The author spends a white-knuckle summer working for a cut-rate company that teaches driver’s education. The cars keep dying, and the air conditioners rarely work, but the kids always persevere!!
Excerpt
It’s my first lesson of the morning, but I’m already in a rough mood. Teaching eight or nine lessons day after day is like driving from Portland to Seattle and back on a daily basis. Working for a threadbare business this understaffed is getting dangerous, especially when the safety of kids is at stake.
I’m checking out the oil level on my car before I head to my first lesson. With my faith in fleet maintenance plummeting, I’m starting each lesson with an assessment of everything I can think of and an inspection under the car for mysterious fluid stains on the pavement. Today’s assigned vehicle, a sad looking heap of dilapidated metal, is new to me, so we’re about to embark on our maiden voyage together. I have no idea where the Malibu came from, and really don’t want to know. It’s probably up from New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. The car looks like something a suicide bomber would reject as an insult to his pride.
I stand in the parking lot pondering the wisdom of privatizing education. It might work at Harvard, where funding is plentiful and boards provide oversight, but not out here in the real world. My last employer, a smooth operator using outdated computers to prepare low-income and at-risk kids for “high-tech futures,” got shut down by the feds for student-loan fraud. The one before that is facing a class action lawsuit by aggrieved employees and former students. Someday soon, with Adam Smith’s invisible hand clenching around our children’s throats, the myth that “privatizing-everything-is-always-good” will implode.
I glance at my watch, jump behind the wheel, and fire up the Malibu. It turns over with a sickening thud. The engine burps and rumbles, the front end of the car shaking under the strain. Waiting for the car to stabilize, I watch the tachometer needle bounce between 0 and 1. C’mon baby, I only need you to last for the next hour. I whip out of the lot and blaze to my lesson with the Egglestroms, glancing occasionally at the clock on the dash. The front of the car squeals in disapproval as I race toward the school using a series of California stops to check my speed.
I arrive at exactly 12:45. There’s only one car in the lot, a high-end BMW. Approaching the vehicle I see a woman wearing more makeup than The Joker sitting stone-faced behind the wheel. Like most parents, she’s probably grown frustrated with my low-rent employer and is happy that this experience will be ending soon.
When I introduce myself to Mrs. Egglestrom she greets me by asking when we’ll be done.
When your kid crashes the car?
“We’ll finish here at 1:45,” I tell her.
She tells us she’ll go shopping and come back then. I picture her at Kitchen Kaboodle agonizing over the choice between an apple corer and a strawberry stem remover. Watching her expensive car race across the lot I ponder the fact that these families fight against taxes for community functions (like Drivers Ed) and then complain when they end up with crappy companies (like mine) providing services.
Matt correctly starts his test by walking around the car, searching for safety issues.
“So how’s it look?” I ask.
“Well,” Matt says, pacing around the front bumper, “this tire doesn’t look so safe.”
I glance down and see faint grooves running through a smooth rubber surface. Jesus, that’s embarrassing. A company teaching driving shouldn’t feel okay with the safety risks posed by a car running on something this worn. Ethics aside, buying new tires is also a lot cheaper than hiring lawyers after a crash. As we walk behind the Malibu, I notice a new black scrape mark and a gouge on the bumper. Sauntering to my door I spot a shallow indentation on the bottom of the back panel. It looks just like the dent an angry instructor’s foot would make. The Malibu is starting to resemble the car your aging uncle with a parole violation would drive.
We get into the vehicle and prepare to leave. Matt turns the key and the Malibu thumps to life, belching out an ugly grinding noise from under the hood. Matt’s body flexes in alarm and he glances over at me fearfully.
“Whoa,” he says, “are we gonna be all right?”
I study the tachometer needle, which is dancing wildly at the lower level numbers.
“Sure,” I reply confidently, “this thing just needs a minute to warm up.” I make sure the car is in park before adding, “Just give it a little gas.”
Matt taps the accelerator gently and we watch the needle. After a minute of nursing we manage to get our patient stabilized. The noise from the hood lessens, shifting from an angry growl to the moan of a dying animal.
We proceed on to the Mock Exam. Matt changes lanes cleanly, crosses two sets of railroad tracks safely, and parks along a curb with impressive precision. At one turn he forgets to signal. It’s his only flaw as we head into the home stretch of the test.
We roll into to a residential area to finish the exam. Sitting at the first stop sign the car starts shuddering, preparing to die. Matt glances over.
“Uh oh, what should I do?” he asks, breaking me out of a prayer trance.
“Just give it some gas,” I urge.
Matt slips the shifter into neutral and guns the gas quickly, revving the engine. He manages to resuscitate the suffering animal. The car shakes a few times and stabilizes, but then starts to moan louder. It wants to go home.
I decide to finish early and re-route us back towards the school. Matt knows what he’s doing, so there’s no point risking a breakdown, which would only extend my time with this car. At a four-way intersection he cruises through a stop sign, looking straight ahead, no doubt pondering what mom will do to him with the apple corer if he fails. I take a fleeting look into the two bisecting roads, which prove to be empty. I don’t brake or say anything. We just keep going and return to the school as if nothing has happened.
In the parking lot I discuss the exam, skipping the minor detail that he actually failed the test, and mention that he forgot to signal at one point. I give him a ninety-five percent, tell him he’s a good driver (which he is), and wish him luck. Matt exits the driver’s seat and sprints towards his mom’s car, which has just rolled into the lot.
I look over at Mrs. Egglestrom. She doesn’t turn her head when Matt enters the car. She rolls out from the curb and drives past me looking blankly forward through the windshield. I jump behind the wheel and race to another site, arriving just in time to offload the decrepit Malibu.
Copyright 2010 Thomas Sullivan. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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