The Champion

by Shey Stahl

  We decided to keep it simple and just head to our house that we purchased in the Florida Keys after I had gone there last winter with the girls.

  The house was simple, only three bedrooms but it was right on the water and very romantic.

  Now knowing how our vacations or trips in general usually go for us, how do you think our time went?

  Let’s face it. Jameson and his moronic ideas have gotten us both in our fair share of compromising situations before. Now wasn’t any different.

  We got a speeding ticket on the way there because we drove which was a stupid idea, by the way. I got food poising from some gas station food and by the time we got to the beach house neither of us was in the mood to do anything besides sleep.

  All that ended around three in the morning the next day when I felt better.

  I woke him up with a little micro polishing and finished with some of the best press forging we’ve ever done.

  Jameson sighed against my shoulder, his breathing harsh.

  “Jesus Christ, I think I pulled a muscle.”

  Laughing, I rolled over on him again. “So that’s a no on round two.”

  “I’ll try but damn, turning forty has really done a number on me. And I thought thirty was bad.”

  “Just imagine when we turn fifty.”

  “Oh dear god, don’t remind me.”

  We laid in comfortable silence before he turned toward me, his fingers running over my lips. “I was good at the “woo” once upon a time.”

  “You still are.” I whispered against his lips. “It’s been one hell of a fairytale.”

  And that it had been. That weekend we celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary and as always, Jameson showed me just as much love and woo as he did the first year of our marriage along with lots of press forging, deburring, reciprocating motions, piston stroking and some align boring. It was a good time as always.

  Returning home, Jameson was stressed and Speedweek was just around the corner.

  As we’re sitting in the kitchen at Jimi and Nancy’s house one morning before he left for Daytona, I tried to distract him.

  “I think dyno testing cures all. What are your thoughts?”

  I couldn’t help but smile as my husband’s head shot up from his phone. “Are you wanting to do a little micro polishing right now? In my parent’s kitchen?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it. Will it make you happy?”

  “Fuck yeah it would make me happy but I’d still have all this shit on my mind.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” asked Nancy as she walked into the kitchen holding Logan’s newborn daughter, Madison. Hard to believe the Lucifer twins were of reproducing age.

  “I offered to micro polish Jameson’s camshaft to reduce the friction in his engine.” I admitted without shame to Nancy. Glaring, Jameson kicked me under the table.

  “Don’t tell my mom that.” He groaned watching me rub my shin where his foot smacked.

  “Oh sweetie,” Nancy looked confused. “Is the engine in your sprint car running badly?”

  So clueless.

  “Come on.” Jameson ordered pulling me outside and to the car. “No more teasing me.”

  And just like that, I was showing my dirty heathen a good time again.

  Regardless of his mood, I knew my husband and always knew how to make his life a little easier, even if it was just bleeding his pressure valve at times.

  Panhard Bar – Jameson

  As I’ve said, Sway had a hard time with the boys getting older and becoming adults. When a thirteen-year old Casten came home with his first girlfriend, I, for one, was five hundred dollars richer and Sway was a basket case again. It was similar to when she found out Axel was no longer a virgin.

  My own nervous breakdown came when Arie got her first broken heart.

  Being a father was hard, evidenced by the gray hairs I kept pulling out. And being a father to a sixteen-year old girl was so much worse than boys.

  I rubbed my forehead, ignoring my ringing phone until I realized it was Sway. Immediately I picked it up.

  While I was in Talladega, Sway was in Knoxville with Axel and Casten. Arie was with Emma and Lexi at home.

  “What’s up honey?” We just got off the phone with each other so I was surprised she called again so soon since I was on my way to Knoxville to see them.

  “I need you to go home instead.” She told me.

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Arie...” she sighed. “Emma called. Arie locked herself in the bathroom. She’s been crying for the last four hours.”

  Sway and I never smothered our kids. If they wanted to talk about something, they came to us. This had its downsides. Arie was the downside.

  Axel was our levelheaded kid, patient and thought things through, most of the time. Casten was out of fucking control most of the time but he was a good kid and happy so that’s all we could ask for. I did wonder where he got all his energy at times but then I looked at Emma and Spencer and chalked it up to something he may have inherited from them.

  Arie, well she was secretive. If she wanted you to know, she’d tell you. If not, you’d never know.

  This is why we weren’t aware she even had a boyfriend.

  I did not like the idea of her having a boyfriend for the simple fact that I was a teenage boy once and all I thought about was my dick, aside from racing naturally. I wondered how the hell my parents put up with me, Spencer and Emma as kids. Now I knew that they just went with hoping to come out alive by the time we all turned eighteen.

  So I went home instead of to Knoxville to deal with Arie and this mysterious boyfriend.

  When I walked inside, Emma was on my couch eating ice cream.

  “She’s in her bathroom.”

  I slapped the back of her head when I walked past. “That shit will make you fat.”

  “Fuck off asshole.” She mumbled with another spoonful of ice cream.

  Making my way up the stairs to her room, I could hear her crying from outside the door.

  “Arie,” I tapped lightly. “Sweetie it’s dad.”

  “Go away!”

  “Nah, I think I need to come in there.”

  It took me about an hour to get her to finally open the door. When she did, she was sitting on the floor next to the tub with the sleeves of her sweatshirt drawn over her hands, her face against her arms with her knees pulled up to her chest, crying.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  She didn’t say anything before she showed me her cell phone with a picture of the said boyfriend, kissing Shaylee, the same girl that Axel knew.

  Sighing, I sat down next to her. “Who’s the guy?”

  “Ricky Hagen.” She answered softly, her tears coming once again. “I thought he...after we...well now apparently that meant nothing.”

  Her phone I was holding cracked under my hands. That motherfucker.

  “Dad, you broke my phone!” she ripped it from my hands only to have it fall apart.

  I tried to remain calm and collected and not like I wanted to find this asshole kid and show him just how scary Jameson Riley could be. Stupid little shit.

  Arie moved closer to me, her head resting on my shoulder. “I’m sorry dad.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong Arie. He did. He’s clearly an asshole and you can do better than that.”

  “Why do all the guys go for the sluts?”

  How the hell do I answer that one?

  I thought I knew how Sway might have felt knowing I slept around before her but hearing those words from my daughter made it that much more real to me. I was just like Ricky when I was his age. I went for who was easy and less likely to have strings attached. Ricky was a racer too as he was more than likely playing by those same rules.

  Rules I didn’t want my little girl knowing even existed but they did.

  “There’s not much I can offer you on that sweetheart. Guys are jerks. Do you want me
to beat him up?”

  “No, you’ll get arrested. Besides,” she smiled softly, her green eyes brighter from her tears. “Kale broke his nose anyway.”

  “Kale...Justin’s son?”

  “Yeah, he’s a nice kid.”

  A small laugh escaped me before I threw my arm around her. “Good for him.” I honestly didn’t think that little runt had it in him. “It doesn’t make the pain go away though, does it?” I remember comforting Sway this very same way when that jerk off Dylan Grady broke her heart and hated the similarities my kids were now facing with their own lives.

  She shook her head. “No. I just want to be grown up now.” I watched her brush some hair behind her ear, her face one of sadness and resignation. She clearly believed this pain would hurt forever.

  “Don’t rush it.” I told her. “When your childhood is gone, it’s gone forever. You can’t get it back.”

  “Mom says I’ll remember though.”

  “Yeah...you will but just live for now. That’s something I never did.”

  “You’ve always lived this lifestyle, haven’t you?”

  I nodded. “I have but it’s what I wanted.”

  Arie and I sat there for close to an hour before she said she was tired and went to bed. Making my way downstairs, I checked my phone to see when Sway would be home.

  Emma was still on the couch, now watching Top Gun.

  I threw myself down in one of the leather chairs across from her glaring at the television on the wall. “I hate teenage boys.”

  “That would mean you hate yourself. You act like a teenage boy.” Emma replied gazing at Tom Cruise on the screen.

  “Don’t you have a home to go to?”

  “Yeah but my asshole sons are there with their stupid girlfriends.”

  “Don’t like the Double mint twins?”

  “Fuck no,” Emma sighed her eyes remaining on Tom Cruise. “Fake little bitches.”

  Charlie and Noah were dating twins. They were blonde annoying superficial twins that nearly everyone in the family couldn’t stand.

  Apparently Charlie and Noah could though.

  “Am I still cool?” I asked kicking my legs over the ottoman. “I used to be cool.”

  I’m not sure why I asked Emma. I knew she’d give me a response I didn’t want, but I asked anyway.

  “No, you’re not cool. You’re old.” Emma replied with no regard to my feelings.

  Grabbing the remote, I turned off the television. “Go watch TV with the Double mint twins then.”

  “You’re an asshole too!” She yelled after me as I stomped back up the stairs.

  Later that night when Sway got home, I pulled the boys aside.

  “Axel, do you know this Ricky Hagen kid?”

  “Yeah, he races USAC midgets on the western circuit.” He looked confused. “Why?”

  “Apparently he broke Arie’s heart.”

  Axel looked at me and then Casten. “Did you know about this?”

  Casten’s brow furrowed. “I knew she liked him but no, I didn’t know much else.”

  “I need to talk with this kid.” I told them.

  “Apparently we do too,” The boys said walking upstairs into Arie’s room.

  There was one good thing about my kids, they stuck together. About a year ago now, Axel had gotten into a fairly bad wreck in Terra Haute that landed him in the hospital overnight. Arie and Casten never left his side.

  “They’re good kids,” Sway said closing the door to Arie’s room; all three kids were on her bed watching a movie.

  “I can’t believe she fell for a racer.”

  Sway smiled. “Did you really expect anything less? Look at her family.”

  “Did you hear Kale broke Ricky’s nose?”

  “Actually I was there when it happened. Kale sure does have a thing for Arie.”

  “Great,” I groaned. “Now I have to hate Justin.”

  “And how do you think he feels about you? Your son took his only daughter’s virginity.”

  “Don’t say it like that. That sounds horrible.”

  “I’m not going to sugar coat it for you.”

  No, Sway never sugar coated it for me. Throughout our entire lives together, she told me the way it was. I needed that. Too bad parenthood wasn’t that way. I needed sugar coating on that, I couldn’t handle this whole truth shit.

  It sucks seeing them get older and making the same mistakes you made but it would hurt if you never got to see that. Don’t tell them what to be or how they should act. Let them be who they want to be. When they become their own person, that’s what makes you a proud parent. All that shit you didn’t want to know becomes worth it because you did something right. You raised your kids to be their own person.

  27. Hairpin – Jameson

  Hairpin – A slow 180-turn which exits in the opposite direction the driver enters.

  Toward the end of every season my life felt like I was going two hundred miles an hour and praying for a left turn in sight. That year, after the plane crash and parenting, and racing, it couldn’t have been more true.

  With everything that was happening with racing, sponsors, team changes, media, kids, my wife...I just needed...me time.

  I couldn’t do that by just simply relaxing at home. That wasn’t me.

  Naturally, I went sprint car racing.

  The methanol, the dirt, the Saturday night lights...this calmed me in ways fishing or golfing might do for someone else my age. I needed the adrenaline to feel alive.

  Turns out that for turning forty-three that year I still had it in me. I won.

  Life gets to you at times, you can’t help it. For a while you’re going along thinking everything is good and then a plane crash happens or your daughter loses her virginity to an asshole. You’re dealing with life the best you can and it’s working for the most part.

  Then it hits you that you’re just like everyone else trying to make it through each day. The only difference is that I was a race car driver. My life was constantly going two-hundred miles an hour. It never stopped until it stopped you.

  As a racer, you can’t just walk away. It’s in your blood to keep coming back to what’s been your life all those years.

  Look at Bucky Miers, the man who took a chance on an eighteen-year old kid. He retired last year only because he had a heart attack.

  Look at Andy Crockett. He’d been at the peak of his career when he died. And Colin Shuman was a kid taken much too young. I didn’t always agree with Colin but still, the kid had talent and his career was ended suddenly.

  I don’t know. Maybe I couldn’t figure out where I was going with all this but my point was that you’re going along in your life the way you know how and my way was at 200 mph.

  I had a feeling that no matter what this would always be that way for me regardless of if I retired.

  Like I said, you don’t just walk away completely. Bucky was still at the dirt track every Saturday night except only he wasn’t in a car. You can take the racer out of the car but you can’t take him off the track completely.

  I knew the possibility, as a racer, that each Sunday could be my last but I also couldn’t think about it that way. The moment you’re scared is the moment you need to walk away. There’s no room for fear.

  The race season had gone on much like it always did but there was a void that year for everyone we had lost. With my team, it wasn’t the same anymore. A part of Kyle was gone, a part of our family was gone and that affected us in every way. We struggled each week in the pits though we kept it together. Our romance was gone and I knew it’d take some time to find a groove again.

  In November of that year, right before the last race of the cup season, Axel raced in his first World of Outlaw race in Charlotte at the World Finals. He’d raced outlaws before but never in a sanctioned point race.

  This was also the first race where three generations of drivers ever started a World of Outlaw race together.

  Nothing exciting happened. I started mid-
way through the field and ended up blowing a tire with six laps to go. My dad started fourth snagged a third place finish but what really made the night for us was Axel.

  He started last when he wrecked in his heat and charged through the field of twenty-four cars to win his first Outlaw race.

  My dad and I let him have his spot light with the media, laughing when Lane dumped a cooler full of ice down his back.

  “There was a lot of talk during the break on whether or not we should change out the gears but it looks like the call was right.” Axel told the reporter in his face.

  I smiled.

  My son had just won his first World of Outlaw race. Much like my own dad when I won some of my first races in my professional career, I didn’t have many words. It was kind of like his first Chili Bowl Midget Nationals win.

  My dad sighed beside me limping back to the haulers.

  “Can you make it or shall I carry you old man?”

  He pushed me knocking me sideways.

  “Carry me,” he repeated with a snort. “Son...who finished ahead of you tonight?”

  “I blew a tire.” I defended watching the boys in the distance.

  “Still, I beat you.” He laughed rubbing his shoulder he had surgery on last winter. “I’m sure that’s all that matters.”

  “Come on old man,” slinging my arm over his shoulders, I pulled him into me. “Let’s go have a beer.”

  Back at the hauler, we relaxed and threw back a few beers while Axel and his boys celebrated in victory lane. I enjoyed times like this with my dad. It reminded me of when I traveled with him when I was younger and we’d sit around after the races and he’d tell me how he thought I could do better.

  Now it was different though. Times like this we just enjoyed the company. That’s not to say we didn’t have the smart ass comments from time-to-time but it was nice.

  Jimi tipped his beer toward me, his eyes tired.

  “I’m getting too old for this.” He rolled his neck to one side. “It’s wearing on my body.”

  “I feel you.”

  Injuries have a way of catching up with you too. In sprint car racing you could get in some of the most violent wrecks and did damage to your body. With Jimi pushing seventy soon, everyone expected him to announce retirement any day now. I knew it was coming but as a fellow racer, you don’t bring up retirement.