As Luck Would Have It (29 page)

It was fun being there with him, laughing hysterically at my aunt’s expense, the entire summer vacation in front of us.  These would be better days for me I thought, with time now on my side, having inserted itself and pushed back the bad memories a little bit.  I looked at him giggling and bouncing up and down on the bed, his reddish hair flying around directionless.  I wondered what it had really been like for him; he’d been there for me so many times, every day since the accident.  How was he processing all of it and how had the events disrupted his own life?

He must have noticed my expression and that I had suddenly became more serious.  What are you thinking about, Clifford?  How to possibly explain what I was thinking about, the things I wanted to ask him but never did; will you miss going to camp this summer, what about that guy from
Minnesota
who you like that goes every year, do you think about him?  Do you want to watch Billie play baseball this summer; don’t you think he is gay?  Do you think Christian knows you had a huge crush on him?  If he liked you, would you do it with him?  What’s on your mind Clifford, you can tell me.  OK, I will; is it really hard being gay?  It’s no big deal really.  But what does it feel like?  It feels the same as it does for y
ou, except with guys not girls, why, do you think it’s wrong, do you want me to change?  Of course not; I’m OK with it, you know that.  Thanks Clifford, you are the best friend in the world.  At times Joseph might be prone to exaggeration, but I wasn’t about to argue with him on that one, so I just smiled instead and said let’s get over to my house and see if Aunt Doreen has taken her pills.

The mistake we made was a familiar one that we all experience; that is we make assumptions that are often misguided and unfair based on either prejudices or preconceived notions.  While my aunt didn’t immediately jump on the idea of me getting a drivers license, she didn’t overreact or dismiss it either.  She seemed to ponder it for awhile,
and then
said that we could discuss it with Uncle Jack that evening, but it seemed to her that it might be good if I learned to drive.  Of course there was only one car for the three of us, so I shouldn’t expect to take it out too often, certainly I would not be able to drive it to school most days since Jack would be needing it to get to work.  But maybe we could talk to him about getting a second car, something used perhaps and not too expensive, but still sporty enough that neither of us would be embarrassed driving
around with our friends in.  Yes, the idea of a second car had come up before, but she had not felt the particular need to have one just for her to use for shopping and such, but she was now working part time, so we would talk to my uncle later about it.  Another car might make sense, she thought, that way both of us would be a little more independent and not have to depend on Jack to chauffer us everywhere.  Joseph and I just starred at her; he giggled a little bit, the notebook pages we’d written out stuffed needlessly in his jeans pocket. 
Tell me Joseph, w
hat did Edna and Harold have to say about driving school
?

Having convinced Doreen without even the slightest argument, we were both sure that his parents would be on board as well.  Even considering what we have just learned about making ill-advised assumptions, I was still surprised
when
Joseph’s parents told him that they would need to think this through carefully, that we weren’t even 16 yet; was Joseph mature enough to be given such a big responsibility?  Eventually, they were to agree, particularly when Joseph’s brother Richard intervened on
our
behalf and reminded Mr. and Mrs. Klein that he got his license when he turned 16 three years ago
,
and had never been in an accident or even been pulled over for speeding. 
Listen you eggheads, don’t screw this up and run over her flower beds or they’ll never let you borrow the car.

Unbelievably, on the very first day of driving school, our teacher announced that half of us would get to actually take a car on the road.  Our class consisted of 18 students broken down into six groups of three to a car.  We would al
ternate accordingly between time spen
t
driving and classroom lectures.  The teacher called off the names assigned to each car, and my luck being what it is, Joseph and I were assigned to the same one, a 1975 Plymouth
Fury
.  The third student in our group was a mousy girl named Helen, who chewed bubble gum constantly and irritated the rest of us in the
ca
r, including our instruct
or
, Mr. Burns.  During the regular school term, Mr. Burns taught shop class and coached the Jr. Varsity basketball team, which meant he wasn’t really a teacher at all.
It was abundantly clear that he would have much preferred spending his summers away from the school, and even further away from us, but he must have needed the money, or maybe his wife had threatened to leave him if he didn’t get his ass both out of the house and out of her hair.

Let’s go, Klein, you’re first, get in and buckle your seat belts.  Luckily, Mr. Klein had the foresight to anticipate such an event, as well as the patience that must have been required to take us out in the Mustang twice before driving school started,
so you can get the
feel of things,
he said.
Joseph had gotten the feel of things by nearly knocking down a light pole in the Montgomery Ward parking lot where we went to practice those early Sunday mornings before they opened.  Now, he was going to actually drive on a real street, with no preliminary instructions, no cones in the school parking lot to run into in lieu of another vehicle, or God forbid, some innocent kid on a bike.

Helen and I got in the back seat and once Joseph had
f
ollowed Mr. Burns’ orders for making sure the mirrors were correctly adjust for proper
visibility;
he turned the key and started up the Plymouth’s big V-8 engine.  This should be good, I thought, and I said a little silent prayer hoping my luck was somewhere in the car with us and that Joseph would be careful and not mess this up.  He drove around the side streets slowly, signaling every turn and checking his mirrors frequently, as Mr. Burns barked out orders and Helen popped her gum.  At one intersection, Joseph started to roll through it without coming to a complete stop first and our instruct
or
cursed at him and hit the extra brake pedal on the passenger side so hard that it jolted the three of us.  What are you, a girl Klein?  If only he knew.  Next up was Helen, who asked lots of questions in a nasally sounding voice but seemed to have driven before and had no problem negotiating the quiet neighborhood’s streets. 
She accelerated smoothly and her turns were near perfect.  Not bad, Helen, maybe you can teach Klein a few things before next class.

When it was finally my turn, Mr. Burns decided that he had seen enough of the Sawgrass
North
subdivision and said that I should proceed to cross Eisenhower Avenue to get into the adjacent section of prefab houses that looked exactly the same as the ones we had been driving through.  Eisenhower Avenue was a four lane road with a decent flow of cars, but no signal for me to wait at until the green light would have otherwise come on to make the wave of traffic part
on both sides of me
like the Red Sea.  I waited at the stop sign, but given the fact that I had never attempted such a maneuver, I hesitated before attempting to shoot across.  Each time things started to look clear enough on my left, another car was approaching from my right, or else one would turn from the street across the way.  What are you waiting for Andre
w
s, a bus?

I started to move out, but just then I did see a bus coming from on my right about 150 feet away at what seemed to be a pretty good clip.  I stopped with the car partially blocking the road and waited for it pass, but it was going slower than I had estimated, a lot slower actually, but by the time I realized that, it was too late to go in front of it.  Meanwhile a car was approaching from my left and bearing down on us.  I contemplated backing up, but thought better of it given my lack of expertise.  Luckily, the driver of the car started slowing, but he blasted his horn right when
his
front end was up close to my open
side
window, which shook me to the
bones.  I looked over and he gave me the finger, while Mr. Burns screamed at me, go would you, damn it!  I punched the accelerator, just making it across the remaining lanes behind the bus and in front of another car that was speeding towards us.  You’re more of a girl than Klein, you know that Andrews?  So much for my first day of driving school; I’d never get my license at this rate.

****

The vivid dreams and the dreaded nightmares
showed no interest in leaving me alone.
  Sometimes, they were nothing more than sudden flashes of something from the past that would sneak into my
semi-consciousness and disrupt
my only moments of true peacefulness. 
An image of us driving in the Dodge or my mother making pancakes on a Sunday morning, something often not unpleasant, but still enough to bring me back to the full awareness that I was frightfully alone.  Then I would lay there with such a longing to be with them again, crying softly and praying to whoever
would
listen that I might just be allowed to fall back to sleep again. 
My
prayers were seldom
heard
;
once aroused from sleep and reminded of them yet again, it seemed that
providence would only
see to my suffering, unconcerned with alleviating it.

I’d close my eyes and concentrate as hard as I could on sleep, my only safe place to
escape
. 
I would try as much as possible to think of anything
but mom and dad
;
a lake, a breeze, a blank white screen, the sound of my breathing, whatever could help my afflicted brain forget for at least a few minutes, and then if luck would see to it, let me drift off again into a more peaceful, although temporary
world
. 
It rarely worked very well and even when fatigue set in and I started to drift off, inevitably, a new and much worse nightmare would
be waiting for the opportunity to
show up and remind me of how miserable my life could be.

But learning to drive might prove to be a good distraction and wh
en we left off
last,
I had nearly been
hit
broadside by a big sedan, driven by an even bigger asshole, who might have permanently damaged my self-confidence as a new driver, not to mention my body, merely because he was in a hurry and could not be bothered giving a novice the slightest
break
.  It’s not as if the “Student Driver” signs adorning the cars we drove were
not
conspicuous enough, no, let’s see instead if we can scare the shit out of the kid and teach him the most valuable lesson to be learned behind the wheel, that being never show any courtesy to your fellow motorist because the favor will not likely be returned.

If Joseph and Helen were rattled by the incident, they didn’t show it at all.  Mr. Burns was so furious with me that he let the two of them take turns at the wheel for a second round while I sulked in the back seat.  Neither of them made any near-fatal mistakes and Helen even finished the day’s session by parallel parking the big Plymouth nicely between two orange cones strategically placed in the parking lot
in front of
the school.  God, here I was upstage
d
right off the ba
t
by a girl, and well how do I say this, by a somewhat girlie boy.  But he sure was impressed with himself while we walked home, strutting around and pretending to practice his parking technique with an invisible
steering
wheel and side view mirrors.  Good job there Joseph was all I said, even if I was a little bit pissed off at him for not screwing
it
up.

Since we were to alternate between actual driving and classroom lectures, the next day we showed up at 9:00 AM for the latter.  Helen had taken a liking to Joseph and sat with us, commenting on my near accident and popping her gum while she tried to flirt with him.  My initial dislike for her had worn off considerably and I felt a little sorry for her not only because she appeared to have no other friends, but also because of the losing proposition that Joseph presented.  Either she failed to notice that somewhat obvious fact, or maybe she just didn’t care.  She brought out a big pack of bubble gum and passed it around to everyone sitting near us, and soon there was a small concerto of chewing and popping sounds coming from the back of the classroom.  I watched Helen with a slight degree of amazement; here was this
somewhat
plain looking teenager absorbed in what was going on, clearly intelligent, seemingly ready for whatever insults and indignities high school might throw her way, probably immune to them after three years of middle school.  I was about to ask her if she wanted to go to the movies with us later on when the sullen Mr. Burns appeared, slamming his text book on the desk and calling us to order.

If the tenth grade had presented us with fewer ignominious moments, today was to be an exception to the rule as we were about to discover.  Our teacher had brought with him to class a rather obscene-looking large brimmed bonnet, something out of the 1950s I would guess
, and decorated around the top with garish ribbons and a hideous floral pattern.  I gave Joseph that what’s going on look and he just shrugged, while Helen looked on amused by everything
around us.
  Before he started his talk on the keys to defensive driving, Mr. Burns started out by
telling us
that above all else, the worst thing
anyone could do
was to drive like a sissy.  This could never be overstated and to make it absolutely certain that we understood perfectly, each day at the start of class, the
hat
would be awarded to the boy who drove most like a girl the previous day.  The not
-
so
-
lucky winner would
have
to wear
it th
rough
out the 50 minute lecture.