in which I dabble in the Albanian underworld

Well. After yesterday's extremely mundane dream, last night I had a pretty wild one. Following a bit of conversation about the Balkans yesterday, I dreamed that I was in Albania. Not only was I in Albania, but I was--wait for it--dealing drugs.

I'm not sure how I came to be in Albania, but I had our (real-life) old Jaguar with me (this will come up again later). Despite having transportation, though, I was stuck because I didn't have enough money to leave the country. So, logically, I turned to dealing drugs to make a quick buck (or lek, as the case may be).

I don't know how I made the acquaintance of the local underworld figures, but I had ended up as sort of a freelancer, only dealing with them in an off-hand way. I think I was obligated to turn over some kind of "tax" to ensure that they wouldn't meddle in my affairs. I also got my drugs from them. Of course they fit the exact mental image you'd have of a small-time Albanian Bad Guy: greasy hair, gold necklaces, track suits, unfortunate choice of headwear.

At one point I was in the lair of my drug provider to get re-supplied. There were several young women/girls in various states of intoxication and undress--it was obvious that they were working in a state of semi slavery, serving both as prostitutes, sex slaves, and drug customers. One of the gangsters was beating one of them up*, and I was trying to think of a way to get these girls out of the situation, while realizing that most of them were too addicted to participate in any way in their extrication.

During this same visit, while the guy I was dealing with was otherwise occupied, I started idly examining some of the wares on the table. I wasn't sure what it all was, not having any experience in that area myself. There was a pink package with some pink plastic objects resembling short pens (the labeling and packaging style was very Feminine Hygiene Product**). They had a little hole near one end, which I deduced was supposed to be sucked on or inhaled to get a hit. I tried it once, and got enough of an indefinable sensation to remind myself that rule number one was always that a successful dealer didn't consume the goods.

One of the most noticeable things about the dream was the feeling of being in a dangerous situation but of being tough and "bad-ass" enough to not be worried about the gangsters trying to mess with me (where this came from, I don't know, since I'm not exactly a toughie in real life). The scariest moments were two encounters, while in or near my car, with a group of young knife-wielding Roma boys intent on carjacking my car (I put that down to a stereotype about them favoring Mercedes and Jaguars). They were significantly scarier than the grown-up gangsters, but I managed to evade them both times.

In the end, the dream wound down in a fairly tiresome way. I had met up with some random young-ish American(-ish?) dream acquaintances, and we were all hanging around waiting for something undefined. I think we were waiting to be able to leave the country, although I don't know what specific event was going to allow us to leave. I finally got tired of them and their uninteresting and stupid conversation and went off by myself.

So there's another one to add to my collection of dreams dealing with unsavory themes. In my defense, I don't actually remember selling any drugs to anyone, and I remember having a philosophy of not introducing new users to drugs.


*In an interesting twist, I'm positive that this brutalization was inspired by that recent video of the guy stomping on the moveon.org protester's head. He used the exact same foot action.
**I was surprised to note a manufacturer's name and address in China; I hadn't thought that a manufacturer of illegal drugs (in my mind, this was some new exotic form of crack) would label their products as if they were, say, something you'd buy at Wal-Mart.