Justin Halpern - More Sh*t My Dad Says

“Yeah, right. I’m not going to homecoming,” I said.

I hadn’t gone to one dance in my entire high school career. I was six foot tall and a hundred and twenty pounds. When I danced, I looked like a praying mantis on fire. And besides, I already had plans for the Friday night of homecoming weekend: I was going to have Aaron over to watch Predator and Predator 2.

“Well, if you ask her, you guys can come with me and my date,” Aaron said.

“What?” I said in disbelief. “You have a date for homecoming? When did you do that?”

“I asked Michelle Porter a couple days ago in math class. She said okay.”

“I didn’t even know you liked Michelle Porter.”

“I’ve told you before that I thought she was nice and she has big titties,” he said.

“Dude. There is a huge difference between saying someone is nice and that they have big titties, and asking them to a dance without telling me, okay?” I snapped back.

“What is your problem? Why aren’t you happy for me?” he asked.

Aaron was right. I should have been happy for him and I knew it, but I felt angry and betrayed. His burgeoning social life was putting me to shame. Now, the thought of staying home and watching movies on the night of the homecoming dance made me feel like a total loser. I had to make a move.

“Fine. Then I’ll ask Jenny to the dance,” I said, in maybe the least confident way I have ever said anything.

“Well, if she says yes, then you guys can ride with us,” Aaron replied.

“I don’t want to ride in the back of your mom’s minivan with my date, dude.”

“Two seconds ago you didn’t even want to go! I was just trying to be nice ’cause you don’t have a license, asshole.”

“I’ll get my license. Also, I failed my first driver’s test last week, and I’m telling you that now because I tell you things because we’re friends and I don’t just spring stuff on you,” I spluttered.

As I walked home from school later that day, I realized I’d set myself two intimidating goals to accomplish in the next three weeks: asking a girl to a dance for the first time ever and passing my driver’s test. I decided to start with the less daunting of the two: getting my license. Unbeknownst to me, my dad had already put a lot of thought into the problem.

Around 3:30 that day, I walked in the door to find him home from work early, and in his “action” sweatpants, which he usually only breaks out when he’s trying to kill an animal in the backyard or perform some feat of strength around the house. They were grey, like most of his others, but they sported blue and yellow stripes down the sides and elastic around the ankles, presumably for aerodynamic purposes. As soon as I entered the living room, he stared me down.

“You, my friend, are going to learn how to drive because I am going to teach you how to drive,” he said, the veins in his neck already starting to bulge.

My dad approaches teaching like it’s a fight. He sees his students as opponents, and he pummels them with one piece of information after another until they’re thoroughly disoriented and confused. Once the fight starts, no tapping out is allowed. He ordered me to drop my backpack and follow him to my brother’s old GMC truck, parked in our driveway. He opened the passenger door for me like a very angry chauffeur, got behind the wheel himself, and nanoseconds later we were screeching up the street.

As he put the car into second gear, I made a troubling observation. “This is a stick shift,” I said.

“Well done.”

“But I don’t know how to drive a stick. I learned on an automatic,” I said, as he aggressively shifted gears.

“You remember when you were six or seven and we went to visit Aunt Naomi? We went to that pool with all the diving boards and you wanted to jump off of it, but you were too scared?”

“Yes.”

“You remember what I did?”

“Yes. You carried me to the highest diving board in the entire place, grabbed me by the back of my swim trunks, and hurled me into the water.”

“I tossed you off that thing like a sack of fuckin’ potatoes,” he chuckled as he stared out his window, reminiscing.

“What’s your point?” I said.

“After that you went apeshit, jumping off every board in the place. You learn stick shift with me, you won’t give two shits when you take the test in an automatic with some asshole in a lab coat. Make sense?”

“No.”

“Too fucking bad,” he said.

We drove to the parking lot of a nearby Circuit City, where he pulled the keys from the ignition and we switched seats. He gave me a quick overview of the gears and then spent the next hour screaming numbers at me, trying to train me to shift gears. “Three! Four! Six! There is no fucking six! Pay attention! Back to three!” I never even turned the car on.

Every day for the next two weeks, my dad went to work at six in the morning so he could leave early, come home, and give me a driving lesson before sunset. He began each lesson by announcing a theme for the day. Among them were “A car is a murder weapon,” “Announce your presence with fucking authority,” and my personal favorite: “Your mother is bleeding to death.”

He said this late one afternoon as I pulled the truck out of the driveway. “If the shit goes down and you need to be across town in ten minutes without breaking the law, can… you… do it?” he added, lifting his eyebrows.

“I would just call 911 if that happened.”

“Right. That’s a fair point. But just bear with me, okay?”

“Okay, but that’s not the kind of driving I’m going to have to do for the test.”

“No. But I’m not teaching you to pass the test. I’m teaching you how to drive. Driving is not always a stroll through the woods with your pants down. Now, I want you to get from here to Clairemont in less than ten minutes. No illegal shit.”

“Clairemont’s ten miles away. I don’t—”

“Clock starts in three, two, one!” he yelled, looking at his watch.

“Dad. This is not a helpful driving lesson.”

“Nine fifty-nine, nine fifty-eight, nine fifty-seven, CLOCK IS RUNNING GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!” He kept screaming until finally I jammed the car into reverse, then back into first gear, and gave the gas pedal everything I had as we headed up the street.

I raced through the suburban streets of our neighborhood and toward the 5-North freeway that led to Clairemont. With the exactitude of the clown-faced, wheelchaired psychopath in the Saw movies, my dad explained the rules of the game: I wasn’t allowed to exceed the speed limit, so in order to reach our destination in time, whenever I encountered a yellow light I should gun it, and whenever I approached a red I should decide quickly whether to wait it out or turn and take another route. Periodically my dad would scream how much time I had left, along with a new imaginary scenario that might be responsible for my rush.

“Six-thirty mark! Your buddy has kidney stones and he’s in incredible pain!” he yelled as I hit the gas to make it through a yellow light.

I could feel sweat beginning to build on my forehead and my heart was racing.

“Three minutes! Your wife’s car broke down in a bad neighborhood and she’s afraid she’s going to be sexually assaulted!”

“Stop! You’re not helping,” I yelled back as I weaved in and out of traffic toward the freeway exit for Clairemont. I gunned it past a semi in the exit lane and whizzed down the on-ramp. I just had to drive up hilly Balboa Avenue and I’d be in Clairemont. I figured I had about a minute left. There was one light halfway up the hill that stood between me and victory, and at the moment it was green, but I was still three hundred yards away. I kept waiting for it to turn yellow, but even a hundred yards away it remained green. Afraid it would turn yellow before I got close enough to race through, I started slowing down.