Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

In Lexington he took the written exam for obtaining a driver’s license in the name of Joe Tiller. He’d considered a number of plausible stories as to why he didn’t have one — service in Africa as a missionary; an army license overseas that got revoked; being recently released from prison. He discarded each as being too cumbersome. Claiming to be from Pick County was enough. Nothing was expected of such people, and they could submit no surprises.

His work buddies regarded his change of cars as a sign of impending marriage, and Virgil encouraged the rumor by not denying it. It was an ideal cover that explained his preoccupied silence. He avoided his family, except for short visits to his mother late at night. They talked of mundane events.

From a pay phone in Rocksalt, Virgil arranged with a driver’s training company to use a vehicle for his road test. The following morning he shaved his beard but left a mustache. He drove to Lexington very early. At dawn the city was quiet and empty, and he could see it as a field of cement, patched with sections of grass, bordered by the buildings where people lived and worked. He could almost imagine living there if no one was around.

The driving instructor was younger than Virgil expected, a man with a ponytail and an earring. Virgil wondered if he was funny-turned. The man accompanied him to a parking lot where a state trooper sat in the passenger seat and adjusted his gunbelt. Virgil held the steering wheel tightly.

“First license?” the cop said.

Virgil nodded.

“Pick County, huh? I used to know some Atkinses over in there.”

“They’s two or three bunches.”

“I knew the rough ones. I used to operate out of that post in Rock-salt.”

“You did.”

“What’d you do, lose your license and forget to reapply?”

“No. Never had much call to leave the holler. My brother did most of the driving. Then Daddy died and things just generally went to hell.”

The cop gave instructions. Virgil drove into the street and stopped at the appropriate distance from the stop sign. He made a right turn, a left turn, and parallel-parked. They returned to the lot and the cop completed the form.

“You did good,” he said.

He signed the form and handed a copy to Virgil.

“Carry this until you get your license,”

Virgil nodded.

“You know, one of my first investigations had some Tillers in it,” the cop said.

Sweat began forming on Virgil’s forehead. He didn’t want to bring it to the trooper’s attention by wiping it off.

“A kid’s death,” he said. “They gave it to me because I was a rookie. Routine accident report. Any kin to you?”

Virgil swallowed in order to speak.

“Cousin,” he said.

“I always wondered what happened to the parents. It graveled them up pretty hard.”

“They moved.”

“Look, I don’t mean to bring it up again. They were nice people’s all.”

Virgil grunted.

“Back then,” the cop said, “I never thought I’d wind up giving driver’s tests. Things change. Yessir, a man can’t tell where he’s headed, can he?”

Virgil shook his head. The cop left the car and the driving instructor got in.

“Congratulations,” he said. “Man, you look nervous. Don’t worry, I’ve seen people wet their pants.”

“You drive,” Virgil said.

“No problem, man. We can do a doobie if you want.”

“A doobie?”

“Yeah, man, you know.”

He made a subtle motion with his hand to his mouth and Virgil realized that he’d been right, the man was funny-turned. It bothered him that the guy thought he was, too.

The Department of Motor Vehicles was the final step. The woman behind the counter fed the name Joe Tiller to a computer and linked it to the new Social Security number, which became the driver’s license number. Virgil knew nothing about computers, but he didn’t trust them. He thought of his grandfather’s immense suspicion of electricity and hoped that he wasn’t being as hard-headed as the old man. His grandfather wouldn’t allow a clock in his house and had never owned a driver’s license.

The camera operator told him to stand at a line painted on the floor with, his back touching a gray backdrop fastened to the wall. In a rash of fear, he wondered what the camera would see. The man waited with an expression of bored patience as Virgil moved cautiously into position. He’d never taken a stand on anything and now that he had, he understood that it was a terrible stand. He felt like a train shunted to a private track, hurtling toward a dead end.

The bright lights flashed twice and he sat in a hard plastic chair to wait. He remembered his father teaching him to drive fifteen years ago. He had set Virgil loose in the cemetery at the top of the hill and said not to worry, that if he wrecked, he couldn’t kill anybody.

“Tiller,” the woman called.

Virgil received a piece of thin plastic that contained his photograph beside the name Joe Tiller. The mustache was a stripe across the middle of his face that made his head look wide. It was all that separated him from the new name. He hid the license in his trunk and drove home, proud that a lowly Blizzard boy like himself could pull this off. He wished he could tell someone. He recalled his mother quoting the Bible: “Pride goeth before a fall.” The snake’s punishment for the Fall was condemnation to a life of crawling on its belly. He wondered what sort of animal it had been before.

At home, he carefully shaved his mustache. The face on the license belonged to no one.

Two weeks later he took another Friday off, acceptable behavior at the maintenance department of Rocksalt Community College. Most work crews quit unofficially at noon on Friday anyhow. If a man was willing to forgo a day’s pay, no one cared if he missed work. Virgil rose at dawn, filled a wallet with his new identification, and placed it in the trunk with the cash he’d made from selling his truck. He spread a map over the hood of the car and traced his route with a finger. Getting to Cincinnati was easy — drive to Lexington and make a right.

The night before, he’d stayed awake late working out the day’s plan. Now he was filling in the blanks, the way a child stayed within the lines of a coloring book. Virgil Caudill was the inventor and Joe Tiller was the outcome, while he, whoever he was, was merely a facilitator.

Virgil crossed the Ohio River with caution, unsure if he should drive fast to get off the bridge sooner or go slow to prevent undue vibration of its struts. The water was dark and muddy. He was amazed by its width. He stopped at a gas station in Ohio and asked the attendant for directions to the airport. The attendant wore a narrow beard that surrounded his mouth like a stain. A single tattoo of a dark blue rectangle covered his entire forearm. Virgil tried not to look at it.

“Go over the bridge and hang a right,” the man said. “It’ll take you in.”

“No, I mean the Cincinnati airport.”

“Like I said.”

“I Just came over that bridge.”

“Well, you went too far.”

“Too far for what?” Virgil said.

“You want the airport?”

“Yup.”

“Go over the bridge and hang a right.”

“I already did.”

“No, man. The Cincinnati airport’s in Kentucky.”

“That don’t make much sense.

“A lot don’t. I tell you something else, too. Louisville Sluggers are made in Indiana.”

“Anything else?”

“Man o’War never ran a race in Kentucky.”

“He didn’t,”

“There’s tons of weird shit like that. This country ain’t been right since Elvis joined the army.”

Virgil left and recrossed the river. There was another bridge in view and two more around a bend. It seemed like a waste to have so many bridges over the same stretch of water. He followed signs to the airport, A plane went past his windshield as if suspended on wires.