Free The Early Stories by John Updike Page B

shoulder in one hand and Thelma’s arm in the other and hustled them through the door. “We’ll be back in one minute, Mamma,” he said.
    â€œDrive carefully,” Mrs. Lutz said from the shadowed porch.
    Mr. Lutz drove a huge blue Buick. “I never went to college,” he said, “yet I buy a new car whenever I want.” His tone wasn’t nasty, but soft and full of wonder.
    â€œOh, Daddy, not
this
again,” Thelma said, shaking her head at John, so he could understand what all she had to go through. When she looks like that, John thought, I could bite her lip until it bleeds.
    â€œEver driven this kind of car, John?” Mr. Lutz asked.
    â€œNo. The only thing I can drive is my parents’ Plymouth, and that not very well.”
    â€œWhat year car is it?”
    â€œI don’t know exactly.” John knew perfectly well it was a 1940 model, bought second-hand after the war. “It has a gear shift. This is automatic, isn’t it?”
    â€œAutomatic shift, fluid transmission, directional lights, the works,” Mr. Lutz said. “Now, isn’t it funny, John? Here is your father, an educated man, with an old Plymouth, yet at the same time I, who never read more than ten, twenty books in my life … It doesn’t seem as if there’s justice.” He slapped the fender, bent over to get into the car, straightened up abruptly, and said, “Do you want to drive it?”
    Thelma said, “Daddy’s asking you something.”
    â€œI don’t know how,” John said.
    â€œIt’s very easy to learn, very easy. You just slide in there—come on, it’s getting late.” John got in on the driver’s side. He peered out of the windshield. It was a wider car than the Plymouth; the hood looked wide as a boat.
    Mr. Lutz asked him to grip the little lever behind the steering wheel. “You pull it toward you like
that
, that’s it, and fit it into one of these notches. ‘P’ stands for ‘park’—for when you’re not going anywhere. ‘N,’ that’s ‘neutral,’ like on the car you have, I hardly ever use it, ‘D’ means ‘drive’—just put it in there and the car does all the work for you. You are using that one ninety-nine per cent of the time. ‘L’ is ‘low,’ for very steep hills, going up or down. And ‘R’ stands for—what?”
    â€œReverse,” John said.
    â€œVery, very good. Tessie, he’s a smart boy. He’ll never own a new car. And when you put them all together, you can remember their order by the sentence ‘Paint No Dimes Light Red.’ I thought that up when I was teaching my oldest girl how to drive.”
    â€œPaint No Dimes Light Red,” John said.
    â€œExcellent. Now, let’s go.” He reached over and put the car key in the ignition lock, his other keys dangling.
    A bubble was developing in John’s stomach. “What gear do you want it in to start?” he asked Mr. Lutz.
    Mr. Lutz must not have heard him, because all he said was “Let’s go” again, and he drummed on the dashboard with his fingertips. They were thick, square, furry fingers.
    Thelma leaned up from the back seat. Her cheek almost touched John’s ear. She whispered, “Put it at ‘D.’ ”
    He did, then he looked for the starter. “How does he start it?” he asked Thelma.
    â€œI never watch him,” she said. “There was a button in the last car, but I don’t see it in this one.”
    â€œPush on the pedal,” Mr. Lutz sang, staring straight ahead and smiling, “and away we go. And ah, ah,
waay
we go.”
    â€œJust step on the gas,” Thelma suggested. John pushed down firmly, to keep his leg from trembling. The motor roared and the car bounded away from the curb. Within a block, though, he could manage the car pretty well.
    â€œIt rides like