Welcome to Club Services'

"Twenty years, we've been together ..." Sharon made her voice sing-song, like a mantra.

Morgan knew the rest: "And you still can't get used to the way I drive." Without looking, he knew "Shar-own" was nodding her head. "Shar-oooon," he liked to call her name with different flavorings. And she referred to him as "Moron."

"I wish I could drive and look at you at the same time," Morgan said. "Like they do in the movies."

"I know, I know ..." his wife replied. "I'm so beautiful."

"You are so beautiful." Deliberately, he suppressed the rest of the litany. This time he would not talk about it. He would not try again to tell her how he felt his wife was the girl of his dreams. How God had apparently meant for them to be together. She was such an exquisitely wonderful person.

Most of the time, he felt perfectly adequate, but around her, near her... "BK time," he said softly.

"Bumbling Klutz?" Sharon wondered about her husband and his need to verbalize, well, nearly everything. Without looking at him, she knew he would be nodding. She rolled her eyes and cast her vision through the side window.

They were coming South, toward Jamaica. The signs for JFK were everywhere. Sharon tried not to look at the speedometer. "You're speeding," the words came out practically involuntarily.

Morgan always said he hated it when she braced her hands on the ceiling. "It's OK. Five miles an hour over is OK," he said. "I'm a professional ..."

"...Driver," they chimed together. A professional driver. It was true. Morgan had started what he called his empire, driving a cab by himself at night ... long ago... right after he got out of the service.

Now the left hand sweeper, where the Grand Central Parkway branched away to the East was coming up. The Van Wyck went straight on South directly into JFK. They were rolling in the left lane, which was good enough, but Sharon knew practically as soon as they were through their turn, Morgan was going to let their big car drift right across several lanes of traffic in order to switch to the right lane for their exit.

Adding to Sharon's anxiety, it was here The Brooklyn Queens Expressway came in from its winding way through the cemeteries between the end of Eastern Parkway and the GCP. The fact that even more cars were disgorged into this spaghetti pot mix of conjoined highway traffic made Sharon want to hold onto their new SUV's big solid grab handle by the front of her window.

If Morgan could know, Sharon wondered. If he could know how really and truly uncomfortable all this made her. She heard the signal light clicker begin. She knew he would be checking the mirrors. GCP, BQE, SUV, everything with a three letter acronym these days. Sharon felt the car lurch a little, as Morgan speeded up.

"Gotta match the speed," she knew he would say if she'd asked. How many times had they done this? Her fingers closed tightly on the seat material ... as if that would do any good.

It was the absence of input that bothered her. The trusting. The conscious giving up of control that got to her. Morgan was a very good driver, but he'd been known to smash up, though it was never his fault.

And they said SUVs are top heavy.

"An SUV?" Morgan's eyes were wide when Sharon first indicated maybe she wanted one. "SUVs are known to roll," Morgan had complained.

Now Sharon stole a glimpse at her husband. He was looking up in the rear view mirror. Their gazes crossed as he switched to see the right outside mirror.

The sound of the signal clicker was like a metronome of death. "Known to roll, known to roll," rang in her mind's ear. The clicker went; tick tick tick tick. Death, death death death! To her, Morgan's driving was like being swept away on the ever unfolding wings of a horror movie.

They always took the second exit after the turn. The Grand Central Parkway ran along in a virtual concrete canyon through Jamaica, the service roads on either side cantilevered above, completely covering the right lanes in both directions. They were nearing the heart of Jamaica Estates.

Through the window beyond her husband's shoulders, she could see the towers of the Queens General and Triborough Hospitals. The QGH.

"It happens here," Sharon told herself. To her, it was as if she was shoulder deep in a bowl of howling traffic. This time, someone would not let them through, she thought. This time, someone was going to be not looking, coming fast from Brooklyn, coming like an arrow in the right lane, shielded from sight by the angry, impersonal seemingly driverless cars of the center lane.

She was afraid they would be tagged, hit in the door where she sat ... flipped and rolling like a pinwheel, spewing gas and flame, and Morgan, Morgan would get to look at her while he drove at last. Even if it was upside down. Is that what he wanted? He would say, "I love you," and they would never be home. Never.

It began. She felt it when the accelerator went down. The thumb of the covert hand which held the right side of her seat between the cushion and the door flicked at her belt. There was nothing else she could do. She closed her eyes a little.

To Morgan, the joy of precision driving was about his biggest pleasure. There was so much you could do with a car, even one as ungainly as his wife's new huge SUV. You just had to realize the advantages. You just had to know what you were doing.

The slot he was looking for came up on the right, immediately after a green Ford, and he slipped in quickly.

Now from the center lane, he took a quick look, and there was a slow car, accelerating in from the BQE behind them. Still with the signal, Morgan let their big car move to the right again. Sharon was actually too frightened to see how fast they were going now. The exit was at hand.

He kept the highway speed up, took the exit, and flicked off the overdrive. They were climbing fast. On the service road, the light, possibly red, would be less than half a block away when they emerged. The exit ramp was steep and leveled off suddenly. It fed them into the local yet no more sedate traffic. With the climb and the loss of overdrive, their speed fell rapidly.

Still a little too fast though. Morgan saved the brakes for last, putting the big car in second. The huge motor roared like a lion in a tunnel. Morgan loved it. He was already checking the right mirror for blending with the urban traffic. Tick tick tick, the signal was clicking.

Sharon felt the pull as their car lurched from lane to lane. It seemed to her they were going way too fast as they climbed the short horrendous hill. The roar of the motor was appalling to her. She never trusted herself to downshift. This was like dropping in an impossible long shaft.

She drove completely differently ... yet, in her years of driving, she'd had many more minor accidents.

"Lack of planning," Morgan always said. "Lack of experience. You know what you should do?" he'd often asked in the kitchen, while stealing bits of the salad she was fixing for dinner. Or on the deck where they shared the Sunday Times ... "What you should do is drive a cab for one week. That's all ... just one week. You'd be driving just like me after. Just like me." He'd rustle the paper then. Pop a sliver of tomato.

"Morgan, what makes you think I want to drive like you?"

"I don't know ... then you wouldn't be so nervous. I don't like it when you get you know...so nervous. It makes me feel like you don't trust me or something."

"I trust you Moron," she'd always say. "If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't be here, right?"

Morgan never agreed with that one. Maybe she would. For some other reasons. She was so beautiful ... God's plan ...

But now they were safely up in the slower local traffic, somehow pulling a very somber 20 miles an hour, and the light, which had been red when they'd first roared up, like an apparition from hellish speedway below, obligingly switched to green as they approached. Morgan let the car roll on through the intersection, and he switched to the right hand lane.

Here, the service road was three lanes wide. There was a lane of parking, on the right, for the residents of the rows of practically identical town houses. "It's not even like having your own home," Sharon often whispered. "I mean you just might as well be living in some apartments."

Never the less, arriving safely from the dangerous highway always made her glad to see these very rows of close packed places, for they meant to her that soon they would be safe at home again.

Morgan made a sound in his throat and chest. He did not understand why his wife wasn't bored with him after all this time. They were having this silent dialog. He adored the way they understood and accepted each other ... even while often disagreeing. Like with the driving.

The left hand lane was the bridge like portion suspended over the parkway below. Out of habit, Morgan was looking in the mirrors often ... just to be aware of what was around them. "Situational Awareness," he liked to say. "You gotta have it."

He still recalled the time, so many years ago, when he got a taste of how important it is to always check the mirrors. He'd picked up a fare at JFK, and they'd wanted Parker Towers, off Queens Boulevard just after Continental Avenue. Without really looking, he'd started a lane change from the center to the left lane, so he could get the left hand turning shunt, the kind that waits for the green left hand turning arrow, and suddenly, there was a flash of yellow as another cab shot by too fast too close and too quick to even blow horns, and there was a tick ... he felt it: A tick on the door handle as the other taxi nicked by closer than a layer of paint and roared off anonymously into the bejeweled night sky that was Manhattan.

Now, he always knew before he turned. And if he didn't know, he wouldn't go. He'd told Sharon many times. And so it was that when a ball rolled out between the tightly parked cars on the right, he knew there might be a kid behind that ball, and his choices were to stop ... which he could have done except the car behind was too fast and too close and probably would have hit them, or he could change lanes ... and with the ball rolling and the car in back of them on their bumper he saw that the left lane behind them was clear, so he switched over fast, without even a signal.

Sharon gasped, as she always did. The car coming behind on the right rolled over the ball, popping it with a bang reminiscent of way you hear kids stomping paper cups at the hollow stadium after the game is over. Morgan did not see a child coming after the ball. There was no telling how the ball happened to come out there just then. It was OK. He'd wanted the left lane anyway, for the turn which would take them home at last.

Sharon spoke. "Moron,," she said "You're in the left lane."

"‘Course we're in the left lane," Morgan answered. "That's how we're gonna turn left here." The tick tick ticking began again. Sharon thought how she hated it. He was looking in the mirrors all over. "It is as if we can see the future in these mirrors," he loved to say. "And in a way, as far as driving is concerned in the mirrors, you are looking at the future."

"The future is in front of you Morgan."

"No, but..." He broke off to look around. "You know ... as far as driving is concerned. The future could be back there. You know, coming up on us."

Tick tick tick. The death metronome again.

"Morgan ..." Sharon was feeling a perverse kind of mischief.

"Hmmm?" He was checking the mirrors, fiddling with the climate control. He looked so very happy when he was driving. Sharon really wanted him to spend more time with her in the office, at the computer, running the business. That's where she was happy.

Morgan always said she could squeeze the eagle from a silver dollar, and he admired the way her beautiful long fingers clicked on the keyboard so fast it was as if numbers, letters and words just flew to the screen. And she didn't even seem to look. He thought he saw her once, talking on the phone, sipping coffee and typing. All at once. What was that?

She had been hurrying then because they had agreed to drive out to Montauk Point. But how did she do all that? It had made him queasy, shut up in the office where her fingers were dancing and the phone was ringing, the air conditioner was blowing and the powerful coffee was brewing. His longing for the highway seemed perpetual.

"Morgan ..." again. "How are you going to turn left from the left hand lane. You shouldn't even be in the left hand lane." Inwardly, she giggled.

He knew she was kidding. "What do you think?" he asked. "Do you think this is a two way street up here?" The service road mirrored the parkway below. "You want me to turn right from the left lane?" On the South side, the service road was one way East. On the North side of the GCP, it was West.

"That's what you always tell me," she said. "That time on 12th Avenue."

He smiled as he stopped for the light. Morgan recalled the reference his wife was making now. It had been back when he was fresh out of the service. He was working for Terminal Taxi then. Terminal, with untold hundreds of medallion cabs, and a garage in every borough but Staten Island. Two in the Bronx. The name of the company was stenciled in green on the side of the taxis, and that was how you knew it was a Terminal Cab. It was the green stencil, which might say anything; "Enterprise cab co.... Cohort cab co. Lucky cab co. ..." lots of different names.

On his ice breaker, that day, his fare had been five seasoned drivers who were just getting off. They'd all packed in. One of them reached over and dropped the flag which started the clock and turned off the roof light. "Go on South on 12th," he said. Morgan immediately took off and he was conscious of the fact that they were watching his driving.
From the right hand lane around 44ths Street, the North West corner, they'd decided to go to a diner across the street on the North East corner.

"Let's see how good you are," one of them said. Morgan waited until the light was just changing red for 12th Avenue, and he scurried the little Dodge cab to the front of the cross town traffic which was holding for the East bound green light. He hung his left just as the light changed. Now he was effectively part of the legitimate cross town traffic which was one way East on the even numbered 44th street. The turn signal went, tick tick tick. It was simple and perfectly legal to take a left and pull up by the diner doors.

"Excellent," one of the veterans said. "Very good, kid," said another.

That had been 32 years earlier. Now he was in this futuristic SUV, complete with talking GPS, waiting to turn left for his home in Jamaica Estates. "Headquarters," he liked to call it.

Sharon was teasing. "You can't turn left from the left hand lane," she said. Morgan frowned. His wife wasn't even teasing him correctly. She had the events jumbled.

"I can turn left from the left hand lane," he answered. "I'm supposed to turn left from the left hand lane on a one way street ... or otherwise. It's from the right side I can't turn left. From here, I can turn left."

"No you're shouldn't." Sharon knew the details didn't matter. Whatever she said, her husband seemed to find perfection there. Sometimes it was annoying. It seemed to her that if she told him "Drop dead," he would find some beauty or mystical power there.

He'd probably talk about her reminding him everyone must die someday, or how it was God's plan for them to be together, even if it went against her grain to be demonstrative.

All the shows they saw about how a woman often wanted her man to just open up and talk, and how a woman would approach her husband and say, "What are you thinking?" and the husband ... annoyed a little, might answer ... "Nothing." All those shows were reversed in their relationship.

In their marriage, in many ways, Morgan was like the stereotypical clinging, whining woman, and Shar-own was the authoritative and powerful male. The balance which resulted was good. Their fit together was interlocking.

"It says, in the Motor Vehicle Driver's Handbook that you can not turn left from the left lane on a one way." Sharon's fear of the parkway was a fading fast now. She was feeling stronger; Better.

They were already easing up the driveway towards their house. Fussing with controls, he turned the climate control off, and he cranked the power windows all down. Birds were singing loudly every where in the trees around their home. Instead of taking the path to the garage, Morgan guided the big car along the drive through by the front portico. Leaving the motor running, he came around to open the door for his wife.

Sharon wanted him to come in and work with her. If he went driving, he could end up anywhere for hours. She reached over and shut off the engine while waiting for him to reach her side of the car. The singing of the birds all around them was like a concert. She knew the drill: Morgan would drive off, and she would work.

Fixing money like piles of sand. Some from here ... some over there ... hour after hour. She wanted him with her. It should be a trade off, she reasoned. There were times when she went riding with him when she didn't want to. It would only be fair for him to come and work with her.

Morgan opened her door and waited. "I read it in the Driver's Handbook," she said.

"Read what?" He held her door open and waited for her to climb out so he could get going.

Sharon swung her knees out together and stood close for a moment. In her heels, she was always at least two inches taller than her husband. She felt in complete control. It was curious to her how he was still so excited by her. "Hmmm?" she asked.

"Read what?"

"I read that you can't turn left from the left hand lane on a one way street," she responded.

Morgan laughed. "That's funny," he said. "That's some joke. You mean to try to tell me you saw that in the DMV driver's handbook?"

Sharon walked towards the entrance without responding. Her heels were making that tock tock tocking on the brick drive. Morgan closed her door and came quickly after her. "Sharon," he called. "Where'd you really read that huh?"

Tock tick tock tick tock tick. The sound made him feel crazy but he didn't know why.

"Sharon!" He could not help looking at the way the muscles flexed in her long powerful legs. "Shar-ooooon," he whispered. He knew his wife could hear him. She always heard him. Even when they were apart.

"Really, it's in the DMV Driver's handbook," she responded at last. Her hand was on the door.
"That's not really... I mean really," Morgan hurried to catch up and go in with her. "Let me get this straight," he said. Sharon was taking pins out of her hair as she walked through the hall towards the kitchen. Morgan watched the way it shimmered as she shook it out over her shoulders. Tock tick tock tick. "You're telling me you read in the Motor Vehicle Driver's Handbook," (it was as if he was citing a source of scripture) "and that it says ‘you can't turn left from the left hand lane.'?"

Sharon took a glass from the cabinet in order to conceal the fact that she was smiling. Morgan guessed she wasn't serious anyway, but he wanted to know, and he wanted to be close to her. "Sharon?"

"That's what is says," she said. She filled her glass from the tap on the outside of the refrigerator.

"No it doesn't."

"Do you want to bet?" she asked. "I saw it."

"Sharon!" She was practically talking about his bible.

"Moron!" she turned with her water and walked through the living room towards her office.

He stood thinking for a while. He could hear the birds singing is if they were making a record which might be called Sounds of the Tropics. Outside, the car was ticking as it cooled.

He knew her routine ... the blinds would open, yes, he heard the draw string reel. The air conditioner would go on vent only. Yes, there was the blower sound. Her chair wheels would make that dull squeal on the office floor mat as she rolled about, over the carpet, switching on machines which would occupy her for hours and hours.

Did it really say what his wife said it did in the Motor Vehicle Handbook? It was not possible.
He heard her call him from the depths of the office. That certainty was back in her voice again. At her machines, there was none of the flimsy weakness she couldn't hide when he was driving. But he didn't want to go in there. She'd have him looking up useless stuff and performing network chores he didn't really understand. He didn't like it in there. To tell the truth, he felt weak in her office.

"Morgan?" she was calling him again. "I found it."

"Found what?" he was thinking about the way she had stood so close when she got out of the car moments ago. Towered over him really. He had to clear his throat a little before he spoke again. "Found what?"

"The DMV Handbook," Sharon replied. "About left turns. Page 14. Come and see, Mr. S. Morgan Morgan."

He knew better, but he had to go and check. Anything was possible. Before work, Sharon might even let him help her with her ankle bracelets or her tick tocking high heeled shoes.

OUR ADDRESS: Club Services
Wheeling, West Virginia 26003

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