I got into the car and grinned at Agnes. “You taught both my aunts to drive,” I told her, my grin stretching across her seat. “That’s nice,” she said studying my very happy facade, the silvery grey hairs on her arms suddenly standing at attention. I fiddled with my mirrors and fussed with my seat for several long minutes, before finally jettisoning us away from the curb, grin fixed, veins popping.
Agnes was very nice; we just didn’t have the same sense of humor. For instance, she didn’t think it funny that I occasionally confused the gas with the brake. I thought this was hilarious. She also didn’t like that I pretended to accelerate when I saw old people crossing the street. I fondly remember my own mother doing the same when she first learned to drive. In fact, she took it a step further––or funnier rather––and yelled “let’s get ’em Maggie!” (her cars were always named Maggie), as she bunny-hopped toward our elderly targets, innocently making their way to mass. We kids in the car would implore Maggie too, hollering and hooting along like the barbaric old-people-chasers that we were. Then we’d hush and put on our serious faces, and quietly cruise by the little potato-shaped ladies, leaving them to wonder if they should have had those salty mushrooms at breakfast. It was even funnier when the old folks were on bikes …
It didn’t work out with Agnes, in fact, I bet she’s joined a nunnery by now. She seemed very religious: blessing herself every time we screeched past a church; fingering her rosary beads every time I dramatically halted at a stop sign; reciting a decade of the Rosary every time I closed my eyes when bypassing a truck.
I wonder now if I could claim that I was scarred by my mother’s driving? I’m sure most people would interpret my fond memories as child abuse. Like when our little green Fiat would cut out abruptly at a red light, and my mother would colorfully threaten Maggie to get a move on before a big bad articulated truck made mashed beans of us all. I’d hold my breath waiting to be crash-mashed. Or our “Sunday drives,” when my mother would pretend she was a Raleigh driver, racing the winding backroads of West Clare, all of us laughing––and ignoring the fact that at any minute we could slam into a busload of tourists or a herd of cows. Or what about that time last year when we were driving around Cork city in the dark and rain, and my mother––needing to cross to the other side of the road but annoyed with no break in traffic––forced a break, and skidded across yelling “Ohhhhhhhhh fuuuuuck!” at the top of her lungs.
