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2000-09-22
14:34:40
the other day, i had a terrible dream that ended up directly affecting what's happened over the last few days.
i was sleeping in my bed, soundly and happily, until i awoke to open the window. it had gotten a bit warm in the hotel room, so i opened the window to look outside, while taking a few gulps of the fresh, cool night air.
while i was standing at the window, a dark car pulled into the parking lot. as it was the only thing moving, it attracted my attention, so i watched the headlights come closer to my window. the car drove slowly and turned around a large group of parked cars, until it came close enough for me to recognize that the car was a hearse.
it turned until it was facing away from me, and then it stopped in the middle of the drive. as soon as it stopped, the driver got out of the car and went to the back. he opened the back door of the hearse to reveal a dark brown and black casket with gold trim. to my surprise and horrified amazement, the man actually turned around to look at me as i watched; he smiled, tipped his hat, and went back to his business as though it was perfectly normal.
the next thing he did was put his hand on the handle of the casket and begin pulling it out the back of the hearse! my first impulse was to go help him move the casket, but what was he doing removing a casket from a hearse in the middle of the hotel parking lot anyway?
so, i just stayed at the window and stared. he pulled it further and further from the car, until i couldn't imagine how the casket was light enough for him to handle by himself without it falling, when, of course, it fell.
the casket tumbled out of the hearse and hit the ground with such a thump that it knocked the top of the casket open, and there, once again, was angela. angela's body, still bloodied and blue, was staring back at me from the inside of her casket.
that's when i woke up.
thankfully, kat was sleeping peacefully beside me, and that was enough to keep me from crying out hysterically. but it wasn't enough to keep me from thinking about the dream. i just kept going over and over the events of the dream in my mind.
eventually, it occurred to me that i feel like a total fuckhead because i didn't go to angela's funeral. i don't even know when or where it was. i don't know what faith she was. i don't know where she was buried. or maybe she was cremated. how would i know?
the fact of the matter is, though, that i knew from that moment i wouldn't be able to live with myself, having missed the funeral. i also realized that i couldn't really have gone. what would joyce and robert have thought about their daughter's killer being at her funeral? it probably would've been enough to make an already solemn occasion even worse. i couldn't have done that, either.
so, wednesday afternoon, i got my stuff together, told kat i had to go take care of a few things, and went back home. i really should've thought about it some more before i went, but i didn't; i just got in the car and left. i figured i'd have more than enough time to think about it in the car on the way there.
i was wrong.
i pulled into my hometown and had no idea what i came to do. i drove around in circles for awhile, even though i had already been driving for more than five hours. eventually, i pulled into a little hole-in-the-wall bar, and grabbed a few drinks.
well, maybe it was more than a few.
it's odd to me how you can live in a place for what you think is forever, and when you haven't been there for a little while, you come back to find places you'd never noticed before. i think it's just natural to get into a routine and continue revisiting the same places over and over again.
in any case, i must've had entirely too many drinks because i left the bar around eight in the evening, got in the car, and drove to the house.
that was probably one of the most despicably ridiculous ideas i've ever had, considering how fucked i would've been if the police had pulled me over for driving under the influence. but that was the last thing on my mind.
i think i expected to walk in the house to be greeted by an overjoyed jess, and everything would go back to being the perfect life i used to live.
i was wrong again.
jess did greet me when i walked in the door, but she certainly wasn't overjoyed to see me. she took one look at me, got a horrible expression of anger on her face, and ran towards me, screaming and sobbing like she hated me more than she knew she could hate anyone. she kept pounding her fists on my chest, and she fell towards me with a limp body that musn't have slept in days.
i wanted nothing more than to hold her and console her. i wanted to tell her everything could get better. i wanted to be able to give her back what i never meant to take from her, but i couldn't. all i could do was tell her again and again how sorry i was.
unfortunately, sorry is never enough.
she smelled the liquor on my breath, yelled at me for being such a bastard, and kicked me out of the house. she just kept screaming, "get out, you bastard! get out!" so, i left to spend the night in my car on the side of the road where i hit angela, and i cried like a little girl until i fell asleep.
there wasn't much left to do after that. i woke up yesterday morning, and headed right back to kat. now i'm in a new hotel, and i'm finding it harder and harder to adjust myself to a new life every few days.
thank God i have to work at the old steed again tonight. i have to keep busy enough that i don't have time to feel sorry for myself.
