Watch Out! Stop!

Dr. Marty - Make Stuff Up, Part 1

“Watch Out! Stop!” In spite of my tone, Dee hardly checked her speed.

Head on collisions. Broadsided from either or both directions. I could have been eating air bag rather than yelling.

“Sorry,” she said. “This only happens when you’re in the car.” Then she continued as if nothing had happened. “The character thing, it’s not idiotic.”

“It’s a wonder I get in the car when you drive. I need quiet, Dee.”

“You’re a dick.”

I said, “We’re going to be late.”

“The only reason we’re driving my car is that yours is too old, too broken, and in the shop all the time.”

“It needed to pass inspection.”

“It failed by a lot.”

“Shit,” I said. Dee was driving slowly. We missed a light. “We’re late.”

“When you’re driving all you say is ‘I need quiet’ or ‘put on your seat belt’ or you scream at other drivers,” she said. “Just like you scream at me.”

“You’re a driving menace. My car’s just fine. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s not fine,” she said.

The light turned green. Dee was distracted.

“Go,” I said.

“Fine.”

“I also don’t want to talk about about Dr. Marty. Especially this stupid imaginary friend thing. I have a headache.”

“You can’t stand not driving. But you won’t get a car that actually works.”

“Can we have quiet?” I asked.

“You, your old car, your stick shift. You keep it because I can’t drive a stick.”

“I taught you how to drive one, didn’t I?”

All my friends wanted to learn to drive one. I’d spend a few days helping them learn. I spent even more time with Dee trying to teach her the wonder of shifting, and the control, and the way it’s like dancing.

She drives a stick with the awkwardness of a clumsy boy trying to impress a date by dancing outrageously. Horrifying, like the date must feel.

“That sucked,” she said. “You were short-tempered. Demanding.”

“I was teaching,” I said.

“That wasn’t teaching,” she said. “That was brow-beating. And you practically haven’t let me drive since. Sometimes, I wish your job was to teach kids how to drive. You’d go crazy.”

“Great,” I said. “You blow through a stop sign, get angry with me, and yell when I say I have a headache.”

“Fine,” she said. “You can have your fucking quiet.”

“Thanks.”

“Why don’t you imagine yourself alone with you fucking stick.”

“We’re going to be late.”

She focused on driving.

A few minutes later, she whispered, “Tom, this Dr. Marty idea was a good one. You’ll see.”

… continued