Enough time has passed that people don't ask that often anymore, but I used to get hit up all the time about why I didn't have a car. Most of my friends from high school and college will remember that I was always looking for a ride. You see, I didn't get my own ride until I was twenty-four. Why? Because I didn't have a license. There's no point in getting a car if you aren't allowed to drive it.
The problem started with my family. I come from a large family and I'm a middle child. By the time I was learning to drive my dad already had taught five of my siblings how to drive. He was done. No mas! I took Drivers Education with all my friends and I aced it. The problem was Driver's Training. My high school didn't have a program. I had to go pay for lessons or get my parents to teach me. I remember very specifically when I got my Learners Permit and asked my dad if he'd give me a lesson. He said, "Your sisters fucked you on that one, son."
So began my adventures in learning how to drive. Every little chance I'd get I'd jump all over. My sister Teresa showed me how to get a stick into first gear. My friend Drew let me drive his parents minivan around the block once. It was the kindness of friends that I really depended on. The problem was that all my friends were just learning how to drive too - probably not a good thing. Thus I begin the story about Monica.
Monica was (and still is) a very good friend of mine. Her mom loved her and taught her how to drive as soon as she could. I'd say early on that Monica was the one teaching me how to drive half the time. It didn't hurt that we hung out in the middle of the night all the time and that meant a lot of empty roads and parking lots to work with. Being that we were both in our punk phase it was totally cool to just hang out at three in the morning driving around. We were cool like that. There was one time when things didn't go so well, though.
It was the summer of 1991. I'd just graduated from high school and knew that I was going to to go college in the fall. I'm sure everyone has that summer. Hell, a million movies have been made out of that summer. Mine was no different. I could write for months solely on things that went down that summer. But this night still stands out. In fact, I still have souvenirs.
Back before the Internet, you had to actually wait in lines to buy tickets to a concert. They'd hand out numbered wrist bands to everyone in line and if you were lucky, you were one of the first dozen or so people to get tickets before the show sold out. Even though there was a logical system like that, we still felt at the time that it was important to spend the night in front of the Tower Records or, in this case Music Plus, and be the first in line to get a wrist band. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were going to play the Los Angeles Sports Arena with Nirvana opening and some band nobody ever heard of called Pearl Jam opening for them. Seemed like a concert we should go to so we showed up at 1:00 AM to get in line. Of course, in 1991 none of those bands were really all that popular so there was nobody else in line.
Monica decided that now was as good a time as any to give me some driving practice. Always looking to get some time in, I was really excited. We were in a great big parking lot in the San Fernando Valley that was totally empty. It was a white automatic Cadillac and I practiced turns and accelerating and braking gently. The natural progression was, of course, to practice parking. So, I pulled up in front of the Linens and Things and lined up the car to park. The next three seconds lasted about ten years.
Being "in the zone" and trying extra hard to pay attention to everything, it totally caught me off guard with I hit the curb. Where the fuck did that thing come from? All my confidence in turns and acceleration and blinkers and parking came to a crashing failure. The "oh!" that Monica let out didn't help my confidence either. Mad at myself I slammed on the brake with a curse on my tongue. The only problem with that was that I hit the gas instead of the brake.
I don't know if you've ever driven a Cadillac but those bitches got some torque. They've got torque enough to slam you back into that leather seat and keep you there until the blood rushes back to your hands. Instantly I felt the car hop that curb and get a runnin'. All sorts of thoughts started running through my head. Do I slam on the brakes? Do I slam the car into park? Do I open the door and just jump out? Before any of those thoughts even made it to my frontal cortex the glass started shattering.
Apparently the glass they use in store fronts is meant to not shatter. It'll crack and if it gets beat up enough it'll crack all over but it'll stay together. Until you put a fucking Cadillac though it, that is. I remember the headlights causing a beautiful glimmering effect on the shattering glass. The whole front of the store came down like a big blanket covering the front of the car. I was so taken back by the vision that I didn't even notice when I hit the first shelf of towels.
As it happens, the store was laid out with shelf after shelf after shelf of towels, blankets, sheets, and whatever else the hell Linens and Things sells. It also turns out that these ten foot shelves are not bolted to the floor. The first one I hit I only noticed because all the towels came flying at the windshield. The panic of seeing all those towels coming at me just made me flinch. I'd lost all comprehension of actually stopping the car at this point. I just threw my hands in front of my face to keep the towels from killing me and left my lead foot planted to the floor.
The Cadillac pushed the shelf back three or four feet into the next shelf. It then pushed both those shelves into the next shelf and then into the next shelf. I think it was at this point that I at least had enough presents of mind to take my foot off the gas. Maybe it was shock. Maybe I realized what was going one. Either way, it took three more shelves and then some for the car to finally stop. I'd shoved every shelf in that store all the way back to the far wall. The car was still revving but was no longer moving forward when Monica punched me square in the face as hard as I'd ever been hit.
"What the fuck?!?!?!"
(Dumbstruck. Jane's Additions still playing on the radio.)
"Oh my fucking God! Oh my fucking God! What the fuck?!?!!"
"holy shit."
"Dude! Dude! Dude! Dude. Dude. dude. dude. Fucking dude!"
"Holy fucking shit, right?"
"Fuck you, you fucking son of a bitch!"
"What?" (Jane Says going into chorus)
She hit me again. Reality starting coming to me. Had I just driven all the way into the Linens and Things? Holy shit! I totally just did that! Don't panic. Focus. Clear your head. Calm down. Focus.
"Dude!"
Huh? Oh shit! That's when it really dawned on me. I just fucking drove Monica's mom's car into a fucking Linens and Things. Yeah, this was not fucking cool at all.
"I am so fucking sorry, man.'
"Fucking drive!"
"Huh?"
Monica threw the car in reverse and threw her leg over the center console, slamming my foot to the gas and the gas to the floor. The seat belt was still locked in place and I felt it digging into my chest as the the wheels peeled out and the car roared out of the Linens and Things. In the blink of an eye we were flying across the parking lot in reverse. She let loose on my foot and I slammed on the brake. Before I could think a thought she was out of the car and had run to the drivers side. She opened the door and yelled at me to get over. Like a super hero with all the answers, she shoved me over the center console to the passenger seat, jumped in the car, and took over driving duties. She threw it into drive and peeled out of the parking lot; the sounds of Jane Says still playing on the radio.
Absolute panic was running through our veins for the next ten minutes. We were going to go to jail. We were going to get ass raped by murderers and drug dealers. We were both eighteen and totally liable for what had just happened. I don't think either of us said anything for thirty minutes. We'd driven from Reseda to Sylmar to Chatsworth before Monica pulled over and stopped. We just stared at each other for a few seconds. Finally I got out of the car to look at the damage.
You've got to hand it to General Motors. The grill was cracked and there were a few scratches on the hood, but the Cadillac was otherwise fine. Granted, we had no excuse that we could come up with as for why that damage was there, but it wasn't horrible.
So, what now?
"We're supposed to meet Pia at Music Plus right now."
Monica was right. We were supposed to meet our friend Pia at Music Plus to wait in line for tickets. That was the whole reason we were there in the first place. Do we leave our eighteen year old female friend to sit alone in front of a music store for five hours while who knows what sort of perverts come wandering by? We sat. We thought quietly. Personally, I didn't give a shit about Pia. I'm not about to get arrested for lord knows how many reasons because Pia was by herself. Eventually someone else would get in line. Hopefully it'd be some death rock kids who would provide company if nothing else.
"Let's go."
I'm sorry, what? "Are you fucking insane?" I asked. "That place had to have an alarm system. Hell, they probably had video cameras!" I argued. "There's no way we should go back there."
"Pia is waiting for us. Let's go."
I was dumbstruck. Part of me thought Monica was a total idiot, but most of me thought she was the baddest ass friend anyone could ever have. She was willing to go to jail just to make sure she kept her word to her friend that she'd be there at three to wait in line. How do you argue with that?
"Ok."
So we went back to the scene of the crime. Luckily the Music Plus was on the opposite side of the parking lot from the Linens and Things. Monica parked directly in front of the Music Plus. Pia was already there waiting. When she asked why we were late, Monica just said, "My bad."
We sat there for hours waiting for the sun to come up. Pia asked a few questions as it was obvious something was wrong. When dawn came she could see the Linens and Things and walked over to check it out. when she got back she was all giddy about the destruction and we eventually had to tell her. By 7:00 AM the police showed up and we were sure we were pinched.
After investigating the scene, they came over and asked if we'd seen anything. Monica immediately piped up, "Yeah. We saw the whole thing. It was about 2:30 AM when some drunk drove right into it. It was a small black car. Maybe a Porsche. I couldn't tell from all the way over here."
She was brilliant! I couldn't believe what a clear head she was keeping. They bought everything she said and took minimal notes. I don't think they really cared to be honest. They were taking their report and were going to move on. When they asked me what I saw I said, "Nothing. I was sleeping over here." They finished up their notes, took our names and contact info and left.
Not long after that, Monica's mom showed up. Monica had called her after the cops left. They went around the corner and talked for a bit. When they came back, her mom was crying. She looked at the car, tears running down her face and then said, "At least you're ok. Nothing came of this. Let's leave it at that." They both left. I ended up buying Monica's ticket but she was still grounded when the concert came about in early January. I don't think we really ever hung out again the way we used to but we always stayed friends.
....about a month later we finally had a chance to meet up. I stopped by Monica's house unannounced when I knew her mom was at work. We talked a little about that night but mostly I remember her apology.
"Sorry you still don't have your license."
Are you kidding me?! I'm sorry you've been grounded forever and you'll probably stay that way for a few more years! This was so my fault!
Turns out Monica took the blame for the damage to the car. She told her mom that she lost control while trying to learn how to do donuts in the parking lot. Needless to say, all of my friends knew the truth and none of them would ever let me practice in their cars (or their parents cars) again. If nothing else, I learned that night that there are some things that you just can't prepare for. One is driving twenty feet into a store. The other is that there are some things friends do that make you really question how far you'd go for your friends. When you see how far they'd go for you, you begin to realize that you'd go just as far for them.
I've never had to test how far I'd go for Monica, but if she ever calls me up with a body that she needs to get rid of, I know this place outside of Vegas....
.... but I digress. That's why I didn't have my license by the time I was eighteen.
Nineteen?
That was a whole other story. To be continued....
