Sweet Dream Baby

Author:Sterling Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-09-19T18:37:16+00:00

Twenty-one

Me and my Aunt Delia drive out on a country road, and she says, “Killer, come over here and sit on my lap.”

I do, and her breath is warm on my neck, and her lap is soft under me, and her arms curve around me to the steering wheel. She says, “Can you reach the pedals?” Fats Domino is coming from the radio: “I found my thrill, on blueberry hill. On blueberry hill, where I found you.”

I look down between our legs at the three pedals. I know one’s the gas, and one’s the brake, but I don’t know what the other one is. I stretch my legs out, and I can just reach them. My Aunt Delia says, “Okay, good. Now, that one on the outside is called the clutch. It engages and disengages the gears that make the car go. First thing we’re gonna do is practice with the clutch.”

My Aunt Delia puts her foot on the gas, and the engine goes faster, and she says, “Okay, Killer, push in the clutch. I’m gonna put her in first gear. When I tell you, start letting it out real slow.”

I do it like she says, and I’m looking off down the hot, white road with that glimmering water far off you never reach. The oak trees grow close to the road, and their branches lean over and almost touch, and my hands are on the steering wheel real hard right next to my Aunt Delia’s. I let the clutch out, and the Chevy bucks and bucks, and then the engine quits. I say, “Did I hurt it?”

My Aunt Delia laughs. “Naw, don’t worry. Everybody does that when they first start out. You can’t hurt this ole tank.” She turns the key, and I smell gas, and she says, “Don’t steer. I’m doing that. You’re gonna learn one thing at a time, and the first thing is how to use the clutch. When you get that down, then we’ll let you steer.”

I work at it for a while, and it gets easier. Sometimes I grind the gears, and my Aunt Delia laughs and yells out the window, “Grind me pound!” The road is straight and narrow and hot, and the sky is white, and the fields on both sides are green and empty except for a few cattle. We pass houses, and some are empty with gray clapboard sides and falling-down rusted tin roofs and old cars and tractors with dog fennel and broom sage growing up around them. When a car finally comes along, my Aunt Delia says, “Put in the clutch, Killer,” and I do, and we pull over until it goes whistling past.

Finally, she lets me steer and do the pedals. I can’t go over thirty, and I can’t make a turn, and if anybody comes along, I have to pull over. I drive like that for a while with her breath warm on my cheek, and her lap soft under me, and I say, “This is really neato.

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