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Gottfried Ursel · 15 min read · The American Anthology
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It was a normal day, and John was a normal man. Sure, sometimes John had the suspicion that other people thought he was a bit coarse, but it is the rough edges of sea sand which wear down the rocks battered by the tide. John felt that he was more like a grain of rough sand, able to stand against the rocks and the waves that came at him, and not the chauvinist that he felt that other people might have said he was. It wasn‘t like the opinions of other people mattered to John anyway. A man can’t walk on eggshells his entire life and still call himself a man.
It was totally unrelated that John had no contact with his close family, no life partner, and often spent Friday nights alone at the small-town bar, where the bartender, rather than engaging in pleasantries, simply slid John the drink he would and always would consume. No, John just spoke his mind and told it as it was.
But it was a sunny day, and John did not want to think about that. In fact, it was the day that he would get his new driver’s license. John’s old driver’s license expired only a few months ago, and the last time he was pulled over by the town sheriff, with whom he had gone to high school, he was told that driving without a valid license wouldn’t slide much longer. Luckily, the government was able to digitalize the application form and promised to send the license within three to five business days. It was of course somewhere between the forty-fifth and forty-seventh business day (John wasn’t sure which of the two it was), but no matter. A little bit of a wait was the price to pay for government efficiency. Either way, today was the day it arrived.
Today the grass was green, the sun was shining, and those annoying foreign-looking neighbours who constantly nagged John to stop blowing his leaves onto their lawn were nowhere to be found! There could not have been a more perfect day on God’s green earth.
And so, John triumphantly glided to his mailbox, lowering the mailbox flap with the delicacy of a French pastry chef, and gently, yet firmly, removed his mail. On his way back into his house, he repeatedly thumbed his letter like a nervous teenage boy approaching second base for the first time. There was no hard plastic square at first grasp, but John was certain that once the envelope was opened up, he would find his new license.
There was no license. John checked again, opening the envelope with his finger and thumb upside down so all possible contents could fall out. John pressed the opposite envelope sides together to peek inside. There was no license. What there was, was a letter. It read:
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John looked at the letter; he flipped it to check the back. No license, no three pennies. Well, at least, John said to himself, those lazy bureaucrats were getting a taste of their own medicine.
John wasn’t bothered so much by it. He just needed to know where he could go to pick up his license, which he assumed had been made and printed. In fact, because the Department of Motor Vehicles was shuttered only last week, his license might be lurking in a box somewhere.
John got into his car and carefully drove the speed limit to what used to be the Department of Motor Vehicles. This time John was careful. He did not want to raise the suspicions of any traffic cops on the way there. Upon pulling up to the parking lot of what once was the Department of Motor Vehicles, John found it hard to find space to park his car. This was because the parking lot was full of protesters. Wasteful scum John thought to himself. They should just get honest jobs. Finally, now they have a chance, he said to himself before getting out of his car and asking one of them for help.
“Hey man, sorry to bother you,” John shouted to one of the protesters over the chants of the crowd, “but did you use to work here?”
“Nope, actually I used to issue bonds at the Treasury.”
“Oh, I see…”
The protester continued. “Yeah, but I’m here since they already started pepper-spraying the protestors in front of the Treasury, but hey, they have it easy. I heard that they shot at those foreign aid folk… poor bastards.”
“Not with our money!” John interjected to a slight smile of the bond man.
“And you?” John’s new friend continued, “Department of Defense?”
“No no, I’m just your former boss, the taxpayer,” the smirk audible in his voice. “Actually, I’m here to pick up my driver’s license.”
“Good luck” said the Bond man, now no longer smiling. “To get in, you’ll have to fight past those communists from the Department of Education though.”
John didn’t know what a bond was, be he liked something about this guy. It was a shame that he was totally useless and had to be axed.
“Have fun!” said John as he pushed his way through the crowd.
John moved past picket signs and slogans. He dodged the war of words as if he were a soldier in the trenches of World War One. Not a single unit of meaning or discontent made it into John’s ear. This is because he grew up in a small and strong family and was raised on common sense to not let other people’s problems bother him.
When he got to the front of the ruckus, past the climate scientists and concerned educators, he took a moment to scan the building. He assumed the front door was locked and noticed how the protestors were only at the front door. Those fools, desperate for attention, could just break in through the back if they wanted to cause a problem.
John thought that this also was perhaps not a bad idea. It was the perfect crime: he could break in, snag his license, and any damage could be blamed on the protestors. Nobody likes them anyway, John thought to himself. They were are just waste.
All it took to gain access to the abandoned office was a strong rock. John knew how to get into the places that the elite had always wanted to keep him out of. The idea of using a blunt object to smash his way into a system that he hated since his childhood overjoyed him. It was finally time for normal guys, just like him.
I’d love to see how many procurement orders they’ll need to fix that window, he joked to himself as he slid a hand through the broken glass to reach the opening mechanism of the door. His musing continued. Oh, is my filing incomplete? Shouldn’t you worry about your incomplete door more? Finally, John thought to himself, people like him were in control.
He was now inside the room. So where, oh where, could that little license of his be? Where was that beautiful plastic rectangle hiding? He saw a few boxes in a corner and ruffled through them. All he found there were office supplies, some papers, and a picture of some guy’s wife. She wasn’t so bad looking, so John broke the frame and took the picture inside, tossing the broken frame back in the box. This is how life should be, John thought to himself. The world is only a place for strong people like me.
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After fifteen minutes of ruffling through papers, and trying to find pictures of other men’s wives, John grew tired of his form of swift justice. Especially for its lack of retribution. What was the point of being the best guy in town, if life was still so inconvenient for him? The day was about to be marked as a failed mission, until John finally found a paper hanging off a desk.
The desk was full of letters. Although this one was not for him, it looked as if this were the desk of the intern, whose job it was to enclose and lick the envelopes before the letters would be sent out. John jumped onto the chair in front of the desk and started looking for his name.
John did find a letter. One which was addressed to him. He ripped it apart in excitement, ripping also part of the paper inside the envelope. Still, there was no license inside. What John instead found was an explanation as to why his license was not ready. It read that because of new anti-fraud policies, licenses could only be printed for people with valid social security numbers, and that as John did not have a valid social security number, no license could therefore be printed for him.
This confused John, as he did in fact have a valid social security number.
John was confused and stayed so for his whole drive home. He wasn’t in a good mood. Usually, he liked to check out the billboards on his drives around town. But today not even his favorite billboard, which advertised a cookbook with recipes to cure measles, could cheer him up. All he wanted was to be able to exercise his God-given rights. Now he was starting to have a hard time understanding why it was that people like the Sheriff were able to extort normal men. Who gave the Sherriff the right to limit John and his basic freedom of mobility? Who was the Sherriff to tell John what he could and couldn’t do? The Sherriff wasn’t the only guy in town with a gun, if that’s what it all came down to.
Something happened to John. His thoughts all suddenly came together. The air coming in through the window was the only thing that cooled his hot temple. His palms, gripped tightly around the steering wheel, gathered drops of sweat. The droplets slowly ran together congealing. like how a mob congeals to set the record straight after an injustice. The wind could not dispel the sweat, either through its inability or apathy. Only John could wipe his sweat away, and today he didn’t want to. His tense biceps felt as if they alone were holding the weight of his car and history itself. He had noticed his speed and for a moment thought about whether to ease up the gas. Not this time, thought John to himself. Then it happened quickly, a blitz of blue in his rear-view mirror.
The sky was shrieking. They might have caught him once, but they let him go. That was God’s will. He saw who was coming up behind him.
John reached into his glovebox.
Today was the day when normal guys like him would finally get the justice they deserved.
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