True Account

If you had to develop a nation of your own, dear reader, how would it function? Wow, really? So you would mostly mimic the existing nations, except yours would be even more violent & chaotic? That’s interesting — I didn’t know that I had such a ruthless readership. 

It’s been several days, and I’m still thinking about the way that you answered the above question: you really took me aback. I’m shocked that you would eliminate all deeds of ownership, so that the legal occupant of any house would be whoever is mighty enough to bash thru the front door and vanquish the current homeowners. And then if an even stronger strongman were to come along who could overthrow this most recent conqueror, the house would become his; until the next desperado takes it. 

It’s almost like you’re saying that we can plead for human rights until we’re blue in the face, but no rights shall ever be enforced so long as YOU’RE in charge of the nation, therefore pragmatically nobody has any rights at all. I would never have guessed you had such a barbaric side. (If you were male, I would not find this trait so attractive.)

Now, let me get this straight: In your official proposal that you just drew up, it says that you’re going to allow scientists to develop bullet-sized nuclear armaments, which can be shot from a standard pistol. Are you serious? Holy moly; this means that an average citizen walking down the street will be able to nuke any passerby, and vice versa, simply by pulling a gun. In short, everyone will be constantly nuking everyone. What a nation you have created!

And you also demand that all clothing should be rainbow-colored? Why? Don’t you realize that this will be dizzying? I can’t believe that you don’t want to allow at least a few people to wear white collared, button-up shirts with black overcoats and gray slacks. Or khaki pants. But you seem stern about this regulation, so I’ll back off from further questioning. It’ll be intriguing to see what impact this has on society.

Whoa, you’ve got to be kidding… You’re not? So it’s official? You’ve crowned yourself the Chief of Police? Egads! now I understand why it’s advantageous to develop one’s own nation. Stupidly, all my life I’ve been a citizen of someone else’s nation. Wait; what’s that you say? — You’re telling me that I can ride along with you while you perform your daily routine? Ooh, that’s a great idea: let’s go!

I love how the first thing we do is drive your patrol car to the diner and order two eggs, sunny-side up, and two medium coffees. Then you and I both use the salt shaker and the pepper grinder to season our eggs when they arrive. — It’s wise of you to make sure that you consume a healthy breakfast before interacting with the nation that you just built from scratch. I’m already having fun.

However, after our morning meal, once we got back out on the road in our patrol car, why did you immediately stop at the bank? Are we going to bail it out, just to spite the populace? Oh, now I see: you’re here to deliver an official pardon to the two cops that were caught red-handed committing robbery in my last blog post. That robber on the left is my alter ego, actually; I christened him Bryan, after myself. And his friend is Officer Terrence, whom I named after a night-shift manager at the fast-food taco shop where I worked when I was sixteen. Terrence was my all-time favorite manager, alongside Jim Johnson from Pentax. (I would etch Terrence’s full identity into stone here, as an homage, but I honestly never knew more than his first name.)

Let me, at this point, change the way that I’ve been telling our tale, dear reader — it’s annoying to relay an adventure from the point of view of an author questioning his auditor. I’ll switch to the normal way, where you and I are just two American heroes. But, before you slay me for deceiving you, just consider what a promotion this is: You’ve graduated from being a mere reader of a story to being an actor in that very tale, with a readership of your own.

Alright, so, now that we got all that taken care of, here’s what happened: 

The famous author Bryan Ray and his best friend, Chief Officer Gwendolyn, were rolling down the street in their police vehicle. Their lights were flashing and their siren was blaring. But, instead of speeding fast, they were just relaxing and cruising: slower than the pace of a snail. Why were they behaving so peculiarly? Because this is THEIR nation, thus THEY call the shots.

So their cop car came to a halt before a gang of little girls. Gwendolyn opened up her driver-side door and shouted “Hey there, chicas! How would you like your own photo album? Come here — approach the automobile; don’t worry about the exhaust fumes.”

I, Bryan, the second banana in my own reader’s story which she usurped from the academic essay that I had planned to compose, kept tugging at Officer Gwendolyn’s skirts and saying “What are you doing, dear Gwendolyn? Leave these poor girls alone — they’re innocent, can’t you see!”

But Chief Officer Gwendolyn lured the pack of strays to her squad cruiser and handed out photo albums, just as she promised.

“Here you go, little munchkins,” said Officer Gwendolyn; “note that inside these albums that I am giving to you, there are photographs of families, and you yourself often appear as one of the members. This album that I have given unto you should be cherished, because few stronger bonds exist than PRECEDENCE — it has even been known to surpass NECESSITY.”

Then we drove off. 

“Jeez, did you really have to do that?” I, Bryan Ray, said, as we were proceeding away from the mob of little girls.

Gwendolyn did not reply but just kept driving straight forward at a moderate velocity.

Soon we slowed to a halt at the entryway of a decrepit building. Despite the fact that it was a single-story structure, it appeared as tho it might collapse upon itself at any moment. “Why are we parking in front of a gloomy juke joint?” I complained, after eyeing the partly burnt-out neon sign.

Gwendolyn shut off the car’s engine. “This snooker hall is a place where people gather to play cue sports such as carom billiards. Such venues also commonly have arcade machines, card games, darts, foosball and other amusements, which serve as fit rewards for those who have recently engaged in charitable accomplishments.”

I rolled my eyes and got out of the passenger side of our police cruiser. At this moment, countless drug dealers and prostitutes who were napping in the alleys nearby lurched forward and named their prices; so I replied, one at a time, “How much is required, in your case, to sustain apotheosis?” and after every individual answered, I opened my billfold and meticulously counted out the exact amount that he or she specified, down to the penny, and bestowed upon each soul the desired alms.

“Bry, what are you doing? C’mon, it’s cold out here, let’s go inside,” said Chief Officer Gwendolyn.

After measuring out the last amount of banknotes and coins, I turned to Gwendolyn and replied: “Prostitutes and drug dealers came out of the alleyway and asked me to help them financially, so I did. Is that a crime?”

“Actually, it IS, in this great nation,” retorted Gwendolyn.

Then we both tried not to laugh. (If you look closely at the shot where we were glaring at each other after this present confrontation, you can see that we’re each on the verge of breaking character. But the film’s editors cut the scene so that it appeared as tho we maintained our composure.)

So we went inside the establishment and gambled for a while. We smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol and flirted with barmaids. Then we joined a secret society and became the respective leaders of a pair of minor territories.

“What do you think happens to army tanks when they grow old?” I asked Chief Officer Gwendolyn. “I mean, do they end up in the used-vehicle market, so that regular people like you or I can buy them and drive them to work? Or are they melted down and recrafted into jet airplanes?”

Gwendolyn stared hard at the wood grain of the table where we were sitting. Then she said: “I’m not sure — nobody’s ever asked me that question. Let’s do some research...” and she banged her fist down, causing our beer mugs to rattle, while demanding to speak to the manager. 

So the snooker hall’s owner came down out of the attic and answered: “Yes?”

“You got a newspaper?” said Gwendolyn. “I wanna see a newspaper. I gotta check the classified ads.”

The owner bowed deeply and left without replying. Gwendolyn huffed. Then the owner returned with a rolled up newspaper, which he handed to Gwendolyn while bowing again.

“Thanks,” said Chief Officer Gwendolyn. Then she unrolled the paper and flipped rapidly thru the contents until she found the ads section. She pointed her gorgeous finger at a line of text: 

“Read this,” she demanded.

“Army tank,” I read laboriously (my education was subpar); “forest green, runs good, fifty bucks.”

Gwendolyn stared at me for a while. “Call the number,” she repeated.

So I dialed the telephone number that appeared at the end of the ad, and a sexy woman answered: “You want my army tank?” — I replied in the affirmative. That’s how Gwendolyn and I came to be the first cop duo to drive around in style.

For purposes of safety, we did not load ammo into the tank’s main gun — we only rotated that part around while driving by and aimed it at everyone, as a goof. The army tank was much slower than our old cop car, which we retired and donated to a local art museum. (The museum’s curator had the vehicle encased in amber, and she decided to display it near the entryway of the room that contained all of Claude Monet’s haystack paintings, for her own secret reason.) Gwendolyn and I really loved traveling like this: Although we pulled up to each crime scene later than we would’ve preferred, the pomp of arriving inside of a war machine made us feel more confident about our team’s role in each impossible mission.

And then it happened. One day Chief Officer Gwendolyn and I fell in love, and we bore three baby-cops inside our own green army-tank. These were the finest policemen the force had ever seen. They knew how to shoot rifles at targets that were very far away, and they hit them with an impressive degree of accuracy. 

But when Gwendolyn and I began to age, as soon as we reached our bicentennial, we took up the habit of misspeaking. For instance, my own mobile-phone number has always been 555-XXXX, but when I left a voice message for one of my own children who happened at that instant to be piloting our vehicle (for, as I implied, my lover and I were ill-disposed, on account of the wrinkle-heavy makeup that we were contractually obliged to sport during these final days of shooting), I mixed up the digits and swapped them around, saying: “Call me back, O my son, Junior Officer Ray; behold, my number is triple ex five…” and then my silence trailed off beyond infinity. I seriously couldn’t remember my own contact info, after so many years of leaving myself peppy messages.

So Gwendolyn and I at last expired inside the army tank, while fighting crime with our three strapping boys. God, it was honorable! In my own case, I began to snore and then stopped breathing; thus I think you could report that I died peacefully in my sleep. After which, my life-partner, Chief Officer Gwendolyn, the mother of our nation’s youthful new police force, rose triumphantly into the heavens during a college course that she was teaching — she was instructing our offspring how to recognize and obliterate the enemy, at the very moment that she…

This true account cannot ever be completed.