by Bruce Ingram
After we finished our milkshakes, we went walking for several blocks up and down in front of the Dairy Queen. Luke said that his granddaddy said that when he got his driver’s permit on March 15, he would take me out to dinner someplace… that we would finally have “a big time date.” Luke then said something really unbelievable, that he had never eaten at a “sit down” restaurant before, and he would like to have that experience. I know that his family is poor, just like mine, but it was really the first time that I realized that his family didn’t even have the things that we have or done the things we’ve done.
I told him I didn’t care about us going to expensive places, that being with him was all I wanted. Then we kissed for the longest time. I don’t care what happened at the Homecoming dance. I’m sure lots of kids had a good time. But I also really, really believe that nobody there had a better time than I did or was with a person so special.
Wheels
Chapter Twenty-One: Luke
When Ms. Hawk started off class on Monday about how we were going to have a discussion on our next topic for a paper, I was excited. I like to write and I think that’s what I do best in school. But when she said we were all going to write about our experiences on learning how to drive, I thought of Mom and the last time we really did something together was when she took me driving. That was when she was just starting to get sick, which made me really depressed.
Then I thought about Dad cursing at me the only time or two he did take me driving, and I tried to force those thoughts out of my head. I don’t want to think of him… at all. At first when I went to live with Granddaddy, he and I both worried that Dad was going to try to take me back to his house - that’s why Granddaddy changed the locks. But Dad never even came by, he didn’t even call to see if I was really at his house. I sort of am glad that Dad didn’t check on me or call. That means, he and I are done with each other forever, I guess …I hope.
Ms. Hawk kept calling on people for them to tell about their driving screw-ups. Mary told about the time she saw a dog run across the street in front of her, and Mary tried to slam on the brakes, but instead hit the gas pedal and almost hit the dog. Missing the dog, she ran into a parked car. Everybody laughed at that. Allen said he hit a stone wall in his driveway when he was backing out. Yeah, I saw the dent on his dad’s car that he put there.
Paige told about the first time she and her dad went driving together and she was pulled over by a police car. She was driving like 15 in a 35 mph zone, and the cop thought something was wrong with her car. The thing that everybody laughed at was that Paige said she thought she was going really fast and was speeding - Paige said she felt like the car was about to go out of control as it was and the cop wanted her to go faster. Paige said she got so flustered that she had to get out of the driver’s seat and let her dad drive her back home.
Granddaddy and I have been driving a lot together in his Ford F-150 that he’s had for a long time, and I have been taking the usual class with one of those driving schools guys. I haven’t been having any problems. The first time I drove was when I was twelve. Mom and Dad went off to a car race, and Dad told me while they were gone to clean up two cars he had just bought. He had been showing me how to back up one car and then drive the next car into position so that I could reach the hose and later the extension so I could vacuum the second car. So I was pretty comfortable with the whole backing up and driving up thing, and when I got into the second car, I just decided to take it on a spin around the block. It was early on a Sunday morning and nobody was out, so I decided to take it on a couple more spins around a few more blocks. No big deal. Ever since, I’ve been really comfortable driving a car, except when Dad was with me and yelling his lungs out. I know now that I shouldn’t have been driving so young. I was just a kid then.
But the closer Ms. Hawk got to calling on me, the more nervous I got. I was afraid I would tear up if I had to talk about Mom and me driving, and I didn’t want to talk about Dad and me doing anything and I sure as heck didn’t want to talk about breaking the law driving when I was younger. And I got like this panic attack, and when Ms. Hawk called on Mia and I knew she was going to call on me next, I raised my hand and said I needed to go to the nurse. Or did I ask to go to guidance?
Anyway, I got permission to leave the room and went to guidance to talk to Ms. Whitney, my guidance counselor, but she had like this long line of kids waiting to see her. From the looks on their faces, they were all having a bad morning just like I was. Why can’t the school have more guidance counselors, doesn’t somebody, can’t somebody realize a lot of us are in pain?
I waited in line for about 10 minutes, and the line was just as long when I decided to leave as it was when I got there. By that time, I had gotten my nerves under control and had tried to force my sad thoughts about Mom and my angry thoughts about Dad out of my head. I also figured that Ms. Hawk had finished going around the room by then anyway.
I got the guidance secretary to sign a note sending me back to class, and I got another panic attack when I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to have been at the nurse or guidance? When I got back in the room and gave Ms. Hawk the note, she said to see her after class. Yep, she must have thought I lied to her, but I really didn’t. I just wanted out of the room for a second.
When I went to her after class, she didn’t even ask about the note. She asked if I wanted to write about something other than driving, and I said, “Oh, gosh, yes.” She sort of laughed at that and said, “Why don’t you write about the time last year when you killed your first deer?” She remembered me telling her about that when I was in her ninth grade class. I told her that would be freaking awesome, but I didn’t use the word freaking of course. Anyway, that’s what I’m going to write about. I’ve already figured out the title, “The Time Granddaddy and I Went Deer Hunting.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Elly
Sunday after church, Mom and I decided to go driving out in the country. Dad and my brothers were watching football, which Mom and I think is just about the most boring sport ever, so she said, “Let’s get out of here,” and I was all over that. She said she wanted me to get some practice driving faster because the fastest I’ve ever gone is 35 around town.
Once we got outside the city limits, the speed limit went up to 55, but Mom said I didn’t have to drive that fast right away, especially if I wasn’t comfortable doing it. When I finally got Mom’s car up to 45, it just felt like I was going way too fast and it was a little scary. Like, what would happen if I sneezed or something or some cow was in the road or a deer ran across. I could lose control of the whole thing. So I went back down to 40 and felt better about the speed thing. People kept coming up on my back bumper which made me really nervous, and one man was so rude that he honked at me like three times in a second. Mom said, “Don’t pay that jerk any mind, just keep going. You’re doing fine.” That made me feel better.
Later, I got more and more confident, and before I knew it, I was all the way up to 50! I was feeling pretty cocky about the whole thing, I’ve got to say. But when I was up that high, one time I took a quick glance over at Mom, and she was like pressing her left foot into the carpet and had this worried look on her face, so I thought I had better back off on the gas a little.
When we got back to town, Mom said, “Let’s go shopping at the mall. You’ve lost more weight, haven’t you? So have I, let’s buy ourselves some new outfits.” It’s true, we’ve lost weight from working out most mornings before school. I’m now down 16 pounds, so I only want to lose eight more and Mom said she’s “dropped six.” Dad has noticed, too, she said, laughing.
We went looking for skirts, and I put one on that was about two inches above my knees, and I kept looking at Mom to see if she felt it was too short or if she thought my legs were still too big, and she just said, “It looks good on you, let’s buy it.” And we did. It’s the first time since I was like in elementary school that I’ve worn a skirt or dress this short. I’m feeling a lot better about m
yself these days.
On our way out of the mall, we passed by this ice cream parlor, and Mom and I were both looking inside at the people eating there and finally she said, “Oh, why not, we need to reward ourselves. We’ll work out an extra 15 minutes tomorrow morning.” So we went inside and each had a single scoop of chocolate mint chip. We had had so much fun together. While we were eating our ice cream (life is definitely better when you’re eating something chocolate), Mom asked me what I thought of Jonathan, and I said he was just “a slight upgrade” over Paul, and our relationship wasn’t ever going to amount to anything. She nodded her head at that. I think she’s pleased that I don’t have a guy that I really like in my life… that I’m not too serious about any guy.
Everything was going just perfect. I felt so close to Mom, and it was so good to have girl time with her… then I had my first accident. We were only about five blocks from our house and driving through the neighborhood next to ours. I was only driving 25 in a 25 mph zone and Mom and I were laughing about something, and I took my eyes off the road for just a second to say something to her and this stupid cat ran right out in front of me. I swerved to miss it and ran right into somebody’s mailbox. It all happened so fast. I had been going 50 mph out in the country and hadn’t had any problems all day and then I take out somebody’s mailbox and go up over the curb and into a front yard a little bit.
Mom and I got out of the car, and we saw that I had put this big bump in the front bumper and there were scratches on it, too, from where I went up over the curb I guess. I started to cry and told Mom that she should back the car back into the street and park it before we knocked on the door to report what I had done. But Mom said, “No, you’re going to back the car slowly back into the street and park it yourself, just like you would if I wasn’t here. You can do it, I have confidence in you.” I got myself together and did just like she said, and then we went to knock on the door.
The man didn’t look too happy when he opened the door. He must have seen or heard what I had done from inside. Mom said she wanted to pay him right then for the cost of my totaling his mailbox, and she ended up giving him $75.00 in cash. Later she told me she didn’t want Dad asking her what “that check for $75.00 to a strange man was for.”
With that man paid, I started worrying what Dad would say when he found out about the car. Mom thought and thought and she said these were the possibilities: We could confess to Dad about “the mailbox affair” and he would yell at both of us. We could pretend that we had no idea how the bump and scratches got on the bumper. We could tell Dad that the bump and scratches got there when we were inside the mall. Or, last, we could just wait and hope that he was too busy at work to notice and when several months passed by and he said something about the scratches, we could say something like, “Oh we told you about that, don’t you remember when Elly hit that mailbox?” Finally, we decided to go with option number four. Mom said men don’t have very good memories about some things.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Marcus
I haven’t had a particularly good week, and it started with Mom and Dad buying me a used Fiat—really, a Fiat, a used Fiat—a three-year-old used Fiat, c’mon. About the only thing worse would have been a minivan. I really think I’ve done a good job at school and everything else this year—that I’ve grown up a lot from last year. I made the A-B honor roll in high school for the first time. That sure didn’t get me much love from them. I mean my parents own a practically new BMW and a Mercedes for their personal use. They bought Joshua a new car—a Ford Mustang—when he got his license. I remember very clearly that they said that would be the car he could take away for college in a couple years. That was why the car had to be new. They’ve always favored him over me because he’s “Mr. Perfect First Male Child.”
Mom and me have been driving some with the Fiat. She picked me up after football practice several times last week and let me drive home. Caleb and Paul and some of the other guys on the team saw her do it and have been ragging me about “What’s up with the old lady car” type crap. I can’t stand it.
The other day Mom said she would let me drive the Fiat to school for some extra practice and then she would go on to work in it. I was so embarrassed to be seen in that piece of junk again that I lied and said I had to get to school early so we left 20 minutes sooner than usual. Backing out of our driveway, I ran over the curb and Mom snapped at me, so I drove right back up over the curb and went into the grass just a little bit and ended up tearing up some of Dad’s precious lawn. It had rained big time the night before and Mom yelled at me again to stop and I threw on the brakes. I ground up some more grass when I was trying to get back on the asphalt in our driveway, but the grass was so wet I ended up spinning my wheels and the next thing I knew the Fiat is stuck in a rut in the yard. What a piece of junk.
It was a good thing that Dad had already gone to the office because for sure he would have come running out of the house and yelling at the top of his lungs. I have to admit I was a little shook up at that point—I mean having an accident in your front yard is not a good way to start the day. Mom asked, “Do you want me to take over and get us out of the rut,” and I have to admit that I said yes. She said she would call a professional gardener to come fix the lawn today before Dad came home and that she wouldn’t tell Dad—that maybe he wouldn’t notice. When you have to pin your hopes for a good day on a gardener’s skills—well, what can I say?
School didn’t go any better when I got there. It was the week we were going to do skills tests in phys. ed. instead of behind the wheel stuff, and Coach Miley announced that first on the list was running 50-yard dashes. That’s my thing and nobody ever beats me in speed tests, either on the football team and, especially, in phys. ed. And Luke, Luke of all people, beat me by a tenth of a second. I know I should have won, but I wasn’t going full out.
After Luke won, Coach Miley got this wide-eyed, half crazy look and asked Luke if he had ever thought about trying out for cross country or track at the least or if he had maybe thought about trying out for the football team as a cornerback. Luke said he wasn’t interested, that he had some kind of job after school. Then Henson asked me if I would like a rematch with Luke in a 50-yard dash, and all the guys started yelling “rematch, rematch.” And crap, if Luke didn’t beat me again when we ran one-on-one. I mean, he barely edged me out, but the kid can run, I’ll give him that.
The next thing I know, Coach Miley is asking Luke if he wants to come to football practice and try a few defensive snaps as a corner. Luke says he’s not interested and Miley then, like, bribes him by saying that Luke going to practice could count as his extra credit project in class—the “extra” project we’re all supposed to do. Luke agreed to come one day next week because he has probably as much interest in doing that project as I do.
After football practice that day while Joshua was driving me home, I was complaining about Mom and Dad, Joshua having a Mustang, the Fiat thing, the phys. ed. skills thing, and Luke, and Joshua got mad and pulled over the car. He was just steaming. He told me that I’ve grown up a lot this year, but that I can still be a “whiner.”
“Look,” he said. “I earned that Mustang because Mom and Dad gave me a set of expectations: A-B honor roll every nine weeks in 9th and 10th grade, no behavior issues at school or home, and best effort in sports and life. And I met them. Can you say the same? If not, shut up!”
I started to say something, but then I realized he was right—crap, I hate it when he’s right. Then he said cornerback was a weak spot on the team and it had been both years I was on the team, that it would be good if we had somebody that could stay with me and challenge me a little. I guess he was right about that, too. After all, he’s one of the team captains and he is a leader on the team. I guess I’ve still got some growing up to do, but I’m not going to admit that to Joshua. We’ve only got two games left in the season, and we’re only at .500 and there will be no playoffs for us this year. We’ve got to start thinking about getting the
best players on the team for next year.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Mia
The other day, Mama and Poppa told me that they don’t have the money for me to take a drivers’ training course this year, so I won’t be getting my license even when I’m old enough. They said that they had been studying and studying how to afford for me to take the class, but there’s just not enough money and they’re sorry. I knew that might happen. We can only afford one car, that’s why my parents have to leave so early for work every day so that Poppa can drop Mama off before he goes to his construction job. Poppa has been letting me drive to Sunday Mass every weekend, but he said we can’t afford to take me out after school or on weekends to practice drive because of the high cost of gas. I understand, but I am disappointed.
I felt good that my parents also promised they would do everything possible to save enough money for me to take drivers’ training next year. I know they will, they always try to do their best for my sisters and me. I’m just frustrated that I have gotten to drive so little this year. I told Luke how I felt, and the next day he said he had a proposition for me. He said, “How about Granddaddy and me coming over Saturday after your father leaves for his weekend janitor’s job. Granddaddy can drop me off, and I’ll clean your hen house while you do your other chores. Then when Granddaddy comes back, if your mama says it’s alright, you can drive our truck to Granddaddy’s house, and I’ll fix everybody lunch since you’ve made so many meals for me.”
It was obvious Luke had really thought all this out, and it was so sweet of him. That’s one of many reasons why I’m so happy to be his girlfriend. Then he surprised me again. He said he had asked Elly’s dad if he could bow hunt from a blind in their backyard, just as he did last year, and her dad had said yes. How would I, Luke said, “like to sit in the blind with him Saturday evening until dark and wait for deer to come into the backyard?” I then asked how would I get home that night, and he suggested that I contact Elly and ask her if I could have a sleepover? I did just that and now I get to spend most of the day with my boyfriend and the night with my best girlfriend. So looking forward to all that really took away the disappointment about the license situation.
