Memoir Excerpt!

On the eye exam, before the driving exam, I cheated.  When they checked for peripheral vision accuracy, I alternated closing each eye.  Then I looked at the State employee, his arms on his belly, looking at a clock, and I put a hand in front of each eye.  I passed.  No problem. Ben’s car was okay after all, until I caused the garage collision.

 Betty, my twin Shawn’s friends, offered her insured vehicle for the test.  I had to pass the driving test so I could show Sam.  I pictured what shirt to wear for my state issued photo. 

Peripheral vision, I reasoned, was only important when turning.  “That’s okay,” I told myself, “I’ll make up reasons for the car to keep going in one direction.”

           

Betty naively handed me her SUV keys and I felt confident to be behind the wheel again. The young male driver license instructor closed Betty’s passenger door.

           

I stuck the key in the ignition and the car fired up, so easy I thought.  I smiled, brushed back my hair, looked over my shoulder at three images of the instructor and said, “You are so cute.  I mean, you are a really, really good looking young man.”  This was as protection depending on how the rest of the test turned out.

           

I looked down and saw the word Drive twice because of my double vision but it wasn't the right time to ask.  I shifted to Drive Drive.

           

“Wait!  You need to adjust the rear view mirror.  I could’ve failed you for not doing that.  But go ahead, do it now.”

           

“Okay.”  I said, liking his style.  I looked in the rear view mirror at the ten cars parked behind us.  I saw maybe twenty two cars.  I shifted the mirror then saw twenty four cars.  “Okay.  Ready!”  I said.

           

“Alright, good.  Now drive to the end of the street and turn right.”  The instructor said.

“But,” I drew a blank.

           

At the stop sign I looked both ways and saw four diagonal images of traffic coming at me and turned. I congratulated myself and exhaled.

           

“Alright, keep driving until the third stop sign, then turn left.”

           

I kept both hands on the wheel and proceeded carefully on the residential street thinking, “Yeah! Maybe I’m good at turning? I’m going to have a license soon!”

           

“Alright, now I need you to parallel park this vehicle, right here.”

           

Holy shit I thought, shit, shit, shit. I geared forward and backwards over a dozen times and I still couldn’t cut it.  The bumper faced the sidewalk and the rear half in the middle of the street.

           

“Alright, some people just can’t parallel park.  Let me ask you, do you park on the street or do you have a garage?”

           

I paused.  “A garage!”

           

“Then don’t worry about it.  I could’ve failed you but that’s alright.”

           

I was in love, “Like, I’m so serious.  You are really good looking.”

           

“Alright.  Continue straight until we get to the orange cones, then we’re almost done.”

           

A driving license that says Sheila Cull, yeah, yeah!

           

Betty’s SUV was positioned between ten orange cones lined on each side.

           

“Alright, now you have to back up the car, in between the cones, without stopping the vehicle.”

           

I looked in the rear view mirror and saw twenty cones that crisscrossed each other.  Holy shit.  I closed one eye.  The instructor said, “Did your contact lens fall out Ms?  A foreign object in your eye?”

           

“Yeah, something is in my eye.  Oh!  Now it’s gone.”

           

“Alright then.  Back up and we’re done.”

           

I put the car in reverse and knocked down nine of the ten cones.  “Please let me do it over, please, please, please?” 

           

He could’ve failed me and did.  If it weren’t those random orange cones on the black asphalt.  Some unfortunate individual had to go back and physically re position the cones into what represented a straight line.

           

I couldn’t lie to Betty about it because she saw it.  But I thought I better to everyone else.  The humiliation of a failed drivers test deviated from my post coma plan of nobody discovering that I, for example, have something as unusual as viewing things in multiples of shadows.

“Pete?”  I called afterwards, “Yeah, the driving license place was so crowded, me and Betty couldn’t get in line.  We had to leave.” I lowered my voice, “I think Betty’s claustrophobic.  But Betty said she’ll bring me back.  Sorry.”  Then, instead of two bottles of wine, I bought three, because I deserved it that day.

           

Don’t worry, now, I’m aware that in this lifetime, I won’t be behind “the wheel”.  What if there were five little one year olds there instead of orange cones?