Thomas World (24 page)

A traffic light ahead of me turns red. Once the car is stopped I look in more places for my phone…under the seat, in all reaches of the floorboard, the back seat. Mr. Mister is on the satellite radio singing “Broken Wings.” My damned phone is nowhere to be found. I can't call Gloria, and by the way I never called Sophia back, either. It's been like two days now and I promised her I would call, and now I don't even have my phone.

And Sherri. Shit. Not only has my phone disappeared, but I didn't even get her damned phone number! How in the hell did we forget
that
?

The light turns green, and I inch forward. I have to decide something now. Turn around and go back to Sherri's house or just go home? Could I even find my way back? Probably not. At the very least I could go back to the wine bar and see if someone turned in my phone.

While I consider these options, I notice a cop behind me.

All of a sudden I can't drive straight anymore. My car, so calm and understanding before, now seems rebellious, defiant even. It tries to pitch left, veer right, and yet for whatever reason the cop doesn't pull me over.

I should stop somewhere. I can't concentrate. I reach another stoplight.

In the rearview mirror I see the cop. His hair is dark and his shape is a weightlifter's shape. We make brief eye contact, and I'm convinced he knows I'm drunk. Why hasn't he pulled me over yet? Is he building a case against me? Videotaping me? You always see that on the show
Cops
. The officer pulls someone over and a drunk bastard stumbles out of the car and everyone laughs, especially when the guy takes a swing at the officer. Because that's when the cop is allowed to club him. And everyone knows the whole reason we watch
Cops
is to see assholes get hit with the baton.

I don't want to be one of those assholes.

Slowly I make my way southward, occasionally weaving a bit, passing one traffic light after another. Some of them are green, some are red. The cop is still behind me. Occasionally he falls back several car lengths, only to pull close again a few moments later. I've traveled almost five miles due south. Surely the officer must be outside his patrol area by now. Why is he still following me? Why doesn't he just pull me over? There are no other cars on the road. In fact I haven't seen a single other car in miles.

Wait. Didn't I pass this convenience store already? I couldn't have. I'm driving straight south. The street numbers have gradually been increasing, right? There goes 47th Street, now 48th, now 51st. Right?

I swear I already passed that store. That I already went through this light at 51st Street. It should have taken only seven or eight minutes to reach the freeway. Certainly more time than that has passed. The clock in my car reads 3:14, but that doesn't help because I don't remember what time Sherri dropped me off. The song on the radio is “Bizarre Love Triangle,” by New Order, an extended remix, and it seems like it has been going on forever.

I have no idea how long I've been on this road.

More minutes go by, five or ten or twenty, more traffic lights, until finally I reach the freeway intersection. I drive underneath the overpass, then turn left onto the ramp.

To my great surprise, the cop does not follow me. He keeps driving straight, into darkness south of the freeway. Disappears.

I accelerate up the ramp and merge onto the main road, which is divided into four lanes in each direction. There are no cars on the road besides mine. And though I should be finally relieved now that the cop is gone, that I should be home in less than ten minutes, I'm not.

Something is still wrong. Drastically wrong.

There are no cars on the road. Anywhere. I know it's late, but this is a major interstate. The road is never this deserted. A cold, overwhelming dread settles into me. I've never been more certain that I am going to die.

Suddenly it's daytime, and ahead, a highway interchange looms. A big green sign tells me I can continue on the 5 to Stockton and Sacramento, or I can take 580 toward Tracy and San Francisco, and…

What?

Sacramento? San Francisco?

It's not daytime. It's 3:30 in the morning.

I'm not in California. I've never been to California.

But I remember it anyway, remember growing up in Berkeley and attending school there, and the car behind me, that brown sedan? I've seen it before, too.

I have no choice. I have to outrun them. I push the car faster. 70. 80. 90. There are no cars on the road, and there are plenty of lanes. 95…98…100. I'm driving 100 miles per hour in the middle of the city. I look in the rearview mirror and now the brown sedan has disappeared. On the radio is Night Ranger's “Sister Christian.”

I push the car still faster. 110, 112, 115. At this speed the highway rises and falls much more quickly than normal. I cross an overpass every thirty seconds instead of every sixty. And, oh shit, here comes my own exit already, I don't want to miss it because then I'll have to drive another mile to turn around, so I hit the brakes and veer sharply into the exit lane, and I feel like I've done this before, too. I almost drive onto the shoulder and adjacent hillside but correct just in time. But there is no hillside! It's not even a straight ramp, it's a cloverleaf, and the turn is sharp, I'm never going to make it, and oh fuck there goes the road, here comes the grass, I've got my foot jammed against the brake as hard as I can but the car isn't slowing down at all if anything it's still accelerating and the car starts to veer to the right and it slides slides slides slides slides…

TWENTY-SEVEN

…and finally stops.

The engine is still running. The instrument panel is colorful and sparkly. “Sister Christian” is still on the radio. Apparently Night Ranger is not the least bit concerned about what just happened, because their voices soar like nothing is wrong. They seem to think I'm still motoring.

Luckily for me the area beyond the cloverleaf is a big, empty field, because otherwise I would probably have been killed. As it happens I seem to be fine. In fact my car doesn't appear to be damaged, either, but how am I going to get back up to the road? And what about the brown sedan? Did they see me go off the road or have I lost them?

I'm sitting in a low spot, the land rising in all directions around me. The freeway is on my left, nearly parallel to the direction my car is facing, and the cloverleaf is behind me. Directly in front of me is a gradual rise leading to who knows where, which I suppose is my best option because the slope is fairly gentle. There's no way in hell I'm going to make it up the steep incline to the cloverleaf.

So far I don't see the sedan anywhere, but that doesn't mean they aren't up there watching me.

I put my hand on the gearshift, intending to put the car back in gear, but then I realize I never took it out of gear in the first place. I've been sitting here in Drive the whole time. When I push the gas pedal, nothing happens. The tires don't even spin.

The effort required to step out of the car seems enormous. I'm inclined to turn off the ignition and take a nap. But obviously I can't sit out here all night. If a cop sees me, I'll be screwed. So finally I do open the door and…well, as soon as I step out of the car I realize why it won't go anywhere. I've sunk to my ankle in mud. The tires are halfway submerged in mud, as if the frame of my car is floating on it.

This is bad. Really bad.

I pull my foot free of the mud and fall back into the seat. This is probably a good time to look for my phone again, because if I don't have it, I'm in trouble.

But I can't effectively look under the seat while I'm sitting in it, because the eight-way adjustable motor thing is down there. In the past, whenever I've dropped something under the seat, I've been forced to get out of the car, kneel on the ground, and reach from the floorboard in the back seat. I always find a few French fries and a couple of quarters when I do that, which is usually sort of funny, but today if I kneel on the ground I'll be covered in mud.

I can't remember being this tired in my entire life. It feels so good to close my eyes. Almost immediately I dream about Sherri and David and the man in the bathroom. I've never heard of Philip K. Dick, and yet somehow his work is my life. My life is his work. I am Thomas, named for his doppelganger in ancient Rome, and—

Something is behind me. My eyes flutter open and I see something glowing and blue in the rearview mirror. I turn and look out the back window and realize I'm seeing the blue and red flasher mounted on top of a police car.

They've found me this fast? How on earth?

Now someone is yelling, calling to me.

“Hello!” the voice shouts. “Hello, are you okay? Hello?”

I should have turned off my headlights. What the hell was I thinking?

“Hello!” the voice shouts again. “Hello, are you okay?”

“I'm okay!” I yell back. “I'm fine! I was just about to drive back up to the road.”

An orb of white light plays across my dash, dancing. A flashlight.

“Not in this car you're not. I don't even know how we'll get someone to tow you. It's a swamp down here.”

I still can't see the owner of the voice, but the flashlight is becoming more focused and bright.

Should I get out of the car? Try to act normal? Run?

Who the hell am I kidding? I'm drunk. Hammered. My head is still a cloud of mushrooms. I know this because the white light and the blue light and the red light, they all seem spiritual to me somehow, dancing around me, like ghosts, like long, lost friends and family who have come to visit me in a hospital room. A room where I lie like an invalid, trapped inside a lifeless body, able to see and think and feel but completely unable to move. These colored lights are the reflections of their souls, and they are dancing in time with the satellite radio music, as if the interior of my car is a sort of mystical dance club.

Now playing on the radio: Michael Jackson's “Smooth Criminal.”

The sound of squishy footsteps jerks me back to reality. I abruptly decide to get out of the car and meet my fate like a man. I shut off the engine and start to open the door.

“Sir!” the voice shouts. “Remain in your vehicle.”

But no, I really should confront this situation on my own terms, on my feet, even if it means standing in the mud.

“Sir!” he yells. “I am not going to tell you again: Remain. In. Your. Vehicle.”

I take my hands off the door. Movement flickers outside my window, and then a blinding light flashes in my eyes.

“Hey!” I cry.

“Please roll down the window, sir.”

The voice appears to belong to a regular police officer, dressed in a dark blue uniform, pinned with a badge.

I press a button to lower the window, but instead one of the back windows opens. I try another one, but that's the passenger side window. You've got to be kidding me. It's like someone is fucking with me on purpose now. What the hell—?

“Keep trying,” the officer says helpfully.

Finally, I find the correct button, lower the window, and smile.

“Sorry about that,” I say. “All these buttons, you know.”

“Could I see your license and proof of insurance, please?”

I nod and turn my attention to the glove box, where my hand rummages through old CDs and dry-cleaning coupons and something that might be…maybe…yes! My insurance card! I combine it with my driver's license and triumphantly hand over both of them.

“Sir,” the officer says, “are you aware your insurance is expired?”

“Is it? Oh, shit. You're right. I got that new one in the mail a week or two ago and forgot to put it in the car.”

“This has been expired for almost a month.”

“Maybe it was a few weeks ago. But I do have insurance.”

“State law requires you to carry proof of insurance in your vehicle at all times. I can write you a ticket for violating the law, Mr. Phillips.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I have insurance.”

“Mr. Phillips?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have you been drinking tonight?”

And here is the doomsday scenario. Should I lie? Admit to drinking but downplay the number? Tell him I've had a liter of alcohol today, plus I snorted two lines of coke and ate a magic mushroom?

“I had a few drinks earlier.”

The officer doesn't say anything else right away, and in the interval of silence I imagine how absurd this situation must seem from his perspective, as he stands ankle deep in mud, talking to some drunk bastard who drove his car off a cloverleaf highway interchange. It's easy to understand why cops can sometimes be a little edgy—they've seen everything and they have learned to expect the worst.

In fact, I'm so impressed with my ability to identify with this officer's plight, with the difficulty of his job in general, I'm convinced he'll recognize this and let me off with a warning. So at first I don't believe it when he says:

“Mr. Phillips, could you please step out of the car?”

Clearly he doesn't understand. He doesn't realize I'm one of the good guys. I guess I'll have to demonstrate it to him.

I push open the door, expecting to stand up and face him with authority, but my left foot sinks immediately into the mud. Undeterred, I swing my right foot around, like I have thousands of times before, only this time my mind isn't sure what to do with the shaky footing. Something weird happens, I'm not sure what, but the world spins, my knee bends a weird way, and my head slams against the open car door. The pain is instant and overwhelming. I sail toward the ground.

“Sir!” the officer says. “Sir, are you okay?”

A firmament of stars floats above me, interrupted by the upside-down face of the officer, who from this vantage point looks very young. Years younger than me.

“Sir?”

“I'm all right. I just slipped.”

He helps me to my feet. My knees are so wobbly I can hardly stand. I touch my forehead gingerly, and find a knot growing right in the center of it. Mud is glued to me everywhere.