that wasn’t the employment I was seeking that day.  And I wasn’t quite so cocky back then either.  I wasn’t quite sure how to get a job in the highly competitive, fast-paced life of a college town.  I didn’t even know where to look, so I just looked in the one place I always looked - my wallet.

For years I’d carried around a newspaper clipping, that was by now wrinkled and yellow.  It was an obituary, of someone I’d never met.

Carl Fletcher, 90, Inventor of the Corn Dog, Dies

DALLAS - Carl Fletcher, aged 90, who was credited with inventing the corn dog, died Wednesday at his home.  Fletcher was asphyxiated after becoming entangled in a bed restraint, authorities said.  Fletcher had the idea of sticking a wiener on a stick, dipping it in batter and frying it.

It is the only direction I need, and soon find myself employed by the local mall’s corn dog stand.  Someone slides me into a fine green, orange, and purple polyester uniform, both pants and shirt, and I am ready for action.  Training is hardly necessary.  Everyone knows corn dogs.

Standing there, I find myself taking a certain pride in serving up the dream of a dead man.  It’s a useful job, serving up something that people can eat with one hand so they can continue to shop with the other.  I enjoy the coolness of the mall and the endless stream of beautiful, hungry people.  But after a week, I find myself wearing thin.  While the free, all you can eat (if you sneak) corn dogs are good, the money is not.  My shoebox is not filling up.  My wallet is not even filling up.  I begin to take out my frustration on unsuspecting shoppers.

“I’ll have a corn dog, please,” someone might say.  They are polite and undeserving of anything I might have to say.

“Alright.  Lemonade with that?” I know I am only drawing them in.  Gaining their confidence.

“That sounds good.  Yes.  Thank you.” So polite.  So nice.  It’s time.

“Are you familiar with Carl Fletcher?” I ask, looking them in the eye.  Their corn dog is ready, but I hold it behind the counter, just out of reach.  People, I’ve found, will endure just about any amount of harassment when their food is dangled just out of reach.

“No, I don’t,” they say, and then add something like “Does he work here?” or “You must be mistaking me for someone.”

“No, Carl doesn’t work anywhere anymore.  I’m afraid he’s dead,” I say, and then lean in real close, across the counter, and say, “Strangled to death.  In his own restraints.”

No shopper ever knew what to say.  They’d only come for a corn dog.  If they said anything at all, it was always, “Oh, I’m sorry,” hoping that politeness was the key to a safe retreat.  I hand them their corn dog without another word and watch them hurry away.  I always felt like yelling something more, something like, “We all strangle in our own restraints!” But that always felt too dramatic, so I never did.

But not every day serving corn dogs was a bad one.  The mall, we all know, has always been a hotbed for hormones, and it was no different for me that summer.  Forces other then money are at work on my mind and body.  At eighteen, my hormones are as hot as the fryer to my left.  I am naive, eighteen, and horny, and approach each young woman at the counter with a stupid, shiny look that men think is seductive.  For me, it is entirely believable that a woman will fall in love with an eighteen year old boy wearing green, orange, and purple polyester, with matching hat. 

Lost in thought, I don’t even see the woman until she is right there, standing at the counter.  I have no time to think, no time for what I imagine to be cleverness.  When I turn, I am face to face with the most perfectly beautiful woman I have ever seen.  Looking at her, I am suddenly painfully aware of everything.  Suddenly I know exactly what I look like in polyester.  I know exactly how blank my face looks.  I know that I can say almost nothing.

“May I help you?” It is the only thing I know how to say.  Face to face with beauty and the only words I manage to say are the same ones on the training poster in the back room of the corn dog store.  Polite words.  Safe words.  Words signaling retreat.

But I have no intention of retreating.  I’ve come to far to let this moment slip by.  Retreat is not an option.  I reach around and grip my wallet through the polyester, building up confidence.  It’s now or never.

“Do I know you?” I say.  It’s the best I’ve got, but at the moment, seems better then nothing.

She just smiles and shakes her head, real slow, back and forth, then says “What about Carl Fletcher?  Aren’t you going to ask me about him?”

Carl Fletcher?  Who is this beautiful woman, asking me about Carl Fletcher? I can’t think fast enough, standing there in front of her, so I turn and take her corn dog out of the fryer.  Here’s a woman who knows about Carl Fletcher.  Here’s a woman who sees through my shiny, irresistible horny look.  Here’s a woman who thinks of corn dogs as more then just a convenience food

Here’s a woman a man can fall in love with.  I just can’t let her walk away, walk off into the mall and disappear.  I’ve waited all summer for this chance.  I turn and hand her the corn dog.

“Of course you know me,” she says, still smiling.  “We met quite a few years ago.”

Met before?!  What?  Where?  I don’t remember! I try to remember.  I try to think of anyplace I could have seen such a woman.  I try to remember every dream I’d ever had, thinking maybe I’d seen her there.  I even try to think about everything God told me, but all I can see is his big grin and that stupid wallet.  I have to say something to her.

“I’ve been looking for someone like you all my life!” It blurts out, just like that.  There is no stopping it.  My lips seem bent on destroying me.  My head feels loose and wobbly.  I’m not sure if I’m about to faint or if my neck has become loose.  When she talks, I feel saved.

“You told me once long ago that you were looking for arrowheads.  And now you tell me that you’re looking for me?” I don’t know what to say.  I can say nothing.  Numbly, I reach out as she hands me the money for the corn dog, and is then that I remember.

No you’re not, you’re looking for me

she’d said to me all those years ago as she’d handed me my first arrowhead.  Suddenly her words back then made perfect sense.  I was looking for her.  Not money.  It was Economic Recovery that I’d been searching for all along.

But what really confused me was how this woman could have become so young and beautiful.  How could she be so desirable, so knowing, after all these years?  When I’d seen her as a child, hadn’t she already been old?  Was I confused, or had she changed?

The feeling of her skin touching mine as she handed me the money is still too fresh, too intoxicating.  My mind is reeling.  Is Economic Recovery really this close, our hands actually touching after all these years of searching in vain for the wrong thing?  Has her eye been on me all along, watching me circle round and round, lost and unsuccessful, like I had been in my search for arrowheads?  I have too many questions.  It is overwhelming.

I realize suddenly, standing there in my corn dog uniform, that my fascination for arrowheads has become a fascination for money which has become a love for Economic Recovery.  I have come of age.  I close my eyes, and over the sizzle of the grease, I can hear her song and feel myself drawn into the dream of her.  She is a siren humming a financial love song.  No man can resist her.

I look over the counter and into the mall, expecting to see her, but she has disappeared, taking with her one corn dog and the answers to all of my questions.  Once again, like so long ago at the dump, she has walked in and out of my life, hardly breaking stride.  It is, to say the least, heartbreaking.

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love with Economic Recovery?” I say.  “You feel her alluring, seductive dance.  The fragrance of her financial success plays upon your lips.  She is beautiful and unforgiving.  But most of all, she is illusive and haunts you like no other.  God, how she haunts you.”

But there is no one at the counter.  No one is listening.

“Imaginary Keith, you have work to do today.”
“What work?”
“You know.  Design, imagine, create.  Do the words brick, lattice, and iron gates bring anything to mind?”
“No.”
“How about a shrill woman’s voice, saying “It’s important that we match the architecture.” Does that ring any bells?”
“No.”
“Do you pay any attention to your life?”
“I can be very astute.  When it’s important.”
“Well, this IS important.  Here’s a couple of words that might jog your memory . . cha ching as in, time to make some money.  How ‘bout now?”
“I’m getting nothing.”

Last night had not gone as originally planned.  What I thought would be a restful evening watching a movie, Morvern Callar, instead turned into a slumber party in the living room, complete with blow up mattress, complete with wiggly son, complete with a viewing of Kangaroo Jack.  Imaginary Keith’s imaginary heart has a weakness for his son’s whimpering.  Within the hour of the phone call, his son, Big G, is once again “rearranging” the apartment.

“You’ve had three months to design this thing.  Now you have one day.  What have you been doing?”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.  Are you sure you didn’t take this woman’s calls?”
“Well, maybe.  But you need to get busy.  You have until ten tomorrow morning.”
“Ten?!”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Ten!  Why didn’t you say so.  I have tons of time.”

Imaginary Keith’s genius often shines through only during times of great stress and looming deadlines.  I guess when you’re imaginary, minutes can seem like hours, hours like days.  It mostly just makes me nuts.

“Come on, let’s watch that movie you rented.  It’ll get me thinking.”
“It’s not a movie about fence architecture.”
“Yea, but look at what the box says.  ‘BLITHELY POWERFUL...’ and ‘ENTIRELY REMARKABLE!’ That’s the kind of fence I’m going to design . . . after the movie.”

Who am I to argue with creative genius.  Or is that procrastination expert?  Is there a difference?

The movie ended quite awhile ago, but I don’t see Imaginary Keith making any moves that resemble anything called work.  If there’s anything blithely powerful lurking under his surface, I certainly don’t see any sign of it.

“Ready to get to work?”
“No.”
“Are you thinking about working?”
“No.”
“Well, what are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking that maybe Bush has the right idea.  You know, about Mars and that whole space thing.”
“You’re kidding me?  I thought you hated that guy?”
“No, he’s just misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood?  Are you forgetting our trip to Portland?”
“What trip?”
“You know what trip.  The protest trip.  Booing and hissing.  Shaking signs at the motorcade.  That trip.”
“Oh, yea.”
“If I remember correctly, it was you who came up with the idea to shine the flashlight in his eyes.”
“I wanted to see if he’d freeze in the light.”
“For your information, I still limp from that Secret Service roughhousing.”
“It’s hardly noticeable.  And besides, I thought he kind of looked like a prairie dog, the way he popped up so quick like.  Didn’t you?”
“He didn’t look like a prairie dog.  Besides, everyone says he looks like a monkey.  No one looks like a prairie dog.”
“No, he’s definitely not a monkey.  A monkey would have been way more curious about your flashlight.  No, he just popped up and down.  Definitely prairie dog.”

Political discussion rarely goes anywhere in this house.

“The way I see it, if Bush can just get us into space, then he can pass a law requiring all trash to be flung straight up.  It’s simple.  No gravity, no trash.  It just floats away.”
“Like your focus.”
“Huh?”

Imaginary Keith rarely dreams about the same thing twice.  It happens, but not very often.  So just think how surprised I was, sitting there on the edge of the bed watching him, when I see that he is dreaming about that imaginary daughter of the real life customer again.

Who is this girl?

They’re walking along a sidewalk, which appears to be out on the coast.  Imaginary Keith is following the imaginary girl, who is singing a Tom Petty song very badly, which is okay, because, well, it’s a Tom Petty song, and everyone knows if you don’t sing a Tom Petty song badly it won’t sound right.  And Imaginary Keith must think that it sounds just right, because he’s smiling big like a fool, just listening and following and looking at the girl.

Anyway, they walk up to some sort of booth or counter.  They’re just poking around, having a good time.  No one seems to notice them.  Maybe in dreams everyone sings Tom Petty songs and all the secondary characters are used to it.  But the imaginary girl is just belting away at that song, and Imaginary Keith is just belting away at his smile, when all of a sudden a big rattlesnake slieds into the picture out of nowhere, takes one look at both of them, and then swallows the imaginary girl whole.

Apparently snakes do not care for Tom Petty songs.  Imaginary Keith can still hear the imaginary girl singing, although the words are a bit more muffled, if you can imagine that being even possible.

I almost woke Imaginary Keith up at this point, knowing of his aversion to snakes, but then saw him spring into action.  He grabbed the snake by the head and began yelling out for a pair of scissors.  He was going after the girl!

Imaginary Keith was a hero!  Well, I think.  He woke up then before actually doing any heroing, unless you can call grabbing a snake head heroing.  Which I think you can.

Hurray for Imaginary Keith!

But now I’m off to the dream dictionary for a little consultation.  I need to find out a bit more about snake wrestling.  I wouldn’t say I’m nervous.  Just apprehensive.

The metronome in Imaginary Keith’s brain functions poorly.  Yesterday I found myself poking my friend with a rather large stick, hoping that the physical discomfort might even the beat of his thoughts somewhat.  I wish that I could report this morning that rhythm had been restored, but it would be a bold, outright lie.  And I seem to remember something about wishing for less of those things in my life.

When poking didn’t work, I tried listening in Imaginary Keith’s ear, seeing if I could hear the unfortunate beat that was dictating his day.  Or should I say days?  Or should I say years?  I don’t know.  But whatever it is, I found myself ear to ear with Imaginary Keith this morning, listening for some sort of clue.  Anything that might explain this lump of man lying around the house.

I have to do something.  He’s too thick to make a decent rug, but not quite large enough to become a beanbag chair.  I could feed him more, plump him up, but then I remembered that beanbag chairs never were that comfortable to begin with.  All the work of plumping would be wasted when next summer I rolled him out onto the front lawn for a yard sale and sold him for a buck.

So I smashed my ear to his and listened really close.  It was early and the house was quiet.  No washing machine, no computer whirring, no phone or dishwasher, and no sound yet upstairs from the neighbors, getting ready for work.

Ear to ear, I could hear nothing except that low hiss of air that you hear when you listen to a seashell.  That low hollow sound that everyone pretends to believe is the sound of the ocean, somehow trapped forever inside the swirls of a thin, little shell. 

Could this be the case with my friend?  Could Imaginary Keith somehow have an entire ocean trapped in his head?  It was hard to believe, even for me.  Wouldn’t some of the water have to get out?  Wouldn’t I catch him crying once in awhile, letting some of that pressure out?  And wouldn’t he be salty with so much ocean trapped inside?  With an ocean raging around in his head, wouldn’t I see signs of it on the outside, like maybe salt deposits built up around his cheeks or something where battles were fought and won against the strength of a high tide?

But I saw nothing like that, nothing that would convince me that the ocean sloshed around inside of my friend’s big round head.

I will listen closely today and let you know if I hear anything.  I have managed to slip the big lug into a pair of jeans and work boots, push him out the door and into the work van.  At first it seemed a little irresponsible, letting him drive, but then no one around this city pays much attention to driving.  I showed him how to bonk his head against the steering wheel, in case he needs to use the horn, and how to use a cinder block to hold down the gas, in case his foot grows too weak to push the pedals.  I didn’t bother telling him about the turn signal, but I did point out the gear shift lever.

Put it in D, I told him.  D means direction (I think).  And everyone needs direction.

So I pulled the lever into D and dropped the cinder block onto the gas pedal.

I think Imaginary Keith will be just fine.

If Imaginary Keith ever becomes historically significant, there are going to be certain questions that will pop up.  People will demand answers, because people, let’s admit it, are funny that way.  They want to know things that matter very little.

Like Spalding Gray.  Imaginary Keith sees people talking all about Spalding Gray, but realizes that he knows nothing about this man.  But he knows that he wrote and was in some movies and went floating in a river.

Maybe people will ask: Hey!  Imaginary Keith!  What about Spalding Gray?  And Imaginary Keith will turn and look faraway and dreamy, like he’s thinking of something that happened long ago, maybe something that he hadn’t thought about in a long time, and just now has resurfaced in his memory because of the curiosity of the people.  Imaginary Keith’s head may move slightly, up and down, just like curious people’s heads move when they too remember something from long ago.  And Imaginary Keith will stand there silently looking back at the curious people, giving them enough time for their own thoughts to drift a bit.  It will be a long enough silence that the curious people will begin to grow just a little bit uncomfortable.

Curious people, you might know, are uncomfortable with silence.

And then, finally, Imaginary Keith will say something.  Something like, “I just don’t know what happened to Spalding Gray.”

And because of the faraway look, and the dreamy eyes, and the slightly nodding head and the almost too long uncomfortable silence, the curious people will decide that Imaginary Keith has thought long and hard about the life and death of Spalding Gray.  They will think that there is great mystery here.  They will think that Imaginary Keith has clung to the hope that Spalding Gray will somehow survive floating in a river for two months.  That somehow he will turn up alive and well and kicking.  They will think so many things.  Their imaginations will run wild in that moment of silence as they try to fill something that is so unbearably uncomfortable.

So Imaginary Keith will answer the curious people’s questions by saying nothing.  Inside he will smile, thinking it is odd that silence can be mistaken so easily for reflection and knowledge.

And people, because they’re funny this way, will answer all of their own questions.  They will talk and talk and talk until they are sure they’ve said enough, making everything up as they go along.