"What are you doing?"

Lori blasted at me as I plucked my parents' extra set of car keys from the end table.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

I thought answering her question with a question of her intelligence made me appear so clever in front of Linda and Julie, two neighbor girls who'd stopped by and talked me down off the garage roof. The sun-tanning was turning into a sun-burning, so they didn't need to persuade much. They "were bored and were looking for something to do". That's when I discovered the keys.

Linda and Julie had been in public school for eight years, as had Julie, and would be my classmates at Bowsher, the public high school. What they were recovering from this summer, I didn't know. All I knew was it was time for a self-imprisonment break-out, adolescent style. That's when I discovered the keys.

"You better not be thinking about taking the car," Lori scolded.

"What are you going to do about it?" I shot back.

Although Lori was a year older, and had the bossy oldest child syndrome, due to a family mutation I was a good 5 inches taller than her, my mom, and Sherry, who were all in the five-feet-tall range. When I reached her height in sixth grade I shoved her out the front door of our house after she pressed the hang-up button on the phone while I was talking to Shelly White. She was locked out, in her underwear. She might have been thinking about the incident, since she didn't physically try to get the keys from me.

"C'mon Linda, Julie, let's go for a little drive."

I practically strutted out of the door in defiance.

"Get back here! You've gotta watch Sherry. You're in big trouble!"

If Linda hesitated at all it was only momentarily as she sat by my side in the Stanfa family—no make that my dad's—new Chevy Malibu. Royal blue, thank you.

"DC, do you know how to drive?"

"Sure, my dad lets me drive when we're on vacation."

I didn't mention that I was only allowed to steer on a 1/4-mile-stone driveway to a remote cabin.

A ready accomplice, Linda was no innocent herself. She'd been caught "ripping off" a few times from Ron's carryout. She was also in the shadow of a more outgoing, popular sister, Lee, her fraternal twin. Linda was the more mischievous of the twins.

Luckily, or unluckily, the car was parked in the street. I doubt I'd have been able to back it out of the driveway. It was an automatic transmission, that much I understood. Other than that, not being a boy or a car buff, my knowledge was limited to simple facts. The car was big and it was blue. Julie, a quiet type by nature, remained silent throughout the front-seat adjustment and the starting of the ignition.

Once we were in Drive mode she asked, "Where are we going?"

Since I had not yet exceeded 5 mph, we had plenty of time to decide.

"Let's go to McDonald's," Linda suggested.

"Cool," I answered, trying to send calming signals to my heart, which was beating faster than Cassius Clay threw punches.

I was having difficulty with the foot pedals, first confusing the accelerator with the brake and vice-versa. Finally, I kept one foot on each for a jerk-and-stop rhythm. Apparently the steering was the easy part, or so I thought for the moment.

"How 'bout I just take 'er around the block first, to get a feel for it?"

Hands shaking a bit, I tightened my grip on the wheel. As I came to a rolling stop at the end of Indianola, and veered left onto Stengle, I spied Mr. Grabowski mowing his postage stamp of a front lawn. The lawns were tiny, like the houses that went with them: 800-square-foot cracker boxes with one teeny bathroom, ensuring as much family closeness as one could stand.

As often accompanies the exhilaration of virgin experiences, time and space became distorted. The street narrowed, eerily. The lawn jockey came to life and swung his lantern in warning. The bowling trophies in the Grabowski's front window loomed like skyscrapers. I shrunk low in my seat.

"Oh my God, what if he saw me?"

Somewhere in the momentary silence I thought I heard a unanimous, telepathic expletive.

"Oh shit!"

We never thought about neighbors being out on a sunny, holiday-weekend afternoon!

I navigated the next turn, left onto Roxberry, at what felt like full-throttle—about 15 mph. Halfway around the block I was just beginning to think about possible consequences of my impulsive act. The Jamiesons were cleaning out their garage and Jimmy, age 5, was riding a Big Wheel in the driveway. Mrs. Jamieson paused from hosing down the garage floor to look in our direction.

"She sees us!" screamed Julie.

"Duck!" yelled Linda.

"Oh my God, she knows I'm not old enough to drive. She'll tell my parents!" my 13-year-old genius brain deduced, out loud.

"Step on it!" Linda shouted.

Unsure of my next move, I stayed steady, but low. So low I couldn't see out of the front windshield, which would explain how I missed seeing and consequently hit, the parked car on my right, just as I rounded the corner from Roxberry to Copeland. It was more of a sideswipe than a direct hit, but I knew the battleship was sunk when Mrs. Dubinski ran through her front bushes in response to the metal-on-metal noise.

A feeling of unreality came over me, I detached myself from my body and wished I could distort time and space further, like go back in time and leave the car keys on the end-table. In my mental departure I easily relinquished control of the wheel to Linda, who swerved us around the last corner from Copeland and back onto Indianola. The getaway car sped away at 13 mph and I felt another small jolt and heard another sickening crunch. I slammed on the brakes after seeing that we'd French-kissed the '69 Impala parked in front of the Butlers' house. I had regained control of the wheel but Linda put her foot next to mine, which was on the brake, and forced it onto the accelerator.

"Let's get outta here!"

She echoed my thoughts exactly.

We were in the home stretch. I could see the safety of the little Stanfa bungalow about 250 feet away. Distracted by the angry shouts from outside the car, I turned my head, to see the half a dozen eyewitnesses chasing us on foot.

"Get back here! Ya hit my car!" boomed Jack Butler.

In that instant, brief distracting moment, the Malibu clipped the rear end of the Foltz's Ford pick-up.

Doesn't anybody park in their driveway anymore?

It was the first logical thought I'd had all day.

Once safely (?) parked in almost the same spot from which we'd departed, Linda and Julie vanished faster than Endora when Darren got home. I was alone. The little witch of the neighborhood, only I couldn't twitch my nose out of trouble. The villagers were gathering in the front yard, intent on a flogging—at least a verbal one. Lori met us on the front porch.

"Where are your parents?" demanded Mrs. Butler of Lori-in-charge.

I ran inside ahead of the pack, and locked myself in my room, the typical adolescent thing.

The only part of my body that wasn't shaking was my eyeballs. They were tiny rafts, lost in churning, hydraulic, class-six white-water rapid tears. Collapsing into a fetal position on my bed, I cried and prayed.

Please God, let me go to sleep and wake up to a different reality, where this doesn't happen and I'm cute and popular and David Cassidy is my boyfriend and where my parents don't bludgeon me with my lava lamp.

And then I realized there was no way I could fall asleep, especially with the sound of the siren whining louder and louder. I knew without lifting my head from its trembling, coiled, knee-rest that it had stopped in front of our house.

"DC, you'd better get out here! The cops are here and I'm not talking to them! Come out or I'll get a bobby pin to pick the lock!"

I knew she wasn't bluffing. This was easy to do with the old, push-in door handle locks.

.

Sergeant Haas (Cop #1) was flipping through papers on a clipboard. I tried to hide behind a wad of Kleenex I'd cupped around my dripping eyes and nose. I cowered, slowly shuffling my feet on the pea-green, shag carpet toward our black, vinyl couch.

"I called my mom and dad. They're on their way," Lori told the cop.

The cocky, cool kids called 'em pigs in those days, holding most uniformed authorities responsible for Vietnam, the Kent State killings, and for the infringement on their right to smoke pot in public. I was feeling neither cocky nor cool at the moment, and decided to call him Sir.

I recognized this cop. He'd gone to high school with my mom and his niece was a classmate of mine. He occasionally patrolled McDonald's to control the teenage loitering. Shakes and fries. Yeah, I was shaking and I was definitely fried. The interrogation began.

I wasn't listening. I was visualizing what life at reform school might be like. There was a kid in our neighborhood a couple of years earlier who'd tried to burn down his grandma's house and he was sent to a reform school over in Indiana. I wondered if reform schools had jail cells or dorm rooms with bars on the windows. Looking out the Stanfas' front window, my view was unobstructed by bars. Jack Butler and Caroline Foltz were clearly telling Cop #2 the whole crash-bang story.

The last time cops had been to Indianola was the previous winter. Charlie Fogerty, an eighteen-year-old "burn-out" was caught peeking in our window. My dad tackled him in the snow and held him until the law arrived.

"Are you all right?" asked Cop #1. "Are you hurt?"

"Not yet. But she will be when our parents get home," Lori answered for me.

"Was anyone in the car with you?"

"Yeah. Two girls," I heard myself saying.

"Where are they? Are they okay?"

"Judging from how fast they ran, I'd say they're all right."

"Are you under the influence?"

Putting a wad of Kleenex on the end table, I looked up to meet his eyes, for the first time.

"What?"

"Have you been drinking alcohol or smoking marijuana?"

"No, she's just very stupid and obviously a terrible driver."

Was Lori defending me or taking a shot at me? Probably both. That's what siblings do. Then my parents hit the fan, I mean, the front door. Cop #2 followed behind them. The neighbors must have retreated home to more closely inspect the damages over some cold Pabst Blue Ribbons.

"Gloria, Denny," Sgt. Haas addressed them in a serious tone of voice.

"Your daughter Denise here apparently took your vehicle for a drive and hit a few of your neighbors parked vehicles."

"Yes, Ken, when Lori called she told us."

My dad's voice was calm, but he was looking at me in a way I didn't recognize.

"My God, what were you thinking? You couldn't have been thinking. You could have killed someone!"

My mom wasn't quite as calm as my dad. I had a flash of little Jimmy Jamieson on his Big Wheel and faced the horrible realization that my joyless ride could have been very tragic indeed. I began shaking and crying again. Whatever punishments I might suffer, I consoled myself, I deserved. At least it was only property damage. That I could live with.

The growing mound of Kleenex wasn't large enough to cover up my vinyl-couch-island refuge. As Sgt. Haas and Cop #2 reviewed the "accident" report with my parents, I avoided eye contact with everyone except the family dog. Sam, who must have felt my anguish, lay loyally at my feet.

When Sgt. Haas started talking with my parents about court proceedings, I listened intently.

"You'll have to accompany Denise for her appearance in Juvenile court, not traffic court, since she's an under-aged, unlicensed driver. In addition to a fine and court costs, Denise will probably remain on probation until she is sixteen. It will then be up to a judge to decide if she can obtain a license at that time. She may have to wait until she is 18. It usually depends on how clean she can keep her record for the next three years."

Wow, he didn't mention Juvenile Hall or Reform School. And at the moment, I had no desire to get behind the wheel of a car anytime soon.

I was relieved.

The cops and parents shook hands and my mom, being polite, thanked the officers.

"See you at the reunion-planning committee meeting, Ken," she said as she walked them to the door.

I was planning on not having a reunion with the cops. Ever.

.

"You stupid, little girl." My dad's devastating disappointment was revealed in this one, true statement. He looked at me as he spoke, like he didn't recognize me.

If he would have just been angry or hit me or threatened me, it wouldn't have hurt so much.

My body sank deeper into the corner of the couch and my heart fell into the basement. The fact that what I had done would affect my parents was just beginning to dawn on me. The real epiphany was how terrible I felt about disappointing them. I no longer needed clarification on the "honor thy father and mother" thing.

"Don't worry about being grounded. You won't have time to do anything other than chores and baby-sitting. You won't be going anywhere until you pay for everything, all the damages to all the cars and fines and court costs, everything!" Mom had definitely come to some quick decisions.

I nodded in agreement. Lori was on the phone with her friend Janet, filling her in on the story. She told her she'd be over in a little while. Then everybody at Janet's party would know. I still hadn't moved off the couch. Now, it felt like a bowling ball had dropped on my stomach. I realized that the story would be all over Bowsher within the week, by the first day of school. And what would everyone think? They'd think, like my dad, that I was a stupid, little girl trying to be a grown-up, which of course, I was.

But, I knew, for the rest of my life, when I'd hear about someone rumored to have "been around the block," I'd be able to say, "You have no idea."

Copyright © DC Stanfa 2003