CHAPTER ONE
PASSENGERS
A MONG THE HUMILIATIONS OF MY TEENAGE YEARS WAS ONE that might be termed psycho-mechanical: my very public struggle to master a manual transmission. I got my driver’s license early in 1975, not long after I turned sixteen. The previous fall, I had taken a driver’s ed course with a group of my high-school classmates. The instructor’s Oldsmobile, which we used for our on-the-road lessons and then for our driving tests at the dread Department of Motor Vehicles, was an automatic. You pressed the gas pedal, you turned the wheel, you hit the brakes. There were a few tricky maneuvers—making a three-point turn, backing up in a straight line, parallel parking—but with a little practice among pylons in the school parking lot, even they became routine.
License in hand, I was ready to roll. There was just one last roadblock. The only car available to me at home was a Subaru sedan with a stick shift. My dad, not the most hands-on of parents, granted me a single lesson. He led me out to the garage one Saturday morning, plopped himself down behind the wheel, and had me climb into the passenger seat beside him. He placed my left palm over the shift knob and guided my hand through the gears: “That’s first.” Brief pause. “Second.” Brief pause. “Third.” Brief pause. “Fourth.” Brief pause. “Down over here”—a pain shot through my wrist as it twisted into an unnatural position—“is Reverse.” He glanced at me to confirm I had it all down. I nodded helplessly. “And that”—wiggling my hand back and forth—“that’s Neutral.” He gave me a few tips about the speed ranges of the four forward gears. Then he pointed to the clutch pedal he had pinned beneath his loafer. “Make sure you push that in while you shift.”
I proceeded to make a spectacle of myself on the roads of the small New England town where we lived. The car would buck as I tried to find the correct gear, then lurch forward as I mistimed the release of the clutch. I’d stall at every red light, then stall again halfway out into the intersection. Hills were a horror. I’d let the clutch out too quickly, or too slowly, and the car would roll backward until it came to rest against the bumper of the vehicle behind me. Horns were honked, curses cursed, birds flipped. What made the experience all the more excruciating was the Subaru’s yellow paint job—the kind of yellow you get with a kid’s rain slicker or a randy male goldfinch. The car was an eye magnet, my flailing impossible to miss.
From my putative friends, I received no sympathy. They found my struggles a source of endless, uproarious amusement. “Grind me a pound!” one of them would yell with glee from the backseat whenever I’d muff a shift and set off a metallic gnashing of gear teeth. “Smooth move,” another would snigger as the engine rattled to a stall. The word “spaz”—this was well before anyone had heard of political correctness—was frequently lobbed my way. I had a suspicion that my incompetence with the stick was something my buddies laughed about behind my back. The metaphorical implications were not lost on me. My manhood, such as it was at sixteen, felt deflated.
But I persisted—what choice did I have?—and after a week or two I began to get the hang of it. The gearbox loosened up and became more forgiving. My arms and legs stopped working at cross-purposes and started cooperating. Soon, I was shifting without thinking about it. It just happened. The car no longer stalled or bucked or lurched. I no longer had to sweat the hills or the intersections. The transmission and I had become a team. We meshed. I took a quiet pride in my accomplishment.
Still, I coveted an automatic. Although stick shifts were fairly common back then, at least in the econoboxes and junkers that kids drove, they had already taken on a behind-the-times, hand-me-down quality. They seemed fusty, a little yesterday. Who wanted to be “manual” when you
PASSENGERS
A MONG THE HUMILIATIONS OF MY TEENAGE YEARS WAS ONE that might be termed psycho-mechanical: my very public struggle to master a manual transmission. I got my driver’s license early in 1975, not long after I turned sixteen. The previous fall, I had taken a driver’s ed course with a group of my high-school classmates. The instructor’s Oldsmobile, which we used for our on-the-road lessons and then for our driving tests at the dread Department of Motor Vehicles, was an automatic. You pressed the gas pedal, you turned the wheel, you hit the brakes. There were a few tricky maneuvers—making a three-point turn, backing up in a straight line, parallel parking—but with a little practice among pylons in the school parking lot, even they became routine.
License in hand, I was ready to roll. There was just one last roadblock. The only car available to me at home was a Subaru sedan with a stick shift. My dad, not the most hands-on of parents, granted me a single lesson. He led me out to the garage one Saturday morning, plopped himself down behind the wheel, and had me climb into the passenger seat beside him. He placed my left palm over the shift knob and guided my hand through the gears: “That’s first.” Brief pause. “Second.” Brief pause. “Third.” Brief pause. “Fourth.” Brief pause. “Down over here”—a pain shot through my wrist as it twisted into an unnatural position—“is Reverse.” He glanced at me to confirm I had it all down. I nodded helplessly. “And that”—wiggling my hand back and forth—“that’s Neutral.” He gave me a few tips about the speed ranges of the four forward gears. Then he pointed to the clutch pedal he had pinned beneath his loafer. “Make sure you push that in while you shift.”
I proceeded to make a spectacle of myself on the roads of the small New England town where we lived. The car would buck as I tried to find the correct gear, then lurch forward as I mistimed the release of the clutch. I’d stall at every red light, then stall again halfway out into the intersection. Hills were a horror. I’d let the clutch out too quickly, or too slowly, and the car would roll backward until it came to rest against the bumper of the vehicle behind me. Horns were honked, curses cursed, birds flipped. What made the experience all the more excruciating was the Subaru’s yellow paint job—the kind of yellow you get with a kid’s rain slicker or a randy male goldfinch. The car was an eye magnet, my flailing impossible to miss.
From my putative friends, I received no sympathy. They found my struggles a source of endless, uproarious amusement. “Grind me a pound!” one of them would yell with glee from the backseat whenever I’d muff a shift and set off a metallic gnashing of gear teeth. “Smooth move,” another would snigger as the engine rattled to a stall. The word “spaz”—this was well before anyone had heard of political correctness—was frequently lobbed my way. I had a suspicion that my incompetence with the stick was something my buddies laughed about behind my back. The metaphorical implications were not lost on me. My manhood, such as it was at sixteen, felt deflated.
But I persisted—what choice did I have?—and after a week or two I began to get the hang of it. The gearbox loosened up and became more forgiving. My arms and legs stopped working at cross-purposes and started cooperating. Soon, I was shifting without thinking about it. It just happened. The car no longer stalled or bucked or lurched. I no longer had to sweat the hills or the intersections. The transmission and I had become a team. We meshed. I took a quiet pride in my accomplishment.
Still, I coveted an automatic. Although stick shifts were fairly common back then, at least in the econoboxes and junkers that kids drove, they had already taken on a behind-the-times, hand-me-down quality. They seemed fusty, a little yesterday. Who wanted to be “manual” when you
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