Things Have Change



Gonna take dancing lessons do the jitterbug rag

Ain't no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag

Only a fool in here would think he's got anything to prove

Bob Dylan



Fonzie bolted up right, cold sweat coming down the side of his face. Calming his labored breath he looked around the small dark apartment, his eyes were as huge as saucers as they tried to adapt to the darkness.

"Not again" he mumbled to himself as he lye back down again. Starring at the ceiling he contemplated why he kept having the same dream almost every night. Although, technically it wasn't a dream, it was more of a memory, one that he had thought long forgotten, but now it was back. Somehow it had resurfaced to haunt him like an old ghost. It just wouldn't go away and he sure as hell didn't know how to make it disappear.

Being more practical he began to remember something an ex-girlfriend of his had told him once. She had been a psychology major and loved to discuss dreams. She had explained to him that dreams were just away for our subconscious to tell us something. Perhaps by him dreaming of this long forgotten memory, his subconscious was trying to point something out to him, something of great importance.

But what? Fonzie honestly did not know. What could there be to point out? Nothing! There was absolutely nothing that was wrong with his life or the way he chose to live it.

Liar!

"I am not!" he screamed out into the darkness. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his life, although....

Yes?

Well, sometimes, mostly when he came how drunk out of his mind, he would just sit on the floor and cry from the utter loneliness that crept into his soul at times. After crying his eyes out he would stare at his wall of girls. Their cold eyes would stare back him, taunting him in a way. Reminding him that he would never be more than this, what he was now, "The Fonz"!

Everyone would grow up and move on and he would just stay up here, over the Cunningham's garage forever. Instead getting older and moving on, doing normal things like everyone else. Finding that other person to share the rest of his life with, perhaps start a family of his own.

All those thoughts oddly warmed him all over, made him eager to wake up one more day and see what life had in stored for him. But just as soon as that feeling overtook him, reality would slap him in the face, once again reminding him that he wasn't going anywhere.

That day at the lake when he had almost died, he had walked away with a new sense of being, that same sense that made him "The Fonz", the damn living legend of Milwaukee. The admiration that came along with such a title had been amazing, but only for the first couple of years! Now he was getting older and wished that he had never become the leather-clad rebel in the first place. Wished with all his heart that he too would be allow to get old and move on to the next overdue stage of his life that he was itching to embark upon.

Maybe that's what his subconscious was trying to tell him!
Or perhaps that he shouldn't eat Chinese food before going to bed.