Driving Lesson

H E HEARD THE SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS ON THE MOW STAIRS, and his mother ducked around the vestibule door, her dark hair in a loose ponytail that swung sinuously across her shoulders. Essay, Tinder, and Opal were in the mow with Edgar, in sit-stays at the moment, and he was holding a length of thick rope, knotted at both ends, of the kind they used for practicing retrieves. Almondine lay sprawled near the doorway.

“How about a ride into town?” his mother said. “We could stop for lunch.”

The three yearlings, excited by his mother’s appearance, began to lift their haunches off the floor and Edgar stepped into their line of sight and caught their gazes until they settled back into sits. When he was sure they would stick, he turned to his mother.

I want to keep working Essay, he signed, a half-truth. He’d begun the morning practicing the tag-and-down sequence but they’d fought him on it, playing dumb after being pushed night after night. He wanted more than anything to be left alone to work, for there to be no chance that the sight of Claude near his mother would bring on one of those cramps of anger that could snatch his breath away. The idea of the three of them squeezed into the truck-or worse, the Impala-set off a caw of panic in his mind. His mood, after a night of half-recalled dreams in which he repeatedly slipped from the branches of the apple tree into some formless abyss, was already black and raw.

“Okay,” she said, cheerily. “Someday you’ll be my son again, I just know it.”

He heard their voices in the yard and then the truck started and crunched along the driveway, and Edgar and the dogs went back to work. He clapped up Almondine and they went through a few retrieves while the yearlings watched. When Essay had executed three fetches in a row without a mistake, Edgar rotated Opal through the routine, then Tinder, and then he began with Essay again, this time, lest she grow bored, tossing the rope into a maze of straw bales he had hastily constructed. When Tinder finished, he led them all downstairs.

He decided to eat an early lunch rather than risk their coming back while he was in the house. He walked past the Impala, checking the impulse to mule-kick a dent into its side, and let Almondine up the porch steps ahead of him. When he walked into the kitchen Claude was sitting at the table. He was smoking a cigarette, and the newspaper was quartered in his hand. Edgar’s first impulse was to turn and stalk out while the spring on the porch door was still jangling, but he forced himself to cross the kitchen and yank open the refrigerator and pile sandwich fixings on the table. Claude kept reading as Edgar slapped together slices of bread and cheese and pimiento loaf. At last Claude laid aside the newspaper.

“I’m glad you came in,” he said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Edgar faced the cool depths of the refrigerator and pretended to hunt for something. Then he pulled out a chair across from Claude and sat and began to eat his sandwich.

“You know how to drive that truck?” Claude asked.

Edgar shook his head, which was the truth. His father had let him steer now and then from the passenger side, but only briefly.

“Now, that’s a crime,” Claude said. “When Gar and I were your age, we’d already been driving for quite a while. It’s handy sometimes, you know.”

Edgar tore off a corner of his sandwich and handed it down to Almondine.

“I’ve been trying to talk your mom into the idea we ought to teach you, but she’s not convinced. She’s in favor of Driver’s Ed.” He said “Driver’s Ed” as if it were the silliest thing in the world. “One day our dad just took us out and showed us how. That’s all. After about an afternoon of tooling around, we were all set. Down to Popcorn Corners and back to begin with-a milk run, like they say.”

Edgar thought he understood where Claude was heading and he nodded.

“Of course, you and I have an advantage. It was all stick back then, every truck we ever had. But the Impala’s automatic. As long as your mom’s off in town, I was thinking you and I might have a little fun. Something we could slip off and do, something your mom doesn’t necessarily even need to know about. By the time you get into Driver’s Ed you’ll be the best in your class. Plus, you’ll impress the hell out of your mom the first time you two go for a practice drive. What do you say?”

Edgar looked at Claude.

O, he fingerspelled, as he took a bite of his sandwich.

K, he signed.

Claude watched Edgar’s hands, then slapped the table. “There you go,” he said. “Swallow it down, son, it’s time to take the wheel. Your whole life’s about to change.” He rattled the newspaper together and stood and twirled the car keys around his finger. Edgar set the remains of his sandwich on the table and stood and walked out with Almondine at his heels.

The Impala was parked facing the road, driver’s-side wheels resting in the grass. Claude opened the passenger door and prepared to get in, but when he saw Almondine, he tipped the seat forward and said, “Jump in, honey. Your boy’s about to amaze you.” Then Claude said one thing more. He was looking down the drive with his forearm resting on the roof of the car. He patted the metal with the flat of his hand.

“Right here’s something Gar would never have done,” he said. “He’d have kept you pinned down as long as he could.”

Almondine had jumped into the back seat. Now she was looking out at Edgar, panting. He’d been hearing a ringing in his ears ever since Claude had said the word “son,” and now something that had been hanging by a thread inside him seemed to come loose.

He opened the driver’s-side door.

Come out, he signed to Almondine. You have to stay home.

She looked at him and panted.

Come, he signed. He stepped back. Almondine maneuvered out of the car again and he led her up the porch steps and into the kitchen. He squatted down in front of her and ran his hand over her head and down her ruff and he took a long look at the sublime pattern of gold and brown in her irises. You’re a good girl, he signed. You know that.

Then he closed the door and walked back to the Impala. Claude stood watching him over the flat blue expanse of its roof. The three little vents set into the car’s flanks reminded Edgar of shark’s gills.

Let’s go.

He didn’t care if Claude understood his sign. His body language was clear enough.

Claude dropped into the bucket seat on the passenger side. He rolled down his window and Edgar did the same. “You know the gas from the brake, right? Everybody knows that.”

Claude handed Edgar his ring of keys. Edgar examined them up in the light and gave the gas pedal an experimental push.

“You don’t want to pump the gas,” Claude said. “You’ll flood it.”

The key slid smoothly into the ignition and the Impala’s starter whirred and the engine roared to life. Edgar held the key twisted over a moment too long and there was a horrendous grinding noise. He let up, then seeing the expression on Claude’s face, twisted it again. He pulled his foot off the gas pedal and set it on the floor and listened to the motor idle.

Claude started talking again, but Edgar wasn’t paying attention. He tested the brake pedal experimentally, felt it give under his foot. The shifter was on the column. The orange tip of the gear indicator was under the speedometer. He’d seen people do this before with automatic transmissions; he pulled the shift lever back and dropped it into D.

The car began to roll forward.

“That’s right,” Claude said. “Nice and easy.”

The steering wheel turned with a strange oily smoothness compared to Alice. Edgar wondered if the Impala had power steering. Stranger yet was the huge flat hood extending in front of them. He was used to a thin orange oblong with a smokestack coughing black fumes. This felt like steering from behind a vast blue table. The engine sounded distant and muffled. And he couldn’t see what the front wheels were doing-he had to steer by feel alone.