As long as I can remember, my father has told a story about me, of which I have not the faintest memory. I was about three years old. My dutiful father was taking me with him as he ran errands for my mother. I was strapped safely into the back of his 1964 Nash Rambler Typhoon, his first new car.
My father had commenced to backing out of a blind driveway on Flatbush Avenue, a four-lane artery that bisects Brooklyn for several miles. It is important to note that motorists treat – and have always treated – this thoroughfare with reckless abandon, careening across town like apes freed onto a banana plantation. To combat the perils of this reverse maneuver, my father decided to ask me, his juvenile copilot, for assistance.
“Are there any cars coming?” he asked, unable to see around the parked cars.
I am said to have peered over the windowsills out onto the street, and said, “No. No cars, Daddy.” My father began to back out. With superb dramatic timing, I finally continued, “Just a bus.”
To which my father locked up the brakes and skidded sideways, just in time to avoid the B41 bus bearing down upon his beloved car.
Usually, anyone hearing the tale inquires about the practicality of asking a three-year-old for a traffic report. If my mother is within earshot, she will undoubtedly shout above my father’s stuttered excuses, “That’s because he thinks you’re God!”
Personally, I don’t believe a word of the story…
