My eldest son, Jake, could kick my butt at any driving video game out there. But his first short stint behind the wheel of an actual car showed him just how different a pixilated car is from its non-virtual cousin.
Jake’s been driving with me, of course, since the beginning. I still remember how terrified I was on the trip home from the hospital. I wanted to plaster our car with “Baby on Board” signs and have a police escort clear all the intersections. Later, when he started enjoying Hot Wheels and other car toys, we began going for drives—first in my 1994 Camaro Z28, then in the 2001 Corvette that followed, and most recently in the 2005 GTO. I’ve had a manual transmission all along, and Jake has progressed from placing a chubby little left hand under mine on the gearshift to actually changing the gears for me.
The past few months, whenever I’m outside washing the car or working in the garage, Jake has begged to be allowed to move the car. He’s sure he knows the drill of starting and moving the car, and will lay out the process step-by-step to prove it. Regardless, I always say no. Reciting the steps and doing the steps aren’t the same. We let him start my wife’s auto-tranny SUV, but that’s a whole different deal.
The other day, however, Jake got the jump on me. He and I were going to go someplace on a weekend. I was still putting my shoes on when he grabbed my keys and ran out the door into the garage. I heard the garage door going up and thought I had at least a few seconds to finish tying my sneaker, but the boy was fast: I heard the GTO roar to life, then a screech, then nothing.
I ran out the door and saw the car sitting about four feet rearward from where it had been parked, motor no longer running. Jake was in the driver’s seat hanging onto the steering wheel, eyes wide, speechless. I ran around the far side of the car to see if he’d come in contact with the edge of the garage opening. No, but he was scant inches from it.
Returning to the driver’s door, I tried to think of something to say. I believe my first words were, “What the heck!?”
Jake finally started speaking, and the words tumbled out. “I did everything right! I put the clutch in and started it, but the car just jumped back! I did everything right! I didn’t give it any gas at all. I don’t know what happened!”
It was then that I noticed the short skid marks ahead of each tire, and I put it together. “Jake, did you move the seat forward before starting the car?” He hadn’t. Now, Jake’s tall for a 13-year-old, but not quite my height yet. He simply hadn’t been able to keep his clutch foot all the way to the floor. He may have lost focus, he may have wiggled or shifted—who knows? But it was enough. The GTO’s 400-horsepower engine doesn’t require any gas to get the car rolling—let up the clutch and it goes. When it started backward, Jake panicked and braked, stalling the car. “You just hit the brakes without putting in the clutch, didn’t you?” I asked. Jake nodded.
When it comes to the boys and the doing of bad deeds, I’ve become much angrier over offenses that were far less grievous. Considering this particular misstep involved my car, I’d have expected to be much more upset than I was. As it happens, I mostly just felt relief that both Jake and the car were okay. And the look that remained on Jake’s face told me that my yelling at him wouldn’t teach him anything he hadn’t already figured out for himself. “You did the best thing you could’ve done, hitting the brakes like that,” I said. Jake nodded, got out of the car, and walked inside.
That’s been a few weeks ago now, and he hasn’t pestered me for the keys once.
But he will. That short trip inside the garage will become part of a longer journey, and we’ll write the next chapter in our driving history.
No comments:
Post a Comment