26-Oct-1980

It's Reloj and me on a trip to Monterey, CA. There's a Mexican restaurant in Watsonville, on the way, and evidently also in Montery.

A giant green road grader roars into the lane next to us from off right; it's clean and neat and a chicano sits high up in the cab.

Asks if he can to park heere.

"Si," I tell him, with all the simpatico at my disposal.

We're alongside a long tan building. There are trees and a gravel road running by it.

"I like you, mon," the grader man smiles.

Inside now, Reloj and I are in conference.

"Champagne," either one of us says.

"Champagne," mutters a disembodied voice.

A plump ma is grinning over her stewpot, rolls like dough from her fat cheeks and arms, "Champagne, yeah, shore...champagne," she seems to be melting into the pot, cackles and all.

On the road again, without any champagne, a small plane swoops in a circle, around behind - it's one of those aerobats but I wonder if the pilot is in control.

It zooms behind us as we watch, squanders altitude, pulls out of fearful freefall and continues to circle in front now - amazingly it keeps its nose pointing at us like a hex.

It sidles around us; I can hear someone onboard it chuckliing like ma as the plane circunmnavigates...

I am back at the restaurant in Watsonville now. Oh, shoot, I slipped a cog in progression. Reloj is still in Monterey on real time. I have to go back.

Inside at the counter, in Monterey, someone sits, and a lagging lilting brunette is behind us, reaching for something. She is rummaging in the high racks of flat displays. The higher she reaches the more of her bare lissome stretch is available to the public behind her. I wonder if she knows this. I wonder why they place all the common flatware so high. I am hardly ever cynical while dreaming.

(I forgot to mention earlier while we were there someone we called Pop had come through after the lunch crowd with a pushbroom - I had a straw broom I'd taken from the auto - my old red VW of Mexican venture days when dreams merged with the jarring world again - customers pick up their feet while the long head of Pop's broom whisks by...)

The lissome lady comes back around the counter, drops something there, everyone shuffles up and heads out - I see it's one of those juicy chocolate chip cookies I'm now addicted to and am glad.

Reloj's in the car when I go out. He has on a striped shirt. We discuss how we came to be separated. He had gone somewhere, and I hadn't. I didn't know. It's all right now. The auto we sit in is a sports machine, like the Triumph TR-3 I once drove.

We nod together and I fire up.