The Grim Reaper

2 Nights ago I had a dream that the Grim Reaper was at my door.
It was all very normal paced, knock knock knock, then open the door to find a regular sized figure dressed in a black hooded cloak with a scythe. I awoke to the dog barking loudly. It was 4AM, and Bentley was in the front of our apartment, facing the street. We've been keeping the windows open at night for the cool air but it also makes the average passerby on the sidewalk an instant suspect for our new dog who is part bearded collie, and therefore wired to protect his space. Chris and I both awoke to the clatter and, well, we made our way to the front door to...see what was the matter. Chris went to open the door but I stopped him: "Don't open the door!" I said urgently, perhaps hoarsely (it was 4am). "Look through the peephole first." But I was already there, peering through the fisheyed tunnel, half expecting to see you know who patiently waiting for me. But there was no one there. Chris opened the door, making his way outside and Bentley raced into the yard. I stood in the doorway, alone, with the creeping sensation that someone was in the house with me. This was impossible as all the other doors were locked and just moments before my highly sensitive dog would have been the first to pounce on an intruder, but my mind was playing tricks on me. Years of watching horror films from the time I was 10 have made certain images and sequences immediately accessible: a Polanski type tension of an unseen assailant, a wes craven ripping through flesh, a john carpenter boogey man stepping deliberately into frame. My heart raced as I imagined my killer coming from behind. But then, Bentley and Chris came back inside, empty-handed. Bentley slurped water from his bowl and Chris locked the front door, cursing the canine.

For the next couple of days, I have felt oddly aware of my mortality. Driving in LA traffic, I've caught myself glancing at my blackberry and then remembered the Reaper and His Scythe. "This is IT! This is IT!!!" My inside voice has warned. Driving to the gym for my 6am spin class, passing the crack dealers on 6th avenue and Brooks, I've half expected to pull out some gun and shoot me, for fun. Foot on the gas pedal, careening into the nearest wall or palm tree, a spider web of glass shattered windshield, and the life slowly slipping from me.

What does this all mean? Perhaps it's time to do something different. But what? Here is a poem I wrote when I lived here, 11 years ago now. I was in college, driving my mom's white honda around LA, working for nothing as an upaid production assistant on a movie that never got released. I was obsessed with an artist, a painter, named Ben -- who ironically lived on the very street I now call home. I started writing a screenplay about this artist. But like most things I've started to write, I never finished it. I was intimidated by my professor's excitement over reversals and discussion of Hitchcock. He told me to write the piece EXACTLY how I wanted it to be shot. Less room for discussion. He also told me to write with a mind on production, and how much things would cost. Yes, I will try to get back to the screenplay. But for now, the poem:

LOS ANGELES

you are palm trees on a postcard
in the supermarket at night
with the woman who rings
you up
as your keeper
maybe she bags or maybe she doesn't
but she'll usually smile and ask how you're doing
and that's when you know you've arrived --
whether she means it or not.