The Driving Lesson

Except in PC games I never drove a car in my entire life. Hence, my brothers considered it as a brotherly responsibility to teach me to drive. Perhaps I should tell you that I’m a firstborn. Secondborn drove our 1984 Peugeot 505 from Jogja to Cilacap in 3 hours flat. Regular busride takes 5 hours. Thirdborn made it in 2,5 hours due to the absence of parents on board.

So after a crash-course on how to shift the gears and they were convinced that i could tell the difference between the clutch, accelerator and brake pedals, they took me out for a spin.

Oh, man..after ten minutes I swore to my self that i would earn enough money to hire a chauffeur. First of all, you got to keep the right balance when you step on the accelerator and release the clutch. Release the clutch too slow and the engine will roar although the car wouldn't budge an inch. Too fast and and the car will 'jump' and the engine died. And then there’s the array switches and buttons for turning the head lights, long and short, emergency lights, left-and-right turn signals, windshield spray and wiper, horns and some strange looking handle that turned out to be the hand brake.

After a while, I got the hang of it and the car started to move. Off we went. We rolled into the streets of Cilacap. My brothers’ instructions became the voices in my head. Shift to first gear. Step on the accelerator. Ease the clutch. Easy, easy. Now the second gear. Easy. That’s it. Keep it steady. That’s a lamp post. You don’t want to hit it. Hitting a lamp post is bad. And that’s a ditch. A ditch is bad. You don’t want to end up in a ditch. You want to stay on the road. Easy, now. Turn left. Switch on the sign. Left. Left. I said left, didn’t I? Why did you give the turn right signal? We don’t want to get killed. Getting killed is bad….

I was sincerely grateful that the city officials has had enough consideration to build wide and smooth streets for inexperienced drivers like me..and it's quiet too. Not much traffic. That's what my brothers thought. My point of view was unfortunately rather different. I saw every oncoming cars or any other vehicles, parked or moving, as possible threats of gruesome and messy car-crash, although the margin was wide enough to land a jumbo jet in. My brothers assured me that unless the other drivers were suicidal, they wanted to avoid car-crash as much i did.

A while later, I was cruising the streets along Cilacap's coastline..Feel the breeze on my hair..the sweet scent of saltwater and the glorious sun..until one of my brothers pointed out that our grandma could drive faster than I did. Feeling deeply offended, I stepped on the accelerator in earnest...the marvellous French muscle roared..everything blurs past me..it was almost surreal...now that's better, my wicked brother said, a bit more and you'll break 50 km an hour...