"I was sitting in a highback chair, completely naked." "Interesting", said the man. He is dressed in chinos, a blue chambray shirt that is buttoned to the top button. His glasses are round, expensive and vintage looking. I can't stand the top button being buttoned - especially on a chambray shirt. Maybe I'm just jealous that I can't ever seem to pull off the look. This guy makes it look completely natural. "Au naturale, sitting cross-legged and looking out into a live audience." I look up from the couch that I'm lying on. The man in the hipster uniform is tapping the bottom of his lip with the eraser end of a pencil. From the couch I can see the bite marks on the writing utensil from where he has held it in his mouth while concentrating on another task. The indentions are deep. He must have been really concentrating to have bitten down so hard absentmindedly, I think to myself. Convinced that he is paying attention - I know he often doesn't in these sessions (because I don't either) - I continue to lie, "There are probably two, three hundred people in the audience. It's a black tie affair too. Everyone's dressed to the nines". "Dressed to the nines", he interrupts. The tempo of his pencil tapping routine ceases to be predictable. It has a jazz-like quality to it. There is a moment when I listen to a jazz song for the first time where things get a little bit hairy. For a moment there's this suspension that arises in me, will this be something that I enjoy or will this be abstract nonsense? "What a quaint expression". The rhythm of the pencil returns to a more metronomic phase. Tap - tap - tap - tap. I continue, fighting the urge to be veered off course. This dream is important, I think. "There is a bright spotlight on me. The rest of the stage is dark. We all sit, they dressed to the nines," I try to make eye contact with him as I say this, but the glare on his glasses makes it impossible to see his eyes. That's probably intentional, I presume. "I'm as undressed as they are dressed. We sit and stare at each other, I presume. I mean, I can only see a few of the front rows. There is a long silence, but nobody is uncomfortable." "Interesting," he interrupts again. I won't be deterred. "Eventually two naked men come from the opposite ends of the stage behind me. Each of them is pushing an audio-visual cart - the kind that teacher's always rolled out when it was a movie day in class." "Did you see the men pushing out the carts?" "I just said, two men appeared from behind me pushing the carts." "Yes," he interrupts again. "But if they are coming in from behind you how can you see them? How can you see that they are naked?" "I can see everything." Everything but this guy's eyes, I angrily think. "I'm looking down at me sometimes. I have the audience's vantage point other times. It's like watching a live television broadcast of a play. The camera angles keep changing." "Hmm. Interesting." Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. "What's so interesting about that?" Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. "It's just how I dream." I've given up trying to see his eyes, they're probably dead, expressionless, anyway. My attention has turned to the ceiling with the hope of remembering the dream more fully. "The naked men place the two carts on either side of me." "What's on the carts?" Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Exhaling I push through, "Just let me lay out the scene for you. This is important." Maybe the dream isn't important per se, I wonder. Maybe it's just the telling of the dream that has significance. "They are rolling stereos. Each has a turntable, a receiver and some large speakers. In perfectly symmetrical motions both men place a record on their respective turntables, drop the needle and walk back to where they are coming from." "Naked?" "Naked." "What do you think it means?" "What do you think it means?" Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. The ceiling tiles have nothing for me. I close my eyes, hoping to recapture the moment. It is difficult enough to recall a dream under normal circumstances. But when you are pestered such as this? "Naked, on a stage." Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. "An audience." Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. "Music, other naked men". Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. "It sounds a bit Freudian, No?" Tap-Tap-Tippity-Tippity-Tap. "All of this is Freudian, No? I'm trying to tell a story here and you just keep interrupting. This is why I never tell you anything." That's an odd thing to say to him, I think. "I'm sorry." There is a genuineness in his tone that makes me think he's telling the truth. I wish I could read it in his eyes. "I'm just very excited." The genuineness is bursting out of him. He is telling the truth. "We haven't talked in a very long time." That's an odd thing to say to oneself, I think. "Please, continue." "The records start playing simultaneously." I can picture the scene with my eyes closed. "To my left (stage right), the turntable spins the John Coltrane Quartet's Africa/Brass. To my right (stage left), spins the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Tutankhamun." "Why those records?" His interruption pushes me over the edge. I jump up from the couch and stand up at attention. He rises from his seat in an attempt to calm me down. "I bought the records at the same time," I snap. I still can't see past the glare in his glasses. That adds to my agitation. "That is unimportant! Your interruptions are prolonging what should be a fairly straightforward telling of a dream." We both stand there, staring at one another. I assume he is staring. Not being able to see his eyeballs makes that assumption hard to verify. In fact, it's non-verifiable. He looks just like me, I think. Head-to-toe the spitting image! How the hell can he pull off a blue chambray shirt? I can't pull it off! Throwing my hands up in the air in exasperation I drop back down onto the couch. I'm done laying there. It is all a bit too Freudian for me. "Do you like James Joyce?" "I do like James Joyce." "Do you really like James Joyce?" "I really want to like James Joyce." "I really want to like him too," I mutter. "I just sometimes find myself lost in his dialogues, or is it a monologue?" "I don't follow." You see, I begin. This was supposed to be a short little diddy. Now, with your interruptions, I've already gone through two whole albums while writing this! When both of the albums finished playing and the cacophonous ambiance was finally brought still, two naked women came out from where the naked men had returned to. They walked across the stage and flipped the records. I see. Then, dropping the needle at the same time, they turned their back to the dwindling audience and returned to the darkness. I see. And still, even without the punctuation you interrupt. But, do you see the efficiency that I can maintain without the quotation marks? I see. It doesn't matter what you see. What happened was the records played side B, simultaneously and the din was horrendous. Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. I mean, quite awful. Tap-Tap. Both are experimental. Tippity-Tippity-Tap-TAP. On there own. Tap-tap-TA-TAP-tap. But, put them together. Tap. Loud, the speakers were quite large and quite loud. Tap-Tap. My God! I thought my head would explode. But I sat there, completely naked. Highbacked chair. Spotlight. Above the great noise the machines were making I could faintly hear the tap-tap-tap-tap of the black shoes (you have to wear shiny black shoes to a black tie affair and those shoes have a very specific sound they make as they walk out of a theater as something is being performed). The audience was leaving. Still, I sat. Stoically. Naked. Statuesque with my crossedleg posture on that highback chair listening to the noise. Tap-Tap. I had a pipe, I've just remembered. Tap-Tap-Tippity-Tap. I was beating a rhythm - or attempting to keep some semblance of time with the pipe on my jawline. TIppity-Ta-TIppity-Tap. Tap. I couldn't keep up. I don't think anyone could. I see. I see, I see, I see. Tap-Tap. Hmm. Yes, yes. Very interesting. The nudity; the music; the approximation of music. Tap-Tap-Tap. The records finished. Silence. Sweet, sweet silence. Uncrossing my legs I rose from the chair and took a bow. The curtain fell. Silence - less sweet. A robe was thrown over me. By whom? I don't know I couldn't see them. You said you could see all angles. The show had ended. There were no more cameras, only me. Hmm. Very interesting, no? The house lights were fully lit when the curtains rose again. Six members of the audience remained in their seats. They seemed to have a look of anticipation. Then, I woke up. The psychiatrist (or whatever he was) had stopped tapping his pencil. It was in his mouth. Was he in deep thought, I wondered? "What does it mean?" "What does it mean? What does it mean!" My parroting for once was authentic exasperation and not just a strategy to stall for time. "What does it mean? What does it mean!" "What does it mean?" His parroting was neither authentic nor exasperation. It was exasperating. "I believe," I said as I stood up in a huff. I must have stood up too quickly because I awoke a few hours later on the couch. The chinos and chambray wearing Freudian head case was nowhere to be found. I tried to give Tutankhamun another go. The record knocked most of the details out of my brain as its jarring sound cut a rough figure. When side A finished I turned the turntable off. "One day I'll make it to side B", I announced to the empty room.
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