Blake Madison's Dream

In his dream, Blake was walking in the woods surrounding the cabin with David Crosby. Crosby was telling him how good it was to see him again, and Blake was realizing that he and Dave had been buddies for a long time, although Dave was unknown to the others in Blake's inner circle. Blake secretly hoped he would run into Red or Veronika Wheatley so he could impress them with this casual friendship with his pal Dave.

Blake and Dave paused at the scene of Smurch's shooting and Blake remarked about the seemingly random nature of it, and Dave said "like a bolt out of the blue." This struck Blake as something significant, and Crosby beamed at him and Madison realized that it wasn't Dave at all but Bob Dylan, who was also a frequent guest in Madison's dream landscapes. Yes, it was Dylan, and he was beaming, shockingly. Then Dylan said "check that out." He pointed across the lake at a silvery football-shape that was hovering low in the sky.

Dylan and Blake decided they would walk around the lake to investigate. On their way, they discovered a bumper car track hidden in the trees. Most of the folkies from the camp were already grabbing cars for the big race, and Madison said "We better hurry or we'll miss the fun." But Dylan had morphed into Argent, although he still had Dylan's voice. Argent chuckled and jumped into a purple bumper-car, and Madison looked around and finally saw a rusty gray car that looked barely operable. He saw the strange but attractive Lindy-Lou woman waving a starter's flag, and all the folkies roared off. Madison pushed the pedal, but his car wouldn't go. He then realized it had no bottom to it, and he could use his feet to propel it, Fred Flintstone style.

Madison got off the line in a cloud of dust, and with the appropriate bongo flurry and gunshot sound effects. Soon he had passed them all, and in fact couldn't see them. The track became rough, then disappeared among the vines, roots, and strange flowers of what was now an exotic and vaguely threatening rainforest. He stopped the car, and realized he was surrounded by jungle, and that the jungle was surrounded by water. Behind him, he heard the folkies singing a song together...Christ, it was There's a Meetin' Here Tonight and they sounded exactly like the Limeliters and somebody, probably Argent, was warbling just like Glen Yarborough.
Madison found a way through the jungle and the folkies had set up an uncanny facsimile of the original Hungry i there in a clearing.

Madison found a seat at a little round table, and a shapely beatnik chick in tights, sandals, a striped sweater and beret walked up with a tray and he ordered a Four Roses neat. At this everything stopped momentarily, as if everyone was in shock...then they all laughed and indicated that there was a bottle of Four Roses on every table. Blake laughed with them, and the music began again, this time cool jazz; a sax and a bass player on stage. Madison was enjoying the music when he noticed Argent having a lively conversation with another man whose back was to him. They had spilled wine all over the table cloth, and it was dripping and pooling on the floor under them. Argent picked something up off of the table...it was the little book, the Lives of the Stars. Argent opened it, then looked straight at Blake, pointing him out to the other man, who turned and stared at Madison. It was Smurch, skin ghastly white, blood running down his face from the wound in his forehead, eyes sightless. Madison stumbled up and found a door behind him, burst through it out onto a street that looked like Sunset Strip.

A taxi pulled up, the door opened, and at the wheel sat the woman, Lindy Lou, who said dramatically "room for one more." He staggered back, the cab door closed, and the taxi drove off. As Madison watched it, a hand fell on his shoulder. He knew without looking that it was the corpse of Smurch. His heart pounding, he turned to see only a shadow-shape of something with eyes that burned into his, the long fingers tightening painfully into his shoulder. It leaned close and growled "get out of this!"

That was when Madison awoke, sheets damp with perspiration, morning light streaming into the bunk room. He reached for the book on the sill behind him, and was not surprised in the least that it was gone.