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GRAVEL

14.  (Dream) My company is trying to string a cable across a part of Golden Gate Park, specifically, right along Fulton Avenue down towards the shore. The part we're working on now is a string running across Veterans' Boulevard, right where it enters the park. At an employees' morale booster, I'm sitting there waiting for the boss to say something, at the same time trying to light a short unfiltered cigarette. We're sitting in a row on cheap folding chairs with Ralph and another character not far away, and between unsuccessful attempts in lighting this little cigarette, I glance at the cheap linoleum tiles in the kitchen where we're meeting, on the lower level of some mall out in Concord. Once again, I strike the match and watch as its flame lasts just a moment, and the fire just doesn't take hold at the end of the cigarette. Ralph is still watching me from a few seats away – I know he disapproves of cigarettes or anything else – and I raise a finger slightly to indicate, "Just wait!" Again, the match; again, the slight flame, the attempt to get the tobacco at the end of the cigarette to ignite, and this time success! Just as the boss comes in to our third grade class. He's not even part of my vision. It's the cigarette, man, it's the cigarette! I draw a few puffs to keep it going, and the red ember at the end of the butt glows red. I raise a finger to Ralph again, just a slight gesture, really, to indicate, "Just one!" I have to keep him quiet. The cigarette's still burning! The boss meanwhile, is telling us all about a talking pipe, whose manufacturer is sponsoring our effort to string the line across Veterans' Boulevard, and after the meeting is formally adjourned, and we're all milling around, I raise my hand and proceed to say, without even being called upon, "Where can we actually buy one of these?" Someone hands me the package containing the talking pipe, which I open in wonder. It's a cheap pipe, probably costing somewhere around $34.95, I realize. Somebody who's still left in the meeting place tells me they probably sell them upstairs in the mall. They're all gone now, and I"m left holding the pipe. The only reason I'd said anything, really, was to get on the boss's good side, if there is such a thing. The linoleum tiles on the floor, I can see, is an alternating design of light blue shapes on one kind of tile, and a coffee brown pattern of shapes on the other kind of tile. The color intensity of the two tile types is exactly the same, I'll give them that. I've been idly peeling a string of them off the floor. The line, meanwhile, still has to be strung, and I go outside to where it's lying in a coil and proceed to see if I can string it across the boulevard by myself. I glance way down the hill I'm on and across the busy boulevard, with an unending flow of traffic that comes in pulses. I give the line a good heave and get it across during one of the lulls and it flies across to the west side of the street. I grab hold of it and pull it back, to raise it before any traffic resumes, and it goes straight up, pole to pole! (Fin)