The Groceryboy's Name was Andy: a story in many parts.

Part Six.

One morning I returned from the park to find my mother holding an oversized, poster-ish piece of mail and grinning.

"The Music Circus is in town!" she trilled, "And they're putting on The Music Man!"

(The Music Man was a Lee family favorite; the VHS often played on repeat in the summer. I watched it not for the plot, period costumes or score (all of which are, indeed, excellent), but in order to memorize the entire movie. Jenny and I would compete, harshly judging the other's speed and accuracy: "Weeeeelll you got trouble my friends, that's right I said trouble right here in River City why sure I'm a billard player always mighty proud to say I'm always mighty proud to say it...I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden..."

(...this could continue...)

(...the Psalms proved themselves an impossible challenge, but The Music Man libretto in its entirety is cozily lodged in my frontal lobe. I honestly don't know what to do with that, neurologically or spiritually.))

This particularly performance came from my mother's favorite local theater. The company traveled in a circus tent, plunking down in the Sacramento area only in the summertime. The closing show was this evening. She suggested we drive into the city to pick up tickets and make a day of it.

The thought of doing something outside of 2772 Harkness St. filled me with such divine and soaring joy, I barely had emotion left to react to her next mood-boosting overture: handing me the keys to the car.

(My license was only a few weeks old. I'd passed the test on the first try, a detail which my family liked to brag about. When congratulated on this accomplishment, I feigned modesty, replying, "oh, well, I'm just a kinda good test taker." Secretly, I suspected I did indeed possess a strikingly-above-average set of navigational skills.)

Without a twinge of fear, I bounded to the driver's seat. My mother, considerably less buoyant, buckled her seatbelt methodically and loudly. If a seat belt could clear its throat, hers did.

I really was decent behind the wheel, but I knew nothing about Sacramento's downtown labyrinth of abrupt one-way streets and furtive trolly tracks. Having learned to drive in the suburbs, I believed whole-heartedly that a two-way street had the moral responsibility to remaining a two-way street.

I held firm that belief. So firm, in fact, that I didn't pay much attention to the many, many yellow signs indicating various warnings and notes and tidbits that might be of interest to a driver, tidbits like "Lane Ends, Merge Left," "Trolly Tracks Begin," and "One Way."

We were coasting down an oddly deserted avenue when I heard an unrecognizably deep horn, looked over at my mother's blanching, slack-jawed face, and took sudden deep interest in the signs I'd been ignoring. I was headed against traffic on a one-way street which looked to be merging with the trolly line oh, say 100 ft.

The shock of silence inside our car was shattered simultaneously, two screams a perfect third apart in pitch. We sounded almost like two Music Circus chorus members in a desperate last-minute rehearsal. And then from out of my mother came a line of soaring soprano recitative:

"Turn the car around turn it around turn into this yes this driveway This One There Right There sweet mother of God."

In this way, generally, I was instructed to swing into a miraculous parking lot, where I hit the brakes and countered half-heartedly, "I was turning, I know, I know, I know, I'm doing it, looking, I'm turning now."

"No no no...park the car Christy, just Park It."

I knew I would not be driving much for the rest of the summer. I might not be driving much, ever. I also knew that this episode was a story which, rightfully, trumped my quick conquest of the Pasadena DMV.

We traded seats.

I eyed my mother's face--unreadable. My hands were still shaking. After a few moments of ticklish silence, she patted my knee slightly.

"I can't believe I didn't warn you about the streets down here. They're just crazy. I remember having so much trouble learning how to drive downtown." She squeezed my leg and put both hands back on the wheel.

"I'm so, so sorry," my voice convulsed, relief and embarrassment and sweat all dripping down into my eyes. "I'm really, really, really sorry."

----

The show was great. Top notch community theater.