Fantasist

I confess that I am a fantasist. Perhaps it’s another of my fantasies but I believe that anyone who survives past infancy is also a fantasist. As it’s always good to be clear on what we’re talking about, let’s check with good old reliable Meriam Webster who defines fantasist as: “one who creates fantasias or fantasies.” Since fantasias are organized or composed as in music or theater and requires a good deal of work, that part of the definition doesn’t apply to me. And anyway, shouldn’t that be the realm of FANTASIASTS? The Collins dictionary defines fantasist as: “someone who constantly tells lies about their life and achievements in order to make them sound more exciting than they really are.” Although I reject that definition for its narrow-minded focus on politicians, I couldn’t help but smile as I conjured up the image of a twice-impeached ex-President. Like all good researchers, I kept at it until I found a source that agrees with my preconceived opinion: the unimpeachable Cambridge folks state that a fantasist is “someone who often has fantasies, or who confused fantasy and what is real.” Bingo. That’s me. An inveterate daydreamer.

Now that we know what we’re talking about, let me clear up one possible misconception: When I confess to being a fantasist I’m admitting that I often have fantasies and have indulged in them since early childhood, but as far as I can remember, I have never confused my fantasies with reality. Not really. Although I often wished they were real.

Examples of fantasies given by the illustrious sources cited above run from daydreams to nightmares and hallucinations. I don’t recall ever hallucinating, except perhaps once after a strong toke, when I was certain that I was on the verge of understanding everything, on the verge of all knowledge in the universe. I strained mightily to focus my mental powers, but I couldn’t quite make that final necessary step, which made the experience somewhat stressful. I had some frightening nightmares as a child. Some of which I can still see clearly, or maybe that’s a fantasy. Now, the nightmares have been replaced by stress dreams, usually about an imminent final exam for which I have not studied or even bought the text for and don’t know where the classroom is—the usual student dreams. On the whole, my fantasies are more in the daydream class, even though much more frequent at night, in bed. As I matured, well, got older, those fantasies began demanding logical scripts, background stories, and dramatic arcs.

Warning: if you want to make a systematic study of fantasist by adding the suffix –ism, an internet search will divert you to S and M sites.

This might be a good place to confess that a great many of my post-puberty fantasies have had to do with sex. But in my sex fantasies no one ever gets hurt and everyone ends up happy, ecstatically so.  As a teenager reality seldom intruded on my sex fantasies, while as an old man it rears its annoying head. I impose limits on my fantasies, and although I work with a number of attractive people, I do not fantasize about them.

And that’s about all I’ll confess to in the sex fantasy realm.

I suppose I had boyish cowboy and Indian fantasies. How could I not? We got our first TV when I was an impressionable seven and from that age on I was inundated with western dramas. Plus, my father was a Western aficionado, so much so, that I suspect he sometimes confused them with reality. He liked Gunsmoke and Paladin in which, as he often said, the heroes were real men. Gary Cooper in High Noon was the epitome of a real man. He always wanted me to act like a real man, even when I was a seven-year-old boy. He would have been devastated had he known that another shining example of a real man, Randolph Scott was gay. My father had a difficult life and he told some whoppers to make his “achievements” “sound more exciting than they really” were. I suspect that he fantasized about being a gun-slinging cowboy in the days of the old west but can’t say that he confused those fantasies with reality a la Walter Mitty. If I couldn’t, as a seven-year-old boy, fantasize about being challenged to a duel at sunset by an ornery gunslinger on the tree-lined street I grew up on, I suspect that neither could my father. Still, I believe that he fantasized more about being a quick-draw gunslinger rather than an Indian fighter. He boasted that he had Cherokee blood in him but, as I graciously wrote in an earlier post and repeated above in this paragraph, he was creative and not always to be believed. I recently asked my sister who had done some family history research about our possible Native American genes, but she admitted that she only traced our mother’s side of the family to proto-Nazi Germany.

I had crooner fantasies, mainly when I sang in the shower. I was convinced that I sounded pretty good and fantasized about my hit records and concert appearances, but by the end of my teen years I had to come to grips with the reality that I had no musical ability. None. Zip. Zero. As one cruel friend said, I even got static on the radio.

From prepubescence into senility I had sports fantasies. When I was old enough to go to the playground and shoot baskets by myself I fantasized about scoring the winning shot for various local universities and the St. Louis Hawks. I passed endless hours practicing on the sloping asphalt court with a dilapidated wooden backboard and a bent rim, fantasizing that someone was watching and that someone was understandably impressed by my skills. Baseball wasn’t something I could practice by myself other than to pitch tennis balls against the stoop, fantasizing that I was striking out the great hitters of the day. Seasonally, I regularly fell asleep getting fouled while driving the lane for the game-tying layup and then, despite my injuries, which most mortals would not have been able to endure, sinking the winning free throw, or, with two outs in the bottom of ninth, hitting the come-from-behind, game-winning grand-slam, or pitching a perfect game. Not wishing to cheapen my fantasies in the early 60’s I never dreamed about pitching against those inept but lovable losers, the Mets until they became the Amazing Mets. Long after cigarettes, booze, and injuries ended my sports careers, the fantasies lived on. 

As a young boy, growing up in the shadow of WWII, I had many war hero fantasies, usually in the European theater, a few in the Pacific, but none in Korea, perhaps because of a lack of Korean War movies and TV series. My buddies on the block and I played war games, and my best buddy and I, after dark, ran across peoples’ front yards, nine-year-old boys hiding behind the shrubbery from enemy snipers or infiltrating enemy lines. Those fantasies were soon benched by my sports fantasies, and, it should go without saying, the sex fantasies.

When I was 24, Uncle Sam sent me an invitation I couldn’t refuse—I wanted to refuse but the sports injuries had healed and the family G.P. refused to find bone spurs. I had a few fantasies about living in Canada, and a surprising number of war hero fantasies, surprising my pacifist self. I did not have war hero fantasies in Basic and Advanced training because I concentrated on the sports and sex fantasies, but when I was sent to a place where there was a much greater potential for realizing a war hero fantasy, I, I am ashamed to confess, indulged. I fantasized about being the last man standing during a human wave attack. But even those indulgences were rare. Although I like to think of myself as creative, reality again reared its ugly head, and I conceded that I was more likely to try to melt into the ground and keep my cowardly head down than to drag my M-60 and several ammo belts to the top of a CONEX container to mow down the attacking human wave. I had a few other, minor, war hero fantasies, but on the whole I stayed with my tried and true fantasies, sex and sports.

Many of the boys I served with, and boys most of them were, 19 and 20 years old—I became an elderly 25 that year—were quite open about their war hero fantasies. [N.B.: I was careful to only call the white kids “Boy.”] One boy wrote laborious letters to his girl back in the world, explaining that he didn’t know how to write love letters because he was only trained to kill. He often went into great detail about some fantastic combat mission in which he was the hero.  He was proud of those letters and showed them to his hoochmates. Most of the kids—looking back it seems that it was mostly white boys—fantasized out loud about strutting their stuff when they got back on the block. They would wear their dress greens with sharp military creases and several rows of fruit salad on their chest. Some even voiced the opinion that they might wear the actual medals. They all fantasized about the war stories they would tell back on the block, and, I feel certain, they could picture their buddies and girlfriends, mouths agape, as they marveled at our hero’s exploits. Having personal war stories was the goal, second only to making it out in one piece. A few wanna-be heroes, fellow fantasists but with an immature grasp of reality, committed reckless actions that led to death and destruction, and not only to themselves. And not only the uneducated ones. One boy with a college degree, a 2^nd Lieutenant, eager for a long and glorious military career with combat hero indelibly inked in his records, couldn’t distinguish his war hero fantasy from reality, and in a vain and completely stupid attempt at heroism, a failed attempt, got himself killed. I was saddened by his death but at the same time angry because he got several other boys killed. Our Commanding Officer felt compelled to recommend him for a posthumous medal. How would it look to tell the family back in the world the truth, that their son, husband, brother, did something stupid that caused unnecessary casualties?

The big brass abetted and encouraged the war hero fantasies. It was an unpopular war, and from a P.R. point of view, it was better to give out lots of medals to win the hearts and minds of the folks back home. I was contemptuous of the medals, and when my C.O. put me in for a medal I complained to my buddies. But he botched the recommendation, and I was disappointed when they awarded me the lowest possible medal for valor. I could hardly go back on the block and brag that I was a lowly decorated combat veteran, could I?

I think that my racial prejudices began during my by no means illustrious military career. Pre-Vietnam, I had played sports with and against White boys and Black kids, but in that particularly hostile environment I was elbow to elbow and ass to ass with red neck White boys and inner city Black kids. I was contemptuous of many of the White boys and their war story fantasies, while I cut the Black guys some slack because they mostly fantasized about getting laid or getting some good job, their first good job, when they got back in the world. A Black company cook fantasized about being a short-order cook in a chef’s hat in his own diner. A close friend fantasized about joining the Black Panthers, but I suspect that he secretly—because he thought I wouldn’t approve—fantasized about taking a burst of six (re-enlisting for six years) for the $10,000 bonus and the job security. It was an escape route from the certain poverty waiting in ambush back home. I was contemptuous of the military, but I saw the attraction to the kids from the ghetto and the boys from the farm who had never had decent jobs in their life. I was, not amazed, but somewhat taken aback at how many of the White boys and Black kids bragged about their hometowns, hometowns that failed to nurture or educate them.

I think my superpower fantasies began about then. I cannot be certain but perhaps they began at the same time as my tinnitus. I fantasized that the ringing in my ears carried a message from outer space, and if I could only concentrate and decipher the message hidden in the constant, but sometimes pulsating, sometimes louder, sometimes insistent, buzz in my brain, I could learn great and valuable things from superior beings somewhere in the starry night, knowledge that might enable me to rise up in the night sky to escape from the madness, or enable me to put a stop to all the childishness around me. I read lots of sci fi in those days: every month we’d get a carton or two of free paperbacks, and, as most of the kids didn’t read for entertainment, many books made their way to my AO*.  Another common fantasy: As an aid to drifting off to sleep at night, I fantasized that I could project a protective dome or force field over my frail flesh-and-blood body to block incoming rockets and mortars. When the incoming fell all around but not really near, I thought maybe it had worked. When the incoming came hot and heavy and really close, I ditched that particular fantasy for a while.

Another confession: This blog is the result of a fantasy. A truly fantastic fantasy. Some of my family members are supporters of he-who-shall-not-be named. Thinking about it, from what I thought was a logical perspective, I could not understand how people who grew up in the same environment could have such polar opposites views. I mean, we were all born during WWII when the fascists were the enemy and now my relatives think there’s an antifascist group called Antifa who is the enemy. Since I can’t discuss politics with them, I decided to write a blog. The first post was on Antifascism. I fantasized that my relatives would read it and come into the light. Even more fantastic then my superpower fantasies, no? Or some of my sex fantasies.

None of my relatives has ever mentioned my blog and I suspect that if they even went so far as to open a post, they never made it through to the end. I think there are only two readers and one is a troll. Still, I enjoy writing and editing late at night with my cognac and dark chocolate. And at my time of life if I find something I enjoy, I keep at it, but I no longer fantasize about converting my relatives.

I started this particular post because seeing photos and videos of the Jan 6 insurrectionists, I was reminded of all the boys I knew back in the day. I say boys because all the insurrectionists I saw were White. When I see Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois and fellow travelers, I see wanna-be heroes with their own war-story fantasies. The boys I knew fought, killed, and died to protect South Vietnam and all the dominoes from falling under the yoke of evil communism, although most of them couldn’t define communism, and more than a few didn’t understand the domino theory. The Jan 6 boys were itching for a fight to protect our country from an international pedophile ring and Jewish space lasers and rapists from Mexico and refugees from shithole countries. Like yet unlike so many of the boys I knew who swore allegiance to their country and bragged about their hometowns, the Jan 6 boys have sworn allegiance to and brag about their leader, a man who nurtured and educated them on a strict diet of racism, lies, and misinformation.

 When we studied the American Revolution in sixth grade, I fantasized about participating in the fight to throw off the yoke of the evil Brits. But only in class. After school, it was back to sports. But even in class I didn’t lose myself completely in the fantasy. As I watched the big hand on the wall clock tick slowly, oh so slowly toward the longed-for number 11, I saw myself in the rowboat with Washington, crossing the Delaware. But I barely stuck my toes into those or any revolutionary waters. I don’t think I ever carried a musket or ambushed a British square. I certainly didn’t get frostbite at Valley Forge—I have never liked being cold, let alone fantasized about it.

I believe that the Jan 6 boys let their fantasies dominate their lives. They spent great sums of money and time making their fantasies more real and allowed them to evolve into hallucinations. They stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition, large capacity ammo clips, and bomb-making material. Some went to military-style training camps in remote areas to prepare themselves, not in the event, but in the hope that there was a wave of violence in which they would be the heroes, the brave defenders of their fantasy-driven visions of America. They are like the boy I knew who bragged to some girl that he was only trained to kill, yet not like him because he was able to laugh at his fantasies. They are like that idiotic 2^nd Lt. who got two people and himself killed and another two wounded in an act of stupidity doomed to fail.

The insurrectionists fantasized about liberating America from the evil yoke of Democrats, Jews, and Blacks. They were protecting the White race from threatening darkness. In their fantasies they followed their glorious leader into the halls of Congress where he would retake the reins of power. Well, they were the advance guard. Their glorious leader only led from behind. He urged them into battle and said he would be with them, but then he quietly retreated to a secure location to watch the insurrection on TV. It was if he declared bankruptcy, yet again sticking his creditors with the bill.

The idiotic 2^nd Lt. was a nice guy and had a sense of honor and decency.

And what about that glorious leader? What can his fantasies be like? He is most certainly not the foolish 2^nd Lieutenant because that role would require a certain amount of discomfort and risk. I suspect that he fantasizes about Eastern European escorts who mistake him for a buff stud, or shooting par without dozens of mulligans, or humiliating that Black ex-President in his personal game of one-upmanship. I suspect that his principal fantasy is living in one long political rally before adoring White fanatics, manipulating them, into roaring rages and gratifying applause and shouts. Or receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for restoring himself as President for Life of the United States.

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