Drivers Ed

By David Armand

It’s Saturday. Early in the morning and my parents are already dropping me off at a strip mall in downtown Covington, Louisiana, where I’m going to spend the next eight hours taking a drivers education course so that I can get my license the following week. I’m only fifteen, but back then you could do that. No semester-long classes during high school. No learners permit. Back then you could just get your license after a one-day class.

It’s cool outside, and overcast, the gray clouds hanging low and spraying a damp mist on the otherwise empty parking lot. I get out of my parents’ car and walk toward the building, and then I hear them pull out and drive away.

I see a couple of other kids about my age milling around just inside the door, a few of them at a desk shuffling papers, and I walk in.

The room is spare, like an office building: Berber carpet and gray-white walls with nothing on them save for a few of those inspirational posters that you can buy at Office Depot: a lion overlooking a vast savannah with the word PRIDE emblazoned in golden letters beneath his strong, swishing tail; a formation of jets cutting across a perfectly clear blue sky, the word TEAMWORK riding under the trails of white clouds being emitted from their wings.

There’s a conference table stretching the distance of the narrow room, a TV/VCR cart at the head of the table where a video is already set up, but paused on the tiny screen, the little lines of static sizzling across the frozen image like arteries. I walk to the end of the room and sit down in one of the plastic chairs. Then I wait while the instructor shuffles some papers into a clipboard. He finally approaches the front of the room.

“I’m Gregg,” he says, his smile revealing a mouth full of perfectly-white teeth. “How many of you guys are ready to drive!” It’s more of an exclamation the way he says it, less of a question, which might be why no one really says anything in response.

“Okay,” he says, a little less excitedly, maybe even a little defeated by our lack of enthusiasm. “Let’s get started then.”

We spend the morning watching videos about driving safety, seatbelt use, hazardous weather conditions, road signs. Occasionally Gregg pauses the video so we can take a quiz, review information we’d just seen. Yet Gregg’s mood seems to darken as the day wears on. I’ll never know why. Maybe it’s the overcast sky outside, but his energy level seems to be slowly draining, like soapy gray dishwater in a sink.

*

When it’s time for lunch, I walk a couple of blocks to hang out with this girl I know from school. We’d been friends for a couple of years, and since she lives close by, I figure I can drop in and we can eat lunch or something together. Her name’s Chrissy.

“What are you doing here?” she asks when she opens the door.

After I tell her about Drivers Ed, she says, “Oh.” Then she asks me if I want to come in.

“Sure,” I say. The sky is still worked up into a steady drizzle and I don’t have an umbrella or anything, so my hair and shirt and clothes are fairly damp.

Chrissy hands me a towel as we walk inside, and I follow her to the kitchen as I dry off my hair and clothes. Then we sit down and eat some Fritos and talk a little.

“Where’s your mom?” I ask her.

“At work.”

“Cool.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” she says suddenly. “You want to do some shots?”

“What?”

“Whiskey? Vodka? I don’t know. I have some of those little bottles like they used to give people on airplanes.”

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“Cool. My mom keeps a bunch of ’em in the cabinet up there. She won’t ever know they’re gone. She has like fifty of them.”

I watch her get up, pull the chair she’s been sitting on across the linoleum and toward the counter, where she stands up and reaches into one of the cabinets. She brings down a half dozen tiny bottles—three Evan Williams with the green label on them and three bottles of Taaka vodka. She comes over to the table, puts her chair back, and sits down.

We drink a few bottles each. I have the bourbon, she has the vodka, and with our empty stomachs, we get drunk fast. A couple of times she rubs on my calf with her foot. She’s wearing socks and no shoes. But I’m starting to get nervous about getting back to class on time, hoping I’m not too drunk. I pull my leg back and stick it between the wooden rungs of my chair.

“I probably should get back,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess I’ll see you in school on Monday?”

“Probably.”

When I stand up the booze really starts to hit me. My head spins a little bit and my skin feels kind of tingly and weird, probably because I haven’t eaten anything all day except for those Fritos. Chrissy doesn’t have any food to offer me. She doesn’t have any gum or any mints either. I just hope Gregg won’t smell the alcohol on my breath.

I walk back to class through the rain, feeling buzzed, the leaves on the trees and the grass glistening in the misty air.

And so I’m a little late getting back.

“So kind of you to join us, Mr. Armand,” Gregg says. Everyone laughs. “You’re fifteen minutes late,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say, “I kind of lost track of time.”

Gregg doesn’t say anything, just clicks his white teeth with his tongue and rolls his eyes, then points to the empty seat where I had been sitting earlier. I can feel him watching me as I walk over to it and sit. I slouch down as low as I can.

The rest of the afternoon is somewhat of a blur. The girl sitting next to me—her name is Fallon—finally whispers into my ear. “Jesus, man, you’re drunk. I can freakin’ smell the booze on you. Where’d you even go?”

“Nowhere,” I say. “I just went to get a hamburger.” My head starts to throb a little bit. “And I’m not drunk,” I say.

“Yeah, right,” she says.

We spend the rest of the afternoon filling out paperwork and then taking the final test that will determine if we receive credit for this course, thus enabling us to get our licenses the following week. I’m trying very hard to concentrate, to make sure I get as many answers right as I can. But my head is spinning, my skin is still tingling, and I keep wanting to laugh at the pictures on the test: the friendly police officers, the smiling crossing guards. All these happy families driving together, the wind blowing their hair, their eyes covered with dark sunglasses.

When I am about three-quarters done, I see my parents pull up outside. Gregg looks out of the window from where he is sitting at his desk, reading a copy of News on Wheels. I can see their headlights through the rain, the windshield wipers sluicing water back and forth across the glass.

“I’ll be right back,” Gregg says. “Everyone, keep your eyes on your own tests.” Then he looks at his wristwatch and walks out the door. The little bell at its corner jingles brightly.

Fallon looks at me, whispers, “Isn’t that your parents?”

“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep my eyes on my test so the room won’t start spinning.

“Why are they so early?” Fallon says. “It’s only like three o’clock.”

“I don’t know,” I say. And I really don’t have any idea.

A minute or two later, Gregg comes back inside grinning and shaking his head. But he does not look happy. Or amused.

“Y’all,” he says, interrupting our test. Everyone looks up.

“Everything you’ve been told today about what not to do behind the wheel of a car, those people outside are doing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was some kind of joke. Like on Candid Camera. ”

Then Fallon suddenly says, and loud enough so that the whole class can hear this time, “David, isn’t that your parents?”

I don’t say anything. I try to pretend I’m still concentrating on my test, that I haven’t noticed my parents outside, but Fallon says it again.

“David,” she says. “Look. That’s your parents in that car he’s talking about, isn’t it?”

Now everyone in the classroom is looking out the window. Gregg is also looking, as if maybe he had imagined the whole thing, but occasionally he turns and stares back at me, as though he’s trying to make a connection between two electrical circuits that have been split apart.

“Mr. Armand,” he says. “Can you come up here for a second?”

I stand, a bit wobbly, and start walking toward his desk. I just hope he can’t smell the booze on my breath.

As I hover in front of Gregg, I see the paperwork he’s been filling out all afternoon, the red checks and Xs next to our names. I have no idea what these could indicate. But I don’t have a chance to see what mark is next to my name before Gregg finally says, “So those are your parents out there?

“Yeah.”

“I want you to do me a favor then. I want you to go out there and tell them that I work for the Sheriff’s office and that I can have both of them arrested right now.”

“Why?” I say. “What are they doing?”

“Well, for one,” he says, looking up at the class and noticing that we’re being watched, then tuning his voice down to a whisper, “neither one of them is wearing a seatbelt, there’s an open can of beer in the console, and your mom is holding a child in her lap.” He emphasizes these last words as though it is the most unheard-of concept one can imagine.

“Oh, that’s my little sister,” I say. “She usually rides in her car seat. My mom probably just took her out since they’re parked right there. She was probably just crying or something.”

“Well, either way, just go out there and tell them what I told you.”

I start toward the door, just wanting this to all be over. Then Gregg says, “And I’m not really a cop. Just tell them that anyway, though. See what they say.”

As I walk outside into the rain, I can hear the rest of the class whispering and laughing quietly. The little overhead bell chirps again and I try to think of how I can explain this to my parents. My dad has a very bad temper, especially when he’s been drinking, and I know he won’t hesitate to cause a scene. I know that he would probably enjoy kicking the shit out of someone like Gregg. I just can’t give him an excuse to do so. Plus I can’t let him know that I’ve been drinking myself.

When I get to the car, the rain has slackened to a warm and steady mist, but the sky is still gray and overcast. I walk to the passenger side of the car where my mom is sitting, and indeed, as Gregg had said, she’s holding my little sister in her lap. My mom rolls down the window.

“Almost finished?” she says, as though nothing at all is out of the ordinary.

“Yeah,” I say. “Almost. He just has to grade our tests and stuff.”

My dad is sitting there behind the wheel, the engine idling, a cold can of Budweiser between his legs, darkening his jeans where the condensation is building up on his thighs.

“That guy that just came out here is your teacher?” he says.

“Yeah.”

“When you go back in there, do me a favor and tell him I said he’s an asshole.”

“Bryan,” my mom says to him, as if talking to a child.

I laugh a little bit, still trying to think of a way to avoid provoking my dad’s temper by telling him what Gregg had said about him.

“I should go in there and beat his fucking ass,” my dad says. He takes a gulp from his beer. At least that will keep him from smelling the booze on me, I think.

“Why?” I say. “What’d he tell y’all?”

“Nothing,” my dad says. “He’s just a little prick.”

I don’t know what to say, so I just stand there in the rain. I look back toward the building and can see our reflections in the tinted windows. I imagine everyone in the class staring out at us and laughing.

“Well, just get your ass back in there and finish your test,” my dad says. His cheeks are beer-reddened and he looks angry and drunk. Way more drunk than I am. Though neither of my parents seems to notice that, thankfully.

“Okay,” I say. “But that guy wanted me to come out here and tell you he was with the Sheriff’s office. He said that y’all shouldn’t be riding around without seatbelts and that open beer can.”

“What?” my dad says. Now his hand is on the door handle as if he’s about to get out of the car. My mom touches her fingers against his arm.

“Bryan. Wait,” she says. Then she looks at me. “Why’d he tell you all that?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Just don’t do anything. Please. I’ll be done in a minute.”

“That little motherfucker,” my dad says, looking out through the wet windshield and at the door behind which Gregg is likely standing, looking back at us. But my dad doesn’t get out of the car, and Gregg doesn’t come back out into the rain.

Instead, I go inside, finish my test, then watch Gregg as he marks it up. I breathe carefully through my nose, hoping he can’t smell the alcohol on me.

“Well,” he finally says. “Congratulations. You passed.”

He starts to fill out another form, then looks up at me. “So what did your folks say? About me being a cop?”

“Nothing,” I say. “My mom’s going to drive us home, put my little sister back in her car seat.”

“Good,” Gregg says, looking proud of himself for what he’d said earlier. Then he hands me the certificate that says I passed the course. “And I sure do hope you never pick up any of their bad habits,” he says.

“I won’t,” I say, my head still spinning—knowing that I already have.

Then I stumble a little bit through the door and outside, still drunk, and into the rain, where my parents are waiting for me so we can all just drive back home.

***

David Armand is an assistant professor of creative writing at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he served as Writer-in-Residence from 2017-2019. In 2010, he won the George Garrett Fiction Prize for his first novel, The Pugilist’s Wife, which was published by Texas Review Press. He has since published two more novels, two collections of poetry, and a memoir, with a seventh book, The Lord’s Acre, forthcoming this fall from Texas Review Press. David is currently working on a collection of essays, several of which have appeared in Deep South Magazine, drafthorse, Hobart, and others. More about David and his work can be found on his website.