56
For years, Connell had heard his father talk up how much he looked forward to teaching him to drive, but when he turned sixteen and got his learner’s permit, he had to cajole his father into letting him behind the wheel. They drove through a whipping March wind to the parking lot in front of Macy’s in the Cross County Shopping Center. His father got out, went around to Connell’s side, and waved him to slide over.
His father sat calmly as Connell practiced accelerating, braking, turning, parking in a spot, and backing up. Once Connell worked up the nerve to venture from the lot onto the streets, though, his father looked terrified. As they approached the first intersection, he hit an imaginary brake. “Slow down!” he shouted.
“But it’s green!” Connell shouted back, though he applied the brake anyway.
At the next light, Connell signaled, slowed, and turned left.
“Watch the building!” his father said, his leg pumping the floor.
He accelerated, and his father jumped back; he touched the brake, and his father gasped; he passed a car, and his father clutched the handle in the ceiling.
? ? ?
The next time they went out, his father screamed at him practically from the moment they pulled out of the garage until the moment they pulled back in. He then sat there miserably, apologizing, saying he couldn’t help himself.
They went out a couple more times. The results were the same, and eventually Connell stopped asking to drive. He decided to wait until his junior year, when he could take driver’s ed through school.
? ? ?
One night, at ten o’clock, his father appeared in the doorway of Connell’s bedroom wearing his Members Only jacket.
“Come with me,” he said.
“Where?”
“Just come with me.”
His mother was drinking tea in the kitchen. His father headed past her to the basement.
“Where is he going?”
“I don’t know,” Connell said, and walked past her too.
His mother called down after them. His father didn’t answer, so Connell didn’t either. He followed him to the garage, climbed into the passenger seat. As they were backing out, his mother appeared in the doorway of the garage. His father didn’t lower the window, and Connell just shrugged. She followed the car out into the driveway, a look of mild concern on her face. She had a teacup in one hand and her robe clutched in the other to ward off the chill of the spring night.
His father backed slowly down the driveway and his mother turned and headed back to the house. The driveway was curved and bordered on both sides by hedgerows anchored in stone walls that ended in stone columns. It was difficult to negotiate forward, never mind backward, and his father had scraped the car so many times that his mother had given up fixing it. His father took it slowly and made it onto the street without touching the hedge, the stone walls, or the pillars.
They didn’t head down the hill toward town, but went the other way, taking back roads until they came to the entrance to the Cross County Parkway. They continued past it, turning under the overpass and taking the ramp up into the shopping center. The stores were all closed. His father pulled into a spot far from the entrance to Macy’s and turned off the engine.
“You’re going to drive.”
They both got out and passed in front of the car. The lot was mostly dark, the lighted store signs combining with ambient light from the highway and the low glow of the light poles to provide a mist of illumination. A few cars were scattered about, but otherwise the lot was empty. He had never driven under cover of night before. He knew the lot from his fledgling efforts behind the wheel, but there had never been so much open space, so little against which to establish a sense of perspective, and it was with a slight rush of breath that he turned the ignition over and put the car into gear.
“I want you to drive out of the lot, make a left and then a right at the light.”
He drove up Midland Avenue, which ran parallel to the parkway.
“Go through the first light. After the following light, you’re going to make a left to get on the Cross County East.”
“I’m not allowed on the parkway.”
“Do as I tell you,” his father said calmly. There were no spastic jerks or fake pumps of the brake. Lately his father drifted in and out of being his old self, like a wraith passing through dimensions.
The light before the entrance to the parkway turned red as he approached it, and Connell checked to see that his belt was securely buckled. When the light turned green and he inched forward and made the left to merge, he felt like the car was running away from him.
“I want you to build up speed as you merge. We’re going to head to the Hutch.”
“The Hutch? What if I get pulled over?”
“Hutch north,” his father said. “Get in the left lane. Don’t be nervous. Just relax. There aren’t many cars now. If you relax, you’ll be a fine driver. Just get up to about fifty, fifty-five.”
Connell pressed the accelerator. The speed was exhilarating, and he pressed it deeper, watching the needle climb to fifty, then sixty. He eased off. His father had his eyes closed.
“We have to get you used to real-world conditions,” his father said. “Stay left. We’re going to merge onto the Hutch north. I want you to look for signs for Mamaroneck Avenue, twenty-three north.”
It felt like all the highways in the country could be reached from this one, that he could go anywhere from here. He wanted to drive through the night.
“It’s coming up,” his father said. “Twenty-three north. When you exit, you’ll be on a ramp. As long as there’s nobody behind you, when you get to the light at the end, I want you to slam on the brakes. Anything can happen at any moment, and you need to stay alert.”