“I'm sorry sir, but I don't know why you think I killed your father,” I said, and as soon as I did, it hit me. He was the boy I rescued from Natalie's apartment complex. Well, I thought I rescued him. Apparently he didn't need to be rescued.
“In 2004, I took over my father's empire in South Central LA as a thirteen year old. Eight years ago, I tried to have you killed. My men failed, and you killed my best friends. You have killed my father, my uncle, my older brother, and my four best friends. I killed Maddie, but that wasn't enough. You still found a way to win. Not anymore,” he said as he drew a handgun from his waist. He pointed the gun at me.
Mary-Margaret shrieked. I stood in front of her. She cowered behind me.
“I'm sorry. I was trying to protect myself and the people I love. There's no other excuse.”
Gunshot.
I fell to the ice. I was still alive. Mary-Margaret slid away from me. I couldn't hear anything. I saw Mary-Margaret fight to stop him. He drew closer, he hit her, she went sliding across the ice and into the boards. He hit her so hard that I could feel it in my chest. It was as if my heart took the blow along with her. I made eye contact with her. She was crying. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't move my legs.
“I'm here to protect myself,” he said. I could barely understand him, but the point was received. I couldn't speak. I continued to look at Mary-Margaret. She was so mortified. I didn't know what was happening, until I felt a boot press down on my neck.
I gasped. “I love you,” I choked out. It wasn't audible.
Gunshot.
***
That quickly, a bullet to the head. Blacker was gone. Mary-Margaret rushed to his side, even though her efforts were going to be futile. Mary-Margaret was hysterical, coddling her Blacker as best she could. The man raised the gun once more and shot Mary-Margaret in the heart. I don't know that he actually needed to shoot her. She would have died from a broken heart soon after anyway. The man left and later committed suicide. So many broken hearts left behind. And mine was one of them.
Blacker's career statistics made him a legend of auto racing. In seventeen seasons, Blacker won 20 championships and over 53% of the races he entered. He won in stock cars, GT cars, prototypes, Formulas, and rally. He won on asphalt, concrete, dirt, mud, and gravel. He rewrote most of the record books. He won driving a Chevrolet, Pontiac, Dodge, Ford, McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, BMW, Lola, Dallara, Audi, and even an Acura.
He died the richest man in the world. He built an international conglomerate business that wasn't stained by Wall Street or politics. He never let money or success change who he was. His core was always unbreakable.
That isn't what made his life legendary. Mary-Margaret did. Maddie did. The extent to which he loved did. The way he treated his friends did. The openness of his life did. His driving was legendary to the outside world. But to those who knew him, it was only a very small part of who he was.
I'm sure that Blacker has painted his personality all over the gates of heaven. It’s one thing he never ran out of – Personality. He, Dale, and Bryan are probably ripping up the clouds right now. I will always wonder if the first hug he gave in heaven was to his parents, to Dale, or to Maddie. I think he probably hugged all of them. No man who has ever lived had a bigger heart than Blacker. And of course, as soon as Mary-Margaret arrived, he must have been the first to hug her.
My name is Chase Crawley, and I am a better man because I knew Ryan “Blacker” Sumpter.
Rest In Peace, My Friend.
Bryan Gatsberg: May 24th, 1976 – April 11th, 2001
Madison “Maddie” Traut: September 11th, 1986 – April 22nd, 2009
Mary-Margaret Sumpter: December 21st, 1976 – January 30th, 2013
Ryan Sumpter: August 29th, 1975 – January 30th, 2013
- 15 -
The Next Beginning
The room is empty, nobody but me looking at the caskets of my driver and his wife. I can't believe this. Blacker welcomed me into his life, he trusted me with his life on the track. I never even realized how little I knew about him off the track. He tried to connect with me so many times, but I was too focused on the racing. Ryan and Mary-Margaret, both of them are dead. I don't even know anything about them. I wasn't even at their wedding. How is this possible?
Blacker. The man who changed my life by welcoming me onto a racing team of all things. The man who was one of the few who cared when my wife left me. The man who changed the entire direction of my life for the better. I felt so safe because of him. He loved me more than anyone else ever did. And I barely knew anything about him outside of the gates of a race track.
Mary-Margaret. Blacker's princess, his angel. I knew nothing about her other than she was the love of his life. I remember hearing about them splitting up and I knew nothing about it. I heard many times about friction between the other members of the team, but I never got involved. I stuck to my job and ignored everything else. I knew Blacker was always disappointed that I wouldn't ever get to know the different aspects of his life. I was so arrogant. And now my time was up, I had no chance to get to know my driver.
The funeral had been held in the sun room of the house where Blacker's angel grew up. I'd only visited Reece City a couple times in my life, but this place always carried magic for me. I never knew why though, I never gave Ryan a chance to explain. He had mentioned so many people. Dale, Maddie, Diana, Niki, Lexi... All these people I either never got to meet or hear about or in some cases, I just never understood how he saw them and what they meant to his life.
Ryan told me once that most people saw his life as one massive experience. People thought his life was colored by experiences. But he saw his life as all the people in it. Not about experiences. His life was colored by the people. I only saw the experiences, I was only part of the experiences. I never became one of those people in his life. I let him down.
Chase walks in. I stare at his face as he approaches me. It is weathered. The wrinkles on him show a life of triumph, struggle, terror, happiness, pain, and everything in between. He sits next to me.
“Hey man. Hanging in there?” he asks.
“Not really. I'm wondering about all those people he mentioned, those people that made his life what it was,” I respond.
“Like who?”
“Some girl named Maddie. Dale and Niki, I have no idea what they meant to him. I mean, I've read about them. I talked to them. But how did he see them? A girl named Diana, one named Lexi. And Bryan. I never knew how he felt when Bryan died.”
Chase hands me an enormous book. I hadn't realized he had anything with him when he walked in. I was so focused on his face, I didn't see his hands.
“This book – Ryan had been writing this for many years. I was the keeper of it, and he told me to give it to you if he ever died young. He updated it every year. Ryan was always really bummed that you never got to know him as a person, not just a driver. He never expected when he welcomed you onto the team that you would take your job so seriously. He always trusted you as the voice on the radio that led him along. You kept him safe in so many dangerous situations. But what you never realized, he always believed in you, the person. He always thought the best of you, no matter how you let him down. That's why he left the company in your name,” Chase says as he hands me the book.
“He left me the company? What about Ayrton?” I ask him.
“Ayrton doesn't want to be the head of the company. He knows how much Ryan believed in you and that you'd be the only proper benefactor of the name he built.”
“I don't get it. I shut him out. Why would he trust me?”
“He trusted you not to get him killed every time he got in that car and you never let him down. I guess if you look at it that way, he believed in you when nobody else would. And the book, it's not complete. Somebody has to write his death. That's your job, bud. He trusted that to you.”
“Excuse me?”
“It's gotta be finished. It's so long because of how much Ryan experienced. His
life has been complicated and honest. But it's also been amazing. Let me tell you about him, Ben,” he says as he takes the book back from me. He runs his hand over the front of it. Woven into the outside of the book in gold thread, it says “The Legend.”
“Ryan 'Blacker' Sumpter. He changed the world, and you had no idea. He wrote and rewrote history, and you had no idea. He lived loud, loved strongly, and made an impact on hundreds of thousands of lives... And you had no idea. He believed in you, in everyone, and you had no idea. Ryan Sumpter changed the way I see the world, the way many see the world, and you still had no idea.”
- THE END -
AFTERWORD
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the abilities You have blessed me with. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for always believing in me. Thank you, David Robilliard, for the cover art and other promo materials you created for this story. Thank you Scotty Meade, Yusuf Afoxe, Dustin Merkel, Luis Torres, Bonnie Bouchard, Taylor Knecht, The Imminently Hot Randall G Myers Jr, Holly Murray, Chelsea Herrmann, Brad Jones, Brandon Spevachek, Gary Kidd, Vincente Tiberi, Eve Hood, Matt Thibault, Katie Conn, Tanner Ripley, and so, so many others who have carried me through the darkest of my days.
Thank you Jay “Eau Rouge” Greene, Molly “Poppins” Bouchard, Robert “Not Bob” Samuelson, Sharon “Mommy Cleofus” Samuelson, Elizabeth Kovacs, Megan “You Still Have My Glasses” Showalter, and Gary “Professional Drinker” Kidd – Each of you directly or indirectly inspired quotes or referenced stories in the novel. I appreciate your role in my life and will forever be indebted to you. Thank you Scotty “Ayrton” Meade, Yusuf “Godfather” Afoxe, Brad “Fix-A-Flat” Jones, Luis “Single Malt” Torres, Dave “Towed By A Ford” Cowling, and Chelsea “20 Going on 40” Herrmann for being willing to be characters in the novel.
Thank you to those willing to read this as it was in the works. Thank you to all of those who have supported me through this crazy concept and seven years of development. Your support means everything to me.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, thank you to those who helped shape this story and the characters in it. This story would not exist without you. While you all will remain unnamed, you either know who you are or can figure out the character you inspired. I appreciate your place in my life and thank you for inspiring me. Keep being the great people I know you are.
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The Legend: The Love of Ryan Sumpter Page 25