Dr. No by Percival Everett

Author:Percival Everett [Everett, Percival]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

For all y such that

1

I drove onto the road from the Goodwill parking lot without a mishap. I wondered whether that was the same as driving out with a hap. I could see that my route was exceedingly simple, one road, Interstate 95 all the way to Washington. I was not driving south because I had been instructed to drive south, though I had been, but because I, contrary to my nature, was concerned with the well-being of another. My lack of interest in the immediate and concrete future of any other human being was well known, and more evident to me even than others, so I was impressed by my action. Impressed in the way that I merely acknowledged a difference from my usual ways and conduct, though I didn’t find my action, or pre-action, remarkable in any way. Though the drive contained many hair-raising moments, any one of which was certainly more exciting during than in the retelling, I will not suffer them now. I managed to negotiate my vehicle through hardly moving traffic from one side of New York City to the other, but in New Jersey I was pulled over by a highway patrolman. The blue-shirted, blue-capped officer approached cautiously, eyeing me through the side mirror, his hand resting on his pistol.

“Good evening, sir,” he said. “Would you be kind enough to let me see your license and registration?”

He was very polite.

“I don’t have either,” I said.

“Say what?”

“I bought this car a couple of days ago. I do have the title.”

“Driver’s license?”

“No.”

“Lost?”

“Never had one. Here’s my passport. And my faculty ID.”

“You don’t have a driver’s license.”

I repeated, slowly. “I do not have a driver’s license.”

He looked back at the oncoming traffic, confused. “You telling me you have a car and no license.”

“That is an accurate representation,” I said.

“But you bought the car.”

“Yes.”

“Step out of the vehicle, please.”

I got out and he turned me to face the rear door, pushed me into it. He kicked my feet apart and frisked me.

“Anything in your pockets I should know about?”

“No.”

He looked in the back and saw the child’s car seat. “Do you have a child in the car?”

“No, that’s my dog.”

He looked in. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He has only one leg,” I said.

“That’s sad,” the trooper said. “What’s his name?”

“Trigo.”

“Bulldog?”

“Yes.”

“You know, you can’t be out here driving with no license. This where you teach?” He waved my ID at me. “Brown University?”

“Yes. I live in Providence.”

“Where are you going without a driver’s license?”

“Washington.”

He spoke into the radio on his epaulet. “I have a thirty-six-year-old Black male here, driving an ’11 BMW with Rhode Island tags 7-1-6-6-5-5. Individual’s name appears to be Wala, whiskey-alpha-Lima-alpha, Kitu, kilo-India-tango-uniform. About six feet, one sixty.” He looked at me. “This all the ID you got? You realize of course that I have to take you in. You don’t have a license.”

“That’s all I have,” I said.

We waited for a few minutes. It felt like thirty, but was possibly two.

His radio sounded. “Ten-nine.”

“Individual has no license.

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