Andrew called me on Sunday. He impressed upon me, in a tone weary but restless in its enthusiasm, that he had finally had a dream that neither Kresten nor I would be able to make any sense of. I accepted the challenge.
In fact, that 'call' must have been a text. I do not recall. It evades me. I have a vague notion of a message from Andrew by text made the promise. We would not speak about it for about three days.
It was a peculiar day at Joann Fabrics. Usually, I would maintain an amiable and calm demeanour that extended to my mindset. I had taken the 'Idealist' personality type to heart. I suppose that I had wanted to know what ENFJ felt like. That was at least how I rationalised it. Something pushed me into a state of anxiety that embarassed me. Before me stood a woman of middle-age. SHe was talking to her friend. Usually, I thought, I would tolerate the tone of adolescence with which they convdersed. Yet today, either by virtue of will or instinctdisguised as will, I felt myself becoming, as by choice, barely tolerably notieably -- publicly -- tense. The women must have felt that I was having a panic-attack or a nervous break-down on a lesser scale.
When my lunch-break came, I went to visit Rosario pizza, across the street, for perhaps the last time.
Years ago, Andrew, Kresten, and I had visited -- 'haunted' -- Rosaria Pizza.
It was the first place we went when Andrew returned home for that summer.
Being an ENFJ had apparently entailed an unprecedented generosity. Just before leaving the Joann building, I received a jocular request from Melissa, the young manager who smoked and had chameleon-like eyes. 'Be sure to get us all a slice,' had been something to the effect of her joke.
She had not expected me to take her seriously. But I took her up on her offer. I had never done such a thing before.
The owner had come to know me by now. I articulated my request to the white-hared, surly Asian man. We agreed that whoever had the next dinner shift would pick up the pizza when it was ready. That had turned out to be the peculiar, red-headed girl whose name escapes me. haley. She was matter-of-factly sarcastic and had taken 'a lot of drugs', apparently, a long time ago. Everyone was taken aback, if not even frightened a bit, not knowing what to say and embarassed.
There had been one other young man working at Joann when I joined them months prior. Drew now worked at the neighbouring liquor store. He was a rampant stoner.
About half the pizza remained within the box when it was time to go home for the day. I took the liberty, maybe reluctantly and not without approval, of taking the remains of the pizza home.
It was just as we were exiting the building that Drew was also leaving the liquor store. I had never hung out with him before. I struck up a conversation with him, in my usual tone of self-deprecation and timidity before his reptilian, confident eyes. I had only hung out with him once before, when I happened to run into him at Rosaria, weeks if not months prior. Later that night, I had had a shift in my songwriting style. I had written and recorded my most mystical and impressive demo.
I still retained vague and fanciful hopes that eventually Drew would drum for my 'band'. Whatever the reason, I decided to accompany Drew to his car. The others girls saw us as they were about to enter their own car. Drew exchanged tongue-in-cheek greetings with one or two of them before getting into the driver's seat. I said nothing.
It had probably been that incident that prompted Haley to suspect that I was a stoner.
I still had the pizza-box with me when Drew and I got out of the car, at night-time several minutes up the street, at the plaza.
I had been naiive enough to take the box from the car. Naivete is just the other side of paranoia.
We began to walk in the direction of the Carl's, Junior.
Drew asked out of the side of his eyes why I was carrying the pizza.
'I don't know. I guess I forgot that we could keep it in your car.'
'Well, it's too late now,' he drawled jeeringly but sincerely. 'You'll just have to take it with you.' I suppose that it's how he made decisions.
I will say little about what sitting across from Drew at Carl's, Jr. was like. He ate fries from a bag and lectured me absent-mindedly about girls and drugs. I merely sat across from him, the pizza box atop the plastic table betwixt us. I explained to him that working at JOann actually made me less enchanted by women than I would. He dimly acknowledged that he knew what I meant, or thought he did, having taken a moment to contemplate it. He probed me with his eyes. I hoped that he did not think I was a homosexual.
It was within seconds, I think, of my having arrived at home that the call from Andrew came. Drew had driven me home in the dark.
Andrew told me his dream. It is too long and too personal to describe here and now.
We spent more than an hour analysing it. By then, we had divided the dream into three Acts. They had probably been of Andrew's invention -- the distinctions.
What interests me still is a certain thing he said halfway through the first Act. Mind you: He was calling, by this point, from Ohio.
He had woken up at the wheel with his car parked in a fast-food restaurant owned by his girlfriend's father. He emerged to find that there was no furniture in the establishment. This was after he had tried, sleepily, to exit the establishment by starting up the vehicle. He ended up scratching the interior wall of the building with the automobile, unwitting.
When he emerged, he was holding a slice of pizza that he had inexplicably found within the car. Tia's father emerged from the kitchen. He had a Mexican moustache. He castigated Andrew. Andrew wearily apologised for the damage, promising to pay for it. Tia's father was assuaged. He agreed.
Andrew set foot outside in order to retrieve the money. He was still holding the pizza slice in his hand.
Setting foot into day light, Andrew looked behind and upwards. A sign indicated that the restaurant was Carl's, Junior.
He looked down at the pizza slice in his hand, perplexed, and asked, 'What's PIZZA doing at Carl's, Jr.?'
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