"Well, you have to tell the truth," Paul said.
"Nothing but. Anything else you want to know?"
Nina asked him a few questions about the lineup, then said, "I guess that about covers it for now."
"Them monster truck tickets go for fifteen bucks a pop," Kettrick said. "I give you two. What I mean is, I understand you can’t pay me for talking to you today. But, now, if you wanted to buy those tickets off me, I mean, you know, make a donation to those harddrivin’ boys ..."
Paul said, "Nina?"
Nina got her wallet out. "I’ll even buy one more, and take my son along with us," she said, handing Kettrick the bills. "Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk to your son after the show. Thanks again for your trouble."
"You’re so very welcome, ma’am. I’ll let Ralphie know to be lookin’ out for you. Call me, if you need anything else. Sorry ..." He stopped, looking down.
"That your testimony may convict my client of murder?" Nina said. "You’re telling the truth, so you don’t need to feel guilty, right?"
"I seen what I seen," Kettrick said. "You folks have a good day, now."
23
"RENO’S BIGGEST, RENO’S BADDEST MONSTER TRUCK races are sold out. Reno’s biggest, Reno’s baddest monster truck races are sold out," repeated loudspeakers positioned throughout the mobbed parking lot at the Reno Livestock Events Center that Saturday morning. Paul had to park several blocks away. Nina and Bobby trotted behind him, trying to keep up with his long legs and stride by taking twice as many quick steps, and were sweating and puffing in the high desert heat by the time they approached the entrance. So many people crammed the walkway into the arena that Nina held Bob by his sweatshirt so he wouldn’t be swept away.
"Rerco’s biggest, Reno’s baddest ..." Paul was nervous. He did want to talk to Ralph Kettrick, but he was acutely aware that Nina’s boy had come along. It was the first time the three of them had done anything together. If they got married, he’d be a stepfather, an unappealing prospect.
He had only been vaguely aware of Nina’s kid before he ran away. All boys were alike to him, little numbskulls in their baggy sweatshirts and baseball hats, carrying skateboards if they were old enough, asking for the car keys if they were too old.
But he had to like Bob, and Bob had to like him. Paul watched him run on ahead, wondering what Bob thought of him. How would the kid feel about Paul taking on the dad role while his father— Why did Scott have to show up now, when Paul had just decided to marry Nina? She looked so delectable today in her slacks and red shirt, so festive, so firm, so fully-packed....
They came out into the main arena under a cloudy, overcast sky and started looking for seats. The stands were almost full already, with faces he didn’t see that often on the upscale streets of Carmel; ranchers with lean red faces and baseball caps that said things like "Cal Am Waste" and "Lakers"; boys in blue jeans, hair greased and combed back so perfectly you could see each individual strand; moms in black stockings and ruffled blouses, and their daughters in harsh white makeup and Raiders jackets; a sea of flannel shirts, T-shirts, pigtails, goatees, gold chains, ruffles, plastic wraparound sunglasses, pointy boots, cowboy hats, balding longhairs, black kids in heavy parkas, camouflage pants, Sno-Kone vendors, baby strollers, Native Americans in Reno Rodeo vests, work boots, ski caps, tie-dyed sweatsuits, tattoos, and toddlers riding on shoulders.
Over the distant bleat of the parking lot speaker, which continued its proud chant, an unseen announcer said, "Let’s scream out a big welcome to the Monster Truck Stomp Force!" just as they squeezed into a spot on a weathered gray bench about halfway up. The dirt straightaway beyond the crowd-control fence had been modified by the addition of three six-foot-high bumps made of hard-packed dirt, equally spaced on the track to form three massive obstacles. Looking closer, Paul could see two cars buried in each, gutted old auto bodies that were begging to be put out of their misery anyway.
Eight monster trucks revved their engines and came out on the track so the crowd could have a look-see. His neighbor on the right, a young mom with a baby in a stroller, inserted plugs in her own ears and those of her toddlers against the deafening machinery and excited crowd. Her hip pressed warmly against his from the right. With her long, scraggly black hair, long face and long nose hovering above a full-lipped, gum-chewing mouth, beer-tab shaped earrings, and the tight, short T-shirt to show off her outie navel, she made a perfect madonna of the rodeo. Nina, rubbing suntan lotion onto her pretty nose, pressed against him on the left, her breast soft against his elbow. Beside her, Bob methodically chipped paint off the metal strut holding up the bleacher below. "Bobby, stop that," Nina said, but with no force behind it. The kid ignored her.
They had a good view of the trucks. Basically a framework of gigantic tractor tires and powerful engine, each sparkle-painted body held a driver that looked as substantial as a cheap action-figure toy. The driver rode about ten feet up from the frame, revving the engine with a hot foot, like a cowboy sinking spurs into his ride.
One by one the trucks showed their stuff. Squanto roared out first. "A ’93 Chevy cab, ladies and gentlemen, a 486-cubic-inch engine, sponsored by Harley-Davidson. Look out, folks, it’s on the warpath today!" Then came the other contenders, Thunderthighs, Wabash Cannonball, the Mountain, Bad Dog, Venom, and, last but not least, the current champion, Satan’s Hoof. Satan’s Hoof, an old green cab that looked like a ’49 Ford van, flashed red headlights. The windows into the cab were so small, Paul couldn’t catch a glimpse of the driver. He looked again at the program.
Satan’s Hoof There it was, Ralph Kettrick’s mount.
"To avoid danger to all our fans in the stands we have a new system that allows us to stop any truck with remote control from our booth," said the loudspeaker, barely registering above the clamor of machinery. "And today, we’ve got something really special for the young ’uns. You can win a ride in Satan’s Hoof by signing up at the beer booth right beside the inflated Coke bottle. All you kids ask your dads to sign you up." A high-pitched screech went up from the Popsicle crowd.
Bob leaned toward Nina and said, "Can I, huh, Mom?"
She nodded. "Later."
An all-terrain vehicle with five fat, textured wheels flew out onto the track while the trucks moved back to the starting line. Spinning around, shooting flames, like some crazed mascot too excited to sit still, it inspired frenzy in the audience, which stomped and hooted at the sight.
"Now, we are all patriotic people here, I know, proud to be Americans at this great event, so will everybody please rise for—" The crowd, a little surprised at the change in dynamic, obediently quieted, standing up while a scratchy tape played the national anthem, even the trucks idling respectfully in their dusty paddock.
"We’ll start with single-lane qualifying to pair ’em up for side-by-side racing," the invisible announcer said, starting right up at the song’s finish. Bad Dog raced first, engine revved to an angry roar, lurching forward in angry spurts like a Mad Max machine. Enormous tires launched it six feet into the air when it hit the bumps, landing it like a dump load of recycled tin cans onto the heap below. Paul heard the roofs of the buried cars crunching. "Six point twelve seconds, not a bad start," the announcer said, sounding only mildly impressed.
Next came Thunderthighs in an open cockpit, so Paul could see the wee driver frantically hanging on to the wheel to keep the whole construction upright while he jumped the hills. "He’s the biggest and he’s shakin’ it for you." The driver hesitated at the bumps but hung on, bouncing down the track a little slower than Bad Dog. "I’m gonna bet on Venom," Bob yelled. "His fangs are flyin’."
"Bad Dog," Nina yelled back. "He won’t be house-broken."
"Satan’s Hoof He’s kicking in the door," Paul said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than he felt. Bob leaned over to say something and spilled his Sno-Kone into Paul’s lap, which set Paul to leaping up from his seat with an ungentlemanly oath, ice leaking through his fly.
Nina laughed and turned
back to the trucks. Bob said, "Oops!" Paul brushed himself off and sat down again. The madonna gave him a contemptuous smile and lit up a Marlboro to make her own rank contribution to the perfume of dust and gasoline. A warm drizzle began to fall on them. He seemed to be the only person in the arena without a hat.
Venom, from Topeka, bounced across the course in five and a half seconds. "An ’88 Jeep with a 484," said the invisible voice, while the titanic truck went boing! boing! boing! barely holding to the track. "No rookie jitters here. Driven by Lonnie ’Hard Case’ Pace. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it!"
Up to the qualifying line came Satan’s Hoof, spooky red headlights flashing like mad eyes. "Champion for five years running. Big cheers for Ralph Kettrick, Satan’s devil driver! The demon is steamin’!"
"I have to go to the bathroom," Bob said.
"Paul, would you take him?" Nina said, her eyes on Satan’s Hoof, which readied itself with mighty blasts of its 572-cubic-inch engine.
"But this is the one I need to see," Paul said. The kid had jaunted off to Monterey on his own, but needed an escort to the john?
Bob disappeared into the walkway. "Hurry, Paul," Nina said. Muttering, Paul got up again and flowed with a group of white straw cowboy hats down to the concession area, where Bob was nowhere to be found.
By the time they got back, Satan’s Hoof had finished. "Wow, what a thrill," Nina said. "He hit the fence, and we thought it was all over."
"Great," Paul said.
"What took you so long?" Nina said.
"Your son wanted to stand in line to sign up to sit in Satan’s Hoof even though I told him it was hopeless," Paul said.
"Kids don’t know that word."
The announcer started shouting, interrupting all conversation. "If you don’t like the ride, what do you stand up and yell?"
"WIMPY! WIMPY! WIMPY!" the crowd roared.
"If you want to see some action, what do you yell?"
"WE WANT AIR! WE WANT AIR!"
"Yes!" the announcer screamed. "You want them to be crazy, don’t you?"
"CRAZY! CRAZY!"
While the monster trucks rested up for the next set of races, some local pickups came racing out onto the track. "Old Blue ought to be called Old Black and Blue, it’s so beat up." Old Blue came off the first hill and landed with a bone-crunching thud, and didn’t move anymore. "Old Blue’s busted his front axle," the announcer said. A recording played a funeral march as the pickup was hauled away. "If you see this guy out front with his finger out, please give him a ride, okay?"
"Depends on which finger he uses," Paul said, trying once more for the proper spirit.
"WE WANT AIR!" More tough trucks came out. One Toyota Longbed came out low and tight and feisty, but the engine cut out halfway through. While the driver madly tried to start it up again, the announcer said, "Sounds like he’s got some bad gas."
"WIMPY! WIMPY!"
"How ’bout it, Reno! Tell ’em what we want!"
"WE WANT AIR!"
The drizzle stopped, and the air turned warm and oppressive. A little yellow Mitsubishi pickup strayed uncertainly onto the dusty track. "It’s Grampa driving, folks! C’mon, let’s tell him what to do. ’Go, Grampa, go!’ "
"GO GRAMPA, GO!" Nina and Bob yelled with the crowd. Nina drank some water from her bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She had pulled back her hair into a ponytail and looked fifteen years younger. Paul regretted the golf shirt that made him feel like Frank Sinatra in a mosh pit.
"Aw, he’s just out for a Sunday drive, look at him!"
Intermission. The Reno police appeared in uniform, nightsticks and revolvers in their holsters hanging off their belts, watching the crowd head down the walkways for beer and nachos and to use the pungent bathrooms. "Where’s Bobby?" Nina said. "Oh, he must have had to use the restroom again. Paul?"
"Oh, no. I’m not going out in that crush again," Paul said. She gave him a firm push. "Okay, okay." He elbowed his way forward, thinking how he’d like to teach Bob a couple of things, like respect and obedience. When the races started up again, Paul went back to tell Nina that Bob seemed to be gone for good, but the kid was sitting there, eating another Sno-Kone.
Two by two, the monster trucks matched off against each other. Venom had the track to himself when the Mountain didn’t show up for the race. "I guess the Mountain blew its top."
"WIMPY!"
Paul massaged the headache in his temples. The girl on the right pulled her T-shirt up and calmly began nursing her baby, giving Paul a sideways glance that said, deal with it. Paul looked away. Babies and diapers and vomit and messy feeding ... Nina wouldn’t be thinking of having another one, would she?
"Satan’s Hoof is in trouble. Folks, they’re welding on a new oil pump right now!"
"SATAN! SATAN!" Convulsed, beery faces, stands shaking with the pounding feet ... It must have been like this years before at rock concerts, but he hadn’t minded then. He seemed to have lost the ability to drown in mass hysteria, but Nina, shouting and making little horns on her head with her fingers, was gone, gone, gone.
Paul noticed that the crowd wore the same excited expression as the glittering crowd in Wiesbaden. As he pondered this thought, his reality suddenly shifted. The shouting receded into metaphysical distance and his mind floated off.
Strange bedfellows, he thought. Bach and monster trucks. Was it true that all human recreations were just re-creations of the sex act? The muscular power of the Bach fugues, played upon that enormous organ, systematically dismantling the audience’s defenses with sound, teasing and pushing them toward climax, resolution, a postconcert cigarette ... hmm.
And now, out there in the dust, the drivers in their outsize machines were gouging furrows in the earth, barely in control while the people hollered....
And he himself, a peeker and pryer by trade ... Terry London, fixated on her love-hate object for so many years ... they were all symbolic beings, from the time they started sucking their thumbs in babyhood. Their possessions were fetishes, their pursuits vain, their pretensions laughable. A momentous thought came to Paul.
Did He smile His work to see?
Reality once again blurred and refocused. Paul slipped back into the spectacle and forgot what he’d been thinking about.
Venom and Satan’s Hoof lined up against each other for the final race, their engines growling and menacing. "Let me hear you scream for your favorite!" the announcer yelled deliriously, and the crowd yelled back in an earthshaking crescendo. Both trucks shot over the first two hills. Satan’s Hoof took the last hill so fast, it hit the fence on the bounce. The truck reeled to the left and the tires on the right left the ground. Breathless, they all watched as it tottered, tottered, seemed about to capsize, then fell back into a hard upright final bounce.
"It’s Satan’s Hoof, by a toenail!" the announcer shouted.
"No, Bobby, you cannot get in there," Nina told Bobby ten minutes later, out on the dusty track.
Ralph Kettrick stood next to Satan’s Hoof, about as tall as the tires, fingering a rabbit’s foot that dangled off his belt and talking to a mechanic who was down on his hands and knees looking for something.
"Hey! How did you like the way ol’ Satan wiped out the competition today, l’il fan?" he said to Bobby. He shook hands with Paul and Nina, then said, "You’re the lady in the fake mink collar, right? Glad you could come." His cropped blond hair, wet from sweating under the helmet, was a true blond, not the white albino hair of his father. He wore a soiled fire-retardant jumpsuit that emphasized his short, stocky body and big, vacant grin.
"It was so rad," Bobby said. "Who won the contest?"
"You mean, to sit in the truck? We’re just checkin’ her over, and then some kid from Elko gets to sit up there with me and have his picture taken. How’s it look, Pete?"
The mechanic said from underneath somewhere, "Used two quarts of oil on that last run. I’m filling it up again."
"All right. Little oil leak, no big thing,
" Kettrick said.
The mechanic got to his feet, put his knuckles at his waist, and stretched backward. "It’s full up. Get somebody to reweld the pump before you race again."
"Thanks, man," Kettrick said. "So, bud, you want to hop up there?"
"Not today, thanks," Nina said quickly.
"I was talking to the l’il fan," Kettrick said. He didn’t seem quite as amiable.
Paul said, "Wondered if we could ask you a few questions about Terry London."
"Oh, yeah. That’s who you are. I almost forgot. The lawyer for the guy that did it to Terry. You really going to do a trial? Am I gonna have to, like, show up in court?"
"I believe my client is innocent," Nina said.
"Well, you ain’t gonna prove it by me. I was sound asleep when my dad looked out the window and saw the guy take off."
"The shots didn’t wake you?"
"Didn’t hear a thing. My dad snores so loud, I sleep with a pillow over my head. I sleep hard too."
"I was wondering why your dad didn’t call the police, after hearing shots and seeing someone running," Paul said.
"He probably thought Terry had a late visitor and ran him off her property by shooting a couple into the air," Kettrick said. "See, he didn’t want to mess with her. They didn’t get along."
"Your dad said you used to do some work for her."
"Ever since I was fifteen. Handyman stuff. Only way I had to make some money until I started driving when I was eighteen."
"Did you get to be friends?" Nina said. Bobby had walked around to the other side of the huge truck, and seemed to be climbing inside one of the wheel wells. "Bobby, come away from there!" she added sharply. Paul walked around to corral the kid. He could see and hear Kettrick perfectly well through the steel struts.
Kettrick was nodding. "She talked to me," he said. "She was lonely, didn’t have no friends. She’d tell me stories, teach me things."
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