“How long have you been racing?” I asked.
“Since ninth grade.”
“How old are you now?”
“Twenty-six.”
He didn’t ask me how old I was. In fact, he didn’t ask many questions at all. It was like a long game of truth or dare, only he kept responding “truth.” We crossed over the tracks and rode along Industrial Drive, a semideserted stretch of land bordering the petrochemical plants. Across the street stood a trailer park of bread box homes haphazardly spread among patches of waist-high weeds. We passed an old red barn that was tilted sideways with its roof sagging in the center. THE TIME IS NEAR was painted on the roadside wall in fading white letters.
“So how’d you learn to be a mechanic?” I asked.
“I had a beater in high school; a ’sixty-eight Fairlane. One day it started bleeding oil all over the driveway. I didn’t have any money so I got the bright idea to take the engine apart and try to fix the leak. The first thing I learned is that it’s a lot easier taking apart than putting back together.” He laughed to himself.
“So being a mechanic is sorta like solving a crossword puzzle, right?”
Unsure of the comparison, he looked at me like I was interpreting too fast. “Every car is different. They all have their own personalities.”
“Your friends, are they mechanics too?”
“I met those guys from towing in wrecks off the highway. One night we sat down and killed a twelve-pack and they started telling stories about racing up in Wisconsin. They built that car out of used parts from the yard.” He made a left turn and was quiet while glancing into his rearview mirror. “The original driver kissed the wall and cracked his ribs. They needed a replacement and I needed the bread, so I volunteered.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Driving that shitbox is like square-dancing with a chain saw.” Bobby stared forward with the determination of a mailman pushing a cart of letters, sucking down one cigarette after another, riding a nicotine wire. From time to time he would space out, and you could tell he was watching his own movie, that he had a multiplex in his mind with never-ending showtimes. My brother was the same way. What is it with men and their glamorous brooding monster within? Bobby’s face launched a thousand words but it was still Scrabble as far as I was concerned. Staring, waiting, I wallowed in his silences.
“Your family, they live around here?” I asked. “They all crazy as you?”
“You think I’m crazy?” He turned the music down a hair.
“I think you’re unusual. Tell me about your grandfather. My mom says men are always like their grandfathers.”
“My grandfather?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, his name was Charley and he lived right near the Kentucky border. Neighbors used to call him Batman because bats would fly around his house at sunset. The big walnut tree in back was full of them.” He turned and looked over at me in a kinda boyish excitable way. “He was an ambulance driver and a bootlegger, made most of his money running moonshine into East St. Louis and up north through college towns.”
“No way. Your grandfather?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Was he in the Mafia?”
“No.”
“Was he a good guy or a bad guy?”
“Depends on whose side you’re on.”
“Did he ever kill anybody?”
“Just himself.” Bobby shifted, and the car sped faster. “He was racing in a cow field at some county fair. I guess that’s all there was in those days. His brakes failed and he kissed the wall. The car went airborne and flipped upside down. The fuel tank burst.” He stared out the window. “That car had the aerodynamics of a yellow pig.”
“Oh my God, that’s horrible.”
Bobby lit a cigarette. I leaned against the door and watched him smoke, wondering if he was aware of his own mythology. His body language said he’d visited that novel a million times before.
“Don’t you ever get scared?” I asked.
“Driving makes me feel like what’s behind me is always getting farther and farther away.”
I wanted to ask him what he was driving away from but was intimidated by the thought of old girlfriends, so I avoided the issue. “Does your dad race cars too?” I asked.
“My dad disappeared over in Vietnam.” He looked out the window, as if Vietnam was just beyond the next patch of trees. “He’s MIA. They never found him.”
My endless questioning had just driven the wrong way down a one-way street. I stared at my fingers, kept crossing and uncrossing them, rubbed my palms together, traced the heart line with my finger. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
“Sometimes I like to think he just drifted off from the war and made himself invisible, but I doubt it. I don’t have much to go on, just some photographs really.”
I didn’t know what to say. Bobby was suddenly distracted by a rush of memories. I could tell by his blank stare that they were pouring in. “My dad was in the army too,” I said. “He came back, but then he left again.”
“Where’d he go?” Bobby looked over at me again.
“I don’t know. He said he was leaving. Mom said okay, and that was that.”
Bobby’s head tilted back and forth, as though he disagreed with what I just said. More silence chased our flowering friendship, but at least we finally had something slightly in common. I wanted to ask him about his mom, but I was worried I was asking too many questions, but then went on asking anyway. Silence=death.
“So how do I learn to race cars?”
“By driving. You’ll have to get behind the wheel and scrape a few walls to find out what it’s all about. There’s no textbook.”
“Can’t you give me a few tips or something?”
“Every driver has their own style, their own way of holding the steering wheel.” He shifted in his seat. “On a small track you gotta work the walls, everything gets congested down low, too many inexperienced Joes trading paint and getting stuck in the infield mud. Sometimes I spend half the night joyriding under yellow flags. There’s no fast way through the corners, you just throw the car sideways and try to keep it from sliding out of control. It’s a gut feeling, you have to chase your instincts. Maybe it seems sort of risky, but right now it’s the only hope I’ve got,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He gunned the car forward. “I don’t want to be pumping gas when I’m twenty-nine.”
I tried to imagine where I’d be at that borderline but then stopped in front of a huge billboard that said DON’T GO THERE.
“You got any plans?” he asked.
Most of my plans went no farther than next weekend. I glanced out the window, saw my reflection in the glass, the flaws, the imperfections. “Sometimes I think I want to be an actress,” I said. “A serious actress portraying the heroines of modern literature.”
“Have you ever been onstage?” he asked.
“Not yet.” I tipped my head out the window. “But sometimes I feel like my life is a movie.”
“PG-13,” he said.
“What?”
“Your rating.”
“How do you know? You haven’t seen the whole movie yet!”
Bobby laughed. I could tell he was at ease with me, that we had definitely passed GO.
“So how’d you stumble into such a glamorous occupation?” he asked.
“During Career Day at school I told my counselor that I wanted to be a farmer, maybe take over one of these old cornfields around here. He whipped open some charts and said that in the near future farming would decline by fifty percent, but the need for entertainers would rise by fifty percent. His words of advice were—’Don’t be a farmer, play one on TV.’”
My mechanic pulled onto the fire road that surrounded the limestone quarry and parked beside some overgrown bushes. “I know a place where you can see the fire,” he said.
I got out of the car and followed him under the highway bridge. The creek smelled like sewa
ge and there was garbage everywhere. Rusted drums were scattered along the water’s edge, shredded plastic bags laced the dead tree limbs reaching from the bank. We passed a doorless refrigerator spray-painted 6-6-96 and a shopping cart filled with rain-soaked newspaper flyers.
Bobby carried a green army blanket under his arm. It wasn’t the magical place I always imagined, but it would do. Trudging along the creek bed, ducking under the occasional low-hanging branch, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. I started feeling a little sweaty and nervous, thinking, Wasn’t this how all young girls died? Following his shadowy frame through the thick black underbrush, I tried to convince myself he wasn’t a mass murderer.
We came to a ridge that overlooked the canal. In the distance was the glowing site of the petrochemical fire. The panic of emergency lights seemed quaint from this viewpoint. My mechanic spread out the blanket, then took my arm and guided me down beside him.
“It’s not beautiful, but it’s something,” he said.
It was beautiful in an end-of-the-world kind of way. Emergency lights swept the perimeter. The bridge was a shimmering wake of headlights that wormed over the canal. It looked like some cheap UFO footage for a low-budget sci-fi movie.
Bobby smelled like grease with a hint of crushed leaves. He blended in perfectly with the environment. He was so quiet at times I felt like he wasn’t even there. We both lay under the stars, watching the planes line up on the horizon, waiting to land at O’Hare.
“Make a wish,” I said.
“I wish I had a real car,” he said.
“You already have two cars.”
“I’m tired of risking my neck in rebuilt wrecks scraped off the highway. That lawn mower might look impressive, but looks don’t win races.”
“Well, if they did, you’d win every night,” I said.
Bobby threw a stone up at the sky. “It won’t be long, you’ll see. I’ll be racing full-time with a sponsor. Once I get a faster car and start racing bigger tracks I’ll be winning bigger prizes. I’m tired of getting my ass kicked at Santa Fe.”
Bobby was totally focused on drowning in his glamorous fate. Racing seemed like a life-or-death situation for him, as if tonight was just another speed bump on his yellow brick road.
“It’s probably just a matter of timing,” I said. “Somebody will need you, just like you need them.” My mechanic was getting melancholy, so I sat on top of his waist and pushed his shoulders down to the ground, then traced the outline of his lips with my fingertips.
“Is this where you bring all your girls?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “They’re all buried over there.” He nodded toward the weeds.
I looked into the weeds. “You’re just kidding, right?” His hands crept under the folds of my sweater, over my T-shirt, and traced the outline of my bra. He rubbed me gently, his hands pressing my breasts. I leaned down and kissed him, slow slurpy kisses, running my fingers through his dirty hair. He rolled me over onto my back, pressed his lips to my earlobe. “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he whispered, then stood up and started to walk away.
“Hey wait a minute,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“Ssshhhh!” he disappeared behind some trees into the inky darkness. I could hear him rustling through the bushes, circling the perimeter. If he was trying to be creepy it was working. I heard footsteps approaching, so I grabbed a rock just in case.
My mechanic crouched down beside me. “Close your eyes,” he said.
“No way,” I said.
“Close your eyes!” he insisted.
“Why?”
“Just close them.”
I looked at him and he was smiling. It wasn’t a dangerous smile, it was a fun smile, a smile I was willing to trust. “Okay,” I said and closed my eyes.
He pressed his fingers between my lips and placed a wild raspberry into my mouth. The juice squirted over my lower lip and ran down my chin. We made out fiercely, an all-out face mosh. His hands roamed all over the map. My eyes clenched shut while he fumbled through the buttons of my sweater, one after another, finally pulling it over my shoulders. He reached under my T-shirt and unlatched my bra. It loosened around my shoulders. He kissed my breasts, his warm tongue spinning around my nipples, his lips gently sucking. I was about to die. He shifted farther down south and kissed my tummy, rimming my belly button. He started to unbutton my blue jeans, and that’s where I stopped him. It wasn’t easy. I felt like a field of dry grass caught in a lightning storm.
“Whatsa matter?” he asked.
“I’m not ready for a full-scale invasion.” I pulled his hair, lifted him up to my lips and kissed him. He pressed against me, his hips swaying like a snake, rubbing his crotch against mine. I squeezed my thighs around his leg.
“Do you have any condoms?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t come inside you.” And then he kissed me again.
My passion surfed a tidal wave of emotions. I wanted him desperately, but I started to worry about AIDS and herpes and crabs and all the other nightmares of health class. I started thinking about my mom’s early pregnancy. When Mom and I had our little talk she warned me about this trick. “Guys have about as much control over their sperm as God does with a tornado,” she said.
“Are we or aren’t we?” he asked.
“Let me check my bag.” I cracked open my bottomless purse. Under all the wadded-up dollars and loose change was a stick of gum, my lip gloss, and “I’m not so stupid after all,” one priceless prophylactic. “Here.” I handed it to him.
And then a strange beeping sound started ringing in his pants.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“My beeper.” He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the number. “C’mon,” he said, grabbing my arm. “We gotta go.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the garage … it’s part of my gig. There must be a wreck on the highway.”
His mood changed with the speed of a light switch from red-hot lover boy to distant repairman. He got up and went to pee in the woods. I looked down at myself briefly, then scrambled to pick up the pieces. My eyes slowly refocused, my ears lost their buzz, my heart drained of intensity. Bobby was already somewhere else, but I was still shaking from his first visit.
He took my hand and walked me out of the woods, then drove me home in one of the heaviest emotional silences I’ve ever experienced. I tried to reignite some passion in the car, but that was about as useful as the fire hoses downstream. I lay my head on his shoulder, but our distance could be measured in miles.
“Do you ever see the dead bodies?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he said.
“What do they look like?” I looked over at him.
“Sometimes they look like the morning after in hell.” He stared into the oncoming headlights. “And sometimes they just look like they’re sleeping.”
His cool detachment made me pine for him even more. I wanted to cuddle up into his arms and tell him my life story, to listen to the soft gurgle in his voice explain how a carburetor works, but there was only an unbearable silence.
When he dropped me off in front of my house, he kissed me good-bye and promised to call tomorrow, but his voice already sounded like a long-distance telephone call.
I walked up the driveway, pushed my key into the slot, went into the kitchen, and poured a glass of water, then slithered upstairs to my room. Comforted in the familiar scent of my dirty bedsheets, I burned with the afterthoughts of a dream date, wishing he were pressed against my backside, his arm curled over my tummy, his heartbeat thumping against mine.
SUNDAY MORNING
MY mouth was pasty, my eyes were fuzzy, I looked like total shit. Anxious about tomorrow and regretful of the past, Sundays are like New Year’s Day once a week. I strapped on my body armor, then slipped an old lace dress over my head, squeezed into last year’s prom shoes, found some jewelry in the Cinderella box—a fake diamo
nd necklace from Grandma and a silver bracelet from what’s-his-name.
Mom was dressed, and I must say, looked stunning for eight o’clock in the morning. I was still reeling in from my date, and Mom was already casting her line. She wore white, so I wore black. Staring into the mirror I tried to arrange my hair, but it was too matted and tangled, so I settled for a wide-brimmed hat and a hairbrush to work the split ends in the car.
“We’re not going to a funeral,” Mom said, giving me the once-over as I came down the stairs. Her makeup was so carefully drawn she looked airbrushed, and I could tell she had a push-up bra under her dress.
“Just say the word and I’ll stay home and read the paper.” I wanted her to back off and remember who was doing who a favor.
“There’s oatmeal on the stove,” she said, pointing toward the kitchen. Her voice was already less hostile, almost concessional, and I knew she was grateful.
I flopped some oatmeal into a bowl, added milk and honey, then spooned it up as quickly as possible, sucking down coffee between every bite. Mom was watching me, watching the clock, bouncing off the wall with anticipation.
“It’s so nice to see you all dressed up … so pretty, so …”
“I feel like a call girl in this oufit.”
“For once you don’t look like your brother.” Mom poured me some orange juice, pushed the glass and a big brown vitamin across the counter.
“Are you saying I’m butch?” I asked between spoonfuls.
“I’m saying it’s nice to see my daughter in a dress. Don’t you want to look pretty?”
“I want to look smart.”
“Take your vitamin and let’s go. I don’t want to be late. Lutherans are so judgmental.”
“What about David?”
“He’s not feeling good,” she said, heading for the door.
I knew she was leaving him behind on purpose and that once again I had to be the guinea pig. I chugged my juice and followed Mom outside.
The garage smelled like lawn mowers and gas cans and was cluttered with things that didn’t work: the bike with the flat tire, the hose with the hole in it. Mom started the Ford and backed out. I brought down the garage door, brushed my hands, then plopped into the front seat beside Mom. We rode along in silence. Too tired to talk, too tired to listen, my head was still spinning from last night’s sleeplessness. It didn’t take long for me to start dissecting the circumstances, shelving all the consequences. Bobby was distracting as a solar eclipse.
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