Free The Natural Laws of Good Luck by Ellen Graf Page B

“Maybe OK. Try!” was put into action, often shortened to “Try!” My teeth clenched, and I felt as if I were swallowing my tongue as the other car roared up on our rear bumper, horn blasting in alarm. Country drivers in big-wheeled pickup trucks sped up and skinned past us, shouting obscenities and flinging the finger. I instructed Zhong-hua that the person on the main road had right-of-way and that a red light meant STOP until the light changed to green.
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, you don’t think so? Red means don’t go. You have to wait; that’s the law.”
    â€œIn China, who can go, just go. Is OK. Big road, small road, left turn, right turn—this doesn’t matter. Just watch, see, look at. OK—go. Not OK—not go. Also, people drive on any side of the road. Which side open, which side drive.”
    â€œWhat if another car is coming the other way, for God’s sake?”
    â€œNo problem. Just not hit other car—is OK.”
    â€œWatch out! That guy is passing you on the right because you’re in the fast lane. You should be in the slow lane. Stay in your lane! Stay in your lane!”
    â€œAnother driver say, ‘Asshole.’ What is
asshole
?”
    â€œIt means he’s mad. Get over, get over! Holy shit!”
    I was gasping and holding on to the ceiling. My feet were braced against the dash. My husband sighed and said I “must be” ride in the backseat because I was making him nervous and this was “very danger.” He pulled over on the shoulder, and I got out, took a few deep breaths, and repositioned myself rigidly in the far right side of the backseat, mostly pressing my mouth closed but still involuntarily yelping “Stay in your lane! Signal! Signal! I showed you these words in the dictionary a hundred times! Do you know what a lane is?”
    I wasn’t in the habit of drinking alcohol, but for several weeks, as soon as we returned home alive from a driving excursion, I sedated myself with Chinese wine, the kind that numbs your mouth like Novocain for a full hour. Zhong-hua must have scared himself, too. He pointed out that our license plate number contained four
4
s. This was a very bad thing.
Si
, the word for the number
4
, sounds similar and is written identically to the word
si
, meaning death. We had to quickly change this, even though it meant paying extra. He dedicated an evening to playing with number combinations, finally arriving at one that seemed auspicious and contained no
4
s.
    Barren winter trees allowed our retired neighbors, Dave and Flippy, to better keep a watchful eye on the chain of events at our place, which they greatly enjoyed. Often Dave would telephone after observing us struggling to accomplish some impossible task: “Hey, it’s Dave. I wasn’t doing anything today and wondered if you want me to bring my tractor up. I can pull that car out of the ditch easy, if you want me to. I mean if you don’t want me to, I won’t. But no sense you two hurting yourselves.” We were very grateful for Dave and the tractor.
    They waved each time Zhong-hua drove past to practice driving with me in the backseat. They probably thought this was another Chinese custom, along with setting the garden mulch on fire with a couple of plastic detergent bottles, shooting mourning doves, and chain-smoking while overseeing the wife mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow. Zhong-hua rolled down the window, veering inadvertently toward them, and bellowed, “Hi, hi, hi, how are you?” The rural American custom of waving to everyone whether you know them or not was very alien to Zhong-hua, but he made up for his discomfort by trying extrahard to conform.
    Once out on Route 2, we lurched along, first twenty miles under speed, then twenty miles over speed, swerving from side to side as I squawked over and over, “Stay in your lane! Stay in your lane!” At