Driver's Education

by Grant Ginder

  I ask, “Who’s this?”

  He’s busied himself with the racks of clothes, filing through the outfits in search of mechanic’s overalls.

  “That, son, is the first lady of Buford,” he says. “Mrs. Marlene Buford!”

  I look toward Randal, who is looking down.

  “And where is she now?”

  “She’s hiking. Buford has some of the most renowned hiking trails in all the West.”

  “How long has she been hiking for?” I hear myself ask.

  He’s found the overalls. They were tucked behind a forest ranger’s coat. He takes them from the hanger and clutches them to his concave chest.

  “Nineteen sixty-two,” he says. He wraps one of the denim straps around two fingers on his left hand. The corners of his eyes become smooth, wet. “There’s no better hiker than Marlene Buford.”

  I lift the frame from the desk. I squint at the picture, the oldness of it, the way the color around the edges has faded to a glossy white.

  • • •

  Once he’s changed into the overalls, we lead the man who might be Fred, but who is now called Henry, to the spot where Lucy has stopped. In a flurry of caked oil and dirt, he pops her hood and—whispering to himself—examines her insides. He tells us it won’t be long—a jiffy—and insists that we explore the surrounding wilderness (“beautiful country, by God, the most beautiful country you’ll ever see”) to occupy ourselves while we wait.

  Due west of the trading post we find a barely-there trail and follow it. It meanders past stout shrubs that prick at our calves and whose feathery needles become stuck in our socks. It climbs brief hills and then dips into thirsty dry ditches. Above us, the dying sun pulses pink against the sky.

  After ten minutes of walking we come across a tree that springs from solid rock. It grows gnarled, like a rope that’s been twisted too many times, and it has needles instead of leaves. We consider the tree’s bark, and its roots, how it draws water and whatever else it is that trees need from unforgiving red stone. There is a wooden sign, a trail marker that promises that this specific tree has beguiled travelers since the first train steamed along the Union Pacific Railroad. We read it three times over. We read how this thing has come to be, how the men who laid the railroad intentionally diverted the tracks so this tree could live.

  “I wonder how long this is going to take. It can’t take long. We can’t afford for it to take long.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  Randal sets his pack on the ground and unzips it so Mrs. Dalloway can get some air. Wander around in the wilderness, if she likes.

  “She’s practically a cougar, after all,” he says.

  She pokes her head out into the open, but that’s it: she stays crouched, her eyes wild and attentive, darting between the insects that dot the air, the shrub’s dry branches.

  Randal leans down and scratches the bald space between her eyes. He digs into the outside pocket of the pack for the baseball we conned from the Gangster. Tosses it into the air once, palms it before it begins to fall.

  “Catch?”

  I pull a needle from the rock tree and snap it in half. “Sure,” I say.

  I trot about ten yards from him, to a spot between a flat-topped boulder and a cluster of rabbit holes, and we begin tossing the ball back and forth, watching as it makes dull arcs in the dissolving light.

  “I wonder what happened to her.” Randal jogs to the left, catching one of my off-centered pitches with two hands.

  “Who?”

  He hurls the ball back. It grazes the tips of my fingers and then bounces against the red dirt.

  “You’ve got to work for those, McPhee.” Then: “The first lady of Buford.”

  “Maybe he killed her.”

  “He didn’t kill her. She went hiking. She disappeared.”

  “He dumped her body near the Continental Divide.”

  “It’s so heartbreaking—the way he’s waiting for her to come back.”

  “He cut her body in two. He put half of her in a river that heads west, and half of her in a river that heads east.”

  Shadows pool around us. Fifteen minutes ago they were slight and anemic, but now they form indeterminate shapes. A lion or a butterfly at the base of a tree; two people kissing or the Empire State Building along the side of a smooth boulder.

  Randal holds on to the ball—he doesn’t toss it back to me. “He didn’t kill her, Finn. You know he didn’t kill her.”

  “I know that. Obviously I know that. But it makes a better story, doesn’t it? Very Stephen King. Very Shining-esque.” I lift both hands. “Here,” I say. “Throw me the ball.”

  He pitches it to me, but this time it’s harder than before. He doesn’t rock back on his heels and lob it; he winds up and fires off a fastball that collides against my right palm with a dull, persistent sting.

  “Do you ever consider that what we’re doing might be wrong?”

  “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t know. Changing all these stories,” he says. “Lying.”

  RAW FOOTAGE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT, UNEDITED

  Interviewer:

  Finn McPhee

  Interviewee:

  Randal Baker

  Dates:

  6/12/2015

  6/13/2015

  6/14/2015

  6/15/2015

  6/18/2015

  Address:

  Tempe Corporate Suites

  2238 S. McClintock Dr.

  Tempe, AZ 85282

  Project:

  DRIVER’S EDUCATION

  Interviewee:

  Randal Baker

  Interviewer:

  Finn McPhee

  Date:

  June 12, 2015

  Place:

  Tempe, AZ

  Transcriber:

  Finn McPhee

  RANDAL BAKER: Is it on?

  FINN MCPHEE: Do you see the red light?

  RB: I see it.

  FM: Then it’s on. (Pause) Try to look into the camera, not at me.

  RB: But you’re sitting behind the camera. When I look at it, I’m looking at you.

  FM: Moving along.

  RB: Okay.

  FM: You’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. Are you excited?

  RB: I guess?

  FM: Try to answer in complete sentences.

  RB: (Sighs) I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time and so I guess I’m excited.

  FM: And what is it that you’re doing?

  RB: You know what it is that I’m doing.

  FM: Yes, I know what it is that you’re doing, but the people who are going to watch this, the people who are watching this DVD, they won’t know what you’re doing.

  RB: Fine. Fine, okay. In a complete sentence: I’m here to set the record straight about what really happened during the road trip I took with Finn McPhee.

  FM: Excellent. And why are you doing that?

  RB: Because you asked me to so that these interviews could be a special feature on the DVD edition of the movie that you and your dad made. Because, according to you, audiences like to know the real story.

  FM: Okay—I mean, don’t say that. The audience shouldn’t know that. Say something else.

  RB: How about this—It was either this or sue you for making up shit about the things we did.

  FM: But neither of us really has the energy to go to small claims court.

  RB: Right.

  FM: So here we are.

  RB: So here we are.

  FM: Let’s move on. Why don’t you bring us up to speed on what you’ve been up to over the past few years? Just explain how this all came about.

  RB: After our little adventure, you stayed in San Francisco for another sixteen months.

  FM: Finn stayed in San Francisco for another sixteen months: talk about me in the third person.

  RB: Christ. Okay. After our little adventure, Finn stayed in San Francisco for another sixteen months. He’d just lost his job, and so I’m guessing he
felt this overwhelming urge to get his shit together. (Pauses, raises eyebrows)

  FM: Keep going.

  RB: All right. I think he also stayed on the West Coast because there was the issue of his dad. I don’t think either of them would ever admit this, but I really do think that Colin and Finn spent the last five years intentionally trying to misunderstand each other and distance themselves from the mistakes they’d both made. Basically, the father hated the son because he fucked with reality for a living, and the son wished that the father could learn to lie a little better. But then Finn’s grandfather, who was the biggest con artist of them all, died. (Pause) Are you sure you’re okay with this?

  FM: Yes. Just keep going.

  RB: So essentially I think death reintroduced the father to the son and the son to the father. It got them reacquainted with each other in that way that only death is capable of. It made them rebond. Reconnect. And then, because this is a totally normal thing for a father and a son to do, they made a movie about it.

  FM: Explain how that happened.

  RB: I can’t believe I have to pretend that you’re not you. (Pause) Finn wrote the book, and his dad adapted the script. Then he called one of his few existing contacts in L.A., someone who still owed him a favor, and they made a fucking movie. A multigenerational story about two kids racing across the country while a man deals with his dying, larger-than-life father. They used some of the original footage Finn shot during our drive, and then they cast two actors to play us and recreate the road trip. Guess what they named them?

  FM: What?

  RB: Randal and Finn.

  FM: And how did it do?

  RB: It only attracted a minor amount of success, and mostly at B-list film festivals in cities like Nashville and Denver. A few places wrote about it, though, including this highbrow New York magazine that’s very well respected, despite the fact that it’s got a very small readership. I actually memorized this one quote that was particularly egregious.

  FM: Let’s hear it.

  RB: “With Driver’s Education, father-son team Finn and Colin McPhee have accomplished something that other, indeed more seasoned auteurs have attempted, only to then fail catastrophically: the creation of a prism in which art and life simultaneously reflect each other in a contortion of myth and fact; a reality in which the narrator is at once inextricably involved and objectively detached.” A contortion of myth and fact. I still can’t decide if I love it or hate it.

  FM: I think it’s pretty accurate.

  RB: That doesn’t surprise me.

  FM: Explain what you’ve been up to for the past year.

  RB: I stuck around New York for the first few months after the film came out in 2014. Finn had moved back, and I think we were both determined to regain the footing we used to have with each other before everything else happened. And we did to a certain degree. If we didn’t I don’t think I’d be doing this for him.

  FM: That’s nice of you.

  RB: But also—also there was something inherently different about the way we interacted. It was as if during those four days of the trip we’d managed to reveal too much about each other and what we were capable of.

  FM: Oh.

  RB: I’m sorry.

  FM: If that’s the truth . . . (Pause) Talk about when the girl approached you on the street. That’s a good story.

  RB: Right. Yeah, that is. Okay. So one day this past January, someone recognized me on the street. It was probably one of, like, the four people who actually saw the movie—but still, it was the thing that first got me thinking about leaving the city. Just escaping New York for good. It was this girl who looked about my age. While we both were waiting to cross Broadway at Nineteenth Street, she kept glancing over like she recognized me. Then finally, things became, like, so uncomfortable and obvious that she actually had to say something. So she spoke up, and the conversation went something like: “I’m sorry, but are you that guy? From that movie?” “What movie?” “That road trip movie. The one that just came out. You look just like him.” I’ll say this: they did an amazing job casting Driver’s Education. Really, the guys were practically our twins. My only complaint is Randal could’ve stood to lose about ten pounds. “I’m sort of him,” I said. “What do you mean, you’re sort of him?” “I mean I’m actually him.” “I’m confused.” “The whole ordeal is rather confusing.” “So were you in that movie or not?” “Only sort of. Like, I’m not him, but I’m the real him.” “So you’re not him.” And really the only thing I could say was, “I guess not.”

  FM: That’s brilliant. But then, also, there was the issue—

  RB: There was the issue of Mrs. Dalloway. She’s been living with me ever since we finished the trip, and for the most part she’s been doing well—she just sort of hobbles around and licks my toes. But then in mid-February she came down with feline consumption. At first I thought it was hairballs—she’d been licking herself more than usual—but then when her coughing got worse I took her to the vet, who diagnosed her with mycobacterium tuberculosis. I asked him if she’d get better, and he told me that she was very old, and that the cold wet weather in New York didn’t help. So I moved us here. To Tempe, Arizona.

  FM: That’s a lot to do for a cat.

  RB: She’s a very special cat.

  FM: Right. (Pause) Okay, but also, after the movie came out, you tried to get back together with S—

  RB: Don’t say her name.

  FM: Not even now?

  RB: Not even now.

  FM: Okay. (Pause) So how did things work out?

  RB: (Silence)

  FM: How did things work—

  RB: I’m living in Arizona with a cat.

  FM: I see. (Pause)

  RB: Stop laughing.

  FM: I’m not laughing.

  RB: I was heartbroken.

  FM: I know. (Pause) Let’s move along.

  RB: Perfectly fine with me.

  FM: What do you do here?

  RB: I work at this Greek restaurant called The Goddess Athena’s that’s owned by a Vietnamese couple named Mr. and Mrs. Phan.

  FM: Do you like living here?

  RB: I like the desert. I like all the different sort of cactuses.

  FM: It’s “cacti.”

  RB: I like how the moon hitting the sand keeps anything from getting too dark at night. I like that the dry air has been good for Mrs. Dalloway’s breathing. I like that she’s still got the energy to chase a lizard or two every day. So, yeah, I like it. We’re happy.

  FM: And what can we expect from you during these interviews?

  RB: The truth?

  FM: “You can expect . . . ”

  RB: Right. Sorry. You can expect the truth. At least how I remember it. Which may be difficult because I think I’m probably just as guilty as Finn is when it comes to tweaking reality; the difference is he just got paid to do it for a few years. But, I mean, I’m sure I was an accomplice to his lies, and in some cases I might’ve helped him to tell them in better ways.

  FM: Don’t admit that.

  RB: Sorry.

  FM: It’s fine. We can cut it.

  RB: Isn’t that against what we’re trying to do here?

  FM: Don’t say that, either. (Pause) Okay. So, you’ve just watched Driver’s Education, and you’ve got some thoughts regarding its veracity. Where would you like to start?

  RB: Oh, God. I don’t know.

  FM: Maybe you could begin with the smaller inaccuracies? And then explain how they snowballed into these alternative-universe fabrications?

  RB: But I don’t think lying works that way.

  FM: What do you mean?

  RB: I think that, if anything, the first lie someone tells is the largest. Like, it’s the keystone of the arch, and the rest of them, the lies, are just the surrounding stones that make sure the thing touches the ground. At least that’s how it was for us. There was a commitment to lying early on, after you—or, he—received that initial call from his grandfather. There was this conversation tha
t was conveniently stricken from the film’s shooting script when Finn convinced me to live for four days in a way that he deemed worthy of his grandfather’s legacy. Just big, and boisterous, and loud, and in a way that no one really exists. And, if we didn’t succeed—and I’ll tell you right now, given the version of his grandfather that Finn had created, it was impossible to succeed—anyway, if we didn’t succeed we’d just twist shit around and remanufacture it until, when we eventually told the story to people, they’d believe that we did.

  FM: Explain that more.

  RB: Take the Arthur Kill, for instance. He must’ve gotten the footage after our drive because we never went there. We read about it in the same magazine article, and we looked at pictures of it on the Internet together—but we never went there. Firstly because I never learned to swim, so the idea of sloshing around in those sinking boats was really terrifying to me; and secondly because motivating to get to Staten Island was always impossible. We did watch the ships from Hudson River Park, though. That part is correct. We’d lie with our shirts off and count sails and sometimes we’d talk about the Kill. What it might look like. And those conversations must’ve had some huge effect on him because I remember while we were driving somewhere in Ohio he said, “It’d be a great place to start this story.” I told him, “But we never actually went there.” And he said, “No one really cares about that. No one will really care about that.” “What about just starting it where it actually started?” “Where things actually start is never all that interesting.” And so I told him, all right, and then I asked him not to include the thing about me being unable to swim.

  FM: I think we’re almost out of time.

  RB: I have to go to work, anyway.