Chapter 5 – Who Is Driving The Car (1989)

It’s the winter of 1989. My cousins Vanessa, Rebecca and Veronica are visiting me and Keith in Coney Island, New York. I wanted to do something fun and wild with them, so I decided to take them to Chippendale’s. Ok, so I’m a little off center. I’m sure we can analyze who I am somewhat by my choices but when I proposed the plans to them, they were not complaining. Just saying.

So, me and my cuzs made plans to go to the male strip show and meet up with Keith afterwards (Keith is my boyfriend at the time and my future husband). Keith meets up with us after the show and we drive to this cool bar nearby. It was a freezing cold night but we were so lucky to find parking up front, that we decided to leave our coats in the car.

After several hours of drinking, (sorry Aunt Gory, you are probably not happy about this right now) we decided it’s enough and we wanted to go home. As we step outside, we see our car being towed. We run after the tow truck like our lives depended on it (well, if you think about it, our coats are in the car). The driver pauses for just enough time to speak with Keith and tells him where to go to pick up the car and drives off.

Darn! We are so upset. Freezing we flag a cab and head towards the impound yard to find our car. Of course, it took us forever since we arrived before the car did and we had to wait for it to get processed.

Finally, beat tired, frozen and just plain frustrated, we head back home. We are all trying to play it off to some adventure but let’s be honest, it was just simply a big pain in the butt.

As we are driving back, I notice something odd about the car next to me. There is no one driving it. I look more carefully and ask my cousins to look and tell me if I was imagining this or hallucinating. No, they said, there is no one driving the car. But there was someone in the passenger side. So we start to look for an additional steering wheel or something that demonstrated that he is driving the car remotely. But, he is just sitting there relaxed.  

Now we are all excited. Keith is saying no way. We are saying, yes way. There’s a commotion in the car. Then I realized that we are approaching the tolls. Aha! Now we are going to see what is going to happen. How is the toll going to be paid and who is going to pay for it?

Keith slows down and we are all watching carefully for the big reveal. The car slows down. The passenger jumps over to the drivers side, rolls down his window and throws the coins in the basket to pay the toll.  We all laugh at the same time and then see him as he jumps back into the passenger side.

That’s it. Keith has had it. Let’s call his attention and ask him.  So Keith, honks the horn. The window of the other car is still open from when he paid the toll. Keith yells, “Who is driving your car.”

He says, “My mom is driving.” And he takes off like a bandit.

There was a shrill of a cry in the car. We were all hooting and laughing and astounded all at the same time. I still wonder to this day if there was some kind of remote control in the car yet he sat quietly in the passenger side, seemingly making no effort other than enjoying the ride.

Oy! This is definitely the curious and the strange, don’t you think?