Park Ave Drift

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New England streets are a world all their own. Everyday I face deceptive rolling stops, passing on the left side, mocking middle fingers, and ever more diabolical contortions people manage to work their cars into to block an intersection. To many this means a fender bender, hours of paperwork and phone conversations with insurance agents quick to collect but stingy to give. Nay I say, not I. Experience has hardened me. It has torn me away from overly cautious driving, and has punished me for any arrogance or insolence I may have once had. I am no hero, I have become what I hate most, a New England motorist.
Each morning I thunder down the steps from my third floor apartment with keys in one hand, schoolbag over the other shoulder, and a stringent time restraint of a professor drooling over his attendance sheet, with red pen in hand. Mental scarring be damned he’s ready to mark lesser folk tardy and ridicule them before the rest of the class.
Skipping the last three steps of my descent, my finger is already pressing Vicky’s unlocking button. I slip around to her rear driver’s side and sling my bag into the back seat. I’ve gotten so familiar with all of Vicky’s spots that planting myself in my seat and getting her going is just one fluid motion. She’s a good girl, always turns right over. She bitches at me to put my seatbelt on but I think, because she knows what I am thinking, Seatbelt? If driving were safe a license never would have been given to people like me.
I slam her into gear and we blast off down Park Ave at 30 mph. Yeah I know what you’re thinking, but 30 mph is light speed on Park Ave. There are ambulance and fire engine drivers who would give their pinky toes to learn to do 30 on Park Ave.
First Vicky and I have to trudge through the commercial side of Park Ave. It’s a screwed up tangle of parking lots, side streets, and boulevards that are completely indistinguishable from one another. Think of running through a jungle, covered in bacon with a pack of cheetahs quickly surrounding you. I know, cheetahs don’t live in the jungle, but cars are faster than komodo dragons.
To keep me on my toes, the Buick in front of me goes from 32mph to something like 6 in a split second. He veers off into a drug store parking lot the Rhode Island way, without a blinker. It’s okay though, Vicky and I regain our pace quickly.
Then, cheetah! A Minicooper lunges halfway out into the street. She’s at least 4 years my junior and all full of piss and vinegar. I watch the bright pink bubble emerging from her lips pop, and a grin spread across her face. She thinks she’s got me, she thinks she’s pulled out so abruptly that I have to stop and let her in. Truth be told, she’s done a good job at rattling me.
Now most of you might say, “brake!” Well most of you don’t have a grandma driving a Titan, just inches from your ass. I check my rearview and I see her peering over the high steering wheel with a blood thirst as her vehicle threatens to consume Vicky and I.
So in that brief moment, I considered my only option, a maneuver that only the cruel roads of Massachusetts can teach you. Something you become well versed in when you ride a motorcycle. I looked toward oncoming traffic. God! Most obnoxious of all things, a lime green smart car is headed the other way. The driver is so fat he has to keep his arm out the window. His hand clenched the side of the roller skate for dear life as its front end lifts. He knows I am going for it.
My speed is 32 and judging by some roughshod equation I was taught in driver’s ed, the lime-green smart car picked it up to about 29. If Vicky and I are going south at 32, and roller skate is coming north at 29 then when will me meet? The answer is…punch it!
We cut left, bubblegum girl is pissed, fatty takes his hands off the wheel and shields himself and we are gone before any real psychological damage is done. I think to Vicky, that was close. I take a breath and check the rearview. The Titan is still behind me! I’ll never know what became of smart car, but I do know we are coming up to the two-lane stop and the light is red.
This is the number one opportunity on the route to pass the person in front of you. I take up the favorable position in the left lane because traffic merges from the right. Just as predicted, the Titan rolls to a stop next to me. I try not to look, not to let her know what I am thinking, but I can feel her gaze. Finally I lock eyes with Grandma’s sunglasses, we size each other up.
I figure she was around for the invention of the motorcar and has me in experience, but I have two key advantages she didn’t count on. I’m a black belt, therefore I have a quicker reaction time, and most importantly, just beyond her white fro I can see the light for the other direction turning yellow…yellow…yellow… red! My light turns green and Vicky lurches forward. I hear Grandma’s engine gurgle and we take off neck and neck.
Now when Vicky was made, the Japanese, being the masters in engineering they are, took the standard engine and turned it on its side. So the difference between Vicky and the Titan is that Vicky is not working against gravity. We take the lead and Grandma remains cool, but I can tell it’s eating away at her as her knuckles turn white on her steering wheel.
Finally, I come up on the turn I know Grandma wont be making to follow me. There’s a green arrow letting me turn left into my school’s permit only parking lot. The arrow turns from green to yellow as I approach and someone in a silver Lexus guns it early, tearing through the intersection. By the time I slow to let them pass, the yellow arrow, along with any hopes I have of making it to class on time was gone and the oncoming traffic light was green. Now I will have to wait through a whole cycle.
Something catches my eye like a glimmering beacon of hope, my brother, a fellow Honda Civic driver flashes his beams to let me go. Simultaneously I give him a wave and flip silver Lexus the bird with my other hand while cutting the wheel with my knees. Grandma roars by as I trail off into the parking lot. Today I will make it to class on time, provided I can find a parking spot!