“OK, yeah, I’m just going to park it. I’ll see you inside,” I told Mom.
Key in the ignition, I turned the engine over and checked the rear view mirror.
I was sixteen and a half, which mattered at the time I wanted my driver’s license.
I needed a way to get to work.
By that point in my life, I had experience baby, pet and house sitting; I got rides or walked to work at fast food restaurants.
During one holiday season I had a dream job working in the mall music store, Sam Goody. I rode the bus to work, which showed how exhausting mass transit can be.
So, when I pulled the steering wheel to the left and signaled that I was pulling out of the fire lane, my heart was singing.
This was my first time driving the car by myself. Mom was letting me break a rule.
I stepped on the brake as I checked my blind spot and used my peripheral vision and my right hand to turn the volume up on the stereo.
“Don’t be afraid, I didn’t mean to scare you
So, help me, Jesus”
“Possum Kingdom” by the Toadies was playing as Mom got out of the minivan.
The song played in heavy rotation in 1996 so, if you were alive then, you’ve probably heard it.
Panned guitar strumming starts out quietly through one speaker, which adds to the dynamic crescendo of the song without a chorus.
The soft lyric, “Be my angel,” continued as I moved slowly through busy aisles of parked cars.
“I’d be so fucked if I hit something,” I thought as I accelerated in the light blue family minivan.
That 1986 model arrived in our family the same year as my sister, and we moved from the only home I’d ever known to a four-bedroom house across town.
The move bisected my elementary education, and I started second grade as the new kid in school.
I, stupidly, made the bike ride back to that small white house on the corner without telling anyone.
“I grew up here,” I told the man who opened the screen door.
He let me in.
“It used to flood down here in the basement,” I said, but it wasn’t underground.
My spidey senses kicked in; I left and never returned.
So, help me, Jesus.
I felt giddy driving and started to sing along. Travel has always been my undercurrent to independence.
Give it up to me
Independence meant having the means to leave whenever I wanted.
I knew when I passed my road test on my seventeenth birthday, I could drive anywhere, anytime and with anyone.
All I needed was a radio on wheels.
I rolled the windows down and sang as loudly as I could into the mall parking lot.
Do you wanna die?
It would only be a few more months until I could drive, legally.