Hey. It's me again. I just killed another gypsy.

Last night I dreamt that I beat a bunch of gypsies to death with a flashlight.

You may have seen my MagLight flashlight. It’s the kind that used to get cops suspended with bonus pay. That’s what I used to murder some gypsies.

But not ordinary fortune-telling gypsies. If you’re reading this, you probably know me and probably have seen Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000). That kind of gypsy. The Irish-Traveler, pikey kind of gypsy, except these had thick Jersey accents.

These were crinkle-cloth track suit wearing South Jersey Shore gypsies.

But non, peu importe. Let’s contextualize this dream with what I already knew to be true as the dream was beginning:

Several news agencies had (apparently) been reporting on scams perpetrated by large bands – is that what they move around in? Bands? Tribes? – of gypsies with a mind to steal items of paltry value – spoons, paper clips, book ends, toenail clippers, the like. They didn’t know the value of expensive electronic items, and instead went after the shiny stuff because “they were gypsies and didn’t know any better.” This is the world in which I was dreaming.

This was the milieu.

And this is how they operated:

A large-scale gypsy infiltration began with hundreds of teenage gypsies running amok in neighborhoods, breaking into houses, running around, wrecking up the place – but not stealing anything. They’d open up the windows, leave the doors unlocked. The purpose of the first wave was to leave vulnerabilities in a home’s defenses, to be later exploited by gypsy wave two.

Whereas the first wave consisted of hundreds of teenagers on your lawn, the second wave consisted of double-hundreds of concerned gypsy parents looking for their troubled children. A few would knock on your door and coerce you outside to chat and apologize for their children’s behavior. The rest of the double hundreds of gypsy parents would come in and out of your house through open doors, windows, garages. It would be impossible to keep track of how many came and went. Many would enter. A few would hide in your house and wait for things to calm down.

Again, nothing would be stolen. This was only recon.

Eventually, the second wave would move along and follow their children. Once everything calmed down and everyone in the house went back to bed, the hidden gypsies would come out to ransack all of your crap.

The third wave – only one or two gypsies – would return, to “find their sons or sisters or cousins because they’re gypsies and don’t know any better than to not sit around confused and lost in a stranger’s house.” So when the gypsies left, a few gaudy duffel bags full of your worthless crap left too.

But I outsmarted the gypsies. Or got lucky. It doesn’t matter. I’m the hero, and they made a big mistake: I don’t like to go to bed.

For protection, I had my flashlight ready to defend myself against an invasion of what dreammoods.com calls a metaphor for freedom. And freedom came invadin’.

The first hidden gypsy appeared from my closet, trying to sneak past me with some coat hangers and a belt buckle. I grabbed my flashlight and beat him savagely about the head. He died, skull all a-pulp. A second gypsy heard the commotion and I intercepted him in the doorway to my bedroom. I also beat him to death with my flashlight.

I piled the dead, mushy-headed gypsy corpses in my doorway as a barricade against other invading freedoms. After the murder wall was completed, I sat down on my bed and called 911.

A girl-sounding voice answered:

“911, what is your emergency?”

“I just beat a bunch of gypsies to death with a flashlight.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“…”

“…”

“You should probably send someone. Like the police or an ambulance or something.”

“Someone will come around when they get a chance.”

As the dispatcher was saying this, I heard floorboards creaking outside my room. Another freedom gypsy was sneaking in. I asked her to hold, set my phone on my bed, and ducked around the corner hidden from the doorway.

The gypsy was crouched low as he entered the room. In his hand was a tarnished and antiquated revolver. I brought the flashlight down on the gypsy’s head as a farmer would an ax while chopping wood. Imagine this: a thick slab of raw meat is resting on top of a large bed of corn flakes, and has been doused with a soup of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. That’s what it was like, smashing this gypsy’s skull with a flashlight.

The cruchy, mushy, splattery sounds weren’t as loud as the gypsy’s screams, but the screams didn’t last as long as the wet schlops. I set the gypsy’s revolver on my desk and picked up the phone. The 911 operator was still on the line.

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“I just killed another one. There’s probably more.”

“Oh, okay.”

“He had a gun.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll send someone around in a little while.”

There were dead gypsies all over my floor. I fell down on my bed to wait for the police to arrive.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I was surprised for three reasons. One: I didn’t think the police would show up so quickly. Two: my dad, who had apparently been here the whole time, answered the door to Three: and then there were two more gypsies. I didn’t see them. I just knew.

A female voice: “We’re looking for our sons. They’re probably lost in here because they’re gypsies and don’t know any better. “

My dad let them in.

Damnit. Vibrations of footsteps walking casually towards my room down the hall. Again.

The woman saw the pile of dead gypsies in my doorway and screamed. I cracked her once on top of her head with my flashlight. She crumpled onto the dead gypsy doormat spread across the liminality. From across the house I heard a gruff man-scream, followed by quick, pounding footsteps. He was running towards the woman’s scream. Towards me.

I was tired of waiting for gypsies to come get me so I could clumsily bludgeon them to death with a flashlight. I would meet this last gypsy in the hallway. I was ready for a fight with freedom.

An older, grey-bearded and bemulleted gypsy ran towards me. Roaring and rage and slobber and all of that. A single savage flashlight uppercut and the man collapsed into heap and rolled past me, landing on his back in the hallway, vacant-eyed, sputtering and gurgling.

I returned to my room, grabbed the pistol and my phone, and hopped over the mounding threshold and back into the hall with the wounded gypsy.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Hey, it’s me again.”

“Hey.”

“I killed another gypsy.”

“Wow. I really want to meet you.”

I raised the pistol and shot the dying gypsy man six times. Twice in the face.

“I just killed another.”

“I heard.”

“I shot him in the face. You better send someone.”

“Okay, we’ll be right there. I’m coming too. I can’t wait to meet you.”

“Okay, bye.”

Within seconds, the police arrived.

What followed was your standard “CSI: Misdemeanor Property Damage” garbage. An investigative headquarters with tarps and clamp lights was set up in my garage. Neighbors were interviewed. Evidence was collected.

There was one problem. No one seemed the least bit interested that I was walking around in the middle of the crime scene inside of which I had just murdered five people or that I was kind of distraught about the whole thing. I couldn’t even get anyone to arrest me. And I tried.

I finally found the dispatcher who wanted to meet me and I’m pretty sure it was that girl Sam from Garden State (2004). Not Natalie Portman. Her character.

Sam, the fictional character from a middle 2000s slice-of-real-but-awkward-life turned emergency dispatcher in my dreams, tells me a few interesting things. One: I had, likely due to duress, miscounted the number of gypsies I had shot and/or beaten to death with a flashlight. There were actually only four. Two: the elder gypsy man I had shot in the face was actually a notorious gypsy king, who was wanted in several states for organizing dozens of these large-scale pandemonious shit-steal-a-thons. Three: the gypsy queen was still wanted and at large. Four: investigators had finished interviewing my aunt, who was now leaving to go on a walk.

Nice. I don’t have an aunt. Well, I mean, I do, a few actually, but none of them were in this dream. Shut up. This is my world.

I run to the front door and look out to see who must be, narratively, because that’s how these things work, the gypsy queen escaping into the woods across the street from my house, not draped over a carpet of dead gypsies with wounds not inconsistent with standard peace-keeping protocols.

I imagine my plan was to chase her down and beat her to death with my flashlight, but I couldn’t because some jerk-off decided to text me at 4:30 in the fucking morning and wake me up.
This isn’t the kind of dream you can just go back to.