10
A problem with Michelle’s plan to move to Los Angeles was that technically she did not drive. She’d been taught, briefly, years ago, by an old girlfriend and she hadn’t felt incompetent. She’d enjoyed tooling around in the car under supervision, getting praised for how well she drove. She’d intended to make it legal, go to the DMV and get a license, but Michelle was so lazy and there were always other things to do, like drink and sleep and go to the bookstore. The DMV was in the Panhandle, wherever that was. Michelle didn’t really leave the Mission. In a burst of can-do responsibility, she figured out the bus route to the office and arrived early one morning, prepared to spend the afternoon. But the woman at the counter turned her away quickly.
No more, she shook her head. No more driver’s licenses.
What? Michelle had expected bureaucracy, hassles, annoyances — it was the DMV. A person didn’t have to drive to know that — but she hadn’t anticipated this.
No more licenses till 2000. January and July there will be a lottery if you want to enter your name.
You Stopped Giving Driver’s Licenses? Since When?
January this year. The lady was bored.
How Was I Supposed To Know That? Michelle felt outraged. Driving was a right, right? So she put it off for about a decade, so what? It was still her right, wasn’t it?
It was in the news. The woman spoke to Michelle as if she were a dummy. It went into effect in San Francisco on January first, and in the state of California last month. No new driver’s licenses. Not enough gas, you know?
The woman looked tired. She was Latina, her hair was in a claw at the nape of her neck, she wore gold hoop earrings and a little cross on her clavicle. I’m lucky to still be here, they laid off half the office. It was creepily quiet. A few people were renewing their licenses. Outside the windows was a patch of barren soil. The natives had died and the landscapers had tugged out all the invasive species and so there was just dirt.
Michelle left. She didn’t take the bus, she walked. The Panhandle, the long park that ran into the frying pan of Golden Gate Park, was lined with trees in various death states. Some had been eaten from the inside out by invading beetles and some of those had been burned to stumps in an attempt to stop the outbreak. Some were starved of water by the drought and some of those were so shriveled they had toppled over and smashed like plaster. Others were strangled by kudzu and Michelle at least appreciated the green gloss of their leaves. She hurried back to the Mission, which never had much wildlife in the first place and so was not as depressing as these doomed, once-green neighborhoods.
Did You Know This? Michelle was outraged. This Thing With There Being No More Driver’s Licenses?
Ziggy nodded. Yeah, everyone knows that.
How Did I Not Know?
I don’t know, you don’t watch the news or anything, read papers?
Michelle didn’t. When she watched TV it was to view marathons of Unsolved Mysteries and when she read the paper it was for the horoscope and sex-advice columns.
Is There Really No Gas?
I mean, not a lot. Ziggy shrugged. They were sitting on the stoop on the side of the queer bar, smoking. They had smuggled their pint glasses of beer out with them and if the dyke who owned the bar, who was their friend, caught them she would tell them that they were compromising her liquor license and make them feel guilty, like they were bad friends. They kept the beer low, sneaking glugs behind their army bags. It was too much to expect people not to smoke and drink at the same time. It was almost cruel. Michelle imagined it was like the mythical blue-balls syndrome men experience. To have the compulsive glow of a wonderful buzz and not be able to eat half a pack of cigarettes while quenching your smoke-parched throat with beer? It was inhuman. No smoking in bars, no more driver’s licenses.
The World Is Ending, Michelle said grimly.
You know how to drive, who cares? Ziggy said.
I Can’t Rent A Truck, she said, Without A License. I Can’t Rent A Car Or A U-Haul Or Anything.
Ziggy sighed deeply, took an even deeper pull of her squishy cigarette, and sighed out all the smoke. Look, you want the van, just ask for it. Take it. You’d be doing me a favor.
What? Michelle yelped, surprised. Did You Think I Was Being, What, Passive Aggressive? I Don’t Want The Van! I’m Just Complaining About My Life!
Really, you’d be doing me a favor. There are so many tickets on it, next time I get one they’re going to tow it. And if I don’t start paying them off they’re going to boot it. And it won’t pass smog. It’s doomed. Just take it.
Are You Serious?
Yeah. You can drive a van?
Yes! Michelle cheered, having no idea whether or not she could drive a van. Oh My God! She flung herself at her friend in a fat hug, knocking over her drink, sending beer everywhere and the pint glass rolling into the gutter.
You guys! Their friend the bar owner came over, grabbing the glass from the street. That’s it! Really! You guys can’t drink here anymore!
Michelle stood abruptly, knocking over her own.
Really, their friend the bar owner said. She was not an unkind person. She was deeply disappointed in Michelle and Ziggy. She had given them many opportunities to change their behaviors and they refused to be different.
Sorry, they mumbled in sheepish, busted unison and shuffled off to the Albion, where somehow you were permitted to smoke inside despite the ordinance and where cocaine was freely for sale despite the illegality. It was where they belonged, anyway.
Ziggy dumped the van on Michelle the very next day.
But I’m Not Leaving For A Month, she protested.
You want it, take it now or else I’m torching it.
Ziggy had once made a little bit of money helping some skaters she drank with torch their car for insurance money. According to the poem she wrote about it, in which she compares the flaming hunk to the burning, ruined earth, it was an awe-inspiring experience.
It was awkward for Michelle, driving the van around the Mission. It was enormous and it shuddered. The plastic case that locked over the engine, the doghouse, grew so hot that Michelle’s foot burned. Her blind spot was too big. It was a relic, people gave her dirty looks when she drove it, which was not often. Mostly just from parking space to parking space as she waited for the day she would leave the city.
Michelle was withdrawing from her life in preparation for the strange pain of leaving. She slacked off at the bookstore, not even pretending to work, just openly reading magazines or talking to Kyle on the phone long distance. She was pulling away from Ziggy and Stitch, staying in her room when she heard Stitch making smoothies in the kitchen, not coming out until she heard her friend tromp down the stairs. Mostly she stayed in her room anyway, sleeping off whatever she had done the night before. (Increasingly, this was heroin with strangers.)