On Friday, my sixteenth birthday, at eight a.m., I took my behind-the-wheel test. The examiner was Mr. Grussing, a middle-aged man with a crew cut who taught accounting at the high school. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and flip-up sunglasses. Assuming I would pass the test, my mother and father waited off to the side in our other vehicle.
“Name?” Mr. Grussing asked.
“Paul Sutton.”
He signed something on his clipboard, then had trouble with the passenger’s side door.
“Recent accident?” he said, settling into the seat.
“Oh no, sir. Many years ago,” I said.
He pursed his lips, then shut the door.
“You have to slam it,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled back to the same curb. My mother gave a discreet and encouraging wave, but Mr. Grussing, sunglasses still down, stared at his clipboard. Then he flipped up his glasses. “Mr. Sutton. Where did you learn how to drive?”
“Driver’s training.”
“Here in America? Or in some foreign country?”
“Here, sir. And then I drive around on the farm quite a lot.”
“Well, it shows.”
I took in a breath. “Did I pass, sir?”
“Let’s put it this way, Sutton. The lowest possible passing score is seventy points. In school terms, that would be a D—. Your score, Mr. Sutton?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Seventy.”
I fought back a victory yell.
“Technically you passed, Mr. Sutton, but you have more bad habits than I’ve ever seen in a young driver.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“You know who you drive like, Mr. Sutton?”
“No, sir.”
“You drive like an adult. We teach driving with two hands; you drove mostly with one hand, and seemed to have your mind on other things—like adults.”
“I’ll be a careful driver, sir, I assure you. I won’t let you down.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then signed off.
And I was free! An emancipated sixteen-year-old!
“Congratulations, Paul,” my father said, and shook my hand. After that my mother clamped me in a hug.
“I have to go to work,” I said, extricating myself, but there was time for one loop down Main Street. I motored along slowly, window down, lifting one finger from the steering wheel in greeting to local pickups, nodding and smiling to tourists, who looked at me oddly.
After a brief drive about town, I turned back to the station, which, in the space of an hour, had grown smaller. I was comfortable there now; I knew its workings as well as I did the farm. There was nothing about my job that I couldn’t handle. With Bud on duty in my absence, I drove fast up to the pumps—made the bells dinga-ding, dinga-ding like a pinball machine. Bud came out the door, annoyed, then drew up at the sight of me.
“Did you get it, kid? Did you pass?”
I gave him the thumbs-up.
Bud saluted. “Look out, world.”
That night, after helping my father with some welding on the corn cultivator, I showered and put on a clean T-shirt and jeans. “I was thinking of driving into town and getting a root beer,” I said casually to my parents. My mother was tidying the kitchen, my father was reading the newspaper. There was a brief silence. They looked at each other.
“Well, I guess you do have your license,” my mother replied.
I nodded.
“All right. Don’t be gone long,” my father said.
“Watch for deer on the highway,” my mother said. She followed me out onto the porch. “And bring back some root beer for us.”
Then she turned away and purposefully did not look again—as if this were just another warm summer night on the farm.
I drove down the winding driveway, looking in my mirror back to the house. As my parents stood silhouetted in the screen door, my father put his hand on my mother’s shoulder. Then I passed beyond the windbreak and out of their sight—where Janet was waiting.
“I passed,” I said, and threw open the door.
She laughed and scooted all the way across the seat, where she leaned against me. Her hair smelled clean and fresh.
“Where to, miss?”
“Anywhere, fast!”
At the highway, I revved the engine, spun from gravel onto blacktop. Janet laughed with delight and tuned the radio to WLS, where we sang along to Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.”
At sundown, Hawk Bend put on its night face. Dusty pickups and motor homes retreated to farms and lakes; hot rods and muscle cars rumbled into town, along with teenagers cruising in their parents’ Pontiacs and Fords. Paused at the stoplight was Kevin Hemstead, a kid in my grade, driving a 1962 Chevy four-door on which he had put shiny, baby-moon hubcaps. When the light turned green he managed a chipmunk chirp of his rear tires.
“Pathetic,” I said to Janet, trying to hide my envy. I thought of putting my arm around her, but didn’t.
“Let’s go down Main Street,” she said.
I joined the slow crawl of cars in the center of Hawk Bend. Knots of teenagers stood in front of the pool
hall, whistling greetings to passing cars. Girls darted out, laughing, and leaned into a driver’s side window. Traffic paused without complaint, then moved forward again. Competing music sang from radios and eight-tracks: Elvis, Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Animals.
After two loops down Main Street, we headed south of town to the A&W drive-in. It was past sundown now, the western sky bloody red from heat and dust, and below its colored lights the drive-in swarmed with cars and kids. I parked under the end of the awning, lucky to find a spot, and touched the intercom button.
“The carhops are actually on roller skates,” Janet said.
“Yeah, so?”
“I thought that was, like, something they made up about the Midwest.”
“Real carhops, real skates,” I said. A tinny, girl’s voice came over the little speaker; I ordered two root beer floats.
“For here or to go?” There was laughter inside, glass clinking, and the sharp hiss of burgers hitting the grill.
“Here,” I said. I would get my parents’ root beer just before leaving town. That way it would still be cold when I got home.
Janet and I sat listening to music and watching drive-in life. Close up, two large moths flopped and fluttered in the overhead yellow lights, and smaller insects swarmed the buzzing orange A&W neon. Carhops came and went,
their skates clacking over seams in the concrete. The parade of cars thickened. Kirk’s blue Chevy looped by; his wife, Lynette, sat very close to him with one arm draped around his neck. Kirk’s face was fixed with a look of part defiance, part shame. As he sized up cars and carhops, his eyes caught sight of Janet and me: he lifted his chin in the faintest nod of recognition as he drove past.
“I wish you had a fast car,” Janet said.
We sipped our floats and listened to music until a throaty rumble of engine drew our eyes. It was Dale Bender’s 1955 Chevy At idle speed the big 409-cubic-inch engine ran rough and phlegmy—like an old male lion trying to clear his pipes. Still in gray primer paint, the two-door Chevy had tinted windows all around; on the driver’s side, a white T-shirt sleeve stretched tightly over a massive biceps, and a thick, darkly tanned forearm held up the roof.
“Wow, who’s that?” Janet said.
“Dale Bender. Fastest car in town.”
“It doesn’t look fast.”
“Dale’s car is deceptive,” I said. “That’s what I like about it. The engine and running gear are all built up and reinforced.” I started to tell her more, but as the car pulled in I saw close beside Dale the flash of a white sleeveless blouse, a bell of blond hair with its perfect flip.
“Jesus,” I murmured.
“Don’t get all hot and bothered, it’s just a car,” Janet said.
Dale parked at the far end, in the shadows, then
rolled up his window most of the way (the other window, even in this heat, was fully closed). Janet turned to the radio, looked for a new song. I sipped my float and kept my eyes on the 1955 Chevy.
“So what are we going to do tonight?” Janet asked.
“I dunno,” I said distractedly. Eventually a carhop skated toward Dale’s car carrying two tall root beer floats—to go. Dale briefly rolled down his window to receive the drinks. Inside, wearing sunglasses and leaning on Dale’s big shoulder, was Peggy Leikvold.
“What is it?” Janet said.
“Nothing.”
“It’s like you keep seeing things,” Janet said, looking around with annoyance.
Dale’s window went up again and the big engine coughed alive. The Chevy eased from the A&W and onto the highway—Dale blipped his engine once to remind us losers of our pathetic vehicles—and then, without smoked tires or undue attention, purred away south of town, beyond the streetlights and into the falling purple sky.
Janet and I sat there a while longer. I finished my float. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Janet asked, rattling her straw with a last suck.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Back down Main Street,” she said. “I love cruising.”
I slowly dragged Main, idling through its heat and
music and shadowy throngs of teenagers and the red glow of their cigarettes. We made two loops.
“Now where?” I asked. I glanced at the time; I still had to get the root beer for my folks.
“Anywhere,” Janet said. She pressed close against me, put her breath on my neck. I turned on a side street and drove slowly, block by block. It was dark now, and she melted against me; I put my arm around her, kept the truck moving. “Is there, like, a lovers’ lane?” Janet murmured.
“Kind of,” I said.
“So?” she breathed. She touched my neck with her lips.
I turned into the boat landing at Hawk Lake just north of town. To the sides it was dark and forested; faint moonlight trickled through tall pines. Here and there, parked for a lake view, were the black slumped shapes of a half dozen cars tucked in shadows alongside a clump of trees, all several car lengths from one another. I coasted to a stop at the far side, punched off the lights. “Look,” I said to Janet, pointing to the half-moon both above and on the water of Hawk Lake.
She didn’t; I could feel her smiling at me.
“This is where they shoot off fireworks on the Fourth of July,” I said. I was suddenly tongue-tied.
We made out until our lips were bruised and our bodies ached all over—at least mine did, and in one spot in particular. Finally, at the last moment, I pulled away, caught my breath.
“What’s the matter?”
I checked my watch. “We should go,” I said.
Coming into Hawk Bend, I saw Kirk’s car still circling Main Street. I cut over a couple blocks, avoiding the stoplight and the Shell station, then I drove east, beyond the city limits and toward home. Janet clung to me all the way, kept her head on my shoulder. At the windbreak I coasted to a stop. She looked up at the farmstead, the faint orange flicker of Is’s campfire. “It feels like I live here,” she murmured.
“You do, sort of.”
“Not for much longer,” she said, and tipped her head against me.
I kissed her again, hard, and then she slipped out.
As I eased the truck past the yellow yard lamp, my mother came onto the porch. Beyond her, at the kitchen table, Dave sat in my spot eating a large bowl of ice cream.
“You were gone nearly two hours,” she said. My father appeared behind her in silhouette.
“Sorry,” I said to them. “Guess I lost track of time.”
As I came into the porch light she looked me up and down.
“It felt good just driving around,” I explained.
“By yourself?”
“Yes,” I said. Lying came easier nowadays.
She was silent for a moment. “And our root beer?”