Good ‘ol Goliard, always pushing the period envelope.  If it weren’t about guns and birds and Brautigan I would surely drive down south and rough her up.

Richard.  I’m sorry.  I never thought I would hit you.  I threw up afterwards.  And I never pointed a gun at a living thing in my life since.
/s -one of the boys/

Oh wait, it was all a dream.  Thank god.  I wonder what it means.

I have a couple of different Brautigan biographies sitting on my shelves that might shed some light on this dream, although I’m not going to keep up any hopes.  Who knows what any man is thinking when he talks idly about guns? 

Brautigan, as you may already know, took his own life with a .44-calibre gunshot wound to the head sometime in September of 1984.  His last published novel, So The Wind Won’t Blow It All Away, also raises questions about guns, particularly Brautigan’s thoughts on them.  When the main character of the story, a young boy in Oregon, accidently shoots and kills a friend, we find ourselves wondering if, perhaps, this story is based on more truth and personal Brautigan history than fiction.

Does reading Brautigan change a person’s life?  Sometimes.  But does a person reading Brautigan know how their life has been changed?  Most likely not.  The man’s writing is about as straight forward as that trout stream spilling down the hillside, which upon closer inspection, turns out to be nothing more than an old, wooden staircase.

I have that book.  It’s sat on my shelf for many years now, unread.  I don’t know why.  I must be waiting for a sign.