A week earlier Bob had taken me to the Zayre’s parking lot on Watertown St., placed an empty can of root beer on the hood of the ‘69 Coronet, and taught me 'how to drive'.  Correction - he allowed me to drive around the parking lot while he smoked a cigarette in the passenger seat. When the empty root beer can rolled off the hood onto the pavement, I'd have to find the ‘P’, get out of the car and place it back in the same spot.

 

‘Never hit the gas, Peter’ he probably said.  My belief is that he had become aware of the whisperings of his roguish brothers in law.  When the family met in New Jesey or New York the uncles would carry on a 'turn by turn' of their 4 or 5 hour journeys with the bravado of Washington in that famous painting crossing the Delaware.  For the rest of the holiday visit with my cousins, the drive home would resurface like a whale for air. It took me 50 years to understand that ‘Tappanzee’ was in fact - not 1 word.

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On a Sunday in the fall of 1971 my parents went out for the day in their spankin new Dodge Dart .  Wherever they went; they didn’t imagine to imagine it possible to imagine, that it would or could or might cross my mind to take the car keys from my mother’s pocketbook.

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No one was home when I came into the house that day from a bike-ride somewhere.  Not even Cousin Howie from California who lived with us while Annabelle his wife stayed behind in California.  He was a couple of years younger than my dad, and wore 'English Leather' cologne, combed his hair in a mirror, and wearing his butter-soft suede jacket looked like a leading man in a commercial for anti aging skin conditioner.

My mother’s pocketbook lived crumpled on the blue formica kitchen counter, if it wasn’t hanging on a crystal door knob, or her arm shopping in a supermarket or department store, with my little (big) hand hanging onto her purse for dear life, probably crying half the time.  She ordered me to hold onto her pocketbook, no doubt to keep me from wandering off, and to prevent an accident should I get in her way as she plowed through the merchandise. I was a small child on the Teacup ride at Paragon Park minus the puking. The best part of it was being retrieved from the office in Kennedy’s where I had wandered off, or in Filene’s Basement where I think they probably knew me - it happened so often.

So at the moment I realize Howie’s not home my eyes glance over to the car in the driveway, and I decide to tiptoe through my mother’s pocketbook to pull out the keys to her car.  After all, nobody ever told me not to. Instead, and to not arouse suspicion - noting their exact position surgically I removed them - less like a Doctor, more like a subway pickpocket.  My parents never had suspicions about anything I did or didn't do. They didn't pay enough attention to not trust me. I could tell them anything really, but keeping my life to myself was different than lying about things I did or didn't do.

 

That day when they went out, they took the ‘71 Dart, with it's white exterior, and black vinyl roof that always reminded me of a toupe you'd see on the High Holy Days worn by some guy who sells insurance or cars, or his mother if he could.

Gee, I thought, ‘A week ago Dad let me drive with a can on the hood.  What’s the big deal?' Do exactly what he said: 'Gently press the gas, and pump the brakes lightly, don't play with the radio, keep both hands at 10 and 2, and for crissake keep your eyes on the road'.  Fourteen is not even a blip on the radar. To say 'I thought' at 14 is an exaggeration at best. Nonetheless, I wondered; and if wonderment can be seen as a form of thought, I wondered enough for me to believe I was thinking: 'What if I take my parents car around the block... what harm could there be?'

 

I looked outside, and there in the driveway through the window and the rhododendron, in her glory, the ‘69 Coronet 440/2 Door/Gold Metallic/Black Vinyl Roof....only two models short of being the ultimate (Dodge) ‘Charger’.  By the time it didn't matter, even my friends eventually realized the Coronet was pretty bad-ass, and most suited to my mother, the Hebrew Teacher; feared by her pupils the 'morons', or 'fresh morons' if they were ever read her riot act.  Not what you’d expect; for a Hebrew School Teacher - my mother - to drive this beast of a car; well… she too was pretty badass.

 

Long before global warming a warm day in fall was called a day of 'Indian Summer'.   That too is no longer acceptable terminology to describe an unexpected heat wave. Then again, air conditioning is no longer an extra on any car, and intelligence can now be deemed artificial.  Even Dorothy knew well enough to say: ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore'.

 

I must have looked both ways before pulling the car out of the driveway.  I made it around the corner to Lonnie Weinberg 's house (that wasn't a Tudor), and without a question, but with a giggle, I remember, got into the car.  One by one they piled in never questioning why I was driving my mother’s car. Jeffrey and Hughie Caplan, identical twins, lived off Cotton St., down where Stuart meets W. Boulevard.  They’re father was a psychiatrist who treated patients in the basement a few feet away from a tetherball court where we could spend hours swatting the poor ball, until the mosquitos were out in buzzing doves.  

 

No one thought to ask.

They just assumed it was 'ok' for me to be driving.

 

At 14 we only knew it was wrong.  Nothing more.

Up Stuart Rd. towards Ward St. we cut a right at Exmoor, then a left on Ward so we could pickup Scott Lande.  Of no relation to my mother’s Landy family he was the baddest boy we knew who was Jewish. He could be dared into anything.  He actually had balls before any of us knew we had, and because he lived closest to the school, we picked him up last, and drove down Fellsmere Rd towards the only place we thought we could go unnoticed.

 

The John Ward School playground was microcosmic I’m sure, there were, and remain to this day 2 baseball diamonds, a bubbler now deceased.  They replaced it with something green; both in color and intent; complete with a bolted warning something about the ecosystem, or sharing resources..

 

‘When we were kids’

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I keep hearing myself saying those 4 words, and like a caterpillar emerging into the world with no more 8 pairs of shoes, but a set of wings; saying those four words washes over me like a rinse of very warm water in super slow motion.

When we were kids...

We played outdoors in every form of weather. Touch football in the mud, buck-buck during lunch, stickball after the school parking loft emptied. Someone usually cried, and sometimes kids would get into pushing matches, with an occasional punch in the nose or jaw or stomach thrown wildly.  Kids in cutoff jeans on Stingray bicycles thought themselves hells angels and postured like young bucks taunting each other almost.

In the winter snow everywhere covered the lush green hills turning it into a place in heaven.  It’s where we learned about life before life became real.

Growing up we had fire-drills in the spring and ran 50 yard dashes, my best ever was only 8.4 but the Caplan twins - because they were raised like 2 pitbulls - took turns being the fastest at 7.4.  In a couple of years we would be making out on a couch in some girls basement while her parents were sipping cocktails or at work, or neither.

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One day in the 5th grade the lower field was converted into tennis courts.  It probably occurred during the summer months, but ask any kid and he’ll say ‘one day’, because when a kid is seeing something for the first time, it didn’t exist beforehand.  Tennis was emerging as a televised duel without the blood, so the black asphalt with it’s razor sharp painted lines was a big draw, and forever from that point on people of all ages played on those 2 courts. It’s where the name of your racket had more bearing on your game than your game.  Which racket was coolest? Wilson’s Jack Kramer, Dunlops Maxply, or a TAD. I chose the TAD.

 

With the car filled I pulled the car into the parking lot fully aware it would be empty of cars due to the weekend.  We made it to the bottom of the driveway and one by one they got 'to try' the car. Like 4 year olds on a pony being led in a circled by a guy with a cigarette butt hanging from his lips.  No memory of who was first. Last driver didn’t know or think or realize or fathom the importance of putting a car into ‘P’ for ‘Park’ (ya dummie), and by the time the car had rolled at a snail pace forward, touching the asphalt sidewalk built around the magnificent courts, someone from the backseat yelled ‘Peter the car’, and with my size 12 sneakers I slammed the floor, not the brake.

But not really the floor.

The entire force of my leg landed squarely on the gas pedal.  That’s when I felt the panicking hands of whoever sat behind me, drumming on my shoulders with grasping, open fists.  

The 10 ft. cyclone fence surrounding the courts was no match for my mother’s Coronet 440, gold with a black vinyl roof.  Down it went, flattened almost like a pancake. Using my other foot (probably) I slammed on the brake to prevent further havoc, found the ‘R’ for reverse (ya moron), and backed right out of there.   5 tails from Pleasure Island tucked between their legs, silent, snickering, both.

 

One by one, like a carpool I dropped them off, and got home (phew) only to find Cousin Howie’s Galaxy in Dolly’s parking space (fuck).  I don’t remember the words other than his promise to me 'never to tell my dad about how I came to do what I did'. In exchange I made a promise to never do what it was I did - again.  That was 1971.

I clearly remember or clearly dreamt at one of our family reunions Howie, Bob and me are standing together and talking.  Howie had sworn not to tell Bob my dad, but dad reveals to me right there with Howie as a witness, that he knew all these years.  He too had made a promise to Howie - never to mention it to me. We three stood there and Howie told my father and me, how he had no idea I took the car. He told my dad because he too had kids, and his responsibility was to tell Bob more than keeping secret the  action of a schmendrik who steals his mother’s car for a joyride - me.  

Only my dad kept his promise.

 

That warm day in late fall of ‘71 was the last time I entered the John Ward School area.  Not once. It was a long time, and I stayed away until coming to realize it was the folly of youth.  Only kids have that invincibility until fear becomes a regular thing needed to survive in a real world.  

When I returned in 1981 I finally visited the fallen fence at the tennis court.  It had been pulled to its legs - probably the next day, but not quite erect. There was snow on the ground covering the courts like icing on a big square cake.  Nothing was changed but down to the cracks in the pavement everything was different. The graffitti had been sandblasted into oblivion but the John Ward School stayed where we left it that day.  

As kids we lined up for fire drills, and over there we played football in the mud, and here is where me and some buddies took turns driving Dolly’s car, until I slammed my foot on the gas, and ran down the poor fence..