Driving Lessons

DRIVING LESSON

Well, Abers Run starts way down by the bottoms, comes up past our house and its still dirt then turns to gravel and you hear the stones bouncing off the undercarriage of our truck. Then it turns onto the grade crossing, and there I am, stalled on the slope beside the railroad tracks afraid the a coal train might just be coming from the mines. I say, Grandaddy, what should I do? He just stares out the window calm as anything and tells me, You the last one that touched the wheel, Sweet Pea. So I put the clutch in, turn the key, rev the engine, feather the clutch and we bounce across the tracks.

You mad at me for that, Granddaddy?

He points to the Dollar General lot. There, pull in!

Now don’t pussyfoot when you turn onto 37 like that. We don’t need a logging truck making a hood ornament out of us. And I don’t want to see you hitting the brakes two or three times like you want to do on bends and hills. These roads wind like a black snake after a rat. Every prom or graduation some kids get it in their head to do a little drinkin’ then a little racin’ and the obvious headlines in the newspaper tell the rest of the sad story.

Then my grandfather goes to tell me that the speed record from Cove Gap to Wayne

was set by one of his buddies. The trick is, he goes on, drive 37 at night

when you see if another car is coming around the bend or not by their headlights.

I wanna’ tell him he’s telling me to be careful, then how to try, and kill my fool self . That’s my grandpa, and the green oxygen bottle by his side and the plastic tubes up to his face and into his nose don’t make him look any less like himself.”

Principal give you any trouble?

Good, he’s changing the subject!

Principal Aldebrand, that old witch! She just said, Wanda, do you have to miss that much class? I told her, doctor said my granddaddy got black lung and what’s more can’t drive no more. I got my permit so I can take him to the clinic in Wayne. Then she says, you’re responsible to make up all the school work you miss. Yes ma’ma, I say and walk out of her office into the hallway stickin’ my tongue out about as far as it could go.

Aldebrand, I know her brothers Wayne and Keith. We worked Girty # 1 till the coal seam ran out. They was just like me. Work the mines, get a pickup with a tow hitch and a bass boat and just hunt and fish all the time. But there was three girls that got to go to college and be teachers and such.

Granddaddy, you’re the best teacher I could ever have. I’m the first one in my grade to get a driver’s permit beside that big, old, dumb boy on the football team, and he has his license.

Do tell. Can’t be that dumb if he passed his test before you. Your mom hear from your pap lately?

Momma got some money about six months ago. You think he’s comin’ back from Detroit Diesel? I miss Daddy so much.

God could give you a better answer. You just keep helping your mother with your brother and hope for the best. But keep helping. Lot of men take the Hillbilly Highway then come back.

Granddaddy, you like Toby Keith’s new song?

Sure do, Sweet Pea. What’s it called again? How ‘bout you sing a few bars?

It goes, Red Solo Cup, I fill you up. Let’s have a parrrrrteeee… Shoot, I can’t sing. Yep, Patsy Cline wouldn’t allow for such screechin’.

Granddaddy, they play Toby’s song when you’re on your exercise bike at the clinic!

When I’m huffin and puffin’ and I got that oxygen mask on lookin’ like a handsome hog, I can’t hear a God damn thing.

Grandpa, you look beautiful to me! When I get out of high school, I am going to open an aerobics studio and you are gonna’ be my first and handsomest student and I am gonna’ play Red Solo Cup with Toby’s other hits for my clientele all day long.

Little girl, with your flat fanny you’ll look silly in them lizard-skin yoga pants, and if you want me, you may have to climb Cove Gap Hill to the family cemetery.

I could feel his hand squeezing my shoulder but I was watching the road in front like he taught me…

The Elliot cemetery has headstones from before the Civil War. Nobody wanted brother shooting at brother. Pretty soon there’ll be three generations of miners up there. Your great grandfather could load more coal in a day than any man in Cordelia #1. There’s supposed to be coal in our family’s veins, but hear me, Wanda, it’s in my lungs, doctor said, hardin’ like cement.

Grandaddy, I love when you talk to me like you talk to them old men over coffee at the Wayne Diner.

You watchin’ your mirrors?

Suddenly my mirrors were filled chrome and flashing headlights.

Sweet Pea, pick it up! You gotta’ give that Freightliner his head through these curves and down the hill. Ain’t no place to pull over and he’s tryin to make time to some damn where.

Granddaddy, I’m scared!

Git scared later. There’s the Dew Drop Inn and a big parking lot around the bend at the bottom just past the concrete bridge. Put your signal on so he knows and hustle us down there.

I did what he said but now the semi’s air horns were blasting in my ears… I bit down on my lip and weaved through the bends and down the hill.

Turn in fast, smooth. Don’t jerk the wheel no matter what. That’ll flip us.

When the pickup charged into the gravel lot, my left front tire hit a depression almost ripping the steering wheel out of my hands. Then we started to spin. I rammed the brake and clutch to the floor. The spin slowed us and another rotation and we were stopped on the edge of the creek.

Man, my heart was pounding, stomach muscles tight like I was gonna’ puke. Then I remember hearing Grandfather gulping air. The whole truck cab was full of dust from the spin. His plastic breathing tubes were part way out of his nose. The oxygen bottle had been ricocheting off the footwell.

But the Freightliner’s air horns and squeal of tires, the flashing headlights, were gone.

I was almost afraid to look at him again but then he says, You, you want me to spell you at the wheel? I can drive ok with this oxygen.

It took me a minute: I’ll git us there, Granddaddy. I was glad he was alright.

I pulled over to the edge of the lot looked left. There was the concrete bridge abutment we just missed and the air smelled heavy with brake lining and dust. You think it was the Moth Man, Grandaddy?

Hell no! Ain’t no such thing. Just that up in Mason County they been drinkin’ too much of that Kanawha River water. That sumabitch’n driver, he’s probably late for lunch, that’s all. An’ you did a fair to middlin’ good job with keepin’ off that brake pedal.

Then I ran my tongue over the welt inside my mouth again--the taste of blood.

I got mad, nailed the throttle. The Ford’s backend twisted itself, I counter-steered like he taught me and gravel sprayed across the highway like birdshot.

I didn’t stall that time! Then I grabbed second gear, hit the gas pedal again and pointed us down West Virginia 37 right on toward the clinic in Wayne.