Learning to Drive
Leaving the warehouse and tattooing
every viaduct from Broadway to Pulaski
Jimmy learned to drive feeling his way
with each corner of the 42’ straight body
truck whose keys the boss finally handed
over on a Saturday morning after a passive
protest of hungover no-call no-shows from
everybody else following Friday payday.
Of those who called in sick:
One of the Mongolians said his cat died.
A white kid said he had spina bifida and
he was pretty sure because his mom
used to be a nurse. And Chava, who stayed by St. Pat’s,
left a voice message in the middle of the night,
traffic crystal clear behind him, saying
he didn’t even know where he was.
Heading west at Petersen sunlight strobed and
Whirled through the trees with Jimmy at the wheel
and Devon was lined with kids diving
into traffic from between the cars for fun
and at each corner discarded Dollar Store bags
snapped open and caught the wind to block his view,
taunting his luck at being the second son
left to mow the lawn before he gets
his birthday cake just because
he still lives at home only
because the cops did that to him twice.
And, heading back east, Jimmy with a good heart,
like everyone always said, to duck the question
as to why he never drove, hit the Foster viaduct
right by the 7-11 going 40 mph on his first try,
after years of warning every other driver
the exact height of that same overpass.
Zak Mucha, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He spent seven years working as the supervisor of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, providing 24/7 services to persons suffering from severe psychosis, substance abuse issues, and homelessness. He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense and Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work as well as two collections of poetry.
