Ice cream + Wooderson

I ONLY REMEMBER SNIPPETS OF THE FIRST ONE. I was in an ice cream parlor with my friend Ed, who was telling me about some crazy weekend he had planned with old friends that included plans to consume a lot of alcohol and drugs. He was half bragging and half fearing this weekend in his voice. We had already eaten and were looking for dessert. He figured out what he wanted quickly, a flavour that was ostensibly fruity in nature and yellow in colour. I was walking around looking at all the flavours, unable to make up my mind. A girl behind the counter was trying her damnedest to make good recommendations, and I am flirting with her, and every time she suggests something I come up with a reason that I can’t have it. Then it hits me. I want blackcurrant sorbet. I look up at the wall that has all the flavours written down on it and, lo and behold, there’s blackcurrant up there. The girl who’s helping me/smiling at me is on the other side of the parlour and I say something flirty, very loudly, to get her to to pay attention to me. I turn around and Ed isn’t there but my father is, and he rolls his eyes at her as if to say “Sorry about him.” The girl comes back, smiles, scoops me some blackcurrant sorbet which I end up eating, with a spoon, with Ed again, off of what looks to be either a large leaf or a bowl that looks like one.

Later, I’m with Wooderson, or at least seeing everything he does. (Wooderson, if you recall, is the character that Matthew McConaughey played in Dazed And Confused). We’d previously driven in his car, very fast. His car is a souped-up sort, a Charger or a GTO. Previously when we had driven around Wooderson was doing the driving but this time, when I see him, he’s a passenger. Some other dude is doing the driving and the wheel is on the right side of the car. Thing is, we’re so clearly driving in North America, out of what seems like Denver (I have never been to Denver so I don’t know; also, Dazed and Confused was set in Texas). So this guy is driving, fast, down a highway that is winding and bare. He brakes, hard, and Wooderson goes flying out the window, and lands with a thud. He gets up and dusts himself off and says something to the laughing group of guys that sounds like “Don’t fuck with me, I played football…for five years.”

Then he’s alone with the car and I’m just watching him. He pulls a bottle of whiskey out of his trunk and starts drinking it on the roadside, angry and sad. He looks like he’s going to cry. He gets in the car and starts driving again and he ends up driving onto an army base during a war. The car is replaced by a wheelchair. He’s in the wheelchair and he’s tooling around the base and I know he’s looking for the guy who humiliated him earlier with the car prank. He goes into one room where a lot of Asian soldiers, presumably the “enemy,” are being tended to. He then wheels over to another room where, ostensibly, he can get some treatment. The second room is much smaller and to get to it he has to wheel past a larger room that’s filled with soldiers and other army personnel. This room is massive.

Soon, it’s me again. I’m on the army base and I walk into a side room where two members of my editorial staff are there. I am wearing a suit jacket atop my clothes. I walk over to a box of books on the ground and read something that’s on a note attached to this box of books. I suddenly get very angry and topple the box over. I start to remove my jacket in disgust. One of my editors says, “Really? You’re really quitting?” and the tone is You’re quitting over this? I start to walk away and then I go back to topple the box some more, all the while insisting that I’m not angry but actually very calm. Another editor grabs me from behind and asks me to go be “calm” somewhere else, and I tell him to not put his hands on my neck. They’re forcibly removing me from the room and I’m insisting that no one touch my neck.