I live in chaparral. Fire-haunted, so my neighbors bull doze it far back. But their alien lawns starve the song birds. So I yearly scorch my brush, and natives thrive.     Texans barbecue next door. Waterless, they offer     lemonade or beer. Choose: syrup or bad booze. A dog named Teri Garr wanders through. Strays too near the Kiss The Cook and sparking barbecue and catches fire. Her long fur smolders, a horde     of fuses; but the sting's still far from skin. Her     fur blurs urgency. Not yet the pain. Thus Garr mingles with happy drunks, begging for a cooling drench; the men all snicker, joking whether to waste beer on "that flaming bitch". They dither     too long. One by one, big hats catch fire--four     on hitching posts; one hung by leather tether down his back; but seven wallow on their muzzy heads. Men guffaw and quaff, tease friends alight, atorch, as their own     brains begin to burn. The beer men laugh,     fall, laugh together. As they wither.

Drunk cowboys destroy themselves: that evening I'd seen Star Trek: the Next Generation. Three people frozen in the 20th Century revive successfully--but one's a country-western singer who drinks like a fiend--drowns his second chance at life just as he drowned the first.

No mystery where our leading lady came from, either. Just before bed, David Letterman interviewed Teri Garr. She really is like her roles, from Star Trek to Tootsie--spontaneous, kooky, insecure, self-interrupting. Flawed, but she uses her flaws to break out of boxes. Turns insecurity to insight! I admired her.

33 YEARS LATER

When I had this odd nightmare (creepy, yet I was safe--I'd control-burned my yard) I saw it as about men blaming women, blaming the victim--their flaming bitch. But I didn't see this invading MY liberal California suburb.

But during Trump and the wildfires and the pandemic, such nightmares became for me a common type: watching bubbas laugh and call names as they burn themselves, me, us, the whole fevered world. Examples: Set on Fire, Tidepool Decline, Shoved off a Cliff, Stallion, not Mare, Family Jesters, or Mermaid Versus Trump. Maybe you've had one too. Maybe while awake.

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