Tucked into my bed here in Salt Lake City, I dreamed that I was wandering a convention, and heard the names of other writers being called, again and again, with no response, in a manner much like the way in which Ben Stein took attendance in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off. The voice echoing through the halls belonged to Barry Malzberg.

And then I heard him call my name. Unlike those other writers (and alas, no, now that I’m awake, I no longer remember who they were), I answered the call, and went into a conference room, and there was Barry, standing in the front of an audience, dressed like Ko-Ko from The Mikado. In the dream, I saw nothing strange about this at all. And I said to him, “Barry, you know that all you ever need to do is call my name three times and I’ll be there.” (Which was odd to be saying, since I’d showed up on his first call.)

He then proceeded to ask me a question as if I was a game show participant. I can no longer remember the exact question, only that it had to do with Groucho Marx (who in the dream I remembered having heard sing “Willow, tit-willow” sometime previously), and in answer to that question I was going to say, “Margaret Dumont,” but before I spoke I suddenly knew that would be the wrong answer, and as I struggled to think of the right one, I woke.

I had a long phone conversation with Barry last week and it was nothing like that, so though this dream was entertaining to me, it makes no more sense than any of the earlier dreams I’ve shared with you here.

Now a dream in which Lee and Nick and me had killed Gary Braunbeck and dumped his body out back in the hotel parking lot—well, after the events of last night, that I would have understood!