Dispatch 16
Someday in the future I will be sitting behind the wheel of an International lumber truck with a 24’ dump bed fully loaded with pallets of shingles, shifting through gears as I traverse a hilly, winding road to my destination.
That is not where I am today.
I am sitting in the driver’s seat of a 1986 Chevy Chevette, turd brown with a racing steering wheel. I am staring helplessly at the shifter. It’s four on the floor in an H pattern. I have one foot on the brake and the other jammed so hard on the clutch that my bottom is nearly lifting off the seat.
The engine is running. For now.
I have spent the last hour unsuccessfully trying to take off without stalling. The front bumper is pointing downhill, but it is not helping.
My brother is laughing at me from the passenger seat.
Also not helping.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Now, I know that you’re not supposed to close your eyes when you’re driving, but I was concentrating.
Besides, there is no traffic, no pedestrians. We are on a dirt road, if you could have called it a road back then, on a hot, lazy summer day.
I hold my breath and let off the brake just a little. The car doesn’t move. A little more and it begins to creep forward, just the tiniest bit.
Here we go.
I lift my foot off the clutch, trying to let off the brake the rest of the way at the same time.
The car lurches forward and stalls.
My brother roars with laughter.
Seeing my frustration, he relents a little and patiently explains the process again. His explanation of RPMs, accelerators, clutches and brakes sounds like a foreign language in my ears, like some crazy dance move I’m trying to learn.
I never claimed to be graceful.
I keep trying until my brother’s abs can no longer stand the strain. He’s nearly laughed himself sick. He stumbles to the house, still chuckling.
I stand outside the car, staring at it in defiance.
I am going to figure this out.
I look around. The road is still empty and it doesn’t look like anyone is looking out the window of the house. I get back in the driver’s seat.
The car is still pointing downhill, but it has jerked itself a little farther over the crest of the hill. Curious, I put the car in neutral.
It doesn’t move.
I reach my foot out the open door, press it hard against the ground, and push with all my might.
The car slowly moves forward. I push again and it picks up a little speed. Now I am at the steepest part of the hill and, by the time I have my foot back in the car and the door closed, it is moving along at a decent, albeit slow, speed.
I push in the clutch, shift into first, and pop the clutch.
The car sputters to life and, suddenly, I’m doing it.
I’m driving!
Somehow I manage to get the car all the way down to the part of the road that widens into a turnaround. I get the car turned around…
And then it stalls.
But I’m riding high now, and whatever luck got the car going to begin with has not left me yet. I take off on the first try and manage to return to the end of the road, turn back around, and park the car where I began.
I hop out of the car, elated!
When I go inside, I find my brother parked in front of the TV.
He doesn’t believe me.
We go back outside so I can show him.
I’ll leave it to you to figure out what happened next.
New to Barn Owl?
Barn Owl Exploration 