Freud would have a field day.

I had this one two days ago, but it's as fresh in my mind as when I first woke up. My father and I were in his old car, the one he had when we still spoke. He'd just gotten out of some Holy Roller conference and was wearing one of those "Hi, my name is..." name-tags on the left breast of his maroon T-shirt. There was already a thin layer of slush on the roads and the flakes were coming down harder by the minute. For whatever reason he was driving erractically; strange, since my old man's always driven dangerously slow. We skidded around on the slick pavement crossing into the opposite lane quite a few times as the frozen roads wound up and down the hills of Rockland County. At one point he wasn't paying attention and almost sent us off a cliff. Subconsciously wanting to be the hero in my dreams, I grabbed the wheel and steered us back on track. Once he'd re-commandeered the vehicle he managed to throw us right back into danger. The tires were slipping on the wet snow as we were desperately trying to ascend a steep hill. We wound up in the wrong lane. I screamed at him to stop fllooring the gas pedal, that it was getting us nowhere. I saw headlights coming around the bend and thought we were done for. I'd died in my dreams before, it wasn't a surprise. Somehow, though, we managed to get back into our lane. The stubborn old bastard still wouldn't slow down, however. We were flying down a hill marked thirty miles-an-hour at a brisk fifty-five; I was close to shitting myself. Not knowing how else to slow us down I pulled the emergency brake. When that didn't work I shifted the car into a lower gear. It was all futile, my father was hauling ass. My pleas to be more careful must've finally gotten through to him. He pulled over and switched seats with me. It was comforting to get behind the wheel, but not for long. The car wanted to accelerate on its own and the brake wasn't doing much of anything. My dad stared straight ahead, didn't bother giving me the "I told you so" look that a normal human being would've relished. We zoomed past a cop car at a speed that'd undoubtedly raise any patrolman's eyebrow. I was not about to get into an accidental high-speed pursuit, especially with that old coot riding shotgun, so I opted to stop the car the hard way. I could see a thick patch of snow in the center of the road ahead of us, a five-foot snow bank in the shoulder to the right. My foot slammed the brake as hard as it could as I aimed for the dangerous spot in the road and jerked the wheel, sending us spinning. Luckily, we landed in the bank, facing the wrong way so we could see the rollers on top of the approaching cruiser. My father and I both jumped out of the car thankful to still have our lives. When the officer arrived on the scene he immediately blamed by father for the accident. Good ol' Charlie didn't put up much of a fight, even though I'd been the one driving. He managed to irritate the cop with his antics and stupid questions, the socially awkward dolt that he is, as I cringed and called my mother for a ride home. There was a lot of noise in the background when she picked up her phone. She said that she was at a restaurant and was too drunk to drive. I told her not to worry, I'd be OK without her help. After hanging up I turned back and saw that my dad was in handcuffs. I guess he finally pushed that cop over the edge with his nonsense. And yes, the police officer in my nightmare was played by no other than Reginald VelJohnson, friendly neighborhood cop in both 'Family Matters' (Carl Winslow) and 'Die Hard' (not Carl Winslow). Who else could it have been?

I woke shortly afterwards as is usually the case. My beard and the pillow were soaked in drool, another unfortunately common occurrence. My girlfriend's green-gray eyes peered over at me from under heavy lids. She asked what was wrong, what had happened in my sleep. She can tell when they're about him now. Sometimes I think she knows more about me than I do. I recited the story I just told here. She suggested I talk to someone, go see somebody, a shrink-- since my father's absence has clearly become a major theme in my life. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. Regardless, it doesn't take a Sigmund Freud to decipher what this one in particular meant: I couldn't slow that damn car down any better than he could. I'm making the same mistakes, heading down the same path, suffering the same consequences; and that's my biggest fear, really: the self-fulfilling prophecy, the unbroken cycle. Maybe I should've aimed for the telephone pole across from that snow bank instead.

And Sigmund--
I'm well aware of what they didn't tell us in college: you were just a perverted cocaine addict who lost his jawbone to cigar-induced cancer.