Long Tall Weekend - An Open Letter to a Car Thief

Brand new stuff here, Compassers! Can I call you that? No? Alright, we'll find something soon then. Maybe scouts or something to that effect. Compass scouts. Probably not though. We don't want to make you all sound like you're children strangely eager to identify birds. We'll discuss this later.

Anywho... this letter I wrote while watching the news again. There was something about watching this story unfold live that inspired me. So here you go.

Note to self: Stop paying attention to the news and go outside and climb a tree or something. Go make friends.

-Anthony

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August 19, 2010


Dear Sir,

You don't know me and most likely will never meet me but I have to say you added so much complexity to my evening. You have put me in a position where, in several occasions, I don't know whether to thank you whole-heartedly or call you a colossal idiot. I just don't know so we will start from the beginning.

Walking into the living room on my last day at home for a while, I found my father watching the news. Your situation almost immediately interrupted the story about how horrible the economy is because President Obama hates freedom or something like that (it was Fox News, my dad is somewhat conservative). So this is where the first "thank you" comes in. We all know that we are all short on cash right now. The last thing anyone needs is a stranger telling them how fucked they are, which is ironic because that was exactly what I thought about you when they put you on the screen.

My dad and I are very big fans of seeing people getting hurt. That may sound terrible but as long as it isn't either on of us or anyone we know, we can't look away. I know for a fact that we aren't alone on this. Everyone enjoys watching a good tazing or trampoline accident every once in a while. A lot of people watch Nascar purely to see wrecks or fistfights. Cage fighting is very popular right now. At one point in the past, it was policy for public executions to take place. I mean, not so much here in the United States but it was huge in Europe for a bit. People would show up like it was the fucking movies or something, grab a slushy and Sno-Caps and find a good seat. Seeing beheadings were like silly bands and beanie babies to these people. The Romans had a whole tournaments of people killing each other. Being stuck at home on a saturday when the gladiatorial fights were going on was the worst! Not just Americans but powerful countries with happy citizens like to see violence. So don't judge. It's just instinct.

So once we heard that there was live video of your white pickup truck being chased by five cop cars and two helicopters, my dad and I were giddy with anticipation. Through the television, we were electric vultures circling until the first smell of blood would throw our senses into a frenzy.

The worthless anchor guy had no information at all. We didn't know why you were running for the police, only that you were... and at an incredibly slow pace. Even at that speed, the cops couldn't do anything but follow because you had not done anything too illegal to warrant crazy-driving maneuvers. Yet. We speculated that you were some old woman who ran over a group of school children but you didn't know you did because of your 95-year-old dulled senses and your cataracts that had effectively turned your eyeballs into slimy crystals. So perhaps you had no idea that Dallas' finest were behind you. But we tossed this out because it sounded ridiculous. Plausible, but ridiculous.

Your speed seemed like you were creating a satire of all other car chases before you. You wanted to show your audience that you had the police by the balls, that you were in complete control of your world. That was a cool thought for a while and I want to thank you for that thought but something tells me that you had no intentions of this. I have no idea what was going through your mind other than the probability of getting raped in prison. Plus, driving like someone's grandparents on the way to bingo isn't really good television so my excitement for this died down quickly.

The channel eventually went back to their routine fear injections and told us that if we wanted to continue to watch, we could get live, continuous footage on the website. So we turned off the tv and went online. I grabbed a popsicle from the freezer while the laptop booted up. It was one of the last ones left. It was orange. I had already eaten all of the Bomb Pops fairly quickly and then moved on to the remaining hidden Flavor-Ice tubes that had roasted in the freezer for a month or so. Now it was time to move back to the simple orange popsicle. No horrible joke on the stick, no logo on the wrapper. It was the best popsicle of the hundreds throughout the summer. Perhaps the tazer anticipation electrocuted the air in the kitchen.

My sister joined my dad and I on the couch. As we watched you meander through the surprisingly empty Texas streets, my puppy attacked us for the popsicle because for some reason, he really likes frozen things. This works out well because this means our fridge produces dog treat at the touch of a button. I wish I could get that excited about ice cubs like he does. Anyway, there was absolutely no one on your side of the road and you managed to safely glide through every intersection you encountered. But your speed was beginning to kill my patience. Car chase music could have helped us both. The Budos Band is a good choice. Remember that for next time, that is if you ever make it out of jail for your soon-to-come finale.

Because there was no audio, we still had no clue why you were running. I thought maybe you could have been another crazy astronaut but then realized that you were in Dallas, not Houston. But then I started to think more along the lines of NASA and how people there don't go crazy, specifically the people who study dark matter. This is just the way my brain works. I've written papers about dark matter before and know that it composes a vast majority of outer space but no one has any fucking idea what it is and no one is anywhere near discovering that. That must be so discouraging for those scientists. To go home every single day with nothing to show for it. Sure, the paycheck may be cool but it must be defeating to make no progress. A dark matter researcher would be bound to do something crazy or illegal eventually. That was when the puppy finally grabbed my popsicle and I snapped out of this odd, internal and somewhat stupid rant. It turns out that all you did was steal that car and you may have robbed a bank or two with a knife. Then I laughed because somewhere, someone was watching the news saying, "Hey, that's my fucking truck!"

We kept watching, the house phone began to ring, and things got interesting. My dad got up to get the phone, my mom came down already on her cell phone, and you began to drive around in a suspiciously large parking lot. My phone rang. It was my friend Tim, just to sing part of the theme song to "Goldfinger" but it turns out that he was watching you, too. We hung up, my mom hung up, and you began to scheme. We watched. You picked up some speed and by the time we saw you smash through the fence, we all were cheering because you had done the dumbest or most liberating thing you had done in your life. You were driving onto Love Field's runways, an international airport. In a matter of a second, you turned community service on the side of the highway into water-boarding at Guantanamo Bay.

Well, maybe not that extreme but you don't fuck with airports and expect to get off easy.

This is the heart of my dilemma. Driving in a big, open, enclosed, concrete field has major disadvantages. One of of which is that cops are going to come after you at all angles, which they did. When you entered the runways, you gave away your freedom. You passed the control to the authorities. You were giving up and because you didn't really think about it, you will now end up with a severely harsher punishment. You gave the middle finger to our country's founders. "Fuck my freedom" you said, as the cops dragged you out of the truck and into your jail cell.

This is what I thought at first until I thought about it a little more. Perhaps it is the exact opposite. Your freedom exceeds everyone else's in that no law can restrict you from doing what you want. Paper philosophies mean nothing in comparison to the beating heart in your chest. Most people spend their lives saying they live free but only exercise it small, lethargic spurts. You got the camera's attention and lit the fuse of your destiny in less than an hour. When you were driving, you weren't running from the cops. You were expecting everyone else to hot-wire the closest car and follow you down the highway, flying-v formation, windows down and stereos blasting, passengers screaming with tears of joy from their sunroofs. A parade of the liberated driving towards the coast, where upon arrival, everyone would rejoice and live the rest of their lives in happiness.

But you just stole a car. And maybe robbed a bank. A renegade without context. Rebellion in mute. And now your freedom is gone.

I shut the laptop and my family and I met my grandmother for dinner at a barbecue place. I drove separately because I was meeting some friends afterwards. We had conversations about why they don't make strollers for people all ages, my sister's recent auditions, my journey back for my last year as an undergraduate student, stealing salt and pepper shakers, gambling, popsicles and sneaky puppies. On the way to my friends', I put on the perfect summer playlist that is composed of four albums:
"Paul's Boutique" by the Beastie Boys, "St. Elsewhere" by Gnarls Barkley, "Prolonging the Magic" by Cake, and "Long Tall Weekend" by They Might Be Giants.

So you have thoroughly confused me in regards to what the hell you did and why you did it. But you taught me to enjoy my freedom regardless of what level it is at because we never know when it will all end. So thank you. Don't drop the soap.

Sincerely,
Anthony