The Driver

The limousine was shiny, black, a brand-new 1990 Lincoln Continental, quite grand. It smelled of real leather. “You can call me Mike,” the driver told me, swinging my bags into the trunk. He looked spry, but also old enough to be my grandpa.

As we pulled away from the farm, Aunt Erin stood in the drive waving, a high, tight smile on her face as she began to cry. I recognized that wave. It was my mother’s strikingly graceful wave; I’d always laughed at it. Mom was wiping a space in the sky, looking like the Queen of the parade, even if I were just getting onto the school bus.

I was pleased to see the wave; all weekend Aunt Erin was so controlled, not very emotional. We’d talked about the present- my first-ever trip back East, the pace of my sophomore year of medical school in Seattle; Mom and Dad’s fishing trips in the Winnebago, traveling the back roads of Oregon. We talked a little about the future- where I would apply for internship and residency- but not a word about the past, about her life till now, about her mother. Our only real connection: my namesake, my Grandmama. Perhaps Grandmama was as much a mystery to her as to me? I waved back at Aunt Erin, then caught the driver glancing at me in the rear-view mirror. Odd.

It had been just a quick weekend trip following my preceptorship at a DC hospital, a chance to meet my Aunt Erin for the first time. My mother, Erin’s half-sister, was tiny and slim with short blonde hair and freckles, I took after her. Erin, in contrast, was brown-eyed, vivid, rounded; her dark cascade of hair sluiced with silver waves. Their mother, my Grandmama Lizzie, was a mystery.

All I knew was that she’d survived tuberculosis, after her husband died of it. It seemed to bring my mother pain, so I’d always avoided discussing Grandmama’s past.In the early 1950s, Grandmama left New York for a sanitarium in New Mexico, leaving their baby Erin to be brought up by friends of the family in New York City. Grandmama later remarried, had my mother Francie, and spent the rest of her life outside Albuquerque. We drove from Oregon to visit them once; I remember Grandpa had a bald head and blue eyes, wore baggy khaki shorts and played golf all the time. Grandmama was quiet and had a gentle touch. She made cookies, and read to me in a silky voice, the way I thought a Grandmama should. She died young, while I was still little.

My maiden Aunt Erin was always quite wealthy.She’d send extravagant gift certificates for my birthday that Mom, offended, made me return with thank you notes. These days, she lived on a farm in New Jersey and raised- would you believe it- alpacas. Hairy South American camel-cousins, imported, each worth tens of thousands of dollars. Same mother, but not at all like my practical, frugal mom. Aunt Erin was a little evasive when I called and proposed my visit, but I’d pressed on.

The visit was pleasant and too short, the farm a luxury hotel for the alpacas. When I arrived, one of the farmhands picked me up from the Newark airport in a pickup truck. I certainly didn’t need a limo for the trip back, but Aunt Erin insisted. She hardly seemed to leave the house, much less drive. “Mike will be happy to take you. He’s an old friend of the family, does all our driving.”

Used to VW’s, I felt a little carsick in the backseat of that elegant tuna boat. The driver chose a backroads route to the airport, explaining that the highway was no faster this time of day. He knew the names of every wide spot in the road, every little town, each with its stone or clapboard church and cluster of steep-roofed houses. “These days the farmland is on its way out- lots more developments than when I was a boy here”, he said, only the “here” was more like “he-uh”.

I thought of my Aunt Erin’s house, its grand oaks and tall windows, the walls hung with photos of people I would never know. “My stepfamily”, Aunt Erin had told me dismissively. “They brought me up. They’re mostly dead now.” She’d quickly moved on to other topics, leaving no conversational pauses for my questions. Curiosity unsatisfied, I walked around the house quietly, once she’d gone to bed, but could find no photos that might be my young Grandmama Lizzie and her first husband, no dark-haired little Erin in her mother’s arms.

Trans-illuminated maple leaves made a dappled tunnel of the 2-lane road; the driver sped up and passed a school bus. “Now, this car isn’t much,” the driver said. “But I used to drive stretch; a brand-new ’53 Continental. That car was really something.” I was momentarily confused, then envisioned the long low axis of a stretch limousine; my date had sent one to pick me up the night of the senior prom, mortally embarrassing me.

“Before I sold that car, I had some real times.” He thought for a moment. “Now, you want the airport. But if you stay on that freeway, it’ll take you through the Holland Tunnel- under the water- and right smack dab into downtown. You take these hills, now, and these forests- ‘course I know you don’t call these hills, out in the West- but you’re here in the woods and suddenly bang in the middle of downtown New York City. Lights-traffic-action.” He turned back to me, a wide sharp smile piling up the wrinkles around his eyes, an expansive arm gesture towards the passenger-side window.Simultaneously a hawk exploded up from the roadside, a mouse in its beak; I saw its pale, buff-streaked belly and the dusky underside of its wings as it slipped up and over the windshield, only inches from the driver’s face. He turned back to his driving. He hadn’t seen a thing.

He reached up to the rearview mirror and adjusted it a little. “Yeah, I used to have some good times, driving stretch. You know, those people are having themselves a fine time- they’ve paid for it!- and you can’t help enjoying it, too. But the clientele for the stretch business- they’re a little different.”

“How so?” I was thinking about getting home, starting up classes again; this was beginning to seem like a long ride.

“Well, one time, I had a call to take a lady into the City. Young lady, dressed nice, a looker.” He glanced very quickly- I barely caught it- in the rearview mirror at me. “You know, midtown is pretty safe. But there are places even I wouldn’t go.”

“Even in a car?”

“Even in a car. She wanted to go to an address in the Bronx. Said she had a bill to pay. I should have known better when she said she couldn’t get a taxi to take her.” He adjusted the rearview mirror again. “It was an apartment complex I’d heard of, but not in a good way. She asked me to pick her up the next day, at 3. I told her, Lady, I’ll come back because I brought you here, and who else would do it? But I won’t wait around.” The back of his head gave off an air of diligent righteousness.“So the next day as I drive up, a pair of guys in suits hustle her into the back seat before I can even stop the car. Hospital or home? I ask her.” He sighed.

I was distracted by a glimpse of deer in a hardwood grove; by now we were on the freeway. I didn’t really want to know how it turned out.

But he was on a roll. “Anyhow, I’m over in the City, gassing up the stretch one hot afternoon. Here’s this guy- good looking young guy, real casual: cutoffs, tee shirt, you know. He walks up and says he likes the car, wants to spend the night on the town tonight, him and his brother. I say sure man, no problem. When I go to pick him up, he’s looking sharp; he’s got the big gold chain, the gold watch, a suit so expensive you wouldn’t believe. One of these guys that’s got the world by the tail, and he looks it. We go to pick up his brother- same story. Only this brother, he’s good-looking too, but he had a kind of-“ the driver’s fingers fan out from the steering wheel and his shoulders rise in a quick shrug- “a young look to him, too. Still a kid, big eyes, curly hair, sweet face. Otherwise the spitting image- two Sicilian boys. Immediately I know I’m in trouble.”

“I take them around all evening- we go to three nice restaurants in Manhattan, and each one they both go in for maybe a half-hour, then they both come out. I wait. Then they want me to drive all the way up to the Bronx, and I know right then where we’re going. You know where we’re going, don’t you, he asks me, the first brother does. I tell him no, sir- I’m afraid I don’t. He laughs a bunch. We go to that same apartment complex where I brought the lady, and he tells me to wait- just park it, he says, and don’t move it for nobody. The police come, you just drive nice and slow around the block. I double-park it and they go in. Couple of minutes, some cars leave and a suit on the sidewalk, he motions me to take the space. I don’t say anything, just move it. The guys come back out. The first brother, he grabs my shirt and says, hey- why’d you move the car? But the other one- let’s call him Mario- he punches his brother in the shoulder. Then they laugh and say, see? The boys here know you’re with us. No worries.I don’t say anything- I just drive them home.”

I had a view of the angle of his jaw, his bony nose, his hands that slid along the wheel as he drove. It was still at least 15 minutes or so to the airport. I sighed, thought again about this half-aunt of mine whom I hardly knew: her deep brown eyes and olive skin; such a contrast to me and my pale blonde mom. Her reluctance to talk about her life.

“I drove some good jobs with those guys, though. Some astounding weddings.” He half-turned to face me, eyebrows rising. “Seven stretch limos: each couple in the wedding party had their own. Seven thousand dollars, just the limo bill.” He turned back to face the road. “Back then, early fifties, that was big money. To them it was nothing.” I could see his eyes- the lids half-shut, contemplative. “The bride, though, they brought her to the church in a horse-drawn carriage.”

I pictured this nameless bride, all flowers, huge white skirt and fussy white bodice. Dark hair in masses under the veil’s netting, maybe an aroma of horse sweat drifting along behind her. “Elisa,” the driver sighed. “What a looker. I used to take the three of them, Elisa, Mario and their baby out to the Garden State Parkway and just drive and drive on weekends. There was this one time, it was summer. It was just Elisa and the little girl in the back of the stretch. Elisa was drinking champagne. It was this way pretty often- the guys were working, she needed something to do, so we drove around New Jersey a lot. This one day, she knocked- you know, on the glass divider- we were heading east, not too far from the Hudson. She told me she’d always had a dream of driving down Broadway standing on the roof- like the ladies on floats in parades, I guess.” He shrugged. “So I drove downtown and opened the sunroof. We got onto Broadway and drove all the way to the Central Park zoo, her standing on that seat, the little girl hanging onto her ankles. I could see her in my mirror, leaning over the roof with a champagne glass in her hand-“ he flung his arms wide, hands free of the wheel for a second- “and she waved like a princess, all the way down Broadway.” He sighed, dropped his arms. “I’ll tell you, the heads did turn.”

I could see her myself: black hair flying, face upturned to the sun, a white-gloved hand weaving through the air, toasting the City, her Family. Or perhaps she was wiping the sky clean. Her dark-haired little daughter on the seat below, arms wrapped tightly around her mother’s legs. Who knew, she might fly.

We drove in silence. The Holland Tunnel exit flew by on the left, and I felt myself leaning that way; for a moment I could imagine the 1950s lay beyond that tunnel, and youth- not mine, not my mom’s nor Aunt Erin’s, but my Grandmama’s. We bore right.

He sighed again. “Maybe she was a little too much for Mario. Maybe he was just a small-town boy, under those suits and jewelry.” He was concentrating on the road. “You may think I talk a lot, but that’s just today. That’s just now. I always knew how to keep quiet; I always kept the divider up so I couldn’t hear.” I saw the turnoff for the airport just ahead.

“But those brothers, they’d put it back down.It ain’t respectful of you, they said.One time they were talking- they shouldn’t have been saying that kind of stuff, me driving and all- and the other brother, he’s sitting facing the back- turns to me real quick and says Mike, you catch that? Quick. And I said no, I’m sorry, I guess I’m just concentrating on the road. And Mario, sitting in the far seat, he laughs and says see? That’s why we like Mike. He’s like family.” He drove on, but I could see the back of his neck and shoulders stiffen and square up, again, proudly.

"But they got respect, you know that? And family values. Like the women, they don’t work. Don’t need to. The houses are real nice, and those girls- they are always there for their kids.You know, I really think the government ought to be run by the Family. The places they control, there’s no crime in the streets. The hoods, they’ll mess with the law but not with the Family.”

I deliberately avoided his eyes in the mirror. A mile or more unrolled beneath the limo.

“This is not a story I’m used to telling,” he began again, slowly. “Like I said, you try not to talk too much.” His concentration was on a Greyhound bus, slowing alongside us, signaling to shift into our lane. “But there was this one time, I took Mario and his brother on their rounds,” he said, turning the wheel with deliberation to avoid the bus. “I drop Mario off, but the other brother stays outside with me. He’s talking too much. He says, you know, man? Mario’s got that wife of his, she’s too fancy for a guy like Mario. Riding along like she’s the star of the parade, la-di-dah all the way down Broadway. This is not good for Mario. A guy should get out of this when that happens, you know?” Mike stole another look at me in the rearview mirror.

“The next week, I get a call. It’s that other brother again. He says, you remember Mario? What did I tell you, man. They found him in the river." He was looking at me again, kind of sideways, in the rearview mirror.

I looked down, busied myself looking through my purse for my wallet. Where had I hidden my plane ticket? I thought of my arrival here, at the New Jersey airport, only 3 days ago. My first glimpse of New York City from the air: twin towers, urban sprawl, a tiny green statue waving a torch from the flatwater harbor. “What airline- TWA?” he asked. I nodded.We drove past identical concrete terminals, one after another.

“And Elisa? And the little girl?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Elisa. So she disappeared. Had to leave, you know. A lady shouldn’t draw attention to herself. They said she got sick. But their little girl was brought up here, she never lacked for anything.” He raised his shoulders in another shrug; it seemed a proprietary gesture, but also one of helplessness. “Like I told you. The Family, they’re always there for their kids.”

He slowed to let a taxi merge from the curb. I found my wallet, found the plane ticket and a fifty. I held up the fifty as we stopped. He came around to open my door and touched my elbow to help me out, then swung my bag out and placed it on the curb. He shook his head at the fifty. “No way,” he said. His smile was still good for one his age, still his own teeth. He placed an old, much-folded envelope in my hand. “Sometimes things get left in the limo. Arianna would want you to have this.”

He drove off. I stood there for a beat, wondering if I’d really heard all this, mind racing through imagined memories of people I hardly knew. Arianna? Erin? Elisa? Lizzie? My Grandmama- she always sent chocolates, she was afraid to travel. What else did I really know? Who was the 1950’s bride in brilliant white, smelling of horses and weaving a gloved hand through the air?

I tore open the worn envelope and a thick, gold wedding ring fell into my palm. Heavy, like a man’s ring. Along the inside was engraved, in so ornamental a script I could barely read it, “Elisa e Mario, 4 Iuglio 1953”. Startled, I closed my fist tightly around it.