The Caveman
Copyright© 2016 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 26
“Wish me luck,” I say lightly. I wish I were feeling lucky, in fact I’m as nervous as a cat.
So far I haven’t done anything illegal. Just farting around making a fake driver’s license on the system doesn’t count, I tell myself, not so long as that’s all I do.
Now I’m about to embark on my life of crime. Damn, I’ve never done anything illegal before. Well, a few tokes of weed, a couple of experiments with coke, some underage drinking, but none of that really counts, everybody does it. Hell, these days most of that doesn’t even disqualify you from being President, not even when you admit it right out there in public.
But this shit’s serious. I’m going to take my fake driver’s license and try to get a real birth certificate with it. Never mind disbarment, they send you to jail for that.
Is that what’ll happen to me? Am I going to wind up in for Christ’s sake Guantanamo with all those “enemy combatants,” rotting for years while they think up new and creative ways to keep me for just about ever?
Well, fuck it, I’m going to do it anyway. It’s for Hugo. Jimmy. No, Hugo, let’s keep “Jimmy” for outsiders.
I stop to gas up at the first station I see; I’m not going anywhere near the other place again. I even detour several blocks to avoid passing it when I get to town. But my trip is uneventful, and I find the post office and go buy a money order in happy anonymity.
To fill it out I supercautiously go back to the car and privacy. I know it’s silly, but why risk people looking over your shoulder? I’m still not illegal, but it’s getting close. I paste on the stamps and walk over to the mailbox and now the deed is done; I’m a lawbreaker.
It’s all a little anticlimactic; I don’t feel any different. In fact, I guess I’m not; all I’m thinking about now is that I’d better get a shopping done, we’re running low on stuff again.
I wonder how Hugo’s doing. It’s the first time he’s been all by himself up there. But he’ll be OK, he’s come a long way. A really phenomenally long way, given that it’s been less than two full months.
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