The Legend

by Shey Stahl

  When I finally reached them, no one was speaking; no one said a goddamn thing to me. They just stared at me, their faces poignantly frozen in shock.

  I looked between Justin and Tyler who stared back at me, their faces white, immobile and cold. Justin blinked slowly as if he was trying not to feel anything at that point. I could see the steady quick rise and fall of his chest; his breathing sped with each breath knowing the gravity of the situation.

  The wind ceased, the fog hovered just upon us. Thick and dense, the moisture remained crisp cutting through the fog. Sound was non-existent, it was still. It was as if the world suddenly stopped spinning on its axis knowing something was wrong. When I looked back at grandpa’s car and the safety crews weren’t moving quickly like they were around dad’s car, I had that sick rigid feeling instantly.

  I didn’t have to hear the words to know, I felt it.

  Something in me focused on my dad laying in the dirt about twenty feet away, paramedics frantically teeming around him.

  My heart sunk, literally dropped with my knees as they gave way beside him.

  Attrition – Jameson

  Pain.

  It was excruciating and unlike anything I had ever felt before.

  Blinding white bursts of throbbing pain in radiating waves swept through me. The pain was flashing and indescribable. Any thought or movement I made only spurred the stabbing jolts. I felt nauseous with the total insurmountable hurt. I wanted it to stop.

  Passing out would have been a blessing. I couldn’t see anything, blackness surrounded me but I heard voices and the faint sound of engines rumbling.

  My ears felt like they were on fire with the sound of a whooshing noise I couldn’t place or decipher. The pain was so strong, so searing that I wasn’t sure I could continue for much longer without passing out.

  I felt it then, another movement. From my hair to my toes, fire shot throughout me as I dimly became aware of someone touching me; touching my shoulders and my neck as if they were checking my pulse. The flare of agony spread throughout my body, bursting into powerful flames. It was too much and I moaned trying to get away. I didn’t want to be touched or moved, it hurt too much.

  Everything began to swirl in sickening loops. The sharp pain rose throughout me from my stomach into my head fighting against the adrenaline and I vomited.

  Why did I hurt so badly?

  It made no sense, but abruptly my brain focused for once on one image.

  The wreck.

  I struggled against the pain to focus. My dad came to mind, was he okay?

  “D...ad,” I called out but my voice sounded different, rough and forced. I’d never heard it before.

  My body wouldn’t respond. The command was there, the expectation of unconscious obedience to my will, but I couldn’t make any part of me move. I panicked.

  Pain was all I felt now; without movement or was I moving?

  I tried to be still in that moment, wanting the pain to subside with no movements but just trying to breathe was a challenge, a bleak effort.

  I felt pressure on my face, on my cheek as they removed my helmet and realized that someone was touching my face, sweeping my hair aside. A sharp prong spread from below my eyes to wrap around my head and down my neck. It felt like someone was slowing pouring warm water over my forehead but no one was there, that I could see.

  I moaned once again and tried to get away from it, the response to the incredible throb was instinctive and involuntary. Pain instantly tore through my body at the movement.

  Next thing I knew I was vomiting again, which caused the agony throughout and my stomach knotted at the onset.

  Clenching my teeth against another wave of nausea, I became aware of the sound of Axel’s muffled sobs close to my ear.

  I did nothing. I vomited again, I think. I couldn’t focus. All I saw was light, white fuzzy lights mixing with yellow and reds and the occasion whisper of a voice. People hovered over me moving frantically but it only made me dizzy.

  I wanted to ask him what had happened, what was wrong, why did I hurt so fucking much, but then I remembered again.

  Everything that had just happened came back to me in a horrifying rush along with the urge to vomit again.

  My front wheels clipping dad’s, the white hard concrete wall, flipping along the backstretch, the catch fence and then the ground.

  Oh god what did I do?

  “M...m...my...d...a...,” speech was an effort, one I didn’t have.

  I couldn’t force out any more than that. I couldn’t even make the thought completely form in my head or find my voice to utter the words. My head pounded, a sharp, blazing spike being driven through my skull into my brain like a hammer driving a nail. I felt the hot liquid again, pouring over my scalp down my back. Dripping and wet. I tasted blood, lots of blood and vomited again. I could feel the blood coming from my nose mixing with dirt.

  An echoing fire scorched my chest, my lungs, and every heartbeat felt heavy, forced. The blood pumped rapidly throughout me counteracting with the adrenaline pulsating in my muscles and joints begging to heal. There was no healing right now, only hurting.

  I couldn’t bear to think that I caused the wreck. I couldn’t have.

  Was he even alive? If I felt this, what was he feeling?

  “Ok-k-k-kay...,” I croaked, struggling to make my body obey. I just had to know, and then I could fall apart, but every word was a hideous effort. “M-y-y-y...d...ad...?”

  Why couldn’t I form words?

  “The safety crew is helping him.” The voice was Axel, I think. “Just stay still dad, please.”

  “Jameson?” another voice was beside my ear, I felt the cool breeze and more pain at the sound. “We need you to remain still. Please try not to move.”

  “O...k-k-k...a...y?” I tried again to get up, to move, to look around, get some bearing on my surroundings, but...fuck I couldn’t do anything. My body wouldn’t respond to even the basic commands.

  I managed to get my arms underneath me, but I had no control over them, no strength.

  I collapsed and my head hit something hard.

  I wanted to scream with the pain swallowing me, but I couldn’t. My will, whatever was left of it was begging this feeling to stop. I couldn’t see. Everything appeared distorted, blurry and smoggy.

  I could fall apart later, not now though, I kept telling myself.

  Axel’s voice was at me ear again. “You guys tangled coming out of two when Grandpa got up against the wall.”

  I wrecked with him?Oh god, this couldn’t be real. It’s not real, no, I won’t let it be.

  I tried to move once again but the pain shook me through my core this time, palpitating rapidly around my ears and eyes. I screamed, but no sound came.

  “Dad,” Axel asked frantically. He was scared. “Can you move your legs?”

  I tried to shift, to prove myself wrong, but something shifted inside my chest and it felt like someone placed a thousand pounds on my chest. The pain was instant, blinding again. Grunting in pain, I fought once again not to pass out. At this point, passing out was what I wanted. I couldn’t continue to feel this. I wanted to pass out. I begged for it. I need it.

  I vomited as the agony increased instead of lessening, and the vomiting only made it worse with the retching movements. I couldn’t endure this much longer, I was sure of that. I started to panic as I realized I was either going to pass out soon or maybe even die unless someone helped me. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t leave Sway and the kids. I couldn’t leave my family.

  “Jameson, we need to transport you to the hospital.” A voice said. “You have a severe open head injury. Please stay as still as possible.”

  No wonder I hurt so badly.

  When I could faintly see my surroundings, I heard the paramedics hurried around me, but I couldn’t see them around dads’ car. The mangled chaos of destroyed sprint cars obscured my views of him, but I could faintly see his prone figure.

  I could feel the pa
in in my head, my chest, my stomach, in my entire body. It pounded away in the background, waiting for its chance to take over and consume every last piece of me. I held it off as I needed to know dad was okay.

  I saw him clearly after a moment but he wasn’t moving, nothing, just lying perfectly still.

  I gave up.

  I couldn’t take the pain any longer.

  Attrition – Axel

  How could this be? How...why?

  “Be careful with his head.” I told the paramedic sweeping my tears away with the sleeve of my driver’s suit. “He’s...injured.”

  “Kid, we know that.” He barked at me frantically. It wasn’t meant to be rude but a man trying to do his job saving my dad. “Now, I need you to back away. He’s losing a lot of blood right now.”

  I knew that. It was all over the place on me, and him, and pooling in the dirt below. His head was bleeding, his nose, ears and mouth. He was vomiting, and more blood.

  This was not good. That was not good at all.

  I was torn. I wasn’t sure who to run to, my dad or my grandpa. Justin was huddled around grandpa along with Lane and Cole. Tommy was looking from my dad to grandpa as well wondering who to check on.

  The landing of the helicopter in the infield caught my attention knowing help would soon come. Where there were once haulers lined up, was cleared for a safer landing.

  Turning my attention back to the wreck, everything stood still again.

  It was like watching a horrible aftermath unfurl in slow agonizing motions. Everyone’s once frantic movements were still, to me. Time stopped, wind ceased. My vision on two legends, the greatest racers our sport had ever seen.

  Grandpa hadn’t moved and showed no signs of response; his body was limp, lifeless as they performed CPR on him. Paramedics, safety crews, Spencer and Aiden were all crowded around with Justin holding his neck and head still as they lifted him on the stretcher, continuing CPR.

  Justin was frantically yelling out orders to the paramedics trying to get them to hurry but I think they knew. It hovered in the air, suppressing and vaporous like the fog.

  Two helicopters landed, one took grandpa first and the other took my dad.

  Spencer and Lane went with grandpa while Tommy and I went with my dad. Everyone else drove the eighty miles to the University of Iowa hospital where they were transporting both of them.

  I couldn’t tell you what they were doing to my dad on the way there, everything seemed rushed and I couldn’t focus. It took all of my control not to vomit right along with him. When we landed, he quit breathing on his own.

  Lane met me outside the trauma center, they performed CPR the entire way on grandpa but nothing was working. When they got him into the trauma center, they hooked him up to monitors and were able to get a faint heartbeat but brain damage was a concern at that point.

  Lane, Justin and Cole stayed with him while Spencer, Tommy and me followed the stretcher dad was one. Aiden went to get my mom and grandma who knew nothing at that point.

  They wouldn’t let us in the room; the doors slammed shut behind him while hospital staff rushed all around him. The three of us stood there, frozen outside the doors.

  They eventually kicked us out into the waiting room to wait with the other families.

  That’s when it hit me that every one of these people in here was experiencing these same mind numbing thoughts. Hoping and praying for an outcome that wouldn’t break them.

  Some hide it well, others didn’t and cried openly.

  The guy next to me talked about needing ice cubes in his water bottle. His wife nodded and looked over their medical financial plan probably wondering if their medical insurance covered them.

  An older man across from Justin was slouched, sleeping. His daughter, I assumed, knitted besides him kicking him occasionally when he snored.

  All of these people were waiting. Just like us.

  We weren’t a famous racing family right then. We were just like everyone else in that waiting room.

  The guys around me were texting their loved ones, or whatever they were doing but I did nothing. I sat there staring at the man snoring in front of me, and his daughter knitting. I wouldn’t know what to say to Lily at this point and I couldn’t speak to my mom, I couldn’t be the one to tell her this.

  After another moment of silence, I couldn’t sit there any longer.

  Spencer and I went back to the trauma center and checked to see if anything changed, they stopped us outside the doors.

  Media hovered too, they wanted to know and soon every single person that was at that racetrack was at the hospital in the waiting rooms with us. That’s about the time word got out to the media and our phones were blowing up with phone calls from everyone from Simplex, to dad’s crewmembers on his Cup team. They all wanted to know what in the hell went wrong and I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t know what went wrong.

  Until right now, in that exact moment when I saw the CEO of NASCAR’s number flash across my phone, I realized what this meant and I scrambled to find some sort of justification.

  The fifteen-time champion to the NASCAR Cup series had been critically injured racing in something other than what his sponsor paid him to race. I knew what that meant for him.

  “Jesus Christ!” I screamed throwing my phone down the hallway when it kept ringing. Immediately I fell to my knees outside the door to the trauma room they pushed dad into. I lost it in Spencer’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Death hovers over every turn when you race, waiting. But you never think it will happen to you or to someone you’re close with. At least I didn’t. Even after Ryder, I still had a false pretense to what it even meant. Now, it wasn’t just hovering, it was suffocating us.

  The part that bothered me the most, here were two people, two legends. Rarely, in any sport does an athlete reach the commanding levels that they had reached.

  But they had and now their lives hung in the balance attached to machines.

  Machines were breathing for them, machines were beating their hearts.

  All we could do was waiting; wait on time and wait on a machine.

  Thousands of devoted fans, family...the entire world waited.

  15. Red Flag – Sway

  Red Flag – The flag displayed to stop the race. Usually displayed for a crash.

  My night was ordinary.

  And when you live the life we had for so many years, the ordinary days were nice.

  Arie, Lexi and I were having a movie marathon with Emma, Alley and Nancy. It was nice to have the girls together with one little addition, Casten. Being grounded was the reason but he apparently had a big date this weekend with a girl but when he saw we were all cuddled up on in the movie room, he joined in on the fun. He loved girly nights but swore us to secrecy that this would not be told to his brother or cousins. We’d never rat him out though. Casten was great for girls’ nights.

  We started with simple girly movies like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and then moved on to scary ones per Lexis’ request. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to watch a scary movie, in particular, the Paranormal movies.

  Those scared the living shit out of me, if that were possible to actually scare shit from your body. I was nearly convinced after that.

  Sometime after midnight, I sent Jameson a text to see how the main went. I thought for sure I’d hear from him once they got back to the hotel after the first night of racing.

  An hour later, still nothing.

  It was about 1:30 Thursday morning when Alley’s phone began vibrating.

  We all looked at it as though it was some sort of bomb. We did just watch those damn Paranormal movies.

  “That’s strange...” Alley picked up her phone off the leather ottoman at our feet. “It’s Carl with Simplex.”

  “Oh jeez, who’d he punch now?” I teased knowing my husband’s temper when it came to racing sprint cars. “Let me guess, Brody?”

  Lexi piped in. “No, he’s in Vegas this weekend.”


  Alley and I both looked at her in surprise. They claimed they weren’t seeing each other but that statement didn’t sound like it.

  Alley smiled, holding back her laughter when Lexi realized the slip.

  Holding the phone to her ear, Alley answered. “Carl, it’s one in the morning. This better be serious.” She laughed. Carl had recently replaced Marcus when he retired. We use to joke that he retired because of Jameson’s temper.

  Arie was asleep, her head rested on my lap when her cell phone started ringing. Then Lexi’s followed by Casten’s. Their friends were texting them and calling.

  Something was strange but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Lexi reached for her phone and then screamed, “Oh my god!”

  All of us perked up including Nancy who’d been asleep with a blanket over her head for the last three hours.

  “What’s wrong?” Nancy asked jolting up in the leather chair, the blanket covering her clung to her face so it took a moment for her to untangle herself.

  Lexi’s face was white.

  Alley, her face fixed on a blank stare at the wall, dropped her cell from her ear, speechless.

  Arie was still sleeping so I reached for her phone. I had no idea where mine was all of a sudden.

  There were some fifty some text messages, all asking the same thing.

  What happened in Knoxville?

  I just heard on the news. I’m so sorry.

  Are you okay?

  “What’s going on?” I looked between Nancy, Alley and Lexi, all staring back at me in horror.

  “Jimi and Jameson wrecked in Knoxville.” Alley choked out. Tears streamed down her face. “They were airlifted to University of Iowa.” She swallowed, “They’re not sure if they made it.”

  Emma was on the phone with Aiden by then. “There’s a jet waiting for us!”

  You would have thought a herd of bull was let loose at the way all of us, wearing pajamas, scrambled.