Turning Left

The wind was picking up. Sarah shivered. It was gusting now as if it knew it was irritating her. Gleeful, that’s what it was as it swirled leaves around the car windows.

She peered through the windshield at a huge black cloud hanging over this poor excuse of transportation. She had borrowed it, of course, because she had better sense than to buy a car that would shake, rattle, and roll like that old song. Why did anybody want to drive something not much bigger than a refrigerator? A hard rain would wash it right off the road, sure as old Jud’s rheumatics was acting up right this very minute. He could always forecast the weather that way. It never failed him, even that time he was drunker than a lord and passed out under the haystack, his legs twitching like crazy.

Sarah hadn’t had a choice, though. She had to get into Asheville first thing this morning otherwise the judge would send somebody after her, all because she had run into a newspaper box, which shouldn’t have been there anyway. Her faithful old Betsy had conked out and was now residing in solitary splendor in one bay at the car repair shop where Joe Metcalf had scratched his head over the sight of a 1960 four-door Buick.

“Miz Sarah,” he’d said to her late yesterday, “I never even saw one of these before. How am I supposed to know what to do with it?”

“Well, young man, you can learn, can’t you? Ask somebody who’s old enough to be dry behind the ears.”

“Yes’um, I reckon I can do that.”

Being in the desperate hurry that she was, Sarah had called her old friend Justine to bum a ride into town. Wouldn’t you know it? Justine had to mind her grandbabies and couldn’t go, but she insisted that Sarah drive her Rabbit.

Rabbit, indeed, Sarah scoffed as she left Black Mountain and eased onto I-40 before good daylight. It wasn’t much bigger than one, that’s for sure.

The first large drops of rain splattered the windshield just as a larger car came right up on her bumper, bright lights nearly blinding her through the rear view mirror. The maniac would hit her as sure as God made little green apples. Sarah gripped the steering wheel and tensed her shoulders for the impact. At the last minute, the car swerved around her and sped away.

Whew! That was a close call. Sarah sank back against the seat and drove on at her usual sedate speed. People ought to leave early enough to get where they were going without speeding around like racecar drivers. Any dumb fool ought to know that the highway was not that place down in Alabama where men drove round and round, never going anywhere. Didn’t they have anything better to do?

Sakes alive, why was That Idiot driving right alongside her? Sarah chanced taking her eyes off the road for a quick look. He was staring at her, waving like crazy. If she ignored him, maybe he’d go away. He didn’t. She speeded up, watching the needle reach twenty and then twenty-five. She thought for sure this little box on wheels would start flying instead of hopping like any decent rabbit should.

Ignoring That Idiot driving beside her, Sarah took the Charlotte Street exit and turned left then right onto College Street. That Idiot dropped behind her but stayed right on her bumper. Would you believe it? He was talking on one of those tiny telephones, driving one-handed, not even looking at the road. There ought to be a law about that. The driving book said to keep both hands on the wheel and eyes forward. Well, it did when she learned to drive more than 60 years ago, and what was right then ought to be just as right now.

He stayed on her bumper when she turned around the pointy end of Pritchard Park and started up Patton Avenue to the parking lot. Belk’s used to stand here, she recalled. She’d bought many a dress in there before they moved out to the mall.

When she locked the little Rabbit, she saw That Idiot park his car farther down the lane. Sakes alive, he was coming after her! She scrabbled in her big satchel where she’d dropped the car keys, but couldn’t get her hand on them.

Spying a moped a few yards away, Sarah ran toward it as fast as her legs could carry her, which was not as speedy as when she ran from the neighbor’s bull dog when she was a little tyke, screaming for her momma. I’m not stealing the moped, she assured herself, just appropriating it in an emergency. She’d seen the younger generations riding these things 40 years ago. Goodness, she had never been able to ride an ordinary bike, and she thought she could handle this thing at her age? Well, if Gerald Ford could jump out of airplanes at 90, she could certainly muster enough courage to get on this little thing at 80. At least it stays on the ground. She hoisted herself onto the tiny seat. Sakes alive, she could do herself some damage if she wasn’t careful. She punched and pushed buttons and levers until the moped roared to life, shaking like old Jud’s bull when he spied a heifer.

Turning right onto Patton Avenue, she figured she could get safely inside the courthouse on ’tother side of Pack Square before That Idiot could catch her. Sakes alive! What’s wrong with the steering? She’d reached Pack Square when the moped started turning left and nothing she could do would make it go any other way. Her old Buick never did this. Had better manners, it did, waited to be told what to do.

With hairpins flying, long hair fluttering around her face, skirt billowing around her like laundry drying on the line in heavy wind, there she went, round and round the Zebulon Vance Monument. If she lived to get off this infernal machine, she’d bob her hair for sure.

Round and round she went, That Idiot running after her. Yelling voices dimly reached her, but she was so busy clinging to the handlebars that she paid no attention. She remembered that, back in the halcyon days of childhood, her brothers stopped their bikes by putting their feet on the ground and sliding. Okay, she could do that. Oops! There went one shoe flying, then the other. She heard a muffled oath but didn’t dare turn around to see who got hit.

Oh no! She’d run smack dab into a man. Not just any man, you understand, but a policeman, a policeman who reached across the handlebars and pushed a button. The moped stopped turning left. It stopped altogether. Praise be. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She looked up and further up until she could see his face. A nice face, or it would be if it were not frowning so.

Well, he shouldn’t have been standing in the way as she informed her son when he walked into the police station waiting room an hour later. All she was doing was trying to get away from That Idiot who was chasing her.

“Mom, he isn’t an idiot. That’s your friend Justine’s grandson, and he thought you had stolen her car.”

“Oh.” How was she supposed to have known that?

Her stick-in-the-mud son, the fraidy cat, shook his head at her. “Riding a moped at your age! The next thing we know, you’ll take up hang gliding.”

“Fly like a bird?” Sarah asked. Great idea!

So that’s exactly what she did.