Okay, so here’s how it went: Jay and I were here at The Pelican and it was a night like tonight, nice people like you all who are willing to buy drinks in exchange for stories. We mostly had stories about crazy shit we did, but we do have one story that is, what you asked for, a fucked up one. And I swear it’s true.
We were at the pelican, at that table over there talking to these women, telling them about the time we found this goat and traded it to this weird professor for L.S.D. Which is true. This idiot wanted to be self-sufficient in a camper by the lake or whatever and he needed an animal to make milk. We gave him a male goat. Jay told him it was his aunt’s and that they had a whole pen of them. It was pretty genius. My hands were off the controls. It was all him. Jay’s story and poker face were so good that the guy offered us even more money for the goat. Jay was just like, this is a top shelf goat, pure-bred, from Estonia, when it was just one we found by Three Points eating a plastic bag the day before.
So we were telling that story and others and we got really drunk sitting with these ladies who were right at that sweet spot, right on the edge of being out of our league, but still within its parameters. We were too fucking drunk to drive. But they said they thought we were fun and, right before the bar closed, asked if we wanted to come over to the house they shared and smoke some weed. They said they lived in Henny, which is not super far, but out in the country. We said sure and they gave us their address on a customer-copy receipt. We were drunk as shit, me and Jay…but we hadn’t gotten our dicks wet in a long time and this was a real opportunity. So we got in Jay’s truck and set a course for Henny. Henny’s far away from any freeway so us being drunk wouldn’t matter too much. We drove out, took Carrier Road, which is two exits away from here. Took a left underneath the freeway on Carrier and drove towards where these pothead women allegedly lived.
It was really dark, you know, country-at-night dark. And I don’t know if we made a wrong turn or whatever but the road seemed to go on forever with no populated areas in sight, which was pissing us off because we really wanted to party with these women.
While I looked for street signs to see if we were still on Carrier, we heard a siren. And oh, fuck, we thought. It appeared we had hit a speed trap. We pulled over. We were thinking, fucking stupid-ass cop with nothing to do in the middle of nowhere. But this sentiment would not show. We slipped into the story we usually acted out with cops in these situations. Being positive, reassuring to this cop. This lonely cop in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, so sorry, we just weren’t watching the speedometer, how are you? Having an okay night? We’re on our way home from our church’s stargazing club. Are you aware of the story of Jesus Christ who died and was buried but rose again? Our church is having a potluck tomorrow. Would you like to come?
With most cops, you know the ones in towns like this, they do their job, but they really want someone to talk to, especially at night. So, if you’re nice to them and don’t treat them like a cop, but as a person, while still respecting their authority, they’re very amenable. Pro-tip. I’ve had many a beer with many a cop. But this cop was a hard-ass. He interrupted our spiel to say, “license and registration”. And when Jay was opening the glove compartment to find the registration, I asked the cop a pertinent question: “Say sir, would you happen to know where Henny is from here?” And the cop just snapped, “LICENSE AND REGISTRATION” again. But it wasn’t an I’m having a bad day snap, it was an Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator snap. Very robotic. Without a word, Jay gave him his license and registration and the cop took it back to his car.
And for a while we thought we’d gotten the worst cop in town and that we were going to end up in the drunk tank. Jay had an uncle who was a lawyer so we weren’t that worried, but our night was over. As we waited, Jay said the words “goodbye, pussy” in a funny voice. And I was right there with him. We were waiting for the cop to come around and ask Jay to walk in a straight line or take a breathalyzer or whatever method of intoxication-detection this robot-cop liked to employ. We waited. And waited. And ten minutes later, the cop still hadn’t come back to our driver’s side window. When we’d waited some more, actually starting to get sober, we thought we’d get out and see what was going on with this cop.
Something had changed. All the cop car’s lights were off and we could now barely make it out. It was so dark out there on that country road. I thought, is this cop taking a nap? We walked over and Jay peered into the window and said he didn’t see anyone. I said to Jay that maybe the guy was taking a leak. We looked around for places the cop might have gone to pee. But the cop was nowhere in sight, not that we could see very far anyway. I voiced aloud the hypothesis that maybe the cop had abandoned the car because he was sick of being an asshole cop and wanted to kill himself. Jay didn’t laugh. He was thinking. After a moment, he said he was gonna open the door to the cop car, look for his particulars, get them, and then we were gonna get the fuck out of there. I thought, why not. This cop appeared to have abandoned his duty. But when Jay opened the door, he didn’t reach in to look for his license and registration, he just said, “whoa”.
There was light coming out of the door of the cop car. I came over to see what Jay was looking at and saw that the open door to the cop car was not showing the usual contents of a car’s front seats, but an image of this green field in perfect daylight the exact size of the doorway. This window or portal was at the top of a green hill sloping down. I kid you not, it was this beautiful, sunny place with green grass stretching out to a horizon and a blue sky, all in that parked cop car on that dark country road at 3 AM. Now I will say two things: one, this story is true. Two: You all are young and life makes sense now. You may not think life makes sense, but trust me, it makes more sense now than it will in the future. You’ll see situations where things don’t add up. Surprises, irregularities some of which are fun, some of which are bad, even traumatic. And you won’t be able to reason them out in your mind because, even though you’ll have graduated, you won’t be able to think your way out of them. And what you’ll have to do with this stuff, eventually, to make it make sense, is tell yourself a story, which is by its nature, a lie. I have told a story to the police, to Jay’s family, to a therapist, and friends like you, and it keeps everything in my life together. And I don’t expect you to believe this one, either. But if you’ll permit me, I’ll finish telling you what you’re going to think is the lie.
I said something to Jay to the effect of, this is fucked up, someone must’ve put LSD in our drinks. I said, “come on, man, this is fucked! Let’s go!” But Jay didn’t want to go. He was transfixed by this beautiful meadow. He was smiling like he was having his dick sucked. He said, “I think I want to go in” and climbed into the cop car. I thought that surely the illusion would break up and that the green meadow would turn back into a seat, a gear shift, and a steering wheel, but I watched Jay walk down the hill in perspective, his body growing smaller as he proceeded. And fuck, I didn’t care if this was all a drug trip with the cop taking a leak nearby, I needed to go after my best friend and get him out of trouble. So, I clambered into the cop car and started hurrying down the hill following Jay, calling after him. He was walking fast, so it took me a while to catch up with him. I swear to you: in that place inside the cop car, I could feel wind, I could feel sunshine, I could feel my shoes going into the dirt. Pretty soon, as we reached the bottom, I spotted a house in the distance.
As Jay and I grew closer, I saw there were some people out front. Looked like a garage sale or a child’s birthday, with tables and balloons. I had to tell myself a story then, that we were not in an abandoned cop car. That it wasn’t 3 AM. that it was the middle of the next day. That the cop had let us go. That we’d had sex with these women from Henny. That we’d just taken a morning walk around the countryside of Henny. That we were so hung over and possibly roofied that we didn’t remember what the house or the girls looked like. That we were finding that out as we reached this last stage of our walk. That we were coming back to the ladies’ house to have sex with them again, this time with our wherewithal. I did that. I literally told my brain this story to steady my mind as we neared the house and saw that the people in front of it were not the kind that frequent dive bars. They looked more like people in a church stargazing club. Probably not cannabis enthusiasts, I thought. I watched as Jay went over and talked to them. As I continued to follow Jay, I watched him embrace one of the figures, an old lady in a blue sweater. As I neared them, Jay turned around, beaming at me.
He said, “Billy, this is Joan.” There was something off about his demeanor as he introduced the woman. There was always this way about Jay where he was either talking bullshit or about to talk bullshit. But this Jay did not give off an aura of bullshit at all.
And I said, “Jay, we’ve got to go back.”
And Jay said, “Joan is my mother.”
I had met Jay’s mother. She looked nothing like this woman. “That’s not your mom, Jay,” I said, “Let’s go! This is messed up!”
“Joan is your mother, too,” said Jay. He turned, beaming at her. “She is all our mothers.”
And this Joan woman said to me, “do you have a driver’s license, Billy?”
“Jay, come on, this is not real, we’ve got to get the fuck out of here” I said, ignoring Jay’s new mom.
“Fuck,” said Jay. “Fuck. You always say the word ‘fuck’. That’s the word you say to keep me from Joan and my father, Loan.”
“what the fuck, Jay?” I said.
“I won’t leave them, Billy. Saying ‘fuck’ will not change that. You can stay with us, too. All you must do is give Joan a picture of yourself.”
Joan came up to me and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes were the strangest eyes I have ever seen, blue and full of all this machinery like the inner workings of a clock. She wasn’t human. “May I see your driver’s license, Billy?”
“No!” I recoiled from her outstretched hand. At that moment, I saw her nails extend, turning into platinum-looking claws.
“Our mother only does that when she feels threatened,” Jay said. “If you give her your driver’s license, you will be safe”. Jay looked the happiest I had ever seen him. And it was wrong. Jay should not have been happy. He needed to be unhappy with me, talking his bullshit. This was not Jay. Where was Jay?
A man walking over to where the three of us were standing. He said something that sounded like “tinu”. As I got a closer look, I saw that he had the face of the cop who had asked for the license and registration.
Joan said something that sounded like “Kulie”.
“You should give your license to Joan,” said Jay. “If you do, you can live here, in this nice area. There are lots of things we can do, having fun together like we did when we were in your world.”
“It’s your world, too, Jay,” I said.
Jay said, “It was, but I can’t go back there now. Joan and Loan already have my image. Which is good because I don’t want to go. I was always afraid of death, now I am not because I will live forever with Joan, Loan, and my brothers and sisters. I can also be with you, if you give Joan your driver’s license, or another image of yourself.”
“Tinu” said the man with the cop’s face. His fingernails extended, as did Joan’s. I was grabbing Jay’s arm and trying to pull him back to where we came from, but he was as good as hammered into the ground.
Joan said something that sounded like “Sagueni”. Blue beams came out of her eyes, scanning my body. The man with the cop’s face grabbed me around the neck and lifted me up. I flailed at him and hit him in the nose. His face went away like a tv signal, turning into a transparent, faceless head with little bright things whirling around inside it. As Joan frisked me with her eyes, I saw that the bright things were images, small pictures of people’s faces. They were whirring around tremulously and seemed to be hurling themselves towards the inside of the man’s head. For a second, I saw one that looked like Jay and I realized then that these were images from driver’s licenses.
Joan turned to the man. “Lbelk.”
Loan released me and I fell to the ground. “Ne-sagueni.” Loan walked over to some of the other people. As did Joan. For some reason, they were no longer interested in me. I was wondering why when, patting my pockets, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. By a stroke of luck, my drunk ass had left it at the bar. I was going to be okay. But Jay…Jay was gone.
Jay, or whatever this thing with Jay’s likeness was, came over to me and said “it is a shame you will not be able to spend time with me. In my memory, I have many positive experiences with you. Perhaps you could find your driver’s license and come back.”
I socked him in the face. It felt like something, but it didn’t feel like people. “Perhaps not,” he said with a laugh that was nothing like Jay’s laugh. Jay never said “perhaps” either. “Take care of yourself, Billy. I will see you later.” He turned and went to rejoin his new family. “Fuck you!” I shouted after him.
So, I walked back up the hill, leaving the non-Jay behind, back up the hill toward the black aperture leading to the world beyond the cop car. When I clambered out of the cop car, it was not a cop car anymore, but the skeletonized remains of one. I looked at where I had come from, and the meadow and blue sky were gone. Jay was gone. I collected myself. I cried. I collected myself again and started to try to get my story straight. At that point, I knew no one would believe what I had just witnessed. It had happened to me and I didn’t even believe it. So, no. This was not a story to tell, unless I wanted UFO nuts calling me all the time. But here, with a glass of beer, and people who aren’t going to take this seriously – I’m okay telling it.
I often wonder about Joan and Loan and the other people in the world of the cop car. About the swirling, luminescent photographs in Loan’s head. My best guess is that they took something of Jay from the photograph on his license. Something essential that he was a husk without. And that they had done it many times to many people. Possibly people on other planets or in other dimensions. I’ve thought a lot about drivers’ licenses since then. What they mean. Why they’re important, beyond the obvious practical purpose. My theory is that there’s something special about a driver’s license photo. You go across town to the DMV. You hate every moment of that journey, and you hate being in there, as you wait for your number to be called when it should have been called ten, then twenty minutes before. You’re jumping through this uncomfortable, stupid hoop, but the fact that you’re doing it represents a will towards life. If you wanted to die, you wouldn’t bother with a driver’s license. It’s a symbol of your showing up to meet life regardless of how you feel. And maybe that’s what a soul is.
The way I tell this story to most people, I say Jay, my storytelling partner, went missing. Jay was susceptible to go missing. He liked to go out of town sometimes without telling anyone, and that wherever he’d gone, maybe he liked it better there. I say we couldn’t find the women’s house in Henny and that he dropped me off at home. I say I woke up in the morning, tried to contact him, and couldn’t, just like everyone else.
That’s a story I tell. I told that story to his family. I told that to the cops. I’ve told it to my therapist. If I didn’t tell that lie, it would create problems. For me. This experience with Jay has shown me that one of the parts of life that doesn’t add up is truth. It’s a virtue that does a lot of harm. The only person who feels good after me telling the truth is me.
So, that’s my fucked up story. I lost a friend to an unfortunate speed trap on Carrier Road. So drive carefully over there because you might lose your license and, maybe, your soul.