Driver's Education by Grant Ginder

dead-ends into Chatham Square, and then we bear east, making our way onto East Broadway. We honestly try our best to keep up with Yip—or, at the very least, to follow his smoke. He says hi to people; he randomly shouts out their names and gives a single frantic wave. He looks back over his shoulder to make sure we haven’t fallen too far behind.
    We stop on East Broadway, maybe fifty or seventy-five yards after it crosses Catherine. There, just across from the Q Q Bakery, is a white garage that looks as if it’s constructed from cinder blocks of different sizes.
    â€œHere,” Yip says.
    With a single muscular heave, he lifts the door. And as it flings up and slams against the garage’s roof it rings loudly, too loudly, and he shouts and shakes his head. He motions into the darkness, to the down ramp that leads into the structure. He looks at us, waiting for us to make our first moves down the slope, and when we don’t he says, “It’s not far, it’s just dark.”
    His steps echo like stones dropping in water as he descends into the garage, and as we feel our way after him, Randal whispers, Jesus Christ, I can’t see a thing . Yip is right, though—it’s not far to the car: after maybetwenty-five yards or so the claustrophobia of the skinny ramp seems to fade. Or it seems to open up in the dark so that we can at least breathe. He tells us to hold tight, and then we hear him mumbling to himself, his heavy footsteps becoming quick shuffles—not stones plunging, but more like pebbles skipping along the surface—and after he lets out a happy yelp there is a loud buzzing and the room fills with bright white light.
    He stands near Lucy, resting his head on her hood. He’s smiling. “I told you she’s beautiful.”
    But she’s not beautiful—I know this already. Or maybe she is, but not in the conventional sense. Not in the way a person who hasn’t driven her would really understand. Here, in the light of the garage for instance, her gold coat registers more as wet hay that’s browned along its edges. Her headlights are dusted: they are covered in this thick grey film, sediment that looks like it’s been gathering for centuries. I don’t know if my granddad ever saw her when her front grille was perfect, when it had its original sheen—I know that I never have. I run my hand over the silver piping. I feel every scratch, every nick, every groove.
    Randal opens the driver’s side door and the rusted hinges creak as they swing. He pokes two fingers into a deep tear in the seat’s white leather, pushing them into the stuffing until his knuckles disappear. He sits and grips the steering wheel at ten and two o’clock.
    I stay crouched near the front bumper, following the uneven lines of her front hood, of her broad windshield, of her wind-torn canvas roof. I put both hands on the grille.
    There’s a sound, then—Yip’s mobile rings deep within his apron. He apologizes profusely, more than he probably should, but I guess there’s this general feeling that A Moment is occurring and that his phone has killed it.
    When the solemn quiet has been restored, Yip reaches into the bottomless pockets of his apron and promptly throws me a set of keys. I stand, and as I catch them he says, “The little key is for the glove compartment.” He adds, “You know where you’re going? Where you’re taking your ye ye ’s life?”
    â€œYes,” I answer. “Yes, we’ve got his map.”
    Randal steps out of the car, rounding to the shotgun side. He watches us, his hands stuffed into the back pockets of his shorts.
    â€œAnd you’ll go fast?”
    â€œWe’ll go fast.”
    â€œAnd Mrs. Dalloway?”
    â€œShe’ll be safe.”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant.”
    Yip looks at me for a moment, his eyes glazing over from the other side of Lucy’s hood, and when I