You talkin’ to me?
HERE I AM,
driving Miss Daisy to school, with her little friend, Elizabeth, in the back seat. The windows are drippy as a beer stein. The girls brush at their bangs with cold fingers. Stare out their respective windows. Snap themselves safely in.
“Everybody ready?” I ask as I start the car.
They don’t respond.
“Great then,” I say, and shove the minivan into gear.
It is bright this morning. The January sun crashes through the windshield, rendering us virtually blind.
But that doesn’t matter. We’ve made this ride a million times. We’re fast. We’re furious. When the stoplight finally turns, so do we.
“It sure is a beautiful day,” I say, mostly to myself. “Yep, sure is a nice day.”
After about age 8, kids don’t talk much in the morning. I think they are rebooting their brains for school, trying to get themselves into the institutional mind-set that’s so important to good learning.
In fact, I’ve driven carpools off and on for 10 years, and have yet to engage a child in a single conversation. On good days, I’ll get a grunt or two. Sometimes, their intestines will whistle. Or they’ll thump the back of my seat with their shoe. Mostly, they stare out the window, tonguing their plastic braces and dreading PE.
Usually, what I end up doing is resorting to the Socratic method of fatherhood, in which I have conversations with myself. Out loud, of course. Like some sort of demented econ professor.
“Look, free dirt,” I say, noting a “FREE DIRT” sign near a church.
The carpool kids say nothing.
“Do you think it’s really free?” I ask.
No answer from the carpool kids.
“Because in my experience, nothing’s free,” I say.
Silence.
“Initially, something will appear to be free, but later there are strings attached. Obligations. Some tacit understanding that by taking the free item I open myself up to reciprocate later in some way you could never envision,” I say.
Nothing.
“That’s my experience with free things,” I say.
As the ride to school continues, I become like a desperate nightclub comic, trying to draw a response, or any sign that my audience is still breathing.
“Take your mother ... please,” I say.
This, I think, will finally trigger a reaction. What is closer to a kid’s heart than a mom? It’s a certain hot-button issue, even on the coldest of winter mornings.
“Sometimes I get up with the baby,” I tell the little girl, “just so your mother can sleep.”
Silence.
“But am I doing this for free, I ask you?”
Nothing.
“Of course not,” I say. “An American marriage is one of the world’s great bartering systems. I do something for her. She does something for me. By the end of the day, if we’re lucky, we haven’t killed each other.”
Silence.
“That’s an American marriage,” I say. “And from all indications, a pretty good one.”
Nothing.
“Hey, try to keep it down back there,” I say.
By now, we are closing in on the school. I begin talking to the other carpool drivers as if they had earpieces and can hear me.
“Go-go-go,” I say to the Yukon in front of us.
“Pull up, go on, pull up,” I say to a Lexus at the drop-off point. One day, all carpool parents will be networked like this so we can exchange driving tips and complain about our teenagers.
Today, the kids spill out of the cars up ahead, one by one, on rubbery legs. You’d think they’d been at sea six months.
One mother, thinking she’s at the dry cleaners, gets out of her SUV, opens the trunk and starts taking out some dress shirts.
“You’re not at the dry cleaners!” I yell. “Back in the car, back in the car!”
From the kids, nothing. They eye this mother with curious dispassion. Apparently they have seen mothers do odd things before. The kids merely clutch their lunches. Reach for the door handles.
“Thanks for flying American,” I say as they get out.
Nothing.
“I think it’s going to be a really nice day,” I say again.
“Bye,” they burp and slam the doors.
Nice talkin’ to you. Really. Nice.
Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.
