Whitefield Street down to the bare bones

Whitefield Street down to the bare bones

I dreamt that David and I were back in our teenage years on Whitefield Street. Something was wrong with our VW and David helped me look at the problem. We saw that the roof had come loose from the side panel and hoisted it into the correct position. However, we would need two pins or rivets to secure it properly, so we set the frame back down with one corner of it leaning into the driver’s seat.

Suddenly, a pulley appeared and David inserted his neck within the four chains at the top of the pulley, to balance everything in place, so we could reset the top onto the side panel. I set up in a position at the front of the VW. From there, I could raise or lower the pulley as needed. As I made a slight adjustment, David became tangled in the chains bumping his head slightly on the underside of the beetle shell. Although it looked like he bumped his head hard, he did not complain.

I directed the pulley to lower, and even though I was certain that, I had pulled the chain in the correct manner; it rose, banging David’s head again. Again, he cowboyed up, by not complaining; although it certainly must have strung. In fact, the noise from his head kept ringing in my own and even though he was dozens of paces away from the vehicle, a mechanical noise resounded, repeating every five or six seconds from his forehead. The mechanical echoing reminded me of another dream involving David and as with that dream, continued ringing in my head upon awakening.

In the dream, as I went over to embrace him, he had become even younger. Now he was somewhere between 4 and 6 years old. The future Marine still would not complain about what hurt and I begin embracing him with a protective hug as an apology for every horrible thing that my young brother faced or would face in this wacky world. Suddenly I realized that I was apologizing to the David of all ages and wished that I could grow into a stronger brother for the David’s of young and old.

Sensible Sharpshooter?

When my brother David first got out of infantry training from Camp Lejuene, he was one cocky son of a gun. Although he was four years younger than me, I knew right there and then that I could never take him again. Somehow his barrel chest had expanded to a point, where I now felt he was abominable.

I regretted ever having dripped spit in his face, while wrassling, or calling him copious derogatory nicknames. Even though he was easily capable of killing a man, with his bare hands in a matter of seconds, he was still a good sport. In fact he was a shining star, having graduated first in his class from most of the hardily measured physical parameters. Neighborhood kids quickly gathered to see David return home on that first day back, dressed to the hilt in full U.S. Marine regalia.

We shared some muscatel wine that evening to celebrate. That brand of ripple, which Fred Sanford espoused so much while David and I used to laugh, watching TV together in the living room as kids. As darkness set in, I started to pull off in my yellow Volkswagen bug –the one with Redman chewing tobacco stains singed into the side. Meanwhile, David prepared to showcase his newly honed marksmanship skills.

As I squealed wheels up Whitefield St. from the dead end, a shot rang out and burst through my driver side window. I slowly hit the brakes and did not move for a long ten seconds. David thought he had killed me. He sprinted over to check on me and found me laughing there amidst the swirling muscatel smells.

To me, David explained that he was trying to skim a shot off the top of my oval roof, to show off his stately marksmanship skills. To our father we configured a separate story, which with great effort we made purposely vague, explaining the shattered window.

Much later, it dawned on me that David may have been trying to show me something more, in fair return for my unmerciful wrassling holds from the days before boot camp, when I was tougher than him.

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