My Freaky Friends (and me)

Chapter 9 ~ Red Car, Red Truck, Grey Dog

Throughout my entire life, I have loved acting and the theatre. Before we moved, I was the childhood star of the stage. On top of being extremely musically talented, I possessed that juvenile confidence accompanied by sass and drama, which meant that musicals were my forte. Throughout my time in elementary school, I had starred in many productions such as Antigone and Snow White, and I loved every moment of the spotlight. Everyone knew that Allie would light up the stage. 
However, once we moved in 2009, I had to start from the ground up. I didn't have the fabulous reputation on the stage that I had in my hometown, and casters are hesitant to give larger roles to actors they aren't familiar with. I didn't even want to try.
But, the town we moved to was the town that my father had grown up in. Being a musician himself (a one-handed musician, at that), my father had also participated in musical theatre as a child. There happened to be a theatre group in this town that had stood the test of time for generations.
Children's Musical Theatre was founded in the late 20th century by a wonderful woman named Donna.
Donna is a master number life path 22: The Master Builder.
And let me tell you, Donna built one of the most loving and inclusive communities I have ever witnessed.
My father and many other of his local friends acted and performed in these special plays throughout their childhood. Donna would write an outline and then adapt the script to the children who auditioned and incorporated their specific talents to make unique musical numbers just for them. No child got left behind. Everyone had a role to fulfill.
While these musicals often got lengthy, they were still very well put together, and the adults who perform and write the music were always wonderful.
When we moved, Donna put out a role call for a play. My sister, my dad and I auditioned and were cast. Two years later, another role call. We all were cast again. Two years after that, one more roll call for a show called "LittleFoot; Son of BigFoot".
Once again, all of us were cast. My talented sister even got the job to draw the art for the official poster and merchandise. My whole family bought several of the green t-shirts and sweatshirts from the show featuring her art.
It was a memorable show because it was the first and only show that I got the opportunity to perform a song that I wrote in a musical. And it was Donna's last show.
She was creeping up on the sunset years, and had terrible arthritis in her hands. Her age and her disabilities never stopped her from being kind, loving and patient towards so many children. Everyone was special to Donna.
So, since we feared Donna was nearing the end of her earthly time, the community decided to put together a tribute musical that would be performed for Donna in March of 2019. It would be composed of all the top hits from Donna's musicals going all the way back to the very first one. I was invited to perform my original song.
In the following day from my psychic discovery, I was folding laundry and watching a video on synchronicities before a rehearsal.
The man narrating the video was casually acting out a scenario where a group of old friends are meeting up and reminiscing.
"I remember the last time we were here," he said. "You were sitting over in that chair, and he was wearing a green shirt."
As he said the words "green shirt" I looked down in my hands only to realize that I was folding a green sweatshirt. Not just any green shirt, but it was from the LittleFoot play. The play from which the song I was singing that weekend originated from. And not only was I folding a green shirt as the man in the video about synchronicity said the words "green shirt", but I was also wearing a green t-shirt that happened to be from the LittleFoot play as well.
And yes, that shook me.
For this musical reunion, we'd had quite a few meet ups at the local library throughout the beginning of the year, but now we were moving to the little theater that resided in the high school as opening night was that weekend.
On my way to the rehearsal at the high school, I passed by a red car.
Red car! I heard in my mind. Huh. Weird thought...
As I turned the corner to drive up the street that would lead me to the high school, I passed by a red truck.
Red truck!
What?
I kept driving. Right before I was about to park, I noticed an older woman walking a grey, fluffy dog.
Grey dog.
Red car, red truck, grey dog. Okay?
I walked into the high school for the first time since I had graduated.
Ugh.
There were several unpleasant memories that instantly resurfaced when I stepped through those doors. Feelings of not being thin enough, pretty enough, yada yada. I pushed them back. I wasn't in high school anymore. I had lost weight since I had graduated, and looked very good. I was one of the older people participating in this production. I wasn't intimidated by anything.
I walked into the theater and sat down. I was just scrolling through my phone, when I had the urge to look up. My eyes fell upon somebody who I hadn't seen in a very long time.
Her name is Kitty. She had been a middle school music teacher, but had retired. She is such a lovely person.
She also happened to be my grandfather's girlfriend for years up until he passed away in 2008.
I had just asked my grandfather to show me that he was with me, and then I saw Kitty the very next day.
You can think whatever you'd like, but that was all the proof I needed at this point. This was freaky, indeed.
I remember my uncle calling me to catch up with me a little, and I explained to him a bit about what I was going through. He was my father's brother, and so I knew he would understand the things I had to say about Grandpa.
My uncle was definitely a skeptic and more of a man of science. He had grown up in the same house my family and I currently live in, and told me stories of spirits he knew resided in the house, so I knew he believed in the other side at least a little bit. He thought it was the oddest and most troubling thing in the world when my parents joined the Jehovah's Witnesses, as it is a cult, after all, but I'd imagine he's not a fan of organized religion in general. However, I felt like I could convince him of some of the psychic phenomena I was experiencing.
We talked a bit about Donna's play, and how I was going to perform my own song that I had written years ago. Then I tried to explain what I was going through, but I ended up crying through most of my explanation.
"I think I can communicate with dead people," I confessed. Of course, he thought that was a bit unusual, so I explained further.
"You don't understand. The only person I was really close with who has passed away is grandpa. So I asked him to give me some proof that he was still here with me and watching over me." I took in a big breath as the conversation paused. My breath quivered a bit as I said, "Uncle Matt, the next day, I saw Kitty. And I haven't seen Kitty in years."
That caught him by surprise.
"Oh, wow," he breathed. He was silent for a moment. I knew that would be a convincing line. "That is a hell of a coincidence."
"She's playing the piano for Donna's musical," I said. "We just had our first rehearsal at the theatre the other day and that's where I saw her." I paused again. "And I don't think it's a coincidence at all."
In the weeks after this, I was vastly aware of the red cars and red trucks passing by me. Why the red?
I was driving Bruin home one day and I noticed a red car pass me.
Red car.
We kept driving down the street and then a red truck turned the corner and passed me.
Red truck.
We kept driving.
I thought to myself, If I see a grey dog before I drop him off, then I'm a psychic. 10 extra points if it's being walked by an old person.
I wanted to say this to him, but I didn't want to make a fool out of myself if I turned out to be incorrect.
Right before we turned onto his street, I saw a little, fluffy, grey dog walking along the street, attached by a leash held by a woman with a crown of silver hair.
Grey dog.
"I'm a psychic!" I shouted.
"What?" Bruin asked.
"I wasn't' going to say anything," I explained. "But I think I have a new synchronicity. Red car, red truck, grey dog. It just happened to me again."
"Well, say something next time!" He encouraged me. "That's that shit."
'That's that shit' is a term Bruin and I came up with a while before this, when we would have larger than life realizations on our LSD voyages, and truly would begin to understand how the universe functions.
Synchronicities? That's that shit. Cataclysmic and amazing epiphanies about your life or life in general? That's that shit.
After I dropped him off and headed back to my house, it happened yet again. As I drove onto my street, a red car passed me. I made a mental note of it and pulled into my driveway. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and looked up at the rear view mirror right in time to see a red truck drive past my street with a grey dog riding along in the bed of the truck. The moment hit me like a train, as I only saw the truck and dog for a mere wink. Yet small and fractional moments such as these, tend to be the most impactful on a person.

Early November, 2018
I had just learned how to roll blunts.
I had made myself a beautiful blunt and went outside early in the morning to smoke it. I had nowhere to be and decided I was going to take a blanket out to a spot in my field, sit down, and smoke my blunt. I picked a spot just beyond a patch of apple trees that had resided on the property for decades, and laid underneath the tallest tree in proximity.
After setting up shop and smoking, I leaned back and let my mind wander.
In the months after the bad trip, I felt myself slipping into trip-like moments in time, especially after I would smoke weed. The more I smoked, the more intense these moments and feelings became.
This blunt definitely had done a number on me.
As I laid back, I looked up into the leaves. I became wearily aware of a faint chewing sound, like someone was chewing on an apple. It never faded, and the sound slowly grew louder inside my head.
I felt like someone was chewing in my head, and they just would not stop. As the sounds intensified, I looked out to the street in front of my house.
Those feelings like deja vu resurfaced as I looked at the corner of the street, at the stop sign right before a fork in the road. As I stared at the street, I kept feeling more and more intensely that there was a story of a tragic event that took place on this street. The words "car accident" kept standing out to me. And then for some reason, my mind went to my father.
I wept for my father. I thought of the earthly struggles he's come to face here. The man was born with one hand. How out of place he must've felt in his childhood. How he must've strove to prove that he can do anything that a person with two hands could do. And how that carried over into adulthood.
In my mind's eye, I saw him walk into a work meeting, and the other people in the room turning to get an uncomfortable glance at his prosthetic arm. I could feel him ignoring the morbidly curious stares, but knowing deep down how much it ashamed and angered him.
These were things that in my 19 years, I had not stopped to consider about my dad.

March 2019
"Hey, dad?" I asked my father as I got a glass of water.
"Yes, Al?"
"Your dog you had when you were growing up, Rusty, what color was he?"
"Well, we named him Rusty because he was red!"
I looked out the window at the street.
"And he got hit by a car right in front of the house?" I asked.
"Well, no, not exactly. He got hit out on that street," he pointed out the window at the street I had been staring at. The street with the stop sign, where I had gotten the impressions of a car accident the more I started at it.
So that's why I felt that way.
Because my dad's dog Rusty was hit by a car on this very street, and died in his arms.
And that was the moment that it dawned on me.
Red car, Red truck, grey dog was grandpa's way of telling me that not only he, but he and Rusty were there with me. And even if no one else in my family had little ways to communicate with grandpa like I did, at least I was trying, and I was getting the exact love and reciprocation from him and the universe that my soul had been craving.