Chapter 55: Driving Miss Hazy

In his long, illustrious career, Johnny had worn many hats. These days he sported a paper bag which came in handy when he needed to carry stuff, but in the past, he'd had others that weren't quite as stylish. Before he and Lincoln started their side hustle, they worked odd jobs for people in town. You know the kind, mowing grass, raking leaves, shovelling old people's sidewalks for five dollars and one of those nasty candies in the red and green strawberry looking wrapper (where did they sell those things anyway? Johnny had legit never seen them in any store. Did they have a special old lady store somewhere that he didn't know about?). For a couple weeks, he even worked in a radio station downtown.

Emptying the trash.

He got fired when he sneaked into an empty studio and did his best Rush Limbaugh impression into what he thought was a dead mic. Turns out it was hot and listeners in the Royal Woods area were treated to fifteen minutes of Johnny ranting against liberals and conservatives, space aliens, his Dad's obsession with wrestling, and plastic bags ("Paper is much better than plastic, people, and if you disagree with me, you're an idiot and deserve to meet Kyle Rittenhouse in a dark alley").

From what he heard later, the station was flooded with calls asking where "that crazy kid" went and why his show was taken off the air. Johnny half way expected the station manager to come crawling to him on his knees but it never happened, and Johnny was lowkey disappointed. Having his own drive time shock jock show would be awesome. He could be the Howard Stern of his day. The only difference was that everything was reversed. In Stern's day, being edgy meant talking about sex and shocking the little conservative church ladies. These days, "edgy" was being proud of America and urging people to not define everyone by their race.

Actually, that last one was edgy back then too. People just love racism, don't they? If it's not a white dude defining you because you're black, it's a black dude defining you because you're black. Can't I just be a Johnny? Some liberal black guy on Twitter once got mad at Johnny for saying "I'm biracial." He said something like "You're obviously black, the world sees you as black, you're black."

Okay, well, I really don't care how the world sees me. Unlike you, I don't live my life based on other people's perceptions. I'm a chocolate-vanilla swirl. I got both inside of me. That's a fact. If that hurts your feelings, maybe you should go hang out with some KKK guys, since you agree with them so much.

Anyway, one of Johnny's jobs was working on Liam's farm. It wasn't a job per se, just him helping out here and there. He fed the cows, groomed the horses, chased the chickens, and stole ears of corn to eat raw in the field. Yes, he liked raw, uncooked corn on the cob. And he did it while being biracial and wearing a paper bag on his head. Wanna fight about it? One of his favorite things to do on the farm was drive the old Ford F-150 that Liam and his grandma used to haul hay and other farm-type stuff around. In the four months that he helped them out, Johnny became an expert driver even though he needed to sit on a stack of books and tie planks of wood to the pedals so he could reach them. He was young but he was such a darn good driver that even Dad complimented him.

That's big. Dad wasn't the kind of guy to hand out compliments. Not that that hurt Johnny's feelings or anything, that's what his mother was for. The point is, Johnny knew as much about driving as a thirty year old man who'd been on the road fifteen years. Even so, he never thought he'd wind up teaching someone older than him how to handle a motor vehicle, yet here he was, strapped into the passenger seat or Vanzilla while Leni sat behind the wheel, tapping her chin and looking at the dash panel with a confused expression.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and they were in the vast parking lot of the old K-Mart on Route 10. The store went out of business last year after a decade of being a local punchline for having low quality stuff, empty shelves, and trashy sales associates, and it had stood empty ever since. Unless you count the two months last year Spirit Halloween rented it. Johnny freaking loved Spirit Halloween. It had all the best masks, costumes, and decorations. If you got him in there, he'd make it rain like an old lady at Hobby Lobby.

Back to now. Leni tapped her chin and brushed her teeth nervously over her bottom lip. Johnny often compared himself to Mr. Krabs from Spongebob Squarepants because he loved money and had family members who looked nothing like him (seriously, how can a crab have a whale for a daughter?). If he was Mr. Krabs, and Dad was Patrick because he was big and dumb, Leni was Spongebob. She had taken her drivers' test a good dozen times and had miserably failed each go around. The last time, she made the driving instructor jump from the car out of terror. It was only by the grace of God that she didn't slam into the gas pumps outside of Flip's and turn downtown into one big weenie roast (I think you're looking for THAT gas station...Super Weenie-Mart?).

Just like Spongebob, Leni aced the written test whenever she took it, but once she got behind the wheel, she blanked out.

It was weird. Driving is easy as frick.

Finally giving up, she turned to Johnny. "What do I do?"

"Okay," Johnny said, "first, you put your hands at ten and two on the wheel."

"But I only have ten fingers. How do I add two?"

"No," Johnny said patiently, "it's a saying. Imagine the wheel is a big clock. Put your hands where the 10 and the 2 would be."

Leni smiled. "Oh, okay." She turned to the wheel and stared derpily at it.

"You can't read an analog clock," Johnny said, "can you?"

Still looking derpy, Leni shook her head.

Okay then.

Yesterday, Leni failed her test for the thirteenth time. She came home looking sad and defeated, and Johnny couldn't help but feel for her. Leni was kind of...well...Leni-ish, but he was certain that the problem wasn't her as much as it was her teachers. Most of them were garbage. Mr. Loud drove like an old woman, Dad (who tried to teach her once) couldn't teach a cat how to meow, and Lori didn't have the patience to get more than ten minutes into a lesson. "I could teach her," Johnny said. "Guaranteed."

Lincoln blew a raspberry. "Okay."

"What?" Johnny asked. "I could and you know it."

"No you couldn't."

"Wanna bet on it?"

To his surprise, Lincoln did; he bet ten dollars that Johnny couldn't apply his skills to helping Leni get her license. That offended the heck out of Johny so he took the challenge; Lincoln really thought he couldn't teach her, huh? Okay then, get ready to be proved wrong, White Hair. Johnny was confident that he could teach Leni, but watching her struggle to find 10 and 2, he realized it would take a while. "Look," he said. He leaned over and guided her right hand to two, then her left to 10. "Right there. 10 and 2."

"Okay," she piped, "I'm ready." She hunched over the wheel, furrowed her brow determinedly, and turned the wheel from side to side. "I, like, have the need for speed."

Johnny stopped her. "To start with, you need to have a need for safety."

He made her check her seatbelt and all the mirrors. He adjusted the one on his side so that she could see better, then helped her with the rearview. "You need to see the whole back window. On your side, you need to see just a little sliver of car."

When she was finished, she looked at him. "Now what?"

"Now you start the car, put your foot on the brake, and put it in drive."

Leni twisted the keys in the ignition and the van's engine coughed into life, the frame vibrating like the vehicle was going to explode into a million pieces. Leni put it in drive and looked at him. "Now ease off the brake."

Nodding, Leni eased off the brake and the van crept forward. "I know what to do from here." She toed the gas and they started to roll. "Keep it straight," Johnny said. He looked down at Leni's feet and frowned. "Your left foot is on the brake."

"Yeah."

"Get that foot out of there. You use your right foot only."

"But what if I have to stop quickly?" she asked and looked at him.

"Eyes on the road," he ordered.

Leni faced forward again.

"You only use your right foot and only the very tippy top of it, not the whole foot. You want to toe the gas." He checked her foot again. "Which you're doing decently right now. Your foot could stand to be a little lower, though."

She moved it and Johnny made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. "Perfect. Now, when you're driving, you want to keep your eyes straight and focused in the distance. That way you have a wider field of vision and can see everything that's going down."

"Right," Leni said.

"Turn at this stop sign."

Even later, after close analysis, Johnny wouldn't be able to figure out what exactly happened next, but for some reason, Leni sped up as she approached the stop sign and jerked the wheel hard to the left. The van skidded, the tires kicking up clouds of smoke on the pavement, and started to roll. Johnny's heart rocketed into his mouth and he held on for dear life as the van tipped. The world spun around once, then twice, then finally, they landed right side upm the van rocking heavily from side to side. Leni gripped the wheel tightly, her face white with fear, and Johnny sucked great gulps of air into his heaving lungs. "Oops," Leni said sheepishly.

Johnny's first instinct was to lose his everloving mind on her, but he stopped himself because that likely would not be helpful. If he didn't have ten bucks riding on this, maybe he would, but the point was to get Leni to drive, and something told him that exploding and screaming until he was hoarse would traumatize her so much that she would forever associate driving with fear and humiliation, in which case she would never get her license and Lincoln would be proved right. Instead, he took a deep breath. "Now we have to check the van for damage," he said.

They hopped out and walked around the van, meeting up at the front end. Shockingly, there wasn't a scratch on her...at least not a scratch that hadn't been there before. "Yay," Leni said. She clapped her hands and jumped up and down.

"This really isn't a cause for celebration," Johnny said. "You took that turn way too fast. You didn't even stop. You're supposed to come to a full stop at stop signs. If this was a real road, you could have gone in front of someone and they could have hit us. We could be on a LifeFlight helicopter right now fighting for our lives. Driving is no joke, Leni. Safety really does come first because if you aren't safe, you're dead."

Leni lowered her head like a scolded dog and Johnny instantly felt bad. She had to hear this, though; she needed to know how important road safety was, for her own good and for the good of other drivers. "I know," she said heavily.

"You're not the first person this sort of thing has happened to," he said, softening his tone. He patted her on the shoulder and she looked at him with a hopeful glimmer. "Come on, let's get back to it."

They got back into the van and put their seatbelts on. "Remember what I told you. Hands at 10 and 2, right foot only, toe the gas."

"Okay," Leni said. She took a series of deep breaths and stole a quick look at him. "I'm a little nervous. It's really nice of you to help me and I want to make you proud."

"I'm very proud of you," Johnny said.

She blushed.

Putting the van in drive again, she pulled onto the service road leading to the street, narrowed her eyes in concentration, and navigated the van toward the end of the lane. At the last minute, Johnny had her turn right at a stop sign. "A little shaky," he said, "but better than the last one. Keep a tight grip on the wheel and control the car. You have to do it in one smooth motion."

"Got it," Leni said, sounding resolved.

They worked on turns and braking for most of the afternoon, and later, at home, Leni hummed with energy like a transformer box. "I've never had so much fun behind the wheel," she said, "I can't wait to go out tomorrow."

Monday afternoon, they worked a little more on turns and braking, Johnny guiding her with the care and patience of a learned scholar. Someone had left a shopping car parked near one of the spaces, and Johnny had her pull up alongside it. "Now we're gonna parallel park. What you gotta do is turn the wheel to the right one full turn and back up. When you're at a 45 degree angle, turn it twice to the left and back in"

She looked confused.

"Here, let me show you."

They switched seats and Johnny had her watch closely as he parallel parked. He did it four times, twice so she could watch how he manipulated the wheel and twice so that she could see how he maneuvered the van. "This looks really tricky," she worried.

"It's not," Johnny promised. "Once you get the hang of it, it's the easiest thing in the world."

Leni took a deep breath and nodded.

For the next two hours, they worked on parallel parking. The first couple dozen times, she was way off, and almost wrecked the van into a light pole. After that, however, she started to improve. She would never be great at parallel parking, but as long as she could do it well enough to pass the test, Johnny didn't care. Because he didn't have a license of his own, he couldn't legally take Leni on the road, so on Saturday, he had Dad tag along. The law said someone with a learner's could only drive with a licensed driver present. It didn't say that the licenced driver had to be the one in the passenger seat directing things.

They started out small, driving up and down a maze of side streets and eventually graduating to secondary streets. Once she got in the groove, Leni was actually a decent driver. Her turns were still shaky and she sometimes forgot the turn signal when she was changing lanes, but overall, she actually did well. Johnny was impressed.

That night, Johnny and Leni sat on her bed and pored over the driver's handbook. Johnny quizzed her and she read all the signs and rules of the road. "When's your next test?" Johnny asked.

"Monday," she said.

That was the day after tomorrow.

"Alright," Johnny said, "I will help you."

And help her he did. For the next forty-eight hours, they spent almost every waking moment driving and studying the driver's manual. She was hit or miss with turns but her parallel parking game was on point. "I'm really proud of you, Leni," Johnny said. "You're doing great."

Leni beamed. "Thank you, Johnny."

The day of the test, Johnny accompanied her and Mr. Loud to the DMV. They waited behind a line of cars parked at the curb for the driving instructor and Johnny took the opportunity to give Leni a pep talk. When the instructor showed up, Johnny and Mr. Loud got out and stood on the curb while Leni took the instructor on a brief drive. "I hope she passes," Mr. Loud worried.

"She will," Johnny said, "I believe in her."

For what seemed like forever, Johnny and Mr. Loud waited in suspense. Finally, the car appeared and parked in front of them. The driver side window buzzed down and Leni stuck her head out. "I passed!" she cried.

Mr. Loud cheered and Johnny beamed proudly. "I knew you could do it."

She got out of the car and swept him into a big hug. Johnny hugged her back. "Thank you, Johnny," she said, "for everything."

"It was my pleasure," Johnny said.

They pulled away from each other and Johnny went to talk to Mr. Loud. He did not see Leni looking at him, biting her bottom lip, and swirling her finger around a strand of hair.

He had no idea that she, like Luna and Luan, had feelings for him now too.

THE END