No, I Did Not Forget
I was sitting alone. The sun perched lazily on my arms and mirrored my anxiousness, shifting its stance every so often. Mindlessly scrolling through my phone, the colors flashed before me as if they were fulfilling my quota for attention. I glanced at the clock.
16:42.
Late.
I readjusted my pocket. My permit felt heavy against my skin, its presence foreboding and omniscient.
“You must be Joseph”.
Startled from my reverie of making varsity cross country, I was greeted with a pair of pansophical brown eyes. He held my gaze for a moment and then offered me an open palm. My hand reflexively flinched upwards.
“No, your permit.”
Still, in a daze, I fumbled through my pockets, dropping through five stages of hell as my hands closed upon my keys, my phone, and then finally, my wallet. I flipped it open in haste and unceremoniously flung my vaccination card at him. Having not quite regained my usual cool composure, I started to apologize profusely and handed him my library card. Bemused, he took the card and performed retinal identification on the barcode.
Seeing that I had loosened up a little, he took me to the Hyundai Elantra, a veteran vehicle tattooed with “New Driver” that has escorted the passage of numerous aspiring motorists. In the shotgun seat was a long, menacing pedal, constantly reminding me with every side-eye and jolt of his foot of the slanted balance of power and my incompetent driving.
He took me to an empty college parking lot, content with milling around with me at five miles per hour until I stopped curbing on right turns and prove myself road worthy. We sat there in silence. The air was still, with only the quiet humming of the engine and my gulps of panic disturbing the otherwise serene landscape of concrete. I was choking the life out of Mr. Steer and he was in a staring contest with the road, intermittently reminding me of his presence with the pedal.
Being the socialite that I am, and horrified that I’ve not had a conversation in the past 30 minutes, I began to ask him questions. Evidently satisfied that crawling around the parking lot no longer took up my full brain capacity, he took me on the road. We drove around the suburbs through neighborhoods, talking about religion, drugs, and the CIA. One of his daughters works at a pharmaceutical firm, and the other one is finishing her doctorate. His son is in a university dorm ready to wear the robe and tassels soon. After mentioning that he was from Kenya, a look of pride suffused his face when I told him about one of our grueling workouts, the “Kenyan Run”, after the superhuman distance machines of Kenya. A deeply righteous man who held family and moral values close to his heart. His philosophy was a mix of deontological ethics and utilitarianism, wary but forgiving, opportunistic yet altruistic. I learned more about what it means to be a person in that two-hour drive than I have from any self-help book.
By the last lesson, I was giddy with anticipation. We had planned to drive out for sushi together during the last half of our lesson. The day was marked on the calendar, and breakfast was forgone. With my driving skills test the day after the lesson, I practiced consistently running over cones at home. Frustrated and perturbed that I was going to fail and be license-less for an eternity (two weeks), we started the lesson with backing and parking per my request. Fortunately, it was my lack of common sense rather than the driving skills that were holding me back. Cones go outside the lanes, rather than inside, I’ve learned.
Feeling all too powerful with my newfound parking prowess after prancing the parking lot like an antelope, we started towards the sushi place. He looked a bit down as if something was bothering him. In all my gaiety, I had failed to notice the construction and traffic that was on the road.
“You can call in the order right now, and the round trip will take exactly the amount of time that we have,” I tried.
He would not have any of it. He had other students waiting.
“Turn back,” he gestured quietly, looking out the window.
The word devastating does not do justice to that feeling of remorse and disappointment in myself. The rest of the drive was a blur. I remember handing him the car keys with my head down. The brief moment of eye contact. His forbearing gaze, that look of despondency for an atypical pupil who has blurred into the crowd. The walk of shame. The wait for the bus, who, much like me, has lost track of time.
September 17, 2022. First solo drive.
I stepped out of my car, quieting the engine and snagging the strap of the take-out bag. He was there, mask-less this time, sitting in the driver’s seat of an open car. He watched me approach, my fingers clenched, trying to think of something worthy of Anakin Skywalker.
“Hi David,” was all that I could make out.
“How did you know I was going to be here?”
I handed him the bag.
Tears streamed down the side of his face. I almost broke.
“It’s nice to see you too.”
