I Get My Driver’s License at Film School Graduation
You can drive on any road you can imagine once you take Cinematography 401. They give you a learner’s permit in 101 but it’s not the same when someone else is telling you when to turn. When you get the real thing they quiz you. They make you write a thesis—mine was titled “All Roads Lead to Parking Lots” —and afterwards they give you the keys to an old sedan.
In History of Film, I learned
about types of roads:
asphalt, dirt, gravel.
In Set Design, I learned to
change a tire.
At the DMV they ask me if I have a living will
and if I want to give my organs away in case of
bad direction. They ask me if I’m more into horror
or action—like a getaway from the zombie apocalypse
or late-night snowstorm driving like they used
in the Star Wars movies. They say both will happen
to me at some point. They ask me if I have a living will
because they know how dangerous it is to break a windshield
to make a windshield.
Check yes if you have a living will:
if you are near the end of life,
if you have a serious illness,
or if you are simply afraid to die.
I’m in the car, it’s night, I have my lights on bright in the
middle of nowhere, and I get the sense that no one would ever
could ever find me crashed out here. It’s night and I
play the tapes over and misremember how long they are. It’s night
and I remember my professor’s words: go until you think
you can’t go anymore and then you’re halfway there. It’s night
and I stop at a gas station for intermission. It’s night and
the underpaid popcorn guy says enjoy the show.
There’s a deer in my acting class and he’s got big antlers
and a penchant for the stage lights. He called and asked
me if he could be in my next project and I asked him if he
had a living will.
and I tell them I do even though the courts can’t prove it. I have a letter
in my glove box that lists out twenty-six movies I have studied and the name
of every road I’ve ever filmed on. I see a guy half-asleep standing
in the middle of the road while I’m driving and I think I must be near the end
the beginning.
At graduation, I receive a degree in lonely highways with a
concentration in nighttime and bad weather. The folks are afraid
I’ll use my degree to get into trouble. I start making movies
about skidding off into snow banks and they ask when I’m going
to get serious and go somewhere. I spin out in a parking lot
and my audience cheers.
I’m driving and it’s night and there’s a curve at the bottom of this
hill and the windshield is like I’ve never seen it before and I almost
forget I’m the director and I watch it with rapture with the focus I’m
not supposed to have; I pay it too much attention and none to the wheel.
It’s night and I’m driving and the bottom of the curve comes and my
hands do something I can barely feel. It’s night and the headlights make
it easy to imagine there’s only one spot of road and nothing else but dark.
It’s night and I’m driving and that spot is the only thing that feels possible
until it vanishes and the credits start to roll.
Cut!
I’m working on a short film starring me and you. The problem is keeping it under
30 minutes. I’ve done a thousand versions of it and it always ends
the same. I’m always me, and you’re you and my cousin
and my imaginary friend and my mother
and the postman and the deer and the
old woman and the car.
But I’m always driving.
Sometimes you’re jumping
out of the moving car, sometimes
you’re lying down in the backseat,
sometimes I’ve got your body
in the trunk, sometimes you’re
standing in the road, sometimes
you’re pulling the emergency
brake, sometimes you break
my heart, sometimes you don’t
know who I am. Usually,
you don’t know who I am.
But I’m always driving.
And that damn deer is always dying.
He keeps asking to be in my films and so I let him. I guess he’s
my muse but only because I hate him. Obsession, or something. He’s a
phenomenal actor, though he’s still a deer. I keep telling him it can’t be good to
pretend to die a thousand times. But he’s got that look of panic nailed down perfectly.
Pain incarnate. Inevitable demise. Pure terror. He watches his stunt dummy get blown apart on a
nightly basis.
It’s all wrong. It’s all wrong. It’s all wrong.
I’m driving and it’s all wrong. The lighting isn’t
working for you, your face looks fake in all that
makeup, but you’re real. I’m driving and you’re
real. I can’t convince the audience that you’re real.
I’m driving and you’re in my passenger seat but
something is wrong. I hear your sudden gasp,
so honest I can’t tell if you’re acting:
The deer jets past the car.
After Graduation We Go Our Separate Ways
In my dream, you were kind to me.
The deer stopped talking. The animals
didn’t notice me. In the city,
they never do. In my dream you told the animals
to stop bothering me, and so they did. The owls
didn’t turn toward me and the robins didn’t land
on my fingers. The wind stopped howling
and only just blew. There was no audience
as I drove down the highway. The antelope ran
alongside my car and never crossed my path once. I
was kind too, in the dream. Not at first. I was cold
until I got the courage to sit on your passenger side.
You told the key grip he was boring, and the sound
guy that he should get out more. You said that.
I woke up and the cameras were rolling. I couldn’t
tell what was real anymore. You ignored me
like the deer. In my dream you had been kind to me. You had offered yourself
as my body double. You stood in the road.
I heard a crash and I woke up and I couldn’t feel
anything except a headache like metal
shards in my brain. You left me
a note. Then left me again. Then you left me
flowers. Then they left me. Then you drove
away. Then I was driving and I was leaving
my double out in the middle of the road. And there was
always a lack as if I had just noticed the deer
right as I was hitting it. Right as I realized you were there
you were gone.
It was funny how much it hurt
when I fell asleep again. I took
the pain into my dreams and had it
run alongside my car. You were kind
to me. Nobody crashed. Nobody
stopped. We kept driving.
The deer kept running.
