So I moved to the edge of the building to sort out my things but there was a bake sale there. I wasn't hungry. It was like the Seinfeld Soup Nazi procedure. There was a woman who reminded me of this woman I knew once (Susan). I started walking toward some of the (non-existent IRL) monuments to take photographs. I was conscious of the photos going in the Victoria (TX) gallery on the website. But the woman and her boyfriend/husband and their son were going in the same direction so we had to talk. The young son was named Tyler. I have IRL a cousin named Tyler but in this case it was the woman's maiden name.
I sat on the green (read Blake's Ecchoing Green yesterday) and prepared some shots while we chatted. I asked if the La Juliette motel was still down the way. (Back to the idea of this being Romeo) The man told me some apocryphal story about some celebrity (or police officer?) going in there dressed like a tiger (come to think of it I recently read Blake's The Tyger too) and using his position/disguise to take advantage of some other man. I laughed politely and diplomatically said something about having heard a different version in my time, but made it sound like I believed his story and the grapevine had just changed things.
For some reason I was making a fuss of complimenting the woman but was also explaining why she shouldn't be in the long shot of the street running through downtown that I wanted to take. I was having a hard time, though, because street lamp poles and wires were interfering with the line of big trees along the side.
Somehow we were no longer sitting on the green (which had reminded me a bit of something out of Steven King's Derry locale, next to a machiney-looking monument) but sitting in the same positions in a car/van going down the street. I didn't like this but looked on the bright side which was that at least now I could start at the end and walk back.
But the car quickly became a boat. They ooo'd over a side-street like tourists and I saw that it was an overflowing canal. With some knowledge I said Romeo had become like Venice. The/van boat piloted without any help. The little boy sat right in front of me and I made the best of that too, playing a game with him, pretending we were driving the thing,
Finally there was a gravel divider in the middle of the water-street with cars parked on each side on diagonals as if they weren't in the water. Lots of SUVs. I was concerned we would crash but the man had programmed the van/boat to be stopping before we did. I was really anxious to get out.
This part of town isn't so much like the Romeo I knew IRL in 1985, but I do dream of it. It's along the main drag on the outskirts with beaten-up antique shops. In 1985 last I knew this is where KMart, etc, was.
The man said he was here to see Daniel Wagner, and I was interested because I had an ancestor named Daniel Wagner and he had come from this part of town. (Really he came from North Carolina - I have no ancestral ties to Michigan, I just lived there for 11 years growing up.)
The man and woman didn't seem too interested. The man went inside one of the shops, the van/boat was run up on the sidewalk/shore. I started getting my things out - this included a bag and three cans of paint. These people were also carrying paint. Now the woman didn't seem to like me. I think I was too structured, too into getting my project done, for her. And probably other things.
As I tried to unload the things it was difficult because the van/boat had started circling and I couldn't put anything out until we passed the pavement. Because of my maneuvers we scraped a SUV, but the woman didn't care, she just wanted me out. The man had come back and apparently whatever he wanted didn't go well. I was out and heard the man, this Daniel Wagner, definitely a descendant, call them gypsies. I tried to talk to him, I wanted to explain that I was a descendant of our ancestor too, and wanted to tell him about the photos, but he refused to see me. I kept saying I wasn't a gypsy, then kept trying different nouns. No luck.
Then I remembered that I didn't have my camera. I had never managed to get the strap around my neck. The van/boat was only just pulling away so I yelled 'stop!' They saw me and slowed down, then had second thoughts and increased the speed and began to drive away. I knew they knew they had my camera. The woman reached down and picked it up and threw it in my direction. It landed hard on the pavement next to me. Miraculously it worked. Now it was my Rebel G (35mm SLR) but it made noises like the digital, although they didn't seem quite right.
So was it all just another camera anxiety dream? In any case, in the time it took to type all this I think I'm now fully awake.
