"the house of Warren Zevon."
Taken from a dream sometime December, 2017
We are in the Appalachian Mountains, walking along a scenic road and following it into a driveway. My Dad is with me, there are others scattered around. The house is a small museum with a gift shop on the first floor. Through the house and out the back door is a gathering area where a stand is serving beverages. This area is outdoors but seems to be bricked in with attractive shrubs and very healthy grass. Incongruously, the house in another angle opens into a shopping mall. I now see that this is the house of Warren Zevon. The house itself is tidy and neat, no real flavor. The gift shop is small, not terribly commercial; a few cds, mugs and maybe a t-shirt on a stand. Our attention is drawn to the backyard where Warren, noticeably not holding a beverage, is holding court. He is dressed more like a suburban dad than a rock star. He has on an aqua blue polo shirt and khaki pants. I go up to the group he's speaking to and listen in. Closer up, he looks like in his mid-50's, a short goatee and a little pot-belly. As the group disperses, I catch Warren's eye and drop a few well placed comments. He smiles as he can tell I'm more than an average fan and I get a feeling that he'd like to chat more but has to obey his duty to mingle. As "Hula-Hula Boys" plays on the built in speakers, our paths cross again in the garden a little later. We are standing beside a steel contraption that resembles a single covered seat on a Ferris wheel or a non-glassed in cab of a bull-dozer. Inside there is a single lever, like for an airplane. Outside, the top is connected to an array of long arms of metal folded upon itself. Warren gets in to demonstrate for the people. He sits in the car and tugs on the handle. He rises into the air about 20 feet or so and its unfolding arms move him above the crowd any which way he chooses. When he lands it back in his dock, he exclaims that this is his 'flight simulator' and its where he goes to 'be by himself.' Having read about this device, I ask him if its from... And he interrupts me. "Yes William Burroughs found it for me." As my Dad and I wander the small gardens I ask him if he knows who Warren Zevon is and more importantly that WZ died back in 2003? We walk into a modern looking classroom and in the build up before class begins, a young woman about 16 and pleasant, asks me about my shirt. I look down and its a NYFF shirt from the late 90s with letters in the bold primary colors of blue, red and yellow. I laugh having never seen this shirt and she makes some comment about how recent it was, (or old.) I ask her if she's a fan of Zevon and she answers in the affirmative. As she talks about her favorite songs, I watch her to see if she is referring to him in the past or in the present. I determine she is not speaking of my present. I walk over to another desk where my father has a large portfolio opened examining old photos of me when I was a baby. Some of these don't exactly look like my baby pics, some even have my eyes as blue. As he packs up the large portfolio and we exit back into the driveway, I tell him my theory that we've stepped back in time somehow by going into this house. Without surprise, he says that its possible and we continue to a place that resembles the first apartment I grew up in, just updated in style from the early 70s when my dad used to live with us. He has his hands full with the portfolio and other things he's pulling out of the mailbox. He tells me that he'll see me later and I go upstairs and to what seems as my bedroom but positioned where my parents room used to be. I sit in the bed and lean against the headboard with the window above my right shoulder. I glance up and see a shadow, which is odd as I'm on the second floor. The shadow appears to be the shape of the grim reaper. Its shaking about but not at all in a menacing way. I stand to see what's up. Its a grim reaper shaped balloon on a stick being hoisted up to the window by two of my longtime co-workers. They are shaking it and laughing. One of them says that my dad forgot to leave it with me.