First fragment. I am in my apartment, a modern, starkly decorated eyrie in a high-rise building. I know it is my apartment in the intuitive but un-challengeable way one knows things in dreams. Actually, I am in a short hallway within the apartment—a parqueted floor and a window at the end of the hall stick in my mind. There is a storm going on, but the other side of the window seems very far away. It grows dark outside; lightning flashes intermittently. Sam, my youngest child, warns me to stay away from the window; he points out that there is a danger of tornadoes. As if to underscore the seriousness of the threat, the lights of the apartment begin to flicker. Second fragment. My wife, Joan, meets me at the door to the apartment. She looks upset. “The vine cleaners are here,” she whispers. It is clear to me that she wants to send them away—we don’t need vine cleaners for our potted plants—but it is too late. Looking past Joan, I see that the vine cleaners, an immigrant couple, are already at work, spraying and polishing the leaves. I can smell the perfumed chemical cleanser they are using. Perhaps, I think to myself, this is a free service provided by the management of the apartment building; but no, it isn’t, for now they are done and the man tells me that the vine cleaning costs $8.50. I hand him a $10 bill and get a one and two quarters in change. The couple waits. Do I tip them? A quarter each is hardly enough. Is a dollar too much? I hesitate. Out-side, the storm rages. Then the lights flicker again and go out, freezing the tableau. I opened my eyes with mixed feelings of relief and disorientation. Re-lief because the vine cleaners had vanished, along with the question of how much to tip them—there is no need to tip people in dreams. Disorientation because the place I had awakened in was so utterly different from the clinging aura of the dream, and yet this real place was also for a moment strange and unfamiliar.
Hertz and Michelson
