The Drive

by Tyler Keevil

  ‘Even if I did – she’s got a girlfriend, okay?’

  Shooter was taking notes again. At the bottom of his page he’d written ‘LESBIAN’ in capital letters. Now he changed it to ‘LESBIANS’ and circled it.

  ‘Is her girlfriend hot, too?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve never met her.’

  The door opened, and Herbie’s handler came back. The three of us started shifting around, like kids who’d been talking behind the teacher’s back. The professor picked up his papers and shuffled them together, acting all official. Then he cleared his throat.

  ‘What’s the verdict?’ he asked her.

  She was looking at us, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

  ‘Five more minutes,’ she said.

  The professor nodded and turned to me. ‘What else will you be doing on this trip?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. I had to think about it. ‘I’m going to Trevor, for one.’

  He checked the form he’d been filling out. ‘But that’s your name.’

  ‘It’s also a town near Spokane. My dad took me there as a kid.’

  He didn’t believe me. He made Shooter go get a map, and I had to point out Trevor for them. The fact that I wasn’t lying, that it existed, made them all a bit uncomfortable.

  ‘Fine,’ the professor said, folding up the map, ‘you’re going to Trevor. Where else?’

  ‘Reno, I think.’ I didn’t mention Winnemucca, or my intentions there, since I wasn’t sure if it was strictly legal. ‘And at some point I want to shoot a gun. You can do that, can’t you? In the States?’

  ‘With a licence, sure.’

  ‘What if you don’t have a licence?’

  He looked at Herbie’s handler. She was the weapons expert, apparently. She said, ‘They’ll issue you a temporary one at the shooting range, if need be.’

  I nodded. ‘I guess those are pretty common down here.’

  ‘There’s a good range in northern Nevada.’ She tapped a spot on the map. ‘Near the Oregon border, if you’re going that route. It’s way out in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Do you mind if I write that down?’

  The professor shrugged. Herbie’s handler tore a piece of paper off her pad and let me borrow her pen. She gave me more specific directions, and I jotted them down. It wasn’t easy. My fingers were still numb and the pen felt as big and awkward as a rolling pin.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You guys are awesome.’

  I hadn’t really considered the details before. Having to articulate it was helping me sort it out. I could almost see the whole trip unfolding in my head, now – like a vision.

  ‘What about Reno?’ I asked. ‘Do you know any good casinos?’

  ‘Hold on,’ the professor said, raising his hand like a traffic warden. I’d taken it too far, obviously. ‘We’re the ones asking the questions here, remember?’

  But he didn’t actually have any more. After another minute or so there was a knock at the door. Herbie’s handler stepped out and exchanged a few words I couldn’t really hear with somebody I couldn’t really see. When she returned, she said, ‘Tests came back negative. Nothing in the car or the slurpee.’

  I held myself still. I didn’t want to overreact. I could feel a prickling sensation across my shoulders and down my back, as if my body-stone was beginning to crack. The professor considered me, tilting his head forward to peer over his glasses.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked the others.

  The woman shrugged. ‘Herbie could have overreacted to some other scent.’

  ‘True.’ The professor was stroking his chin. ‘But there’s something a little off about him, isn’t there? Something not quite right.’

  He had good instincts, the professor. But not good enough.

  ‘Of course there’s something wrong with me,’ I said. ‘I’m hurting. Bad. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t hump. I’m a wreck, sir.’ I looked up, showing him doe-eyes. ‘And I’m hoping this trip to your country will help me, somehow. Help cure me or make me better.’

  That got him, especially the way I’d called him ‘sir’. He signed off on the form. He even let Shooter tell me the name of a casino: the Nugget. After that, when they said I could go, I got pretty emotional. It must have been all that weed. I kept thanking them and giving them hugs. I was bawling, too. I could hardly stand. Herbie’s handler had to walk me to the door of the Customs office. Herbie was waiting out there, tied to a post. He whined at me. I held out my hand to stroke him, but he bit it instead. Not hard, just a little nip. I guess he was pissed off that I’d pulled one over on them.

  ‘Bad Herbie,’ his owner said, smacking his nose. ‘Bad dog.’

  She apologised, and I told her it was okay. He hadn’t drawn blood.

  ‘Have a good trip,’ she told me, ‘and stay out of trouble.’

  I told her I’d try. As I headed for my car, Herbie was still growling.

  chapter 10

  Our crew showed up, en masse, at this pub on the Eastside, near Cordova. The floor was covered in floral carpet, mottled by decades of spilled beer, spit, and probably blood. One corner of the bar-room had been partitioned off with glass walls to serve as a smoking area. Overhead fans sucked the smoke straight up through the ceiling. Considering it was mid-afternoon, there were more people in there than I’d expected. Mostly old guys in jean jackets and baseball hats, nursing bottles of Molson, keeping it pretty real. They stared at us as we ferried in all our film equipment.

  ‘Let’s do it quick, guys,’ the director said. ‘In and out.’

  In this scene, the jock and the junkie were supposed to have stopped off somewhere along the road. They had a few drinks at the bar and they left. That was the whole scene.

  ‘I want you to drink left-handed,’ he told the jock.

  ‘But I’m right-handed.’

  ‘The left side represents the unconscious. It’ll be symbolic.’

  The DP and the grip were busy setting up the lights. The sound guy busted out his boom and shotgun mic and ran a few tests. The manager of the bar couldn’t believe it. She’d agreed to let us shoot because the director had promised her a bit part, and no hassles. Now her bar was filling up with sandbags and lighting stands and tripods. Our thousand-watt baby was shining right in her customers’ faces. They pulled down their baseball caps to shield their eyes. The floor was a mess of cables and cords that the bar staff kept tripping over. The manager wandered around, gawking. She was a thin woman with twig-like legs and no breasts. I think she was half-cut. She kept saying, ‘I didn’t know it would be like this.’

  Finally the director was ready to do a take. He called me and the DP over and described an elaborate shot he had in mind, with the camera drifting down the bar and panning around and coming to settle on the actors. It sounded like a real bamboozler. ‘You with me, Trevor?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  They both looked at me. ‘No?’

  ‘Not really.’ I yawned. I hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours. ‘But I’ve got an idea. It seemed to work pretty well with the captain here operating the camera yesterday.’ I clapped the DP on the shoulder. ‘Why doesn’t he take over for this shot?’

  The director fiddled with the brim of his beanie. ‘I’m sorry. Was I being unclear?’

  ‘He just seems to understand your vision better.’ I offered the camera to the DP. ‘She’s all yours, captain.’

  The DP took the camera. You could tell he didn’t like it, but he didn’t say anything. Neither did the director. By that point I had a certain look about me. It was a look that seemed to say, keep me happy or I’ll walk out of here and take my camera with me.

  ‘Okay,’ the director said. ‘Positions, everybody.’

  The DP clambered behind the bar and started rolling. I stood beside the director to watch the shot on his monitor. When he called action, the DP walked forward, panning along the bar. My camera didn’t have a shoulder mount or harness, so it was hard to keep it steady.
/>   ‘Cut,’ the director said. ‘That didn’t quite work.’

  ‘It’s way too shaky,’ I said.

  The DP and the director huddled together to discuss how they could fix the problem. The rest of us had to wait. The sound guy fiddled with his cellphone. The manager lady muttered about the hassle and poured herself some wine. The customers sat and watched and drank. I squatted on the floor in front of the bar. Then, after a minute, I lay down on my side. The carpet was hard and filthy and had a sour smell. I closed my eyes.

  ‘Trevor?’

  The director was standing over me. They’d finished their little pow-wow.

  ‘We’re ready to do another take.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘You’re in the frame.’

  I didn’t move. I didn’t want to move.

  ‘It’s impossible to get that shot,’ I said. ‘You need a Steadicam to get that shot.’

  ‘Maybe you should take a little break, Trevor.’

  ‘I could use a break.’

  I went into the smoking area to hack a casual dart. I still hadn’t learned how to inhale properly, so I took timid little puffs as I watched them. They ran through five or six takes, trying to get that shot. The last time, the director announced, ‘Excellent – we got it.’

  You could tell he was lying, though.

  My break lasted for the rest of the day. The director didn’t ask me to come back to help, and I didn’t offer. Instead I watched them shoot the scene with my camera. After finishing my smoke, I’d sat down at a table with a bunch of old-timers. I bought a round of Bud Light and they started telling me about their jobs. They all worked in the shipyards. Considering I’d basically been fired I was feeling pretty good: giddy and dizzy and euphoric, almost as if I was high. It was the lack of food, I think. I’ve heard fasting can do that to you.

  ‘You getting paid for this?’

  One of the old-timers asked me that – this guy with no teeth and sandpaper skin.

  ‘A hundred bucks.’

  ‘Beats a kick in the balls.’

  The scene wasn’t long, but it took a long time to shoot – mostly because of the director’s shot list. He wouldn’t settle for a basic shot. He had my camera swooping and spinning around the place like a rabid fruit bat. On top of that, there was the manager lady. When it came time to film her scene, instead of just letting her deliver the lines, he had to explain his artistic vision to her.

  ‘For your role,’ he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, ‘I see you as a kind of succubus.’

  ‘A succu-what?’

  ‘A succubus, or dream-demon. This scene is very Lynchian.’

  All she had to do was serve the jock and junkie drinks, but, as soon as he said that, her face went blank and she began fiddling with her necklace. ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’

  ‘You’ll do fine. Just remember: dream-demon.’

  They started rolling, and she prowled into frame, with her fingers curled up as claws – like the vampire from Nosferatu. Then she glared at the two actors and declared, in this Bela Lugosi voice, ‘Perhaps you lovebirds would like to try our special – the Bloody Mary!’

  ‘Cut!’ the director cried.

  He couldn’t get her to tone it down. It took almost as long to finish that shot as his art-house establishing shot, and both would probably end up on the cutting room floor. By then, me and the old-timers were about six beers deep, and feeling a bit mutinous.

  ‘The guy’s wasting time,’ I told them. ‘Not to mention my camera.’

  ‘If it’s your camera,’ old sandpaper face said, ‘then you should be the one in charge!’

  They all pounded the table in agreement. They were right. I shoved back my chair and swaggered over to the bar where the DP and director were setting up the next shot.

  ‘So far so good, eh?’

  I punched the director in the shoulder, as if we were old friends. He looked at me warily. The evening crowd was coming in and the manager was nagging them to wrap up.

  ‘I think we’ve done some great work today,’ I said. ‘But do you mind if I handle this final shot?’ I put my hand on the camera. Possessively. I had that look in my eye again. ‘It would mean a lot to me. I think I could really bring something special to it.’

  ‘It’s only a steady shot,’ the DP said.

  ‘On the tripod,’ the director added.

  ‘Great,’ I said, saluting the old-timers. ‘Let’s shoot this fucker!’

  The whole table cheered. I switched on the camera, peered through the eyepiece and fiddled with the focus. The jock was doing his usual push-ups between takes. Then he sat back down at the bar next to the junkie. She stretched and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Rolling,’ I shouted.

  ‘Action!’

  The two of them stood up and left. It was the end of the scene – the last shot of the day, the last shot of the film. It looked good and solid. I gave the director the thumbs-up.

  ‘That’s a wrap,’ the director called, raising his arms, in a champion pose.

  ‘Better get a safety,’ I told him.

  His arms came down. He knew I was right.

  ‘One more, people.’

  I made a twirling motion with my finger. ‘I’m still rolling.’

  The actors got back in position. I had my own reasons for wanting the safety. It was such a basic shot that they weren’t using the monitor, and I’d noticed that you could see the director’s reflection in the bar taps. As soon as he called ‘action’ I zoomed in slowly, until his face filled the scene. His features were stretched and skewed by the curve of the metal. He blinked like a bug-eyed goldfish. Blink. Blink.

  ‘I’m the director,’ I whispered into the camera’s mic, ‘and this is my movie.’

  He kept blinking, oblivious.

  chapter 11

  As I pulled into the supermarket parking lot, my body-stone finally broke. It just seemed to crack open like an egg. The high oozed down my neck, my spine, my legs – infusing me with this mellow-yellow feeling. I got out of the car and hopped up on the hood and stood with my hands on my hips, surveying the landscape on the US side of the border. I saw a few low-lying buildings, a grassy verge, and some mud flats leading to the sea. Blaine didn’t look much different from Surrey, but it felt different. I felt different. I savoured that feeling for a few minutes before jumping down.

  Above the store’s awning was a multicoloured sign, with block capital lettering: WE BEAT DUTY-FREE PRICES ON SNACKS FOOD LIQUOR CIGARETTES GIFTS. I strolled underneath it and through the revolving door. A cool wave of conditioned air washed over me. Near the entrance they had food displays to entice the weary traveller. The shelves were stacked with puffy bags, as big as pillows, of various American snacks: cheese balls and pretzels and nachos and pork rinds. I reached out, zombie-like, for a package of beef jerky, and squeezed. The cellophane crinkled deliciously, and I could feel the tenderness of the meat beneath. My stomach shuddered. I loved beef jerky. Zuzska had always hated it.

  ‘You’re fasting,’ I said aloud, to remind myself. ‘No more lapses.’

  I got a shopping cart and wheeled it up and down the aisles. The store was huge and high-ceilinged, like a warehouse. I’d forgotten how big everything in America was. Not just the food and snacks but the shops, the cars, the highways, the people. The liquor section was the same. They had enough booze to fill up a swimming pool: two long aisles stocked with mickeys, twixers and forty-pounders. The overhead lights gave the glass and plastic a jewel-like glitter – an Aladdin’s Cave of alcohol. I parked my cart and considered all the treasures, fondling the bottles in passing. They felt cool and smooth to the touch. I loaded my cart up with a shit-mix of twixers, mostly whisky and bourbon and gin.

  I needed road pops, too. Beer and wine were in the next aisle over. There was a sign hanging over the shelves: Is This Your Lucky Day? If you bought a flat of Lucky Lager and a carton of Lucky Strike, you got ten bucks off. I grabbed one of each and lowered
them into my cart, then explored a little more. The remaining aisles contained souvenirs: mugs and flags and playing cards and fake licence plates and stickers that said Land of the Free.

  ‘That’s where I am,’ I said, slapping a sticker on my chest. ‘The Land of the Free.’

  I stood on the back bar of my cart, like a kid, and coasted around the store – gliding up and down the aisles. Other customers stopped to stare. The cashier must have seen me, too. She had her arms crossed as I cruised up to her till. Like everything else in the store, she was big: a big lady with big, frizzy hair and a big mole in the centre of her forehead.

  ‘I suppose you’ve got ID,’ she said.

  That was something else I’d forgotten about the States. In Canada, the drinking age is nineteen. In the US, it’s twenty-one. I fumbled around for my wallet. I had some difficulties getting my driver’s licence out. When I did, the woman stared at it for a long time. It was a BC licence, and the backdrop was a Canadian landscape: forests and mountains and the sun shining over the sea.

  ‘This looks real,’ the lady said.

  ‘I’m a real person.’

  She looked from me, to my photo, and back to me. ‘But it says you’re twenty-one.’

  ‘I am. Twenty-one and a half.’

  ‘No kidding. Hey, sis – come look at this.’

  Another employee was stocking shelves nearby. She waddled over and went around behind the counter. She looked exactly the same as the till clerk except she didn’t have a mole. She had a mullet instead – a big grey mullet, like a dead squirrel lying on her head. They both studied my licence, tilting it back and forth to check the hologram and lamination. In their matching uniforms, leaning close together, they looked like a set of conjoined twins.

  Finally, the one with the mullet declared, ‘Yep – it’s real enough.’

  ‘Ain’t that something,’ the other said. She glanced at my photo one last time, then handed the licence back to me. ‘Guess we’re in business, son.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  By that point a few other customers had got in line behind me. The mullet-headed sister stuck around to help bag my purchases. As she did, she was still looking me over.