Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

The Lot

Driving his daughter to high school, turns into the first driveway he can make a left at in the parking lot in front of the school, makes another left into a parking space. “Goodbye, Daddy, I love you”—grabbing her backpack off the floor. “Love you too — got your glasses?” and she says, “Oh, no, I forgot them at home,” and looks at him in a way where she wonders if he’ll get mad. “Please, sweetheart, remember them, will you? — your eyes,” and kisses her forehead, and she smiles and leaves. Car’s coming slowly as she’s crossing the next driveway, he thinks it’s going to stop but it doesn’t, and she has to jump out of the way, driver waving his thanks to her as he passes or maybe the wave means something else, and she looks at Gould as if she’s made another mistake and he leans over the passenger seat and yells out the window, “It wasn’t your fault; it was that damn driver’s. He should’ve stopped for you. You’re the pedestrian and that’s a one-way road just like mine and he was driving against it. What the hell’s wrong with him, when all you kids are going to school?” and she shrugs as if it doesn’t matter, and he says, “What, you don’t think it’s important?” and she says, “Of course I do, but don’t make a big deal of it. It’s over and I’m sure other kids are watching us,” and he says, “So they’re watching, but it is a big deal because it concerns them all. It can happen again and again and from the same person till someone — you, for instance, since I drive you here every day and you always cross the same driveway since I always pull into this one — gets hit real bad. Was the driver a student or someone driving a student to school?” and she says, “Who?” and he says, “The driver, I said the driver,” and gets out and looks for the car in the direction it was going. It’s pulling into a space about a hundred feet away and he heads over to it; she says, behind him, “Please, Daddy, leave it alone; I wasn’t hurt and I have to get to school. The first bell’s already rung,” and he says, “I just want to tell whoever it was that what he did was wrong. And that he should from now on drive more carefully and also respectfully of the pedestrians or I’m reporting his license plate number to the school office and, if that doesn’t work, then to the police.” The boy’s getting out of the car — a girl’s sitting in the front seat checking herself in the mirror on the sun shield, another girl’s gathering her things in back — and he says to him, “Do you know how to drive?” and the boy says, “Sure, I’ve been doing it for more than three years,” and he says, “Then how come when that girl over there”—pointing to his daughter, who’s staring at the ground: doesn’t want the boy to think she had anything to do with sending her father over—“is crossing the road you didn’t stop for her and almost ran into her?” and the boy says, “What girl, the one in the green shirt?” and he says, “Come on, you saw her — you even waved your thanks or something to her when she jumped back so not to be hit by you,” and the boy says, “No, I didn’t see her — when did this happen?” The girls are out of the car now—“Anything wrong, Jeremy?”—and the boy says, “No, I can handle it, thanks.” “And one more thing: you drove the opposite direction you should have in this lane. You could have avoided the whole incident if you had taken seriously the painted arrow on the ground at the entrance you came in. I could have taken that road too, you know — it’s one driveway closer to school, so a good twenty steps shorter for my daughter — but the arrow clearly told me not to and it should have done the same to you.” “I didn’t see any arrow. You sure one’s there? Besides, everyone drives both ways on these roads — they’re wide enough and so far I haven’t heard of anyone getting hit because of it,” and he said, “There’s an arrow, believe me, a big one pointing in the opposite direction you were heading, and whether you saw it or not, only you know if you’re telling the truth on that, and because some cars go the wrong way doesn’t make it right. My daughter—” and the boy says, “That blond girl in the green shirt is who you say I almost hit?” and he says, “Yes, and she didn’t look in the direction you were coming from because she didn’t think cars came from that way, but the other,” and the boy says, “Then from now on she should look both ways before she steps out — not for me so much but just to play it extra safe.” “Daddy,” she says, coming closer but still about fifteen feet away, “drop it, will you please? You said what you had to and people are watching and they have to get to school,” and the boy says, “I think she’s right. You’ve already been hotheaded enough for one day,” and he says, “What do you mean hotheaded? Have I done anything but calmly try to reason with you? Yet you haven’t given a clue as to having heard or thought about anything I’ve said.” “Yeah, well, who says I have to show you that? That’s only my business,” and he says, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” and the boy looks angry and says, “It means what it means, so just beat it,” and he wants to take a poke at the kid, that’s what he feels: to jump on him and hit his face and hurt him good, and maybe he would have but his daughter’s pulling on his arm — maybe she sees how angry he is and the boy too and wants to save herself even more embarrassment — and pulls him toward his car, and he says, “What’re you doing?” and she says, “Don’t say anything, just go; you’ve already done enough harm,” and he says, “How? That obnoxious kid didn’t take in a word I said. All stupid cockiness,” and she says, “Please, no more, I’m already late, and this was disgusting; I’ll never be able to live it down,” and he says, “But what was I supposed to do? That punk will continue to drive like that till he kills someone with his car. His girlfriends just stayed there glaring at me when they should’ve told him he was wrong and that he should consider what I was saying rather than denying and lying about every bit of it,” and she lets go of him and looks as if she’s crying but no tears are there, and then they are, down her face, and he says, “Okay, okay, what’d I do? I’m sorry, you’re right, I should’ve controlled myself, though I still know he was wrong — you almost got creamed by his car; it was a half second off from happening, a second at the most,” and she says, “But it didn’t happen, right?” and he says, “Yes, and it was embarrassing to you, I should’ve thought about that too. Look at me, almost sixty and still acting like a hothead, just like the kid told me,” and she says, “He said that? Then he was right. And he didn’t seem so bad, just protecting himself in front of his friends, especially girls. He didn’t want to look bad; that’s what kids do. He even seemed nice. He didn’t shout at you or raise his fists or look tough: nothing like that. He didn’t see me when he was driving, that was all, a little mistake,” and he says, “I’m very sorry, but I can’t apologize to the boy now so I’ll just tell you,” and leans forward to kiss her and she backs away, as if that’s the craziest thing she’s ever seen, wanting to kiss her after all this, and looks both ways on the driveway — no cars are coming — and she crosses it and heads to school. The boy’s talking to some boys and girls by the car, watches Fanny climb the school steps and go into the building, points to her, smiles, says something, likes her looks, is going to try and find out who she is, he may even be asking the kids there if they know her, but it shouldn’t be too difficult if they don’t, it’s not a large school, she’s probably a freshman, sophomore at the most, green shirt with a white collar, beige slacks, blond to reddish hair if he saw right, very pretty, no question about that, father drives her to school in a dark gray van, and father’s an old guy, though that won’t help in finding out who she is; he’ll try to date her, first introduce himself in the hallway or lunchroom and pretend he’s sorry about what happened and that he nearly hit her with his car, or maybe he’ll be sincere about it, try to sleep with her after a couple of dates, kiss her and try to feel her up on the first, he’s a good-looking kid, not smart-looking but almost none of the boys in the school look as if they are, but that’s just a look, he might be bright; he’ll be apologetic, that’ll appeal to her, say he’s sorry her dad got upset, he knows he shouldn’t be going in the wrong direction in that driveway but that’s what kids their age do, isn’t that right? and next time, in fact he has been, since that time, more careful; he’ll end up sleeping with her, she’s vulnerable, he’s probably a senior, she’ll be easily persuaded, or not so easily but he’ll know how to act and look and what to say to win her over; the boy’s cool and nice, she’ll think, and three to four years older and that’s a plus too; he found the boy repulsive but saw things in him he thinks she’ll like: the good looks, lots of wavy hair, tall, slim body, but slimy voice and face — a liar, a rat, a fake — this is the boy she’ll probably start seeing, she’s never dated any boy and he hates this one, not just the prospect of his sleeping with her but for lying, for not seeing what he did was wrong, for continuing to drive when he should have stopped — it all says something — for almost running into her and not seeming the least fazed by it, for — oh, forget it. Go home. It’s not good for him to make these things into so much, get riled up about them, and so on, and he gets into the car, starts it, turns on the radio: news — who wants news? who wants voices? he wants music, not news, something soothing or beautiful or moving to help get the whole thing out of his head — and switches stations, music’s too trumpety on this one, switches to another public station, one some distance away that he can never get at home but his car radio picks up sometimes, it’s pledge week there and they’re prattling like idiots, and he shuts the radio off and drives.