The Name of the World - Denis Johnson [44]
“I’m not letting you in my dad’s car!”
“And I wouldn’t get in anyhow,” I said. “I’m walking.”
“Don’t think you’re getting away! I’m right on your ass! I don’t care if you—I don’t care if you—” He couldn’t say what.
They followed me in the car, driving very slowly and discussing me audibly. They seemed to be coming to the solid conclusion amongst themselves that I was schizophrenic.
“Do you live here?” the driver said when he saw the inside of my house.
“You have this persistent tone of alarm,” I told him. “Will you cut it out?”
“It’s bare! You’re all boxed up! When are you leaving?”
“I’m not going anywhere. I don’t even own a car”—a precise but misleading fact I felt happy to divulge. The truth was I’d started to share his suspicion I might just flee in the night.
I had, I think, nine boxes and a suitcase, and a plan, or a hope, for getting them all in the car. I would have shipped the majority of them but they had no destination.
“God! You’re worse than a kid!” the boy said.
All five of them stood on my small porch, shouldering each other aside to peek through the open door into the dark interior while I found my wallet in my linen sports jacket.
The driver consulted with the others until he grasped that consulting with them couldn’t help, they were all so young and drunk and perplexed and entertained by his trouble, and then he decided he had to call the police.
I let them all inside while he used the phone. In my living room now wallowed a sort of monster of callow health and well-being.
“Nothing but boxes,” one repeated.
“Can’t you turn on a light?”
“Listen, you punk,” I said. “The numbers light up when you pick up the phone. Otherwise you can go downtown and use a pay phone.” I might say anything now. By the minute I felt more and more out of bounds and ridiculous, more and more stupid and mad at myself.
Two policemen arrived in a squad car to find us all standing out front in an arrangement like that of a field sport: five teammates surrounding a guy who might break into a run. One officer took charge while the second stood quietly beside him and arbitrated by saying “Sh!” now and then to the youngsters.
The boy explained the situation quickly but repeatedly, using many times the phrases “My father’s car!” and “We were just driving along!”
“This license the most recent one you have?” the officer asked me. I told him yes.
“His house is full of boxes! He’s moving, Officer. My father’s car!”
“How much have you had to drink tonight, son?”
“Me?”
“You’re the one I’m talking to.”
“Me? Okay. A couple—”
A second spoke up. “I didn’t have any, Officer. And I’m the one driving.”
“Okay,” another friend said. “We had two six-packs. That’s—two beers each, right?”
“We just want to be honest, Officer.”
“We were headed straight home. We were headed straight home.”
“You boys go to Henry Harris?”
“Yessir. We were at the game. We were headed safely home.”
“Honest, Officer, I didn’t have one beer, I swear to God.”
“Then you be the one to drive your friends home.” The officer shone his flashlight now into every face, mine too, and took a quick emphatic decision. “In terms of what’s happening now: I’m not gonna try and cope with you all and your silliness tonight. We’ll take this up at the station in the morning when everybody’s sober.”
“His house is full of boxes—he’s leaving town!”
“I’m getting all the information off his driver’s license and faculty ID.”
“Faculty! He’s on the faculty? What kind of faculty did they allow him on? You should be fired,” the boy concluded.
“Otherwise I put you on a blow-machine, son, and we get you for Minor in Possession.”
“Oh,” the boy said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. Thank you, Officer.”
The others said thank-you with a murmuring humility all the more pitiful for being genuine.
The Officer said, “Mr. Reed. You’ll be