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P etrol for the car, like food, was an expense we could not avoid, but my mom could get more mileage out of a
tank of petrol than any human who has ever been on a road in the history of automobiles. She knew every
trick. Driving around Johannesburg in our rusty old Volkswagen, every time she stopped in traffic, she’d turn
off the car. Then the traffic would start and she’d turn the car on again. That stop-start technology that they
use in hybrid cars now? That was my mom. She was a hybrid car before hybrid cars came out. She was the
master of coasting. She knew every downhill between work and school, between school and home. She knew
exactly where the gradient shifted to put it into neutral. She could time the traffic lights so we could coast
through intersections without using the brakes or losing momentum.
There were times when we would be in traffic and we had so little money for petrol that I would have to
push the car. If we were stuck in gridlock, my mom would turn the car off and it was my job to get out and
push it forward six inches at a time. People would pitch up and offer to help.
“Are you stuck?”
“Nope. We’re fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“Can we help you?”
“Nope.”
“Do you need a tow?”
And what do you say? The truth? “Thanks, but we’re just so poor my mom makes her kid push the car”?
That was some of the most embarrassing shit in my life, pushing the car to school like the fucking
Flintstones. Because the other kids were coming in on that same road to go to school. I’d take my blazer off so
that no one could tell what school I went to, and I would bury my head and push the car, hoping no one would
recognize me.