Learning to Read

[I tinkered with this piece after our first class. I wasn't enthusiastic about anything I did over the last week, so I offer this. Sorry it is late, but I've been swamped with other deadlines and meetings today.]

I am in the front seat of my mother’s car. I always get to sit in the front. Mom puts my brothers in the back, making sure they are in and far enough apart that they won’t bother each other. I don’t know if she buckles them in. I’m not wearing my seat belt. I sit alongside the hump, the seat cushion that becomes an armrest when it's flipped down between the driver and the passenger. Mom pushes the driver’s seat back in place and, in one motion, gets into the car, tosses her purse down on the floor with her right hand, and pulls the door closed with her left. My feet dangle; the purse lands just beneath my left one. It’ll be a long while before I’m tall enough to touch the floor.

Everything goes dark when she shuts the door. It’s nighttime, and we’re going into town. As the key turns and the engine growls, the dash lights again illuminate the space. I stare at the crevices around the glove box. The curving plastic meets the metal just so, clasping Mom’s sunglasses, a booklet and other things I know nothing about inside. She won’t need me to reach in for the sunglasses tonight. In the glow, I notice the words on the dashboard just above the metal band.

P-O-N-T-I-A-C.

“Pon-tee-ac,” I say.

G-R-A-N-D.

That’s an easy one. “Grand.”

And then P-R-I-X.

“Pricks.” The word barely escapes my mouth before my mother seethes at me across the front seat. “Don’t you ever say that again.”

I get stuck on the “ever,” unsure how I could have been that wrong. It’s right there, I want to say. My eyes drift across the letters again. Right there.