Sunday, January 10, 2016

Dream Log: Thwarting A Bomber

I dreamed I was walking along a sidewalk through a suburban neighborhood of ranch-style houses when suddenly another man joined me, a stranger, a big guy who looked a little bit like Brad Garrett (Raymond's older brother on "Everybody Loves Raymond"), and began chattering away, telling me some of the main points of his biography, where he was from, what he liked to do and so forth. I don't remember any details from that part of the conversation. It wasn't so much a conversation as a monologue. I hadn't said one word. At one point I considered crossing the road just to get away from him, but I decided to let him think, or pretend, that I was interested in what he was saying.

He was carrying a metal briefcase. He stopped walking, held the case up with both hands, patted it with one hand and said, "There's a lot of C-4 in here." He nodded in the direction of the nearest house and said, "It's gonna blow this place sky-high."

It was a rather handsome house, although somewhat 1970's-middle-class, painted white, with reddish-brown roof tiles. The lawn was very neatly mown and there were flower beds to the left and right of the front door. That door had a large glass pane in it, and within the glass was some gold or brass scrollwork.

He had taken a couple of steps up the driveway toward the house's front door before I tackled him from behind. The case slid away from us, from the driveway where we were onto the lawn, out of our reach. He was big and very strong and I was only able to keep him still with difficulty, but I got his arms pinned underneath him, lay on top of him and started yelling: "Call 911! There's a bomb in the briefcase! Call the bomb squad! There's a bomb in the briefcase! Call 911!" etc.

There were several people within earshot: they stopped and looked at us. Nobody seemed to be calling 911 at first. For a while I thought I might have to try to hold the guy down with one hand while I got my phone out and called 911 with the other, but it was only a few seconds before the bystanders snapped out of their initial shock and someone was calling 911. Some people came near but I yelled at them to stay back because of the bomb. A woman's voice yelled, "What can we do to help?!" I answered, "Tell the police there's a bomb and to please hurry." A man's voice said, "Done. They say we should hear the sirens any minute now -- " and as a matter of fact, before he was done talking I could hear them.

What seemed like a half-dozen uniformed police men and women pried me off of the other guy and put handcuffs on him. After they had separated us, I noticed that my heart was pounding and that there was a sharp pain all the way up my arms, and I couldn't move my fingers: they were frozen into claws from the effort of holding the guy still.

The bomb squad unit arrived. An ambulance was also there. I was carried to the ambulance. Everyone except the bomb squad was moved a long distance away. After a little while I felt okay again and was able to convince the EMT's that I was okay. When I walked away from the ambulance, a crowd of people walked toward me, civilians and people in various uniforms, all smiling at me. I said, "It's a good thing I'm not black, I'd probably have 40 or 50 bullets in me by now." Some people laughed or smiled at that, others frowned. Some looked like they were trying not to act like they knew I had a point.

A man's voice said, "They've disarmed the bomb!" The group cheered and many hands slapped me on the back and shook me by the shoulders.

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