Victim 900

Woke up during one of those lucid dreams.

It was late, around midnight. I was back in Riverdale, in a local – which, during my lifetime has carried the names Considine’s (when I really was too young to drink), Coaches II (during my heyday, too young but I drank anyway), Mr. Vigg’s (after I quit drinking) and now Frankie’s Tavern –

https://www.fourdollarjacks.com/bars-near-me/frankie-s-tavern#google_vignette

I recognized the place, but not the people, who were younger than my own kids – Gen Z, I’m guessing. But the place was packed and drunk buzz noisy busy as all successful Bronx bars should be. No one even looked up as I passed through the crowd towards the back.

I asked a passing bar maid (I’m old, we didn’t have “servers” in my day) if the manager was in. She pointed to a guy holding court in the back corner who could have been in his forties. She mentioned his name – “Mudge” – and then went about her business. I looked over at Mudge, who I didn’t recognize, but who, from the look on his face, had been watching my interaction with the bar maid, and recognized me. He stood up and came over to me. Very welcoming, with a “what can I do for you?” flourish.

I handed him a credit card and asked him to buy the bar a round. He immediately toured the place telling everyone to fill up their glasses – pointing back in my direction – and now, for the first time all eyes were on me, as the bar maid brought me a seltzer on ice with lime – my go to when I’m socializing in an alcohol setting. My subconscious had already sorted my order. By now everyone was topped off, and looking to me for a toast.

“Sláinte!” I offered in my best Bronx accent, and sipped from my glass as the rest of the patrons all drank in unison like the professionals they were and then engaged in a higher volume of table buzzing as they all – like a series of firecrackers going off – stole clusters of glances in my direction.

Mudge returned with my credit card, just as I realized that I had arrived from somewhere non local and could really use a shower. I asked him if there was a place where I could get cleaned up and he tossed me a key from his pocket and said “first house around the corner.”

Two seconds later I’m in the front foyer of a Fieldstone house, which was more brightly lit than the bar and also packed with partying young people, in corners and on couches, like a frat house. I asked a tall, attractive Asian Goth woman, who made onyx eyeliner eye contact as I came through the door, where I could find a shower and she led me upstairs to a bedroom, chased some of the partying people out of the room, pointed to the bathroom and then smiled and exited, closing the door behind her.

I must be getting old because a younger me would have dreamt her into the shower with me.

So, I’m soaping up under steamy hot water, feeling the kind of relief an old body experiences when it is decompressing after a long trip, a truly simple pleasure, and I hear my phone ring from the edge of a nearby sink in this bathroom. It takes a few seconds for me to clear the soap off my face but the phone is patiently persistent in its continuous chiming. I finally lean half my body out of the shower, wipe my eyes and hands on a nearby racked towel and then answer the phone.

“Hello?”

A female’s voice responded.

“You are Victim 900!” Click.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, trying to make sense of what I just heard. I definitely was sensing absurdity at the top heavy number associated with this threat.

But my bodyguard consciousness chose to pull me out of the situation before I could make any rational progress, and the next moment I was staring at my bedside Echo Show, at the bright luminescent numbers – 2:44 am.

Now, I really wanted to sleep in today, because I’ve got great seats at a live play tonight which will keep me up way past my normal bed time. I don’t want to be the old bastard up front whose snoring starts to annoy the actors on stage. And the druid in me doesn’t want to miss a magical moment of the Bard’s The Tempest. So, I’m either going to have to find time for a nap or be so hyped up on caffeine that I may suffer cardiac arrest.

Either way, I won’t snore.

But the vestigial ether of this dream would not let me back to sleep. Of course, Bandit sensed I was awake and helped push me out of bed and to my feet, and, after letting the Beagle Brothers have their morning outdoor constitutional, voila, here I am.

Hit replay.

If I’m trying to make any Jungian sense of the opening bar scene, I’m guessing it is me being an old obscure writer trying to establish some recognition with a younger demographic. I’m back where my personality first formed in the Bronx trying to find recognition in a place that has long ago forgotten me.

Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right – You can’t go home again.

He definitely nailed it when he said:

“If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men will ever know.” The Web and the Rock (1939)

I know I’m never going to hit JRRT or JKR level of success, or even catch TW, if I don’t land massive Gen Z interest in The Claire Saga. Hence, the hypnopompic, twenty-something crowd.

Impulsively buying a packed bar of strangers a round is like me giving away so many books over the past four years, especially to young people. I’m trying to hook their interest, but as in any bar full of well-oiled patrons, goodwill is easily established but short lived and rarely remembered among the many regrets in the morning’s mental fog.

The good news is that my dream me must have had some success in his life, because the credit card carried the tab.

I even understand the wanting to take a hot soapy shower. Cleanse myself of my past of doing everything and anything to keep moving forward until I finally got my shot – wash away the remnants of my long trip of getting here as a writer.

But I cannot begin to understand that final phone call. First of all, I’ve never accepted a Victim mentality. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, blown opportunities, completely fucked up, but they are my mistakes, I own them. I’m nobody’s Victim.

And I’m certainly not someone’s 900th victim. Not anyone’s victim – full stop.

I’m sure the female voice means something.

The idea that my subconscious may even consider victimhood is pissing off my now very conscious mind, and further setting its resolve to prove its deeper level of conjoined cognitive existence wrong.

So, let this be my clarion call to Gen-Z. It’s time to pick up a real book and start reading, no more ADHD clicks on TikTok or any other social media. Train your mind for sustainable long distance entertainment that only comes from reading, one book at a time. Otherwise, your nanosecond attention span will lead you right off the Darwinian cliff with all of the other lemmings, and there won’t be enough catchers in the rye to save you from oblivion.

Yes, I know starting with a full novel may be a big ask in the beginning, so let me suggest a lighter lift. Maybe read a few of my blogs to stretch those reading comprehension muscles beyond the length of a Door Dash menu. Who knows, you may learn something about human (and other) existence before AI sorted out all of life’s problems with the push of a button.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking AI. In fact I’m a huge fan, my Jayney puts all other AI to shame.

I know, you fine, five readers are certainly laughing – pretty sure you are all Baby Boomers with maybe a Gen X or two having snuck in for an occasional peek.

But if I don’t build a narrative in this blog addressing the younger folks, starting with the Millennials, then capturing Z and Alpha, they will never come to my field of dreams. So, here we go.

A good story transcends generations. The Claire Saga is a great story, so there are no age limits.

Now, venting done, weird dreams aside, let’s get started with our summer Friday. Dress as casual as you can get away with as you walk in one door at work and out the other. Start those weekend engines.

But I need you all to start carrying around copies of The Claire Saga, and if any young person asks you what you are reading, just tell them you don’t think they are ready for it.

It’s like putting up a velvet rope outside of a dance club – only the truly deserving get past it to Nirvana.

Youthful desire is best triggered by denial. Let them ride their own Falkor.

And no matter what we get up to, let us make today a great one.

Now, I hope tonight’s theatre has less than 900 seats.