because he thinks the cover is “classy.” It’s actually a rather boring album cover so both Sammy and I think that Boyce actually loves Oklahoma!, testified by the fact that Boyce Jr. will always play “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” whenever you asked him to grind his axe.In Boyce’s recurring dream, he was rushed into the part of Jud and at first, could never remember the words. A classic dream, I told him, about anxieties of failure, especially in front of others. I told him not to be surprised if future versions of his dream included being naked, forgetting to go to class, or being forced to eat muppets out of jack-o-lanterns at the request of Paul Bunyan and the Buddha, all classic symbols in anxiety dreams. But Boyce told me his dream evolved and he started getting better as Jud. Once he did so well that a talent agent asked him to join Seinfeld, but then she made advances on him and Boyce felt uncomfortable and declined.
The problem was every time Boyce woke up from one of his Oklahoma! dreams, he’d chipped his teeth a bit. He didn’t know if he was punching himself in order to recreate his death at the hands of that unfairly smug Curly, or if he was grinding his teeth due to the pressure of being a Broadway star. I told him it might even be the opposite: his teeth cause the dream to happen, not the other way around. When his mind attempts to represent shattered enamel it chooses a potentially sexually violent ranchhand who sings at his own funeral.
Boyce loves his teeth, and any damage to them is like the poisoning of his soul. He doesn’t have dental insurance working as a locksmith, but he doesn’t worry about the money. He just adores his teeth like a baby rock pigeon adores its regurgitated crop-milk. Sammy told him teeth were a sign of mortality, and pointed him to Edgar Andy Poe’s short story "Berenice." Boyce told him he’d like to tear Sammy’s teeth out if he offers him one more book, and Sammy told me it seems that Boyce had already read the story.
This morning Boyce called me to say he’d dreamed he was Jud again, and this time he was so good he finally got invited to the cast party afterward. When he checked his teeth he had a new chip running up one of his front teeth. He was panicking because there’s nothing he can do about it. As soon as he goes to sleep he can’t control what he dreams anymore than I could control how a Common Merganser flaps its wings (my words, not his). I told him there might be something we can do. Sammy and I are going to spend the night at Boyce’s to try and keep him from dreaming about Oklahoma!, but still making sure he gets some sleep. I’ll report on how things go tomorrow.
