It was one of those dreams. You know, the kind of dream where you don’t know if you’re awake, and eventually you are, and you can’t always tell the difference. One of those.

And I was driving in a car with someone else, I don’t know if it was a guy or a girl, just someone else so I wouldn’t be by myself, and I think the sun was out because it was day and the air was good, like maybe a nice breeze with the windows open, or maybe it was a convertible with the top down because I could feel the air, but maybe not a convertible because it didn’t look like it and I was driving but I felt the air which is always good I guess and my friend, I’ll call the other person my friend because it’s easier to just tell the story, and he says, so I guess at this point it’s he, he says, “I’m hungry,” and I realize I’m hungry too, and he says, “Let’s go get a sandwich,” and I say, “Yes, let’s,” and he says “Let’s get a steak sandwich.” And I agree.

He says, “Let’s get a steak sandwich because I like a steak sandwich and everybody does and it’s got steak in it and they cook it up and that’s beef and I like beef everybody likes beef,” and I’m thinkin’ to myself, “That’s what I say, you think like I think, it’s almost like I’m talkin’ to myself, just so there’s somebody there and I’m not drivin’ by myself all alone,” and you say, “Let’s go get a sandwich.”

One of those dreams.

So we do.

And it’s real easy, not like those dreams I used to have where I’m flyin’ but I’m not very good at it, because I have to keep flappin’ and flappin’ my arms to stay up and I never get very high and I flap harder to try and stay above the roofs of the houses I’m tryin’ to get over and I wish I was superman ‘cause he knows how to fly but I’m not and I keep flappin’ and somewhere along the line I just wake up because I’m getting’ nowhere bein’ asleep and I don’t know if I’m still flappin’ after I’m awake, I don’t remember, it was so long ago.

Not one of those dreams.

So we went to get our steak sandwiches and we followed the signs and drove in the parking lot, and it was a parking structure under a building and we parked by the elevator to go up where the sandwiches are, and we got out to place our order and it was like outside an office and there was a desk and a person who was either a he or a she and it didn’t matter because she, so I guess this time it was a she, she had a pad and a pencil and came around from the desk and asked what we want and we said, “We want a steak sandwich, two steak sandwiches, with lots of meat.” And she wrote something down on her pad and said something like, “Wait here, have a seat” and she walked through a door into another room and we sat down on like a couch which is where you sit to wait (and I just changed pens while I’m writing this down because my pen ran out because I’m writing so much to try to keep on my train of thought and anyway back to the dream with my new pen) and we looked around and it didn’t look like food and we couldn’t smell any cookin’ but there was menus so we knew we were where we should be, and after what seemed too long it starts to get hazy like maybe it’s time to wake up and she comes out and hands it over and we look and then look at each other and say real loud together, “Where’s the beef??”

And by then I’m awake because I didn’t want to dream that anymore ‘cause it turned into like a nightmare and I was still hungry and of course I remembered too long ago how the commercial on TV had this little old lady come out and say, “Where’s the beef??” and everybody who saw it would laugh but nod too because we knew what she meant, and we even knew, most of us knew, those of us who know knew, that she wasn’t just talkin’ about a commercial for the fast food that specialized in and emphasized “the meat,” but she was talking about everything, about the world, and friends, and the government, and TV, and everything, and here I was awake and hungry and by myself because you always are even when you’re with people, and I didn’t want to go back to sleep again because that didn’t work, but I didn’t know if I wanted to stay awake when I said almost out loud, “Where’s the beef?” and I suspected that I already knew the answer, and that I’d better stay awake to see if I was right.