At the tender (ha!) age of 16 I bought a car. I’d already had a few albeit low-wage jobs by this time. Since I was still living at home I could easily save cash, though this was no luxury vehicle. I paid $350 for it. I was probably robbed, but it was my wondrous cerulean freedom machine. An almost neon blue Karmann Ghia that was older than myself.

Let’s be clear here. I didn’t have a license. I didn’t even have a learner’s permit. I’d never taken driver’s ed. Poppie (my dad) had briefly showed me how to shift, work the clutch & choke. A friend was decent enough to risk her life letting me practice in the local marina parking lot. That faced the water. Where we could end up. I have never had a license. But that didn’t stop me back in those indestructible years.

In that paleolithic age proof of insurance wasn’t mandatory. & the fine for driving without a valid license was a mere $45. I know because I paid that fine a number of times. When the same cop pulled me over twice in one week (the 1st was for a busted taillight, the 2nd because he knew I didn’t have a license. The car was that noticeable), I simply changed my route to work. Done!

My parents weren’t thrilled with my life of crime, but I’m the youngest of six, born when they were in their 40s. They were tired. I was a handful & a half, headstrong & hormone-crazed. Many years later one shrink would diagnose me with bipolar disorder, but that was only one diagnosis of many. Suffice it to say I believe every person the world over is on some spectrum or other. None of us are perfectly sane.

Around 18 months of driving-while-unlicensed (DWU, short for DWOOPS! which is exactly what a quick burst of siren sounds like), I landed a job working the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). At this time it was housed at the Moore Egyptian Theater, on 2nd & Virginia in downtown Seattle. Night parking in the area was pretty great & I often got a spot right across the street from the entrance. I could look out the plate glass doors & see my beautiful naughty vehicle while I worked. Actually, the Ghia was wholly innocent. I was the naughty one, but that’s just semantics.

One night Dan & Darryl (the guys who started SIFF) had some festival gala to attend, so they left me to do the official closing things. I had to stick around for a call to report the day’s totals (attendance per film, the gross take, whatever) that was going to come in within the hour. I sat in the box office without a book to engage me (never again!), so I poked through a bunch of promotional whatnot trying not to be bored to sleep. The box office was adjacent to the entrance, a row of several glass doors in kinda skimpy wood frames– the original 1907 construction.

About 25 minutes into my film promo stupor, I hear an obviously drunken argument coming my way. A woman & man (I could only hear them, the box office window was sealed with a giant board) stopped in front of the theater to have it out. It escalated, something to do with jealousy & accusations of cheating (how dull!), then sounds of a struggle followed by CRASH! & tinkle, tinkle.

Stunned, I sat frozen for a moment behind the box office door, which was closed because who wants to have a huge, creepy dark lobby to one’s back? I heard some footsteps scuffle away. The phone rang & I had a heart attack. Not really, but close enough. I answered, blathered out some numbers, then realized I had to report this… assault? vandalism? possible homicide? I wasn’t going to open that door & look. This was years before I suspected myself of being a corpse magnet, but still.

The police came (they sent 4 cars!) & I had to step outta the office to let them in. I turned on a few lights to check for a body, & greeted the law. The officers were incredulous that this feral-looking waif was minding the store way past midnight. The heads of SIFF unreachable (this was B.C., before cellphones), & the cops only had little ol’ me to interview. Thankfully there was no body, so the incident wasn’t as serious. They still made me tell the story repeatedly, as if I was an unreliable witness.

The whole ordeal was wrapping up when one of the cruisers returned to the scene, two perps in back. They’d been picked up only a short distance away. Still arguing. The guy had glass embedded in his jacket. I wondered how to secure the door now, but have since blanked on how this was achieved. Free-standing cardboard movie promos perhaps? I can’t really say. What I vividly recall is an officer asking me if I had a way home & my blurting out “Oh, my car’s right across the street there.” Now I’m instantly hoping that when I showed him my ID earlier he’d forgotten it was not, in point of fact, a driver’s license.