I Dreamed I Saw Charlie Parker Last Night

…alive as you or me.

For reasons that will become clearer in a few paragraphs, I know this had to have happened in late-1987. I was living in Arlington, Virginia, just across Key Bridge from Georgetown, and I’d gone out with friends for the evening. I have vague flashes of a pizza joint on Connecticut Avenue, but don’t remember much else. That was a long time ago. I know that for some reason I was on foot. I lived in a second-floor walk-up near the Rosslyn Metro Station, and less than a mile from the famous Dischord House. The place was a hellhole; two rooms and a kitchen with only a window a/c unit to combat the wretched DC summer. I did my best to keep busy so I didn’t have to hang out there. I once imagined dying, and my body not being discovered for weeks; the place was that uplifting.

My troubles began about a block and a half from my apartment. Strange tingling sensations in my hands; shortness of breath. I was sweating profusely, but that might have been the result of my walk home, I’m not sure. There were no drugs or alcohol involved. I know because I would never have decided to walk that distance when I could easily have asked my friends for a ride, or jumped on the bus. As I stepped into the building, and looked up the stairs, I felt like I was trapped in a Hitchcock movie. The door to the apartment appeared to recede into a darkened distance. I couldn’t feel my extremities, I couldn’t breathe, and I had tunnel vision. I dragged myself up a flight, and somehow let myself in. I thought I could make it to the couch. Nope. I hit the floor. Hard. Rolled over onto my back, and tried to focus myself. The room was spinning, and my heart was racing. I knew I was going to pass out, and I ain’t gonna lie. I was scared.

I lay there in the room’s half-light staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell was happening to me? Was this a heart attack? A stroke? I’d had a friend in school who’d had an aneurysm. That’s it! I was having an aneurysm! What’s an aneurysm? I didn’t know. My brain was running wild and my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. Honestly, I genuinely wanted to pass out to make it stop, but found myself fighting it. I kept hearing something; a noise. It was so familiar, like something, or maybe someone calling to me. Wait…is that? …is that? That sounds like Charlie Parker. In a rare moment of lucidity that night I realized there was a record spinning on the cheap plastic turntable I had set up in the corner of the living room. It was one of those bargain basement specials that when the album would end, the tone arm would raise, return to the beginning and then drop and start playing all over again. I must have left it playing when I’d gone out that night.

Charlie Parker. The only thing standing between me and the land of the unconscious was a Bird call. And a “happy” Bird at that. The album, I mean–The “Happy” Bird–recorded in 1952 and released via the Charlie Parker Records label. That “fact” is easily substantiated because that was the only Bird album I owned in those days. Typical CPR release–lousy sound, virtuosic playing. I’d like to say the song that was warbling in the middle of my fever dream was “I Remember April,” but I’m pretty sure I’d be making that up. Regardless, you should check it out. Bennie Harris on trumpet, Charles Mingus on bass, Roy Haynes on drums–allegedly recorded at a restaurant in Boston in April 1951. That’s even before my time, but wow, I’d love to have been there.

And just like that, the switch was flipped, and my body shut down. It wouldn’t be until the next day that I realized how incredibly uncomfortable that floor in the living room was. Meanwhile, for one very strange evening, my dreamland was Birdland. My dreams tend to be vibrant, to put it mildly, but rarely do famous personnages wander my dreamscape. There are no naked Indians sharing the secrets of the universe with me, or bestowing upon me the gift of prophecy. But that night, Charlie “The Yardbird” Parker was sitting on my rent-a-couch offering his wise counsel. Again, we were floating through the dream blur. We were in my apartment, but it wasn’t really my apartment. Instead it was nice. The stereo cost more than thirty dollars. There were lamps that actually gave off light. Most importantly, Charlie Parker and I were hanging out. Weird and incomprehensible things were happening all around us, but Bird and I persevered in what seemed an important tete-a-tete. He asked me, “What are you afraid of?” I hesitated a second, “I don’t know, what am I afraid of.” “You have to be the one who answers that question.” I felt uncomfortable. I shook my head vigorously; I swore that I wasn’t afraid, and in fact, I felt pretty good. Bird looked at me with a big smile on his face. “No. No you don’t. You’re passed out on your living room floor.” I woke up.

The sun was beginning to rise. I lay there looking up at the ceiling. I took a deep breath, and shook my arms and legs. I could feel them again. So far, so good. I pulled myself up, grabbed the phone, and called a friend to tell her what happened. Within the hour, she was driving me to the emergency room, which was a very good thing since my head had piledrived into the wooden floor. The docs said I was exhibiting concussion-like symptoms. (What is that? Either you have a concussion or you don’t.) They also said that what I’d experienced that evening sounded like a classic anxiety attack. I was prescribed a short-course of valium and sent home. After a few days, I flushed the pills. I’ve never been a fan of Big Pharma. Since then, I’ve been very lucky, and never again experienced the intensity of that meltdown.

I have also never again been visited by Charlie Parker, and that is a shame. I miss him. There is one thing I’m leaving out of the story: 1987. So many memories from those days are lost to me now, but for some reason, I remember that. Why? Months later I was listening to “The ‘Happy’ Bird,” and thinking about that weird dream. It dawned on me that the Yardbird in my dream wasn’t Parker at all. At least not physically. Of course I’d seen pictures of the man, usually on album covers. But this was pre-internet so access to images was limited. My Charlie Parker in 1987 was actually Forest Whitaker who took flight as the Bird in Clint Eastwood’s Parker bio-pic. I have no doubt that one of the reasons that crazy night has stayed with me is that for decades now I’ve watched Whitaker on the screen, and every time he smiles I think of Bird, my Bird, and the bizarro conversation we had in that broke down living room in, of all places, Arlington, Virginia.