FRESH YARN presents: A Lesson Before Driving... by Melissa Roth

FRESH YARN presents:

A Lesson Before Driving
By Melissa Roth

"I haff only one problem," Arnold says, "trouble wit English."

Arnold pulled in next to me in a supermarket parking lot. When he approached my car, I thought he was going to tell me my left turn light was out -- because my left turn light was out -- but when he said he'd been following me, I sensed something else was afoot.

Would I like to have dinner? He asks. I say no. Thank you, I have a boyfriend. He says I look "too independent" to have a boyfriend. Would I like to be friends? I say no. Thank you. Would I like to teach him English? I say no. Thank you.

I start thinking that Arnold's one problem is that he thinks he has only one problem.

"This is not business card," Arnold says, handing me a business card, "It is eeenvitation."

Arnold has fifty Rolexes in his trunk. Would I like to see them? (And the movie in my head begins. I survive the 100-mile ride through the desert in his trunk only to die a gruesome death in a dungeon under his house.)

"No. Thank you."

Arnold smiles the smile equivalent of a shrug and gets back into his car. Then I realize, his only business there was to talk to me. No one's ever done that before. Then again, I'm from New York. I lived there until I was 32 until I did the unthinkable. I moved to Los Angeles. I'd fallen in love. Hard. So hard I quit my job, gave up my apartment, and left everything I'd ever known to live with my boyfriend -- Andrew -- in Topanga Canyon. (Those who don't know Topanga, consider this -- when Charles Manson lived in Topanga he just blended right in.)

"I have a lot of shoes," I'd told Andrew one night. We were on the phone, he in Topanga, me in New York. Ours was a costly courtship.

"I'll just have to build you a shoe closet," he replied.

But when I arrived with my shoe collection, all Andrew said was: "Are all of those yours?"

While the shoes were an issue, the fact that I didn't drive was a bigger one. One night, Andrew drove to a parking lot and handed me the keys to his newish, bluish Toyota. (Though he'd owned many dangerous, sexy cars, I met Andrew during his Corolla years.) I drove in reverse, then forward, then reverse, then forward. Andrew assured me that going in reverse was so difficult, going forward would be a relief. It wasn't. After twenty minutes my shirt and pants were so swampy with sweat they made a thwacking noise when I got out of the car.

Andrew decided I should drive from Topanga to his physical therapy office in Santa Monica (I ostensibly worked there; he needed the help, I needed to be within walking distance of a shoe store and a latte.) That morning, I sat on the porch, hoping he'd forget. Andrew emerged from the house dangling his car keys. I stood up and thwack! Even the thought of driving drenched me with panic.

Topanga Canyon Boulevard wasn't bad, except for mountains on one side, cliffs on the other, hairpin turns, s-curves, a harrowing 45-mile-per-hour speed limit, and precious few places to pull over. My reward for surviving this stretch was getting on to the Pacific Coast Highway Deathtrap. Even the right lane wasn't safe. And Andrew, in the passenger seat, became a living, breathing incarnation of the California Driver's Manual. He'd tell me to get into the right lane, and I would, then tell me it was illegal to change lanes within ten feet of an intersection, which I'd also done. I arrived in Santa Monica and burst into tears.

A year after I moved in, Andrew and I began to break up. It happened in spasms. Deciding the amount of suffering we would endure was directly proportional to the amount of time I continued living in Topanga, we agreed I'd look for a place. I started sleeping in the guest room, and in my own bed. Ah, my bed. Andrew hadn't understood why I wanted to bring it all the way from New York. After all, we were going to share a bed forever.

I met Barbara -- a 68-year-old retiree looking to supplement her fixed income/godsend with a room for rent -- and moved to West Hollywood. (Those who don't know West Hollywood consider this - two scents abound: jasmine and marijuana. Once, when I was smoking a cigarette, someone squealed "Who's smoking tobacco?" like they would have said, "Who's smoking diesel fuel?") Barbara drew maps for me, let me call her Bubbie even though she wasn't Jewish, and, when I left the house, called out to me, "Have it all, baby!"

I bought an adequately dinged, formerly metallic '89 Honda Civic I dubbed Old Gold. (When I saw H-O-N written on my first parking ticket, I thought "How sweet, the cops think she's honey-colored.") She died two weeks later. As the tow truck driver explained why women should only drive new cars, I stared back lovingly at her. Old. Gold. Dead. Mine. I promised to care for her, in sickness and in health, and she promised not to die again without ample warning.

The first time I put gas in Old Gold, I spent 10 minutes shimmying up to the pump and wound up so close I couldn't get out. Then there were buttons. I read intently. Nothing made sense. Thankfully a could-be businessman pulled in behind me. (Those who don't know Los Angeles consider this - here, it is nearly impossible to discern a person's line of work based on what they're wearing. Since this guy wasn't wearing flip-flops, I assumed he was heading somewhere air-conditioned. Like an office.)

I assaulted him with questions. He was remarkably helpful.

"I'm from New York," I explained, like that let me off the hook and exalted me at the same time. Forgive me my trespasses, I know not what I do for I am from the holy land.

Fully fueled and back in my car, I discovered my shirt was unbuttoned. To the waist. In the rear view I saw my little helper, grinning from ear to ear.

I started working in West Los Angeles. (When I first heard there was a West Los Angeles, I was confused. "Wouldn't that be in the water?" I asked. ) So I wouldn't have to drive home in the dark, which terrified me, I left at 4:30.

One day, somewhere on Olympic Boulevard, stopped at a red light, my mind whirred.

I'm not in New York.

I'm driving a car.

I have a car?

I looked up and saw a store called Fishland. I wondered - fish as food or fish as pets? I got an answer but forgot it the second the light turned. This happened every day. Same light. Same questions, same Fishland. Then one day, I was at Fishland, but not. Fishland was fishless. A For Rent sign hung in the window. I felt so sad I wrote Fishland on a stickie and stuck it to my dash. I stopped taking Olympic home as a form of protest.

I was soon driving at night. Not because I wanted to, but because night started happening earlier and earlier and pretty much forced the issue. Going 35 mph (yay me!) in the right lane (always me!), the road became dark. Dark dark. Suddenly, a car appeared next to me. Terrified to take my eyes off the road, I chanced a look, and saw a car full of guys. Four, maybe five. That's it, I thought. Old Gold and I'll be in a ditch in no time. I envisioned the front page of The New York Post, then I realized I'm in L.A. Fuck. There I was, about to die a perfectly gruesome death, and there's no New York Post? I looked again and counted six guys, maybe seven. Were they multiplying in there? Fuck fuck double fuck.

"Hey!" the driver screamed. Maybe it's my car -- a tail light out, a bumper dangling, a leak rendering Old Gold on the verge of detonating. Of course it's my car.

"Hey!' he yelled again. Please don't let them ask for directions, I thought, then all forty of them will know I don't know where I'm going.

"My friend thinks you're cute."

In my best can't-you-see-I'm-busy voice, I yelled:

"I'm driving!"

The driver and I locked eyes.

"We're all driving baby!" he screamed, and they zoomed off, leaving me alive, alone in the dark, searching for tail lights to guide me home.

Arnold's business card/invitation is still in my glove box. It's folded in half now, with a chewed up piece of gum stuck inside. Those who think it's weird that I kept it consider this -- I never had a glove box before. Then again, I'm from New York.