II. WHAT THE DREAM REMEMBERS
FOR THE TEACHER CROSSING DECADES
for S.H.
and F.K.
This one never left him.
Sue and Fred.
Sue 16. Fred 16.
Sue and Fred were lovers.
Students in the alternative school.
The street school.
The Place.
And he was a first year teacher
just back from Viet Nam. 1971.
The alternative school.
Sue and Fred were his first students.
Sue was beautiful. Long blond hair.
Ironic and hip.
Sue was an addict.
Heroin.
She supported her habit through prostitution.
Fred supported her.
Fred wasn't an addict.
He loved Sue.
He was 16.
That's enough for starters.
Jump ahead 48 years.
Last Night's Dream
He was told more about those men.
Who they were in the community.
What Sue had told him with her eyes.
What Fred told him with his anger and tears.
All of that was in the dream.
He didn't know any of the men
but he knew where they came from.
Milestones in the dream too.
The play Sue starred in
at the community theatre.
The newspaper articles. Fred's great hope.
Their high school diplomas.
Great joy all around.
Sue and Fred were special.
Sue and Fred were symbols.
Students knew they belonged to them.
Sue and Fred were untouchable
in what they knew.
The teacher became a teacher
with credibility. He had
experience to back up those books,
those beloved paperbacks.
One night she called him.
Years later. Teaching years later.
Would he come get her?
Would he take her to treatment?
That part of the dream came back too.
They drove all over the city. That night.
He stopped the car for cigarettes.
He stopped for phone calls.
They would be almost to Intake.
They were pulling into the Emergency Room.
They were at the Alcohol Center.
Fear and tears and denials and rage.
All of this from the teacher too.
And then she got out of the car running.
All of this in last night's dream.
He had talked with his police friend.
Former MP in Nam. No she's gone.
She's been gone for years.
Sue's not the only one, Jim.
He didn't know Fred. When women disappear
we never know for sure. They die though.
My first guess. Disappeared is dead.
He made some notes in the notebook
after he got up. Sue and Fred.
Their ages. Memories. Years of their stories.
How old they were and how old they would be now.
Hard to believe. This time he checked Facebook.
There were some matches
with Fred's name. First and last.
But they weren't possibilities.
Those possibilities were all gone.
Leads were gone. Sue and Fred, too.
They were alive in the dream.
If he could have found Fred.
Where was he then?
When he asked that?
About Fred. Was he in the dream then?
Or was he awake?
Jim Bodeen
21 November--6 December 2018
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