Social Question
I had a dream, and now I need help with it. Who are these characters?
Believe me, I know exactly what the dream means (on two levels), so it’s not a problem of interpretation. But I still need help with it. Details follow of the dream I had between 6:30 – 7:30 this morning:
So… I’m a small-town Texas cop, age around 32–33, stunningly good-looking (for a man) and ‘passing’ as a young man of 19–20 who is merely “associated with” the police. I’m married to a sweet, gorgeous woman who’s totally in love with me, and we have a couple of great kids. But I have to pretend that I just “live with” them, and she’s the widowed wife of my older brother, and that she’s still in love with his memory. In order to preserve that illusion that she’s just a frustrated older woman and that I’m a young stud looking for some action, we’re not sleeping together, and in fact, I’m hardly home (and don’t have time for sex anyway), because…
I’m developing a source who is an exotic beauty of 29–30, a teacher in the local high school. Although she’s actually younger than I am, I have to pretend that I’m just about as old as the kids she teaches (most of whom are in love with her), so we have the sexual tension thing going on – which is real enough (hey, in the dream, dammit, stay in the dream) but unslaked. Nobody is gettin’ any in this dream. (I told you that I don’t need help with ‘interpretation’.)
Anyway… the wife thinks I’m protecting the teacher as part of my job; the teacher thinks I’m trying to bust a drug ring in the high school (ho hum, what else is new?) and living with my dead brother’s family; my co-workers have to look for code signs from me about “who am I now?” before they can talk to me; I’m having to hide from half the town who have always known me. I’m trying to keep from falling in love with the teacher (I don’t think it’s going to work), still in love with my wife (it really is a dream, after all), and crazy about my kids (that much is true) and never see them any more (ditto). Meanwhile the teacher is falling in love with me and fearful of the consequences because of my presumed age; my wife is wondering why I’m never home – she’s a forbearing woman, but even she has limits… and needs – and my boss (I do have a job, after all) is wondering when I’m going to produce some results, while I have no idea what results to give him. The teacher is counting the days until I’m ‘legal’ and she can avoid worry about her reputation, and wondering in the back of her mind if I’m sleeping with my brother’s widow. My wife, obviously, is wondering the same about the teacher.
So, as I said. I have no doubts about the meanings in the dream. What I need help with is names. What are the characters’ names? The working title for the dream is A Connecticut Yankee in Billy Bob’s Last Picture Show, but I don’t have a single character name, not even my own. (I’ve already thought of and discarded Cletus, as overused – and too violent – from James Lee Burke novels.) I don’t even know yet if this dream is going to be a farce, a comedy or an actual drama.
What are the character names, please?