Hydroplane: Fictions

by Susan Steinberg

  Dumb.

  He kissed my nose, and I will always say he didn't mean to. His aim was off. I will always say it.

  Look, I hadn't thought of him of flares of blankets since drivers' ed, and that was high school, that was summers ago in the church basement, the teacher with the stained shirts and glass eye. What did we call him. I don't know. The boys all called him something. His eye like some kind of milky jewel rolling back and forth in its socket. His gut pushing out the sauce stains on his shirts. And his son who took us on the road in the long red car with the zigzag stripe and the brake on the passenger's side. The boys all talked about the long red car, even that boy with the off aim.

  It's fast, said the boy one night behind the headstone.

  But it wasn't fast, as it turned out. Sure it looked fast with the zigzag stripe. But the boy hadn't driven the long red car. He didn't know how slow it went. I was first to drive it in the class. I didn't want to drive it first. But the teacher said my name. He was not a Jew. This my mother told me. He had a good last name my mother said. He said mine wrong. He said, You're first, and everyone laughed at the thought.

  When I went driving with the teacher's son, the car went so slow, the teacher's son said, Are you on pills, as if it were my fault how we crept. And I said to him, Your car has no power.

  He said something back I can't remember. Something I can't quite care about now.

  And had I told my mother what he said.

  She would have held my hand.

  She would have said, Fix your nails.

  She would have said, You won't get married with nails like those.

  I sat in the graveyard behind the church at night with the boys from drivers' ed. It was dark and quiet but for us. Just one boy worth mentioning today. Just that boy I already mentioned. Just one night worth mentioning in the graveyard. I gave that boy two pills that night, pressed them into his palm, and he showed them to the other boys. He said, I told you she wants me.

  I said, I don't like you.

  Then a scuffle. Me and the boy scuffling in the grass. The other boys running off for good. Me and the boy sitting in the grass.

  The moon shone on the backs of headstones.

  Crosses stuck up from their tops.

  We were sitting in the grass when the cops came prowling.

  But this isn't about him and me sitting in the grass. And this isn't about those Baltimore cops with nothing better to do but prowl.

  This is about Missouri.

  Imagine this place. There are no streetlights. The road is wet with rain.

  And at some point my tire will blow. The car will skid and stop in a ditch. I will get out of the car and stand in a pile of straw with the cat. I will wait for a man. He will pull over. He will help me change the tire. He will drive the car from the ditch to the shoulder. Then he will touch me in the wet straw.

  The drivers' ed teacher told us girls to learn to change a tire. He said, In case a man doesn't pull over. He said, Ask your fathers to show you how.

  I asked my mother how to change a tire.

  She said, Ask who you marry to do it for you.

  She said, You'll marry if you fix your nails.

  I was arrested in the graveyard that night. The boy was arrested. I'd say the cops were pushy that night. They said things to me I can't remember. Though I do remember the boy laughed hard. The cops laughed too.

  They pushed me into one car, the boy into another.

  I can't care about what they said.

  And besides. It doesn't matter. None of it does. In Missouri everything changed.

  I was standing in straw with the cat. I was waiting for something. I don't know what. A man I thought.

  Early, I had driven toward a sunset. A song came on. And the night felt holy, as I mentioned, somehow. Then more so as the sky turned black. I soared like a rocket through the dark. The road was wet. It was black everywhere the headlights weren't. The headlights hit the straw and again. I was looking at all that straw thinking, Come on already, Happen already. I knew something would. And then the car skidded. The wheel turned on its own. I recall the dark thrill of a hydroplane. We had learned of these in drivers' ed. The road was wet enough to skid on. Perhaps it was then the tire blew What did they teach us of hydroplaning. To turn the wheel to the shoulder. I remembered. I veered the car toward the shoulder and the car stopped past in a ditch.

  I was stuck.

  First thought: It's quiet.

  Then: I have no flares.

  And, as mentioned, I had never even considered flares. And if I'd had them, I would never have lighted them on the roadside for various reasons, one having to do with a fear of the straw catching fire and then, in time, of farmland Missouri going up in flames.

  But the straw was wet and wouldn't catch fire. I knew this. It was too wet.

  Regardless.

  I wouldn't have wanted cops to see flares and find me there stuck in a ditch. Because I knew how cops could get when a girl made a dumb mistake.

  My mistake was not checking the tires before I went. There was a way to check. A way to kick.

  My mistake that one night was not ducking lower in the grass. We should have ducked low, me and the boy. I should have ducked my head to his lap. He should have lowered his head to my shoulder. But he kissed my nose, this boy, behind the headstone, and it felt like something, his kiss. Sandpaper. Predictable.

  The cops came prowling through the graveyard with flashlights, with nothing better to do but prowl, and saw our heads above the headstone.

  They said, Look at this.

  We didn't jump.

  We weren't scared.

  Our legs touched in the grass.

  When drivers' ed ended, the boys went driving. They drove their fathers' cars. I drove a car my mother bought. The boys didn't want to ride with me. The boys stopped going to the graveyard. They all thought I was too good now. This, because I owned a car. The teacher's son owned two. The boys had told me this. That he owned two. They told me one night in the graveyard. Our first night there. Nothing worth mentioning now. A night I told them I could get pills. I said, I can give you what you want. We sat and talked, big deal. We talked about getting high. We sat in a circle, and I said, I can get you pills.

  The boys said the teacher's son had a sports car.

  Well, then, I would see this car. I would tell the boys about it. I would tell the boy I wanted.

  I said, Next week, I'll get you high.

  The boys said the teacher's son lived in a house.

  I would see the house, then, too.

  The teacher's son had a mustache.

  When he picked me up in his long red car, my mother wasn't yet home from work. He knocked. I wanted to call out, Later Ma, before leaving the house, but she was still at work.

  And so I drove his car through Baltimore. It felt vast and light, like pushing a weightless building up the streets. And now I can say it was euphoric, pushing this thing. I have not felt anything like it since.

  Look, I was laughing so hard, pushing slow and loose and light through the streets, that the teacher's son said, Are you on pills.

  It doesn't matter that he said this.

  I knew better than to drive on pills.

  And yes his car had a type of power despite what I said.

  Regardless.

  What matters is what happened later.

  I was stranded on the roadside in farmland Missouri. I was stuck there standing in straw like a cow.

  What matters is the car that eventually came.

  I didn't wave down the car.

  I stood there waiting as if waiting for nothing.

  I thought of my mother as I stood there. I thought of what she would have done. She would have waved down this car with her fixed up nails, screaming, Stop.

  Her rings would have glinted in the headlights.

  She would have said to me, Straighten, as the man stepped from his car.

  She often said, Straighten.

  She often
said, They want one thing, Give them what they want.

  She often said, Here's five dollars, Fix your nails.

  I always took the five dollars. I bought small white pills with the money.

  Because no one was looking at my nails.

  I should have said, Ma, they're looking at my tits, You know this.

  They weren't huge.

  But I saw how the teacher's son looked when I drove.

  He said, Can you change a flat tire.

  We were drifting past rows of small houses.

  He said, I can teach you.

  He said, Pull over.

  We were drifting outside a small house, and he said, I live in this house. He said, Let's change a tire together.

  It was his house, not his father's. He lived in his own house because he was old enough to live alone. And he had the thick mustache of a man, not sprigs of hair that felt like sandpaper on my face. He said, Pull over, and I let the car drift toward a tree. It felt so easy and lightweight drifting. He pressed the passenger brake for me when I didn't brake. He said, You're really something. He reached over and put the car into park.

  He said, Come on.

  And I thought, split second, Don't.

  I thought, So you will never know how to change a tire. I thought, Big deal, Make him drive you home.

  But I went in the house.

  Because the boy would want to hear of his other car. His sports car. And the boy would want to hear of his house. And I wanted that boy. So I went.

  But look. I never told the boy a thing. I never had to. And still, we sat in the graveyard that night. What does this mean. That he wanted me, this boy. It didn't matter, the teacher's son's house. It didn't matter what I saw.

  Still, I got him in a way. The boy that is.

  Still, we were in the graveyard that one night just doing nothing, a kiss.

  Big deal the cops found us, our heads sticking up from the headstone. Big deal they pushed me into the back of a car. They pushed him into another.

  In a small room, it was me and a cop. He shook a bag in front of my face.

  He said, Are these your pills.

  He said, Then whose are they.

  I wasn't on them anyway at the time.

  He said, Where did they come from.

  My mother walked in.

  He said, Come on.

  I said, Ma.

  The cops said things. They called me things. I can't care about this.

  My mother's face was all unfixed. She said, You're high.

  I wasn't high. But I should have been. I had almost swallowed a pill. I was sitting in the grass with the boy. The bag was open in my lap. I was holding a small white pill. The boy was holding two. We were working up spit enough to swallow.

  His leg touched mine in the grass.

  To this day I have not wanted anyone more.

  And now. Big deal I'm grown.

  I teach in Missouri. Outside the window is flat.

  But look. First it's dark. I'm stuck in a ditch. A car stops up on the shoulder. The other car is not a car but a truck. No one gets out. The truck is still running. I'm standing in all that scratchy straw The cat is standing beside me. Here's what I first think: It's a man in the truck. And then: He will help me. And then: He will touch me. His nose will come nearer mine. His teeth. Then a kiss, a taste of something old. A taste of straw even, old and hard and covered in all that Missouri dirt. Then straw against my back, cutting into my back.

  He opens the door to his truck.

  He wears a hat.

  He says, What's your name.

  I lie because I'm a Jew.

  My mother told me to always lie.

  My mother said, There are no Jews in Missouri.

  She said, They will treat you there like you're a Jew.

  The teacher laughed every time he got my name wrong and the boys in class laughed too and I always laughed. Big deal my name. They called the teacher Glass-eye. It was Glass-eye they called him, okay. Big deal what they called me, laughing. Big deal the boy laughed too. I didn't care that he laughed. I cared about getting his face to press against mine and more. But he never tried anything on me except that one night against the headstone. And it was nothing that time.

  Then why am I still thinking about it.

  Good question.

  Because we got arrested. Before it could turn into something more.

  Before his mouth went lower.

  Before my hands went to his hair.

  The cops said, Look at this.

  His hand was on my face.

  I can't remember what I said.

  Perhaps there was nothing for me to say.

  Sometimes there was nothing.

  When we went driving the teacher's son said, Are you on pills. And what was there for me to say. I was just euphoric. I couldn't press the brake I was so euphoric from drifting in that car. He had to press the brake for me. He put the car into park. We were near pressed to a tree out front of his house. He laughed at me. And when he laughed, I noticed lines around his eyes and that he looked older than he should have looked. I followed him into the house. He gave me a can of soda in the kitchen. He opened the can. He said, I'll be back. He went into the bathroom. I didn't drink the soda. There was a calendar on the wall. It had pictures of naked girls on it. Their tits were huge. He came into the kitchen and said, Come into the garage. He said that was where the other car was. The sports car the boys had talked about. It had a flat. He'd show me how to change a tire.

  Looking back I realize I should have called my mother at work from his house. There was a telephone next to the calendar. I would have said where I was. I would have said, I'm at the drivers' ed teacher's son's house, Ma.

  But this would have made no difference. He had a good last name, this one. My mother would have said so. Give him what he wants, she would have said. He had a good last name I can't remember. And a first name I also can't remember. The boys called him by his first name. The boys called his father Glass-eye.

  And Glass-eye called me something. His son did too. The cops did too. The boys.

  They called me Princess.

  No. That wasn't it.

  Yes. Because I was a Jew.

  No. Something else. For another reason.

  Now, really, though, this means nothing.

  None of it's worth breaking down.

  And straw was once hay, I'll guess. And hay was once grass.

  It doesn't matter.

  What matters is I was standing in straw with the cat. And look. When the teacher told us to keep a blanket in the trunk of the car, I didn't know what for. But on the roadside, I thought, A blanket, I'm supposed to have a blanket. I thought, Perhaps this man, if I had a blanket, would touch me on the blanket instead of in all this straw.

  I was on my way to a school. I was a teacher.

  I am a teacher. It's my living.

  I stand in the front of a classroom.

  I stand there talking to a hundred looking eyes.

  And sometimes I'll be talking, and I'll look around the classroom, and something, perhaps a student, perhaps a boy in the back of the room, someone who spits tobacco into a cup when I am talking, someone who never says a word in class but sits there, rather, staring at me, will remind me of the man on the roadside.

  He said, Looks like you shredded it good.

  He said, I can help.

  He came nearer.

  The teacher never said to carry mace. But I thought of it once in the church basement. We were watching films of car wrecks. I couldn't look at the wreckage. I stared instead at the pitiful stain on the teacher's shirt, thinking how it looked like blood, thinking how his gut stretched the stain into cloud shapes, how pitiful it was. I was thinking how it could pin me down, that gut. I was so high that night I thought his gut was stretching toward me to get me and pin me down. And so I stared instead at that milky eye thinking, Fall out of the socket, Fall out of the socket, Roll onto the table. But it stayed stuck in the socket. And
I thought of mace. I thought of how mace wouldn't hurt his eye. I knew it would just coat the eye like any other thing, like a spray of spit, that I would need to spray mace into the other eye to make the eye sting. I would need good aim.

  Then the teacher couldn't touch me.

  And his son with two good eyes stinging from mace couldn't touch me.

  Regardless. I was high and thinking dumb.

  The wrecks went on and on.

  And his son and I really did change a tire. We did. It was flat, this tire. Nearly shredded. I helped him jack up the car. Every one of my nails had black under it after touching the greasy jack. He said, Listen. He twisted some metal thing around some other metal things. He had names for the parts, but I wasn't really listening. And he was mumbling. He wasn't really saying what he was doing. He was looking at my tits from below me. He was making jokes I didn't get.

  He said, Are you Jew.

  He said, You know what they say about Jew girls.

  But I didn't know, and I still don't. And it never occurred to me to leave his house. I could have left. I wasn't locked in. It was Baltimore and I knew how to get home. There was a bus to take. It went from his corner to mine. I knew where I was. He was on the floor partway under the car. I was standing by him. He could have touched my legs with his face. I could feel him breathing on my legs. But he wasn't holding me there. I wasn't stuck. Look. I went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. I fixed up my lipstick. There was a towel on the floor. A smell of cologne. A stain in the bathtub. I cupped water from the sink in my hand and drank. I was beautiful in that bathroom mirror. Do you understand this. I was something else. There was my soda on the kitchen table. The calendar girls with the huge tits. It never occurred to me to leave his house. He called my name from the garage. He said it correctly. I said, I'm coming. It never occurred to me to leave his house, until I was walking home later with my shirt on inside-out. It was night.

  My mother said, Would you look at this.

  And this is what's funny. That now I'm a teacher. That I teach, that is. That I say how it goes. That all those eyes are looking at my eyes looking at the flat past the window.

  They want me to tell them something true.