Drinking and Driving Lessons

Each time Scott thought about Trisha, red-haired, brown-eyed, he would feel drained of energy from the powerful teenage hormones that thundered through him like a drug. This drug could make him do just about anything. It made him save every penny he had working for his dad, mowing lawns, shovelling walks, washing dishes. Since age twelve, he thought having wheels was the only way to get a girl.

The miracle had happened to him. He was sitting shotgun in his friend Bill’s junky old car, and they saw it. It was the first time Scott could honestly say he fell in love with something other than Trisha. It was a pearl white 1978 Cobra Mustang, just ten years old and it was gorgeous. It had mag wheels, a front hood scoop, a front and rear spoiler and even racing stripes. Even standing still it looked faster than anything he had ever driven.

“Pull in Bill,” Scott commanded. “We need to look at that car!”

“You can’t afford that thing!” Bill said, sounding angry.

“The hell I can’t. I’ve been saving forever. If it is less than five g’s, it’s mine.”

“Maybe I should buy it,” Bill said meekly, knowing he couldn’t, but still wanting some credit for being the first among his friends to get his license.

The owner was gracious and let Scott take the car for a spin. There was just something about it that screamed ‘speed.’ It had a gutsy little V-8 engine and was tricked out with all kinds of little bonuses from a special power steering pump that helped one steer at high speeds, to an aftermarket modified suspension. The car was going for $4,000.00. Scott paid the full amount without haggling, which left him just enough for insurance. This was going to be the thing that would really make him a big man on campus, really change how everyone saw him.

But right now, the night after he insured and picked up his car, for Scott, just hanging out with his best friend on a warm, clear summer evening seemed like the greatest thing ever. Until that fateful night they decided it was time to put their magic to work.

“What do you think of my wheels, dude?” Scott asked Bill.

“Pretty sweet, my friend. Just remember, if you want to drink, you need to let me drive tonight.”

“The bar is going to be packed with women. Ladies’ night at the Raven, they don’t even let in the guys until the women are good and drunk.”

As they cruised down the scenic Saskatchewan drive with its epic view of the mind-blowing downtown Edmonton skyline across the river valley, Bill leaned his head out the window, feeling the wind rushing through his hair as he looked out at the limitless possibilities that nighttime brought for a young person with wheels. That unmistakable taste of joy and freedom made him let out a long, loud howl. Scott grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him back inside.

“Uhh, dude — something I think you should know. I did a bit of research on these cars, and the doors in this thing have a bad habit of opening without you pulling the handle. I want you in one piece to pay for the drinks and gas.”

“Crap. Good advice.” Bill leaned back into the car.

Soon, they got to the downtown bar located in a former warehouse that everyone agreed was the best place to find a one-night stand. They walked right past the bouncers without a word spoken. Scott was 16 and could pass for 19, and Bill was 17 and could pass for 25. They sat down, and soon a busty waitress in a low-cut, tight t-shirt and shorts displaying exquisite tanned, muscular legs came up to take their order.

“Bring us a round of Molson every five minutes until we pass out, then bring one every ten minutes,” Bill said. The waitress grinned in reply, even though this was the 50th time she had heard this joke that night alone.

“Man, she was hot,” Scott said as the waitress walked away.

“Don’t even try to hit on a waitress dude. Not only do they get hit on all the time, but they are also usually dating a bouncer and just want to tease you out of tip money and get you kicked out if you don’t keep feeding them tips.” He changed where he was staring, and his eyes grew wider. “Now there is a sweet looking girl in the corner.”

Scott looked over to see a real original sitting in the corner. She had spiked green hair, a studded black leather jacket and a tattoo only partially visible on the top of her low-cut shirt. He looked to one side as she glanced back at him and wondered what he had gotten himself into.

“So anyhow, I was talking to Trisha the other night…”

“Trisha? You still talk to that chick?” Bill said.

“Of course, I’m in love with her dude.”

“Then what are you doing here on ladies’ night?”

“Hey, you can be on a diet and still look at the menu. Besides, she’s different. I was honest with her, you know. I wrote her a letter to tell her how I feel. She wants me to find someone else. She tells me she can’t love me the way I love her.”

“And I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that the guy she hangs out with the most has a hot rod Volkswagen Beetle. You must be thinking she’s going to pay some attention to you now that you have your dream car.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Most women can be shallow.” As he spoke, the waitress came with four beers.

“Twenty bucks,” she said, setting the frosty cold bottles down one by one.

“Can we run a tab?” Bill asked.

“We need a credit card to do that.”

“Sure, here.” Out came Bill’s virgin student visa card. He not only had to lie about being a post-secondary student, but he had also to lie about his age to get it. He even had to lie about his address to get bills sent to him, so they didn’t go to his parent’s house.

The waitress walked away, leaving a scent of arousing perfume and a chance for Bill and Scott to take a long glance at her ass as they gulped their beers. They wanted to get enough of a buzz on to feel comfortable talking to the female patrons in the bar but not too juiced to be unable to drive home or to do something stupid like puke right in the bar. Above all, they didn’t want to waste time getting drunk. In a few short minutes their four beers were done, and they signalled the waitress for more. She brought another two for each of them. Bill’s $300.00 credit limit wasn’t going to last long, so he was already scanning the room for girls he thought might go for a guy like him. An old friend had taught him a trick to use in a busy bar, keep an eye on the ladies’ room, every girl in the bar will eventually go in and sometimes you can spot one who goes in a few times because she drank too much.

After about his third beer, Bill noticed three women dancing and said, “Watch what I do.” He got up, his fourth beer in hand. He went right out on the dance floor and started dancing all by himself, then slowly drew closer to the dancing women. Two of them stopped almost dead mid-dance and looked at Bill like he had just killed their first born. For a minute it seemed he was going to get killed, slapped, kicked out or worse. But the third woman kept dancing with him and even got in close and rubbed up against him a bit. When the song ended, she dragged Bill off the dance floor to her table.

“I’m Nancy,” she whispered to him. “Come and buy me a drink.”

“I’m Bill and I would love to.”

She took him to her table and three people were already sitting there. The waitress came, and Nancy spoke to her.

As she did, Bill looked to a guy at the table. “Hi, I’m Bill. How do you know Nancy?”

The guy looked back, his face flat, his brows furrowed. “She’s carrying my kid.”

Bill turned a slight shade of green, wondering if he was going to be the recipient of jealous rage.

“By the way…” he continued. “Your girlfriend just ordered a bunch of drinks. I hope you have cash.”

Bill’s face returned to normal then turned white. He took out the $30 he had in his wallet, tossed it on the table, his only act of revenge being looking at the professional moochers with an angry look on his face, and walked back to sit with Scott.

Bill told Scott what had happened, who started laughing like a monkey. In his state, he got so giddy that when the waitress came, she started to realize that he likely wasn’t over 18.

“I need to see some ID,” she said to Scott. As the waitress turned to look at Scott, Bill gave him the finger.

“Sure, here,” Scott said, pulling his wallet out and making a show of looking for his license.

She looked at it for a long time and handed the license back. “You’re only 16. You are out of here.” She waved to her right. A heavyset, mean looking giant came. “This guy needs to go now.”

Scott was dragged out. He tried in vain to fight back and dropped a half-empty beer as he did and was forcefully thrown out the door. Outside, Bill walked up to him so angry he wanted to kick him while he was down, and spat out the words:

“You idiot! You don’t fight back against bouncers unless you’re bigger than them! And what the hell is this showing her your real ID?” He reached down to help Scott up off the sidewalk.

“It worked before dude,” Scott said with an innocent looking shrug. “Think about it. If a waitress was good at math, she wouldn’t be waiting tables. She would be in university.”

“Hey that actually makes sense,” Bill said, pausing to raise an eyebrow, then lowering it as he realized he was being charmed. Then he thought for another moment. “You must be pretty loaded to try that stunt. Maybe I should drive home.”

“No way, man. No one drives my car but me!”

“What about the people that drove it the first sixty thousand miles?”

“Serious! Don’t mess with me man. I’m driving!”

“Fine, have it your way. But first we need to head up the street to the 7-11 and get some chips.”

As Scott pulled his arm loose of Bill’s grip, he said, “Always thinking of your stomach or your dick. I don’t know why I treat you like a brother.”

“I’ve saved your ass a thousand times, and I’ll save it again tonight if we get into the thick of the shit tonight,” Bill snapped back.

They got into the car and somewhat unsteadily drove to the 7-11. Bill went in and got a big, salty, greasy bag of chemically flavoured nacho chips, and they headed for home. It was a decent drive, around 30 minutes, but Scott seemed to handle the car OK. The last stretch was highway. By the time they got to it, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” was blaring from the radio. The music was intense, and both loved Rocky movies. As it played, they pretended to violently drum on the dash and sang along, knowing each word, not missing a drum beat or a lyric. Scott looked down from the road for just a moment to adjust the base on his stereo and when he looked up his car had crossed halfway into an oncoming traffic lane. He quickly over-corrected and felt a distinct dizziness as he righted his wheels.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have had those last two beers,” Scott said to Bill.

“You think?” Bill said with a mocking ‘stupid’ look on his face. “Now either pull over and let me drive or take 20 or 30 clicks off your speed.”

Instead of complying and being insulted at the insinuation that a tiny error made him unable to drive, Scott decided now was a good time to see what kind of top speed the Mustang could get to. As the Rocky Balboa “fight” song pounded, he pressed further on the gas, using caution, but finally flooring it. The car passed 60 miles/hr then in seconds 70, 80. At 100 it seemed to top out and was shaking a little. The song petered out and Scott eased back, trying to keep the car going steady at 95. It just seemed like a comfortable place to be. Then they went over a rise in the road that marked the last stretch home. As they went over to the top of it, Scott nearly shit himself, feeling a mad rush of anxiety course through his entire body. He had that familiar feeling he used to get when he was just about ready to be caught for some bad shit. Scott had to slam hard on the brakes right away, skidding a little on the cement and having to whip the wheel back and forth to keep his heading. They had seen this scenario before, though they had never seen it half drunk and with so much to lose. A bunch of cars were lined up behind two police cars, one with its lights on and a constable checking each driver, the other at the ready in case anyone decided to swing around, avoid the check stop and basically make fools of the cops.

“Shit! Cops!” Scott said, hyper-focused on the beer buzz he was feeling and ready to ram his way through the cop cars just so he wouldn’t have to call his parents from the city cells where they kept drunks until morning when they would appear in court.

“Don’t worry man, I got it covered.” Scott was just about to try and see what crying, apologizing, and playing up the fact that he was only 16 might help him. Bill took the nachos out of the glove compartment, opened the bag and motioned to Scott to start eating, and pointed to him to line up his car.

“Nahh, I can’t stand the spicy kind,” Scott said. “How in the hell can you think of food right now? Don’t you freaking realize how serious this is?”

“Eat!” Bill said. Scott reached into the bag and grabbed a couple of chips. “Eat a bunch, now!” Unsure, but easily influenced in the state of drunkenness he was in, Scott grabbed a handful, stuffed them in his mouth and chewed them just enough not to cut his esophagus on the way down.

It was a short wait to get to the front of the line. Scott’s hands shook as he gripped the steering wheel firmly enough for his palms to sweat. After watching the cop stick his head into the driver’s side window in front of them, Scott began to realize that his friend wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Finally they got to the front of the line where a huge cop shined a light into the car.

“You boys do any drinking tonight?”

“No. None at all officer,” Scott said as the giant leaned down and put his face next to his, smelling his breath for an indication of a lie.

“We just went downtown to play some pool. We don’t drink officer. Neither of us are 18.” Bill stuffed another handful of chips in his mouth.

The cop looked at both their faces, seemed a bit suspicious of things, but wished them a good night and waved them on. When they were a half mile away, Scott burst into tears.

“How the hell did that just work?”

“First, you have to promise me to never drive again when I say you’ve had too much.”

“I promise,” Scott said, crossing his heart.

“Second, I only did this because I knew even if you blew on the breathalyser most you would get would be a warning and a 24-hour suspension, not a conviction for being over the limit.”

“Yes and thank you. But how did you do it?”

“Nobody can smell beer when a person has spicy nachos on their breath, not even cops.”

“Ha-ha! Holy shit, you came through once again! You are a fucking machine dude!”

“Yeah, I did, and you owe me one more on a big pile of major favours. Now come over to my place until you’re fully sober so your dad doesn’t send out a hitman for me.”

The two of them joked and laughed all the way to Bill’s house and thought about all the stories they were going to talk about this ‘night out’ at school on Monday. It would have been a perfect evening if Bill hadn’t forgotten his credit card at the bar and the waitress hadn’t charged herself a $100.00 tip on it for putting up with them before she turned it in. She knew there would be no repercussions, no teenager in his right mind would dispute a bar tab knowing that the place that ripped them off was the hottest night club in town with bouncers who were all on steroids and going out with the waitresses.

When Scott finally got home that night, he hadn’t really sobered up much. It was four in the morning, and his dad had fallen asleep on the couch. Scott looked at him and wondered if his dad felt about his mom like he did about his own dream girl, or maybe even that there was a dream girl that his dad never approached. Would this be a different world for him if that happened? Who was he going to end up with, who would marry him, if anyone?

He couldn’t sit and watch TV with the buzz he had. He was going to throw up if he didn’t focus on something soon. He picked up the phone and dialed a number that had never been offered him, but he got through sneaking around. He punched in the ten digits and hoped someone would answer before it went to voicemail.

Ring….

Ring….

Ring…. “One more and I hang up,” Scott said.

“Hello?”

“Hello Trisha?”

“Scott!? It’s four in the morning! What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to talk with you for a while. I NEED to talk with you for a while. I’m sorry it’s so late.”

“It’s OK” Trisha said in her sweet voice. “You must have a good reason for calling.”

“I wanted to tell you some stuff about myself and ask you some questions.”

The two of them talked for almost the whole four hours until school started. They never did get together, but Trisha stayed his friend for years to come. One day, after what seemed like a million years of waiting, Scott found someone he loved to share his youth and his life with, and it was a true love because it was a mutual one. After he got married, he kept the promise he made to Trisha and Bill that night. For the sake of health, love, family and his education, he never drove drunk again. And after his first child was born, he never drank again.