I was back in Chicago and being driven to the University of Illinois Chicago campus by my old friend Burton. While waiting at a traffic light Burton turned to me and asked if I might be interested in buying two small catamarans that our friend and former bandmate Rob was selling. I asked if I could use them without the sails as boats with sails were not permitted on the small canals in the village where I lived in the Netherlands.
Arriving at the university campus, I met up with the tall slender middle aged woman who had invited me to the university drama department as she was interested in the possibility of producing the musical I had recently finished.
The woman and I sat at a large round table in a dark corner of the faculty lunch room as she took notes while I described the musical to her.
I left the university and decided to walk downtown for lunch and to do some window shopping. However, I quickly realized that I was farther away from Michigan Avenue than I thought so I headed toward the bus stop.
Just as I was turning the corner with the bus stop in view, I saw a number 39 bus going to Sherman and Bryn Mawr pulling into the stop and I ran to the bus but just as I arrived the driver, looking directly at me, closed the door.
After a short stare-down, the driver acquiesced, opened the door and let me board.
I asked the driver what the fare was but saw I could use my Dutch travel card so I tapped it on the reader and went to find a seat.
As I walked down the aisle, I noticed that the bus was oddly configured and that the driver was actually sitting at the back of the bus where I had just boarded.
Looking for a seat, I passed a man rolling a cigarette on a chair while another woman was doing needlepoint.
I sat down next to a Black couple at the very front of the bus (which was actually the back of the bus).
The woman next to me who, of all the African-American passengers on the bus, was quite fair skinned and had long dark brown hair. The woman was showing a white satin photo album to her companion who I wasn't certain if they were a man or a woman.
As the woman flipped the page I couldn't help but overhear her mentioning that the couple in one of the photos was her aunt Shirley and uncle Al. How curious, I thought to myself as I also had an aunt Shirley and uncle Al.
Glancing down at the photo the woman was showing her companion, I was shocked and surprised to see that it was indeed my aunt Shirley and uncle Al in the photo.
I politely interrupted and told the woman those were my relatives. She looked over at me and said she remembered me from a wedding she had attended in Los Angeles some years ago and I was actually her date, which I thought to myself as having been impossible as I surely would have remembered that.
I asked the woman her name and she replied Annie Hamel.
Then I woke up.
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