"Watch out", my uncle screamed into my ear as I was driving for the very first time.
I was barely eleven years old when my uncle persuaded my parents to teach me how to drive. I had no experience driving and didn't know the difference between the wind shield wipers and the turn signal. My uncle tugs the wheel to pull the car back from incoming traffic.
I was sweating profusely as my uncle laughed and said," your getting the hang of this."
My uncle was the outsider of the family. He always wore a jacket that he claimed was made out of an alligator he had killed while hunting in Africa. He chewed out the same tooth pick every time I saw him to get rid of his nasty smoking habit. He always wore really dark sun glasses so you could't see his eyes, never being able to tell the expression he had. His shoes had a tear in them where you could see his toe sticking out, but he refused to get new ones because he liked the cold breeze of air that would flow through the hole. He never looked presentable which is why my parents never enjoyed having him around. He was the rut of the family. I remember my parents saying he was like a cat being raised in a dog family. I pulled over to the side of the road waiting to hear my uncle scream at me because I put our lives in danger, but instead he congratulated me on how well I was picking up things. I always had my suspensions that Uncle Jack was kind of not right in the head, but this confirmed it. Uncle Jack had never been there for me when I needed him. Uncle Jack was never at any of the family parties. Uncle Jack didn't come to my communion or my baptism.
So I asked myself why he would randomly show up to my house and illegally teach me how to drive. He got off of his phone and I finally raised up the courage to ask him why he decided to do this.
He said, "Peter, it is important that I teach you how to drive. Who else is going to teach you? Your Mother? Yeah right. I don't want you to end up being a crazy mother just because your mother doesn't know how to drive."
His breathe reeked of smoke from the cigarette he smoked before coming to my house. He wanted me to pull out of the spot I was parked in and try to do a u-turn on a four lane road. I was nervous again because I have never done a u-turn in my life and wasn't completely sure on what it was. My uncle told me to calm down. He said, " Don't worry. Listen to the car and let it tell you what to do."
As the arrow turned green, I creeped into the middle of the intersection.
My Uncle said, "What are you waiting for? The lights green. Come on. Go! Go! Go!"
I slowly turned my head to check if anyone is in my way. The arrow goes from green to yellow. I turned the wheel, one hand going over the other, until I ended up in the other lane.
"There you go! You did it.", my uncle said as I some how made it into the other lane. He said that I did better than any of my cousins that he took out to drive and I was the youngest.
'Your cousins constantly caused chaos when I tried to teach them the ways of driving."
Even though every one saw him as the rut in my family, I liked his crazy techniques and ways of doing things and was glad he came over to teach me how to drive.