Sitty and the Policeman

When I was sixteen, in 1963, I started working on Saturdays at my father’s Nash-Rambler dealership in Quincy, Massachusetts. Working part-time that summer was thrilling for me because I could spend more time with my workaholic father. It was also cool because all my friends had summer jobs every summer, and this was my first.

I learned how to count cash from my father’s accountant, Mr. Abraham. He taught me to intentionally turn each dollar over, alternating the green and black ones. The secretary, Louise, taught me how to enter accounts receivable and debits into a big, rectangular-shaped accounting book. The yellow pages were almost two feet long with narrow vertical columns. It looked like the original Excel spreadsheet.

The office where I worked was up a flight of stairs, overlooking the showroom. The ceilings were low, like an attic, and picture windows were on three of the walls.  Below, in the showroom, three or four shiny new cars were parked on display, and each of the three salesmen had a desk and chair.

There were three too-heavy-to-move metal desks with black fabric office chairs on wheels. Each desk was equipped with a dirty black dial telephone. Against the wall were several rows of steel file cabinets topped with stacks of yellowish-brown papers. Everything in that office, especially the fabric of our clothes and even the papers, smelt of exhaust.

One day, after I finished working, my father told me to pick up my grandmother at my aunt’s house in a nearby neighborhood. My paternal grandmother, Sitty, was getting a little eccentric in her old age. She was about seventy, and all she wanted was to be with her five adult children. But if she was at her daughter’s house, she wanted to see her eldest son (my father) and go to his house in Weymouth. When she was at our house, she wanted to see her youngest son.

I usually rode to work and back with my father, but on this particular day, my father pulled up in front of the garage in a used car. He got out, called me impatiently over to the car, opened the door for me, and said, “Get in and get going, honey. Your grandmother’s waiting to be picked up. Bring her home.” He left the car running, turned, and walked away.

I got in and inspected the interior. I can’t recall the make or model of the car, but I remember one odd thing. When I looked down, I saw that it had three pedals instead of two. I tested for my driver’s license on an automatic vehicle and had never even seen a standard shift before. Why would I need three pedals? I anxiously jumped out of the car and went to find my father.

“Dad, Dad.!” I caught him while he was still in the parking lot. “What is the third pedal for in that car you gave me?” I asked.

Not quite understanding, my father hastily walked back with me to the car. He was suddenly annoyed with me.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. That’s the clutch, Mary.”

“But what’s it for, Dad?” I asked, clueless.

“Listen,” he said. “You just push down on it when you change gears and slowly release it.

“What gears?” I asked.

“Oh, Mary. I’ll show you.”

He got into the car and pushed the gear shift this way and that. Then he yelled,

“NOW GET GOING!”

With so few instructions, my dad had me convinced that driving a standard shift would be a sinch. I got back in the car, pushed down on the clutch, and shifted gears every which way until I finally got out of neutral. Lurching forward with a jerk and then chug, chug, chug, I somehow managed to drive the car straight off the lot, onto the main street, and all the way to my aunt’s house.

Sitty was waiting outside for me, standing beside an apple tree in the front yard. When she got into the car, she unfolded her faded, stained apron and revealed a pile of green apples that she had snagged from the tree. She offered me one, but I declined. She offered it again. I declined again. No way could I drive this stick shift and eat an apple. Besides, I was sweating profusely as I imagined all the things that could go wrong in the upcoming seven-mile drive to Weymouth.

It wasn’t so bad. I was cruising along, almost home, shifting the gears unevenly but sort of getting the hang of it. Sitty offered me an apple. “I can’t, Sitty,” I said.

Just then, I noticed heavy traffic up ahead. I shifted the car into neutral and stopped at the bottom of the steep hill on Route 18. I stuck my head outside my window and saw a policeman directing traffic up ahead at the top of the hill in the four-way intersection.  

As the traffic started to move, I clumsily shifted the gears, and suddenly, the car started rolling backward. I quickly jammed on the brakes and stalled right before hitting the car behind me. I had no idea why that happened. Meanwhile, the cars started to pile up behind me, and the policeman was blowing his whistle, rigorously waving at me to move forward.

I started the car and somehow managed to get it to move forward, again with a giant lurch. Exhaling. When just as I was cresting the hill, I saw the policeman put up his hand to stop the traffic going my way. Not knowing whether I had reached the top of the hill, I didn’t dare stop again. In slow motion, I drove right past the officer. I didn’t move fast because I heard him blowing his whistle frantically and saw him in my rearview mirror, coming after me. I decided to pull over to the side of the road where I knew it was flat.

 I sat waiting, worrying, and sweating like a farm animal. I had heard that anyone caught driving a standard shift with a license that said “limited to automatic” would get into big trouble with the law.

Scrunching my face, I looked at Sitty, sitting next to me, calmly holding her apron with the apples wrapped inside on her lap. One look and I knew I didn’t have to say we were in trouble. Her English was limited, though she had been in this country since 1910. She raised her eyebrows and smiled reassuringly at me.

The officer was young and angry as he approached the car window. In a loud voice, he said, “Didn’t you see my hand telling you to stop? Do you know what that means? That is a very dangerous intersection. . . .” He shook his head hard. “Let me see your driver’s license now.”

I handed him my license and said I was sorry.

“I wasn’t sure what to do. I’m driving my grandmother here, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

The officer only glanced at my license and then handed it back to me. I could tell he was in a rush. But he started advising me to pay attention while I was driving, especially to “policemen.” I was holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop about the “limitation” stamped on my license, when suddenly, Sitty got into the act.  

She leaned over me from her seat, squeezing herself between me and the steering wheel and waving a handful of the green apples taken from her apron. She smelled like cooking oil. I could hardly breathe as she reached toward the window, pushing against me and talking over the officer’s lecture. This wasn’t helpful.

“Eat Mama. Eat!” She said as she held out a handful of the apples at him, smiling like Wiley Coyote, “Here, Hadtha, Fadal.”

The officer finally stopped and turned his attention to Sitty, his face was cast in resignation. As he stared at Sitty, who was wearing a scarf on her head and missing her false teeth, he smiled graciously and made the common gesture with his hands to indicate to her that he didn’t want the apples. “No thanks,” he said. He paused for one more second, looked at me in frustration, looked back intently at the dangerous intersection, turned, and rapidly walked away.

I exhaled. Sitty had returned to her seat and looked at me with a knowing, satisfied smile. I released a choked laugh. Again, she offered me an apple from her apron. I wanted to accept it, but I needed both my hands to get us home. As I slowly pulled back onto Route 18, jerking and chugging, I kept glancing over at Sitty, loving her for coming to my defense.