“You’ve got one thing going for you,” Joe said. “You’re one heck of a memorizer.”
“Thank you. Next I pull out the hand throttle knob, but only slightly. This allows the engine to idle more quickly while it’s cold. Although it isnotcold today.”
“‘Cold’ just means it hasn’t been driven in a few hours,” Joe said. “OK, what now?”
“Now,” I said, “I start the engine by turning the key. And then I push the choke knob back in.”
The engine coughed and promptly died. Joe said, “Yougraduallypush it back in.”
“I did,” I said.
“Start over and do it more slowly this time,” Joe said.
Ten minutes later—yes, ten, for Joe would not allow me to begin driving until I was able to start the car smoothly, although one only had to start itonceeach time one drove—I had progressed to shifting gears. Where we stayed for another thirty minutes while I attempted to work the clutch and the gas in the correct sequence, all while remembering how to shift to the correct spot on the column without looking. “Because you’ll be driving,” Joe said. “You can’t be looking down while you’re driving.”
“It would help,” I said, “if the car were smaller.”
“Your feet reach the pedals fine,” Joe said. Patient again. Soothing, in fact, which was rapidly becoming annoying. “It’s a new motion for you, that’s all. Let’s try again. Shift into reverse and back up.”
“Backup?But how will I see where I’m going?”
“In your mirror.”
“But I’ll be confusing my brain!”
Joe sighed.
How many times did we inch around the parking lot, with the car lurching and stopping like a recalcitrant horse as I attempted to manipulate the clutch? I said at last, “I must stop and wind down the window, for it’s very hot in here.”
“Go ahead,” Joe said, and wound down his own without pointing out that it was in fact rather cool, and I was only sweating because I’d made so many mistakes. “OK, try again.Let’s go forward this time. You’re doing great. You’ll get the hang of it soon.”
We’d picked up the car a week ago, but Joe had just begun his final exams at the time, so it had sat undisturbed until now. All week, though, I’d been gazing at the shiny, bulbous, deep-red monster parked behind our newly refurbished apartment building and imagining myself behind the wheel. The car was called the Chevrolet Fleetmaster Deluxe and had the most enormous chrome grille on the front, like a locomotive. I saw myself driving great distances in it, perhaps across the Golden Gate Bridge. I’d begun to wish we’d chosen the convertible, for if I had a scarf around my head and a pair of sunglasses, I would surely appear a glamorous, confident woman of the world.
As you can see, this illusion was diminishing by the minute.
It was perhaps an hour before I was shifting confidentlywithoutstalling, and able to pull in and out of designated parking spaces, too—they seemed so small, and the car so large!—and shift into first gear without the engine dying from inadequate clutch action. The third time I managed this successfully, Joe said, “That’s good for today, I think.”
“What?” I said. “But I haven’t driven anywhere!”
“It’s better to take these things more gradually,” he said.
“And did you train for the Army more gradually? Did you practice crawling in the mud and—and shooting and using your bayonet for one hour, and then hear the instructor say, ‘You must all be very tired. Please go have a bath and a nice rest’?”
Joe laughed. “Nope. I sure didn’t. I’m not sure boot camp is the most comfortable model to build your life on, though.”
“Surely,” I said, “I can accomplish more than this. Look; it’s only fifteen minutes to eight. I could drive back to the apartmentbuilding, at least, perhaps via University Avenue? I need to get the feeling of being on a street.”
“OK,” Joe said. “Let’s do it. You’re right; the street is different. Just remember, the red light means ‘stop.’”
“Ha, ha,” I said, maneuvering toward the street with great determination and very little speed.
“Blinker,” Joe reminded me.
“Yes.” I pushed a lever. The windshield wipers began to move. I said, “Wait, no,” and tried to turn them off.
Joe said, “Brake.Brake!”
I said, once I’d done so—and restarted the car, for I’d forgotten about the clutch once again—“It’s a great many things to do with one’s hands and feet all at once, isn’t it?”