I Always Thought I Would Run Someone Over While I Drove

The last time I was behind the wheel of a car, whose ignition was on, and I was the person responsible for getting the car from point A to point B was the autumn of 1998. I had just left a friend from high schools official college apartment, was hung over, and most likely had less than 10 hours of driving experience under my belt. The night before I was almost crushed to pieces on the way to his apartment while attempting to merge onto the Staten Island Expressway, from the Verrazanno Bridge toll booths. I was lucky I had slammed on the breaks as hard as I could and was able to come to a complete stop with about a foot to spare while the 18 wheeler that decided to play a game of chicken with me, unknowingly to myself sped past my car. I almost shit myself while breaking I was so scared. The next day I was slightly nervous about the drive home, not from the near crash, but primarily due to the massive amounts of vodka from the night before that was still having an effect on my early in the morning brain. I got home safe, and then didn’t pick up the keys to drive again.

I wasn’t scared to drive. I just didn’t want to go to Staten Island to see a friend or two, and didn’t see why I should drive around in Brooklyn or to the city to worry about parking, when I could just take the subway and the occasional taxi. After about a year of not driving, I was terrified at the thought of actually getting behind the wheel again. I wasn’t even going to move the car for alternate sides of the street parking in the event of me being the last resort. This is shameful for a licensed driver to have over his head.

Fast-forward to July 2000, a couple of days before I crapped my pants in Toronto, I was at Second City theatre. A bunch of people from a weeklong improve workshop, cast of Second City, and myself were boozing it up. Our driver had managed to have drink himself silly, and informed me that I was the least drunk out of the people he drove, and that I would be driving us all back across Toronto to various homes, and to the college dorm that I was staying at, he knew he was too drunk to drive, and shouldn’t.

I thought, Holy Shit! I need to drive??? I’ve had about five vodka tonics, haven’t driven in a almost two years, don’t know which way is which in this city, and I’m supposed to get us all home safe tonight while everyone passes out in the car around me?

I informed the owner of the car who had driven us to the theatre that I didn’t feel comfortable driving. At the time it was not out of respect for my alcohol limitations, but more so out of fear of driving.

Luckily we all got home alive and without any bumps or bruises that night. I haven’t come close to driving again until this past weekend.

The cheese and I went out to Montauk for a weekend away. The plan was to take the LIRR out to South Hampton, and then get a rental for the rest of the trip. Somehow I ended up needing to be a driver on the rental form, and I thought it might be fun driving around a vacant parking lot for three minutes at some point this weekend.

After the beach on Saturday, Cheese drove the car out of the parking lot since I was to scared I would hit some little kid running around the parking lot, and then we did what I considered to be the unthinkable. We pulled over to the side of the road, I got behind the wheel, and I drove though just about every road of Ditch Plains relearning how to drive. And I must admit that relearning how to drive is much better without a freak of a mother yelling that we are going to burn and die each time we got near an intersection, which was how I first learned the skill of driving.

Hmmm, maybe that had a lot to do with the whole I’m afraid of driving mentality I have had.

After a few minutes of making useless turns within what I image to be the smallest community in the continental United States (Ditch Plains) I pull up to route 27, and make a right. I told Cheese that I’m going to drive us out to the Montauk lighthouse. I made it there safely, and had even gotten the car up to 55 miles per hour, and I couldn’t help but hear Sammy Hager in my head screaming “I CAN’T DRIVE FIFTY FIIIIIIIVE!!!!” We made it safely around the circle at the end of the island, and I drove us back through town, made some stops along the way – I won a free game of mini golf, with a hole in one on the 18th hole at Puff N’ Putt, and made drove us safely back to our cabin on the hill.

For the rest of the weekend I was officially in the drivers seat.

I drove to dinner on Saturday night, drove all over on Sunday, the lighthouse again, to the beach, up hills, down hills, everywhere. On the way back to the South Hampton car rental place I drove to Syrill’s crab shack place, about 4 miles out from Montauk. It was decided I would drive the rest of the way back to South Hampton, and from there we would catch the LIRR and ride home to Brooklyn. This was our plan.

Our waitress at the crab shack disappeared on us, and we couldn’t leave. We didn’t have our bill, didn’t have any idea as to how much our food was, and couldn’t just drive off without paying. (1) We’re both too honest to do that (2) Syrill and his drunken friends would have caught up to us and killed us dead.

While we waited to pay the time slipped away, and by the time we got the car back to the rental place we would have missed our train, and need to take a cab to the train station. We thought, what about driving to NYC? We did some crude mathematical additions in our heads, and decided to just drive home. DRIVE HOME!

Cheese had two drinks, which was good and all, but that meant that I legally had to drive us home. I think Long Island is about 120 miles long or so, and we would have to go the entire distance – we both live in Brooklyn, which is the complete other side of Long Island from Montauk, East to West. I already had some confidence with my driving skills, and didn’t think that I was going to die at every intersection from the driving experience of the previous 24 hours, but I was slightly nervous about getting close to the city, and god forbid the city. About 40 miles into it, we called the rental place to verify again that it was still open, and it turns out that our first phone rep told us some wrong details, and we would need to drop the car off on 24th at 6th Avenue. Now I really was nervous about the Manhattan driving, since I’ve never driven in it before, and I don’t even like being in the front seat while going through the street of Manhattan.

Along the ride across Long Island, I went the speed limit, and at other points I went at the speed of traffic, I felt quite comfortable behind the wheel, and didn’t get honked at once on the long ride – I thought I would get honked at in anger lots of times. I was so comfy, that when I was at the gas station and someone wanted to drive right where I was backing into, I lowered my window and gave them the middle finger. I was finally that guy.

When we got to Queens traffic was thickening up, and I didn’t freak out, didn’t panic, didn’t do anything but kept driving. I had wanted to take the Williamsburg Bridge, and since I am not a usual driver of the city, and I don’t know Queens highways, I ended up at the tolls of the Queens Midtown tunnel.

There was no choice I had to drive through the tunnel. I hadn’t planned on driving trough the tunnel due to the lanes being so narrow, with the wall on one side and polls (similar to cones) in between lanes on the other. I got close to the wheel of the car like an old feeble person would normally drive, and found that it wasn’t that bad. About halfway through the tunnel I had the thought that if I had a choice of going out of lane, it would be better to hit the cones, than to hit the wall. I kept driving, and the thought was still in my head, and this tunnel has lots more curves than the Lincoln, or Brooklyn Battery tunnels do. I was beginning to become mesmerized by my inner thought of “best to hit the polls in the center of the tunnel.”

Then in an instant I hear Cheese make a nervous chirp sound, and my rental car rub up against the wall. I was fine physically, as was Cheese. We didn’t stop in the traffic, nor did any car around us do anything other than keep driving. We were lucky, but what about the side of the car.

Thank God I bought the insurance. I kept thinking I don’t mind if I nick this car, I’m insured. Sure, steal my rental car; I don’t have to pay for it, it’s insured. I drove out of the tunnel, up to Lexington Avenue, down to 23rd, across to 8th, and around to the rental garage. We lived, we did not die, I did not cause any accident, I did not run people over like I thought I might from playing too much Vice City, I only got honked at once on Saturday, and zero honks on the trip back to the city. I got out of the car, and looked at the right side of the car, and saw only white marks on the tires, and lots of dirt near the tires. No damage.

My fear of driving is gone.