GRAHAM T. AUTUMN IN ROAD TOWN, BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

I was eleven.

One morning, I was staring out our window at the giant yachts docking at Road Harbor.

My father said, “Did you know that this whole city burnt down? In the 1850s, some rioters set fire to everything because of some goat tax.”

“Or maybe it was a cow tax.” He looked out the window and scratched the back of his neck with his thumb. “Anyway, they burned it down because of some farm animals,” he said.

I wrote down the dreams I had there, for some reason. I would wake up and write down whatever I remembered. I only had four different dreams throughout the three weeks we spent on the island. They usually recurred in the same order.

On our taxi to the airport, I listed all the dreams. This is what it says in the journal:

1. The one where I’m running away from prison guards and find an old apartment building and I try to lock myself in one of the rooms but none of the locks work so I try to jump out the window before they catch me. I wake up before I jump.
2. The one where I am building a statue of myself from solid marble but while I’m etching the book that the statue’s holding it’s [sic] hand starts to crack. I wake up before it falls on my head.
3. The one where I am alone in an empty version of our hotel room and then I hear very loud footsteps outside and I see the doorknob start to turn. I wake up when the door opens.
4. The one where I am alone in an empty version of our hotel room and I think it’s the dream where I hear loud footsteps but it isn’t.

I also remember that these flocks of sun-brunt white people would take over the streets for a few hours before they got back on their giant yachts and left the harbor.