Driver’s Ed
Photo by Alex Eflon
By Tony Lewis
Step One: Fasten your seatbelt. Don’t make it too tight or too loose. You want to be safe in the case of an accident, but you also shouldn’t cut off your circulation.
She is leaning up against the cold blue steel of the locker, curly brown hair falling effortlessly around her face. Her hazel brown eyes are fixed upon you, waiting anxiously for the next words to come out of your mouth. You don’t know why you are so nervous, but finally a semi-coherent jumbling of words, letters, grunts leaves your lips. She says yes.
You walk her to the front door after the first date. A slightly uncomfortable pause after perfunctory chitchat leads to an awkward reach for a goodnight embrace. You try not to make it too tight or too loose. You want to play it safe in case the past few hours were perceived as a complete disaster, but you also don’t want to give off a false emotionless impression yourself. After you walk back to your car, you play back the night’s events as you fasten your seatbelt. Not too tight, not too loose.
Step Two: Before starting the ignition, adjust your side and rearview mirrors. Make sure you can see all activity behind you and in front of you. The more you can reduce your blind spots the better.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon. Before heading home, you make your way over to her locker to say goodbye. You carry on a short conversation, but her answers seem tinged with trepidation, like something else is on her mind. Eventually, she stands upright, brushes the strands of curly brown hair away from her face and looks around her, making sure there’s no activity in the hallway around us. Her lip quivers slightly as she starts in. The words continue to come but only one sticks with you: friends. You had only been on a few dates, but you thought things were going well. It was the last thing you expected – a blind spot.
Before starting your car to head home, you take a glance at the rearview mirror, making sure she didn’t change her mind. No activity behind you, no activity in front of you.
Step Three: Turn the key in the ignition to start the car. Put the car in drive then slowly ease off the brake pedal to allow the car to move forward out of a stationary position. Don’t stop moving forward by abruptly applying the brake. Use a fluid motion.
You sit in the driver’s seat, keys in hand, mind racing. Why did you even show up to the party in the first place? Did you think that her seeing you there would change things? And who does that son of a bitch think he is anyway? He couldn’t keep his damn hands off of her. Always sneaking up behind her for a tight embrace, pulling back her curly brown hair for a kiss on the neck.
It was late December, nearly two weeks had gone by. You had already started the healing process, slowly easing off the pain to allow yourself to move forward out of the stationary rut she had left you in. But then you went and fucking screwed up your progression, sending it to an abrupt halt by coming here tonight. You knew he was going to be there.
You take a deep breath, turn the key in the ignition and move forward past that tree, past her house and down the road.
Step Four: For safety purposes, always turn on the appropriate signal before turning. With both hands on the steering wheel, gently turn the wheel in the direction you wish to head.
You can almost hear the hood of that old green Buick Skylark groan as the two of you lay sprawled out on top of it, paying little attention to whatever the second feature is at the drive-in or to your friends around you. Its summertime, now, and a surprisingly warm night breeze playfully tosses around her curly brown hair. You reach over and softly brush the strands away from her face, revealing a doe-eyed gaze and the bright flash of an emerging smile. Throughout the night, you both create excuses for contact and willingly leave yourselves susceptible to flirtatious banter. You turn on the appropriate signals to ensure that no one gets hurt. It’s important that you let her know the direction you want to head before turning back.
Step Five: Using the knowledge you’ve gained moving forward, it’s time to practice backing up with the car in reverse. Physically moving your body to look behind you is crucial to this step for safety purposes.
Her smooth, sun-kissed legs are loosely wrapped around the arch of your lower back as her shapely body presses you against that cramped backseat. You center in on those almost piercing hazel brown eyes, her bouncing curly brown hair and that way she likes to seductively bite her bottom lip. With a satisfied sigh of exhaustion, she collapses back, resting her head against your chest.
Your relationship is much more than lust at this point, but for some reason this particular physical action has you looking backwards. You’ll never admit it, but inside you know moving forward as friends only helped prepare you for when it was time to move backwards and start again. Perhaps the giddy danger of the action reminds you of the risks you took going back to her. As she softly whispers into your ear, you look back out the rear window. Nobody in sight, you’re both safe.
Step Six: Your basic training is complete, but ahead of you lies advanced levels like parallel parking. You also must practice driving both quiet back roads and hazardous highways. You have a lifetime of driving ahead of you. Take in all the knowledge you can get.
She’s leaning up against the basement wall, the clock above her head, warning you its way past your curfew. Thoughts of that day by her locker explode in your head like flashbulbs, but this time you confidently let go of those three words you know she has been waiting for you to let free. Her smile spans to the edges of her curly brown hair as she pulls you in for an embrace. It’s an advanced level of your relationship to park into, but you have to learn eventually. There will be smooth and bumpy roads ahead, but you have a lifetime ahead of you. Take in all the knowledge you can get.
Category: Issue 1