Golf Clap
DOCTOR: What brings you here today?
EGO: They say I'm headed for a dead end.
DOCTOR: A dead end. Tell me more about that.
EGO: Nobody will ride shotgun with me anymore.
DOCTOR: Nobody. That must feel... isolating.
EGO: I'm only a badass behind the wheel.
DOCTOR: I hear you saying you feel most powerful — most yourself — behind the wheel.
EGO: It's not my first car crash. I forget how many times I've crashed.
DOCTOR: The number escapes you. Interesting. Let's go back — as far back as you can. What do you remember first?
EGO: It was a bicycle. A Stingray. I wasn't looking where I was going and ran into a parked car.
DOCTOR: A parked car.
EGO: It hurt.
DOCTOR: Go on.
EGO: The first time I actually crashed a car — it was my dad's stick shift. Two-seater. I was just sitting in the driver's seat, pretending to drive. I pushed in the clutch pedal and it rolled into the garage door. Dad forgot the emergency brake. He left it in first gear.
DOCTOR: You were pretending to drive — and the car moved anyway.
EGO: I told him what I did and he just laughed. Said "Son, you'll get your own car soon enough."
DOCTOR: He laughed. He didn't punish you.
EGO: No.
DOCTOR: How did that feel?
EGO: Like it was going to be okay. Like cars were... forgiving.
DOCTOR: Cars were forgiving. I want to come back to that. Please continue.
EGO: When I was a teenager, riding with buddies — you know how kids are — we were drinking some. Had some close ones. Like the time my buddy Henry drove his '66 GTO between two trees and just... stopped there. Perfectly. Laughing hysterically. Didn't damage the car. Didn't hurt anybody.
DOCTOR: He laughed.
EGO: They say God protects drunks.
DOCTOR: You've heard that said.
EGO: More than once.
DOCTOR: And you believed it.
EGO: I had reason to.
DOCTOR: Go on.
EGO: When I got my first car — a little sporty job, European — I was waiting at a stop to enter the freeway ramp. Looking over my left shoulder. And I just... rolled slowly into the car ahead of me.
DOCTOR: Slowly.
EGO: The driver got out. Looked at both cars. No damage. Got back in and drove away.
DOCTOR: He simply... drove away.
EGO: But it shook me up. Because I realized — there were times I wasn't paying attention.
DOCTOR: Times.
EGO: (pause) Yes.
DOCTOR: And yet you continued to drive.
EGO: You have to have a car.
DOCTOR: We'll come back to that. Please — go on.
EGO: Another time — a carload of buddies. No drinking, just joyriding. Radio loud. The driver — Steve — started fiddling with the radio. Wasn't watching the road. Looked up, swerved, and clipped a stopped car at the last minute. Minor damage to both.
DOCTOR: Steve was distracted.
EGO: After we got out of there, Steve asked why I didn't say anything — I was riding in the front seat.
DOCTOR: And what did you say?
EGO: I said — "I thought you were just playing chicken, Steve."
DOCTOR: You thought it was a game.
EGO: He gave me a hard look. Said "Next time — say something."
DOCTOR: Next time. There was an assumption of a next time.
EGO: With Steve, sure.
DOCTOR: Tell me more about Steve.
EGO: He threw his dad's Cadillac into park rolling down the street at 35 miles an hour. I was riding. Watched him do it.
DOCTOR: (long pause) Into park. At 35 miles an hour.
EGO: Didn't damage the car. Those Cadillacs were built back then.
DOCTOR: The car absorbed it.
EGO: The engine just stopped and we rolled to a stop. Steve looked at me, turned the ignition, and it started right up.
DOCTOR: Like nothing happened.
EGO: (pause) Maybe.
DOCTOR: Go on.
EGO: I still shudder thinking about the time I drove my dad's Cadillac — with a few friends in the car — 120 miles an hour on the freeway. At rush hour.
DOCTOR: One hundred and twenty miles an hour. At rush hour. With friends in the car.
EGO: Whenever I think about it I thank God I lived to tell about it.
DOCTOR: You thank God.
EGO: Still do.
DOCTOR: And yet — at the time — you were going 120 miles an hour.
EGO: (long pause) Yes.
DOCTOR: I'm noticing a pattern — would you say you noticed it then?
EGO: I'm noticing you noticing it.
DOCTOR: (slight pause) Go on.
EGO: My first actual crash — I was helping friends move. Driving a small van. We got caught in the tailwind of an eighteen-wheeler. Snowy road conditions. Hit the brakes. Swerved 180 degrees. Skidded onto the shoulder. Flipped onto its side.
DOCTOR: Flipped.
EGO: Nobody was hurt. The eighteen-wheeler just drove on like it was nothing.
DOCTOR: Like it was nothing.
EGO: Like we were nothing.
DOCTOR: That must have felt —
EGO: Invisible. We were invisible to that driver.
DOCTOR: And how does that connect — if at all — to what happened next?
EGO: (long pause) I don't know.
DOCTOR: Take your time.
EGO: Late at night. Dark highway. I was waiting at a crossing. Saw an eighteen-wheeler coming. And I don't know — I was thinking about my dad's sports car. The garage door. How I just let out the clutch and it rolled.
DOCTOR: The memory came to you — right there — at the crossing.
EGO: And I just... dropped the clutch. The car lurched into the path of the truck.
DOCTOR: (very quietly) You drove into a moving vehicle.
EGO: The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground. Police lights. Ambulance lights. Faces looking down at me. They said — "You're going to the emergency room."
DOCTOR: Faces looking down. Lights flashing. How did that feel?
EGO: Like being allowed to live.
DOCTOR: (pause) Like being allowed to live.
EGO: At the emergency room I had a surge of adrenaline. Sat up on the gurney. Said "I've got to get out of here."
DOCTOR: You wanted to leave.
EGO: They said it was just the aftershock. Made me lay back down.
DOCTOR: They reassured you.
EGO: While they were picking glass out of my hand — I smashed the windshield on impact — I heard shouting from another part of the ward.
DOCTOR: Shouting.
EGO: I asked the physician what they were shouting about. He said — "I don't hear anything."
DOCTOR: He said he didn't hear anything.
EGO: And I began to wonder — if maybe I wasn't right in the head.
DOCTOR: You began to wonder.
EGO: After I recovered I swore I'd never drive again.
DOCTOR: You swore.
EGO: But you know — you've got to have a car.
DOCTOR: (very long pause)
You've told me about a bicycle. A parked car. A garage door. A GTO between two trees. A freeway ramp. A carload of friends. A Cadillac at 120 miles an hour. A van in the snow. And a dark crossing — late at night — where a memory surfaced at precisely the wrong moment. Or perhaps — precisely the right one.
EGO: What do you mean?
DOCTOR: What you said.
EGO: Said what?
DOCTOR: "Unfinished business."
EGO: (silence)
DOCTOR: I think that's a good place to stop for today.
EGO: That's it?
DOCTOR: You've given me — and yourself — quite a lot to sit with.
EGO: You haven't told me anything.
DOCTOR: (standing, closing notebook) No.
EGO: Then what good are you?
DOCTOR: (at the door, quietly) You drove here today.
EGO: (pause) Yes.
DOCTOR: Same time next week?