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Mickey Z. -- World News Trust
September 18, 2020
When you pass a stranger on the street, there’s no telling what unique talent they may possess. For example, they might be a wizard with their car.
Years ago, I had a friend named Kenny who was exactly that. I don’t mean a wizard when it came to him fixing his car; I’m talking about how he handled it.
Kenny could drive his beat-up old white Toyota Corolla backward better than most people drive forward. And he did so with immense pride. But here’s the catch: he wouldn’t drive backward in the wrong direction. Kenny would drive along with all the other cars in the same direction as them… only backward. This was a major-league head game for anyone sharing the road with him.
He’d get us in his car… me in the front with him, Hank and Carmine in the back. Kenny would instruct us to sit straight and look forward as if we were doing nothing unusual — to add to the chaos. He would ever-so-slightly turn his head and sometimes only use the rearview mirror.
The best would be when we stopped at a red light alongside other cars. We’d be facing the wrong direction but going in the right direction. The people in the car “behind” us were usually bewildered, to say the least.
One more Kenny rule: do not laugh or act differently than you would on any other neighborhood drive. This touch made the sight of us even more surreal.
Trust me, we could pass a couple of hours doing this.
Toyota.com
Kenny’s driving magic did not end there. He perfected the ability to sit in the passenger seat but still drive his car. His left hand would covertly hold the bottom of the steering wheel as his left leg stretched over to manipulate the pedals. People would freak out but, as with the backward driving, Kenny had this incredible knack for acting as if everything was normal.
The first time I saw him do the no-driver bit, he was turning the corner on my block and I did a genuine, silent-movie caliber double take. He waved to me as he drove past while a neighbor of mine mumbled something about “cruise control.” I must have laughed for 20 minutes.
The next step was to add passengers. Kenny would get me and Hank in the back seat and cruise through Astoria. He’d have the radio blasting with his right hand out the passenger window, fingers snapping to the beat. The responses along crowded Ditmars Boulevard were priceless, indelibly etched in my mind.
Kenny loved this game so much that he’d do it alone if he some errands to run.
There were other ways Kenny could maneuver that Corolla like it was a toy. Headed to Rocco’s for a slice one night, he swung into a u-turn in front of the pizza place. However, he never came out of the u-turn. Instead, Kenny kept driving the Toyota in tight circles in the middle of the intersection until people came out of the pizza joint and the bar next door to witness it.
He’d stop after a few spins and ask someone if they knew where Rocco’s was and then start circling again. Finally, after driving in at least 50 rotations, Kenny stopped. He parked the Corolla and announced to the two dozen or so people now gathered to watch: “Damn, I drove in circles to find this place.”
Yeah, he got a rousing round of applause.
Overall, Kenny was an endless source of laughter but, one night, the joke was on him. About four of us happened upon his Corolla in the parking lot across the street from the old Astoria Theater. We lined up behind the rear bumper and counted off 1-2-3. We each count, we’d lift and move the tiny car a little until it was at least 90 degrees from its original position.
Days later, Kenny told us about the night he and his girlfriend (future ex-wife, actually) came out of the movies to find his car parked in such an odd way. Kenny ended up getting quite a tongue-lashing from his girlfriend about how his childish sense of humor could’ve ended up getting the car being towed. He was pissed and puzzled.
P.S. We opted not to tell him the backstory.
Mickey Z. can be found here. He is also the founder of Helping Homeless Women - NYC, offering direct relief to women on the streets of New York City. To help him grow this project, CLICK HERE and make a donation right now. And please spread the word!
Kenny’s Corolla by Mickey Z. is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0