by Garth Stein
When Denny went away the following week, we went to Eve’s parents’ house so they could take care of us. Eve’s hand was bandaged up, which indicated to me that the cut was worse than she had let on. But it didn’t slow her down much.
Maxwell and Trish, the Twins, lived in a very fancy house on a large parcel of wooded land on Mercer Island, with an amazing view of Lake Washington and Seattle. And for having such a beautiful place to live, they were among the most unhappy people I’ve ever met. Nothing was good enough for them. They were always complaining about how things could be better or why things were as bad as they were. When we arrived, they started in about Denny right away. He doesn’t spend enough time with Zoë. He’s neglecting your relationship. His dog needs a bath. Like my hygiene had anything to do with it.
“What are you going to do?” Maxwell asked her.
They were standing around in the kitchen while Trish cooked dinner, making something that Zoë would inevitably hate. It was a warm spring evening, so the Twins were wearing polo shirts with their slacks. Maxwell and Trish were drinking Manhattans with cherries, Eve, a glass of wine. She had rejected the painkiller offered to her, which was left over from the hernia operation Maxwell had undergone a few months before.
“I’m going to get in shape,” Eve said. “I feel fat.”
“But you’re so thin,” Trish said.
“You can feel fat even if you’re thin. I feel out of shape.”
“Oh.”
“I mean about Denny,” Maxwell said.
“What do I need to do about Denny?” Eve asked.
“Something! What is he contributing to your family? You make all the money!”
“He’s my husband and he’s Zoë’s father, and I love him. What else does he need to contribute to our family?”
Maxwell snorted and slapped the counter. I flinched.
“You’re scaring the dog,” Trish pointed out. She rarely called me by name. They do that in prisoner of war camps, I’ve heard. Depersonalization.
“I’m just frustrated,” Maxwell said. “I want the best for my girls. Whenever you come to stay here, it’s because he’s gone racing. It’s not good for you.”
“This season is really important for his career,” Eve said, trying to remain steadfast. “I wish I were able to be more involved, but I’m doing the best I can, and he appreciates that. What I don’t need is you going after me for it.”
“I’m sorry,” Maxwell said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I just want what’s best for you.”
“I know, Daddy,” Eve said, and she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I want what’s best for me, too.”
She took her wine outside into the backyard, and I lingered. Maxwell opened the refrigerator and retrieved a jar of the hot peppers he liked to eat. He was always eating peppers. He opened the jar and squeezed his fingers inside, extracted a long pepperoncini, and crunched into it.
“Do you see how frail she’s gotten?” Trish asked. “Like a whippet. But she feels fat.”
He shook his head. “My daughter, with a mechanic—no, not a mechanic. A customer service technician. Where did we go wrong?”
“She’s always made her own choices,” Trish said.
“But at least her choices made sense. She majored in art history, for Christ’s sake. She ends up with him?”
“The dog is watching you,” Trish said after a moment. “Maybe he wants a pepper.”
Maxwell’s expression changed.
“Want a treat, boy?” he asked, holding out a pepperoncini.
That wasn’t why I had been watching him. I was watching him to better glean the meaning of his words. Still, I was hungry, so I sniffed at the pepper.
“They’re good,” he prompted. “Imported from Italy.”
I took the pepper from him and immediately felt a prickly sensation on my tongue. I bit down, and a burning liquid filled my mouth. I quickly swallowed and thought I was done with the discomfort—surely the acid in my stomach would cancel out the acid of the pepper—but that’s when the pain really began. My throat felt as if it had been scraped raw. My stomach churned. I immediately left the room and the house. Outside the back door, I lapped at my bowl of water, but it did little to help. I made my way to a nearby shrub and lay down in its shade and rested until the burning went away.
When they took me out that night—Trish and Maxwell did, as Zoë and Eve had long been asleep—they stood at the back porch and repeated their silly mantra, “Get busy, boy, get busy!” Still feeling somewhat queasy, I ventured away from the house farther than I usually did, crouched in my stance, and shat. After I did my business, I saw that my stool was loose and watery, and when I sniffed at it, it was unusually foul-smelling. I knew I was safe and the ordeal had passed; still, since that time I have been wary of trying new foods that might upset my system, and I have never accepted food from someone I didn’t fully trust.
16
The weeks tripped by with tremendous haste, as if digging into the fall were the most important mission of all. There was no lingering on accomplishment: Denny got his first victory in Laguna in early June, he pegged a podium finish—third place—at Road Atlanta, and he finished eighth in Denver. That week with the boys in Sonoma had worked out the kinks with the crew, and it was all on Denny’s shoulders. And his shoulders were broad.
That summer, when we gathered around the dinner table, there was something to talk about. Trophies. Photographs. Replays on television late at night. Suddenly people were hanging around, coming over for dinner. Not just Mike from work—where they were happy to accommodate Denny’s crazy schedule—but others, too. NASCAR veteran Derrike Cope. Motorsports Hall of Famer Chip Hanauer. We were even introduced to Luca Pantoni, a very powerful man at Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, Italy, who was in Seattle visiting Don Kitch Jr., Seattle’s premier racing tutor. I never broke my rule about the dining room, I have too much integrity for that. But I sat upon the threshold, I assure you. My toenails edged over the line so that I could be that much closer to greatness. I learned more about racing in those few weeks than I had in all my prior years of watching video and television; to hear the estimable Ross Bentley, coach of champions, speak about breathing—breathing!—was absolutely stunning.
Zoë chattered away constantly, always something to say, always something to show. She would sit on Denny’s knee with her big eyes absorbing every word of the conversation, and at an appropriate moment she would declare some racing truth Denny had taught her—“slow hands in the fast stuff, fast hands in the slow stuff,” or something like that—and all the big men would be suitably impressed. I was proud of her in those moments; since I was unable to impress the racing men with my own knowledge, the next best thing was to experience it vicariously through Zoë.
Eve was happy again: she took what she called “mat” classes and gained muscle tone, and often alerted Denny to the needs of her fertile field, sometimes with great urgency. Her health had greatly improved with no explanation: no more headaches, no more nausea. She continued to have trouble with her injured hand, oddly, and sometimes she used a wrist support to help her grip when cooking. Still, from what I heard in the bedroom late at night, her hands retained all of the necessary flexibility and suppleness to make Denny and herself very happy.
Yet for every peak there is a valley. Denny’s next race was pivotal, as a good finish would solidify his position as rookie of the year. In that race, at Phoenix International Raceway, Denny got tagged in the first turn.
This is a rule of racing: No race has ever been won in the first corner; many have been lost there.
He got caught in a bad spot. Someone tried to late-brake him going into the corner and locked it up. Tires don’t work if they aren’t rolling. In full-out skid, the hard charger slammed into Denny’s left front wheel, destroying the car’s alignment. The toe was skewed so badly that his car crabbed up the track, scrubbing seconds off his lap time.
Alignment, late-braking, locking
up, toe-in: mere jargon. These are simply the terms we use to explain the phenomena around us. What matters is not how precisely we can explain the event, but the event itself and its consequence, which was that Denny’s car was broken. He finished the race, but he finished DFL. That’s what he called it when he told me about it. A new category. There’s DNS: Did Not Start. There’s DNF: Did Not Finish. And there’s DFL: Dead Fucking Last.
“It just doesn’t seem fair,” Eve said. “It was the other driver’s fault.”
“If it was anybody’s fault,” Denny said, “it was mine for being where I could get collected.”
This is something I’d heard him say before: getting angry at another driver for a driving incident is pointless. You need to watch the drivers around you, understand their skill, confidence, and aggression levels, and drive with them accordingly. Know who is driving next to you. Any problems that may occur have ultimately been caused by you, because you are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there.
Still, fault or no, Denny was crushed. Zoë was crushed. Eve was crushed. I was decimated. We had come so close to greatness. We had smelled it, and it smelled like roast pig. Everybody likes the smell of roast pig. But what is worse, smelling the roast and not feasting, or not smelling the roast at all?
August was hot and dry, and the grass all around the neighborhood was brown and dead. Denny spent his time doing math. By his figuring, it was still possible for him to finish in the top ten in the series and likely win rookie of the year, and either result would assure him of getting another ride the following year.
We sat on the back porch basking in the early evening sun, the smell of Denny’s freshly baked oatmeal cookies wafting from the kitchen. Zoë running in the sprinkler. Denny massaging Eve’s hand gently, giving it life. I was on the deck doing my best impression of an iguana: soaking up all the heat I could to warm my blood, hoping that if I absorbed enough, it would carry me through the winter, which would likely be harsh, cold, dark, and bitter, as a hot Seattle summer usually portends.
“Maybe it isn’t meant to be,” Eve said.
“It’ll happen when it happens,” Denny told her.
“But you’re never here anymore when I’m ovulating.”
“So come with me next week. Zoë will love it; we’ll stay where they have a pool. She loves anything with a pool. And you can come to the track for the race.”
“I can’t go to the track,” Eve said. “Not now. I mean, I wish I could, I really do. But I’ve been feeling good lately, you know? And…I’m afraid. The track is so loud and it’s hot, and it smells like rubber and gas, and the radio blasts static into my ears, and everyone’s shouting at each other so they can be heard. It might give me a—I might react badly to it.”
Denny smiled and sighed. Even Eve cracked a smile.
“Do you understand?” she asked.
“I do,” Denny answered.
I did, too. Everything about the track. The sounds, the smells. Walking through the paddock and feeling the energy, the heat of race motors emanating from each pit. The electricity that ripples up and down the paddock when the announcer calls the next race group to pre-grid. Watching the frantic scramble of a standing start, and then imagining the possibilities, putting together the story of what’s going on when the cars are out of sight on other parts of the race circuit until they come around to start/finish again in an entirely different order, dodging and drafting and making runs and diving into the next turn that can flip everything upside down again. Denny and I fed off it; it gave us life. But I totally understood that what filled us with energy could be toxic to someone else, especially Eve.
“We could use a turkey baster,” Denny said, and Eve laughed hard, harder than I’d seen her laugh in a long time. “I could leave you with a cupful of potential babies in the refrigerator,” he said, and she laughed even harder. I didn’t get the joke, but Eve thought it was hysterical.
She got up and went into the house, reappearing a moment later with the turkey baster from the kitchen. She scrutinized it with a devious smile, ran her fingers along its length.
“Hmm,” she said. “Maybe.”
They giggled together and looked out to the lawn and I looked with them and we all watched Zoë, her wet hair clinging to her shoulders in glistening locks. Her childish bikini and tanned feet. Pure joy as she ran circles around the sprinkler, her shrieks and squeals and laughs echoing through the Central District streets.
17
Your car goes where your eyes go.
We went to Denny Creek, not because it was named after Denny—it wasn’t—but because it was such an enjoyable hike, Zoë clumping along in her first pair of waffle stompers, me cut loose of my leash. Summer in the Cascades is always pleasant, cool under the canopy of cedars and alders, the beaten path packed down, making long strides easy; off the beaten path—where dogs prefer—a soft and spongy bed of fallen needles that rot and feed the trees with a steady trickle of nutrients. And the smell!
The smell would have given me an erection if I’d still had testicles. Richness and fertility. Growth and death and food and decay. Waiting. Just waiting for someone to smell it, lingering close to the ground in layers, each distinct scent with its own aromatic weight, its own place. A good nose like mine can separate each odor, identify, enjoy. I rarely let myself go, practicing to be restrained like men are, but that summer, considering the joy of all that we had, Denny’s success and Zoë’s exuberance and even Eve, who was light and free, I ran through those woods that day wildly, like a crazy dog, diving through the bushes, over the fallen trees, giving gentle chase to chipmunks, barking at the jays, rolling over and scratching my back on the sticks and leaves and needles and earth.
We made our way along the path, up the hills and down, over the roots and past the rock outcroppings, eventually arriving at the Slippery Slabs, as they are called, where the creek runs over a series of broad, flat rocks, pooling at some points, streaming at others. Children love the Slippery Slabs as they slide and slice through the sluices and slate. And so we arrived and I drank the water, cold and fresh, the last of that year’s snow melt. Zoë and Denny and Eve stripped down to their swimsuits and bathed gently in the waters. Zoë was old enough to safely navigate parts herself, and Denny took the lower and Eve took the upper and they slid Zoë down the stream of water, Eve giving a push and Zoë slipping down. The rocks had traction when dry, but when wet, there was a film on them that made them quite slick. Down she would go, squealing and squirming, splashing into the frigid pool at Denny’s feet; he would snatch her up and whisk her back to Eve, who would slide her down again. And again.
People, like dogs, love repetition. Chasing a ball, lapping a course in a race car, sliding down a slide. Because as much as each incident is similar, so it is different. Denny rushed up the slab and handed off Zoë. He returned to his spot by the pool. Eve lowered Zoë into the water; she screamed and flung herself in play, slid down the slab to be caught by Denny again.
Until once. Eve dipped Zoë into the water, but instead of screaming and splashing, Zoë suddenly pulled her toes from the icy water, upsetting Eve’s balance. Eve shifted her weight and somehow managed to release Zoë safely onto the dry rock, but her move was too abrupt, too sudden—an overcorrection. Her foot touched the creek, and she didn’t realize how slippery those rocks were, slippery slabs like glass.
Her legs went out from underneath her. She reached out, but her hand grasped only the air; her fist closed, empty. Her head hit the rock with a loud crack and bounced. It hit and bounced and hit again, like a rubber ball.
We stood, it seemed like for a long time, waiting to see what was going to happen. Eve lay unmoving, and there was Zoë, again the cause, not knowing what to do. She looked at her father, who quickly bounded up to them both.
“Are you okay?”
Eve blinked hard, painfully. There was blood in her mouth.
“I bit my tongue,” she said woozily.
“How’s your
head?” Denny asked.
“—Hurts.”
“Can you make it back to the car?”
With me in the lead herding Zoë, Denny steered Eve. She wasn’t staggering, but she was lost, and who knows where she would have ended up if someone hadn’t been with her. It was early evening when we got to the hospital in Bellevue.
“You probably have a minor concussion,” Denny said. “But they should check it out.”
“I’m okay,” Eve repeated over and over. But clearly she wasn’t okay. She was dazed and slurring her words and she kept nodding off but Denny would wake her up, saying something about not falling asleep when you have a concussion.
They all went inside and left me in the car with the windows open a crack. I settled into the pocketlike passenger seat of Denny’s BMW 3.0 CSi and forced myself to sleep; when I sleep, I don’t feel the urge to urinate nearly as badly as when I am awake.
18
In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high in the hills so people cannot walk on his grave. The dog’s master whispers into the dog’s ear his wishes that the dog will return as a man in his next life. Then his tail is cut off and put beneath his head, and a piece of meat or fat is placed in his mouth to sustain his soul on its journey; before he is reincarnated, the dog’s soul is freed to travel the land, to run across the high desert plains for as long as it would like.
I learned that from a program on the National Geographic Channel, so I believe it is true. Not all dogs return as men, they say; only those who are ready.
I am ready.
19
It was hours before Denny returned, and he returned alone. He let me out, and I barely could scramble from the seat before unleashing a torrent of urine on the lamppost in front of me.
“Sorry, boy,” he said. “I didn’t forget about you.”
When I had finished, he opened a package of peanut butter sandwich crackers he must have gotten from a vending machine. I love those crackers the best. It’s the salt and the butter in the crackers mixed with the fat in the peanuts. I tried to eat slowly, savoring each bite, but I was too hungry and swallowed them so quickly I barely got to taste them. What a shame to waste something so wonderful on a dog. Sometimes I hate what I am so much.