I believe in ghosts. I have a few I speak with often. My late brother Phil is one of them. He comes to me and through me. We grew up as a “package deal”. When you got one, you got us both. 15 months apart in age, Irish twins. We gave lip to some. Woodside, Queens, kids. WTF.
On April 23, 1996, I got mail telling me my driver’s license was suspended by the State of New York for an accident I was in in 1980. Since New York suspended my driving privileges, the State of Oregon, where I had been living since July 1979, joined in on the fun and suspended me, too. I was innocent. I did nothing wrong. I wasn’t even there then.
My brother Phil was in an automobile accident in Queens, New York. Having a criminal record and perhaps an outstanding warrant or two, he couldn’t be himself to the police at the scene of an accident he was responsible for while behind the wheel of a car that wasn’t his. So, he was me.
“Who are you?” asked the officer on the scene.
“I’m Danny Curran,” said brother Phil convincingly.
“Can I see some ID?”
“I left my wallet at home,” said Phil convincingly enough.
The police checked Phil’s claim to be who he said he was, without any form of ID. Phil knew or believed that by being me, he could get away clean, and he did. He didn’t have a driver’s license to show anyway. He was, I was, cited with four violations. The car was impounded at the scene due to the severe damage to the vehicle he was driving and the accident he was responsible for, according to the paperwork I received from the State of New York. Brother Phil walked home from the accident scene, summonses in hand. He surely threw them away at first instance. He escaped again, and there was no need to keep the evidence of a second crime, lying as to who he really was.
I smiled when I received the notice of driving suspension from both the state of Oregon and the state of New York. I felt Phil was visiting me. I was never mad at what Phil did; besides, it happened in 1980, and it was now 1996, and he had since passed. And my heart still ached, so there was no room for anything but love. It was a pain in the ass to resolve.
After approximately 30 phone calls to the State of New York in Albany, New York, I was able to prove I was not in Queens, New York, at the time of the accident. I was finally cleared of any wrongdoing with this statement from a member of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles: “Brothers do this to brothers all the time.”
Brotherhood.
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