Just One More Drive: The true story of a stuttering homosexual and his race car

by Robert O'Brien

Overview

A story for every misfit who ever thought they were the only ones without all the answers.

Robert O'Brien loves cars. Growing up in Dublin, they provided a welcome refuge from the human interaction he found so difficult. His father's race car, a BMW E30 M3 Sport Evolution he named the Beast, became his alter ego—powerful, admired, confident—and Robert began a quest to become a worthy owner. He completed a university degree, took courses to conquer his stutter and tried to come to terms with his sexuality. But still he remained more comfortable in the fantasy worlds of video games and television.

Escaping Ireland to pursue acting in Vancouver, Robert quickly realized there was one thing he could not run from. Himself. Refusing to give up, he delved into self-help courses and counselling and began journaling to pinpoint where things went wrong but continued to struggle with self-worth. During a particularly difficult trip home, it was the Beast that saved his life.

Just One More Drive explores dark themes—bullying, depression, suicide, loneliness, anxiety—with honesty, self-deprecating humour and hope. After years of struggle, Robert is proud of the man he is, no longer believes he needs to be fixed and is passionate about normalizing frank discussions of men's mental health.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781990160028
Publisher:	Continental Sales, Inc.
Publication date:	09/10/2021
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Robert James O'Brien grew up in Ireland as a closeted homosexual with a stutter. Looking to reinvent himself, he moved to Vancouver in 2010. A teacher and an actor, he is a geek who loves stargates and every box Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo put on the shelves. Robert's first book, The Mini: A strategic relaunch of a dormant brand, was published in 2016 by Lambert Academic Publishing. He now lives in Ireland.

Read an Excerpt

We are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves. As a child, I told myself amazing stories of fast cars, starships and transforming alien robots. I would sit for hours in the driver's seat of my dad's car imagining my life as a grown man when I could drive for myself; when I would be married and successful and happy. That was before I learned that having a stutter was an affliction and being gay was a curse and the life I imagined would never be mine.

December 2013

I love my M3, I really do, but today our twenty-year relationship is being tested and the Beast is letting me down. The engine has been running for more than five minutes and I'm still not dead. Far from it.

It's all Dad's fault. He had to build a bloody aircraft hangar at the back of his garden rather than a garage like any normal person. Forget his helicopter, this hangar could accommodate a small fleet of flying machines, which means my battle with life is not going well. I didn't have the foresight to bring a hose or duct tape to direct the exhaust fumes efficiently into the M3's interior.

If Colonel Samantha Carter, Stargate SG-1's resident genius, were sitting next to me, she'd see these practicalities as a mathematical equation. “Given the hangar's dimensions and the dispersal rate of carbon monoxide along with the limited fuel supply and the necessary concentration needed to kill a human, I'm sorry, sir, I don't see this working.”

Sam would be able to devise a clever television tech-tech solution to make it work, but I know I can't. I reach out, turn the key and kill the engine. In the silence, I begin to laugh. I am laughing because I can't even kill myself properly. I am laughing from embarrassment and from the relief of knowing no one is ever going to know about this. I resign myself to the fact that I am a thirty-five-year-old, gay, stuttering mess of a man, and that I'm alive.

Still.

I decide to begin telling myself a new story, one about a life where I could allow myself to stutter and be gay because they are both part of me. A life where I could love and be loved in return in the arms of a man, because we all deserve that basic human connection. My bond with a race car had saved me, and I was determined to honour it by living the life I would choose for myself. A life where I could feel the joy of just one more drive, because driving is what feeds my soul and this M3 is the queen of my heart, then, now and until I draw my last breath.

This is our story.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Whose car is this, Daddy?

2. Hi, I'm Robert and I have two cars

3. Are you fucking kidding me! I'm gay as well?

4. Boy meets Beast

5. No ginger prince for the wash boy

6. Pause, breathe, speak and release

7. Faking it

8. Unleashing the Beast

9. Hot men and “Funeral Blues”

10. If you all knew, why the hell didn't you tell me?

11. Men, mothers and bedsheets

12. Looking for stargates

13. I think I have AIDS!

14. Romancing Rudy

15. Let the break-ups begin

16. Revving the Beast

17. Grandmotherly wisdom

18. The Geek meets the Queen

19. Time to grow up

20. Discovering love on the back of a trailer

21. My glorious slutty phase

22. Coach Nina holds my hand

23. Nice, but not deserving

24. Please buy me the PlayStation

25. Launching at forty

26. Crawling over the finish line

27. Father and son double act

28. Will the real Robert stand up

29. Where is my fairytale ending?

Acknowledgements

Reading Group Guide

We are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves. As a child, I told myself amazing stories of fast cars, starships and transforming alien robots. I would sit for hours in the driver's seat of my dad's car imagining my life as a grown man when I could drive for myself; when I would be married and successful and happy. That was before I learned that having a stutter was an affliction and being gay was a curse and the life I imagined would never be mine.

December 2013

I love my M3, I really do, but today our twenty-year relationship is being tested and the Beast is letting me down. The engine has been running for more than five minutes and I'm still not dead. Far from it.

It's all Dad's fault. He had to build a bloody aircraft hangar at the back of his garden rather than a garage like any normal person. Forget his helicopter, this hangar could accommodate a small fleet of flying machines, which means my battle with life is not going well. I didn't have the foresight to bring a hose or duct tape to direct the exhaust fumes efficiently into the M3's interior.

If Colonel Samantha Carter, Stargate SG-1's resident genius, were sitting next to me, she'd see these practicalities as a mathematical equation. “Given the hangar's dimensions and the dispersal rate of carbon monoxide along with the limited fuel supply and the necessary concentration needed to kill a human, I'm sorry, sir, I don't see this working.”

Sam would be able to devise a clever television tech-tech solution to make it work, but I know I can't. I reach out, turn the key and kill the engine. In the silence, I begin to laugh. I am laughing because I can't even kill myself properly. I am laughing from embarrassment and from the relief of knowing no one is ever going to know about this. I resign myself to the fact that I am a thirty-five-year-old, gay, stuttering mess of a man, and that I'm alive.

Still.

I decide to begin telling myself a new story, one about a life where I could allow myself to stutter and be gay because they are both part of me. A life where I could love and be loved in return in the arms of a man, because we all deserve that basic human connection. My bond with a race car had saved me, and I was determined to honour it by living the life I would choose for myself. A life where I could feel the joy of just one more drive, because driving is what feeds my soul and this M3 is the queen of my heart, then, now and until I draw my last breath.

This is our story.

Editorial Reviews

"An emotionally honest and moving account of the author's quest to shake off stuttering, embrace his sexuality and be the driver his BMW M3 deserves." PAUL BLEZARD, Love Reading UK

"From a childhood of bullying and colossal self-doubt in “a culture that maintained being gay was a death sentence” to an epilogue titled “Where is My Fairytale Ending?” Just One More Drive discloses four decades of undermined potential. O'Brien counterbalances a thick catalogue of miseries with a forthright writing voice that's welcome because it's unexpectedly buoyant and intermittently lighthearted." BRETT JOSEPH GRUBISIC, The British Columbia Review

From the Publisher