Yellow Flag

by Robert Lipsyte

  After a little while Kyle couldn’t stay with the music. It just wasn’t good enough. He kept sneaking glances at Jimmie. He thought she was pretending to be interested, but her eyes seemed faraway.

  At the break, Jimmie said, “I better go.”

  Jackman and Kris promised to stay in touch. They had their hands full of cowgirl.

  Kyle said, “Can I ride back with you?”

  “Long as I drive.”

  She had an old black Mustang she handled like a racer. They talked about her car for a few minutes, and when the conversation lagged, Kyle asked, “What did you think of the band?”

  She laughed. “I’d call them a real garage band.”

  “Should’ve stayed in the garage.” Now he felt comfortable enough to ask, “So what are you going to do?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “What did my grandpa say?”

  “I just left him a message I had to go.”

  “You’re letting Kale run you off.”

  “It wasn’t going to work out.”

  “I really want you spotting for me.”

  “Billy’s feeling better—it’ll be okay.”

  “No, I want you.” He was surprised at the intensity in his voice.

  She was too. It took her a moment to say, “I can’t go back. I said some things.”

  “What if he asks you back?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “What if he begs you to come back? I’m serious.”

  In the light of an oncoming truck, he saw her face. She was smiling. “You are serious. Begs me? On bended knee?”

  “No bended knee. Kale wouldn’t be able to get up again.”

  They kept laughing all the way back to Hildebrand Hill. She pulled up outside his house. “Look, Kyle, I really appreciate this, but it’s just not going to work out. He and I are—”

  He held up his hand the way his parents did to each other. “Give me a day, okay? It’s my turn to spot for you, get you through the wreck.”

  Her face softened. “You got a plan?”

  “I do,” he lied. “Don’t leave till you hear from me. Okay?”

  It seemed to take a long time for her to say, “Okay.” She wrote her cell number on the back of an old garage-area pass.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  He woke up remembering that he hadn’t called Nicole, but he couldn’t remember what he planned to say to her. He thought of Jimmie. You got a plan? Start with Dad. Then he remembered that Dad was meeting with Grandpa and the suits about a second car.

  On the way downstairs, he peeked into Kris’s room. The bed hadn’t been slept in. He wondered if Kris and Jackman had scored with the cowgirls, if life was shifting back to normal.

  Mom was in the kitchen cooking scrambled eggs and bacon. “You need a good breakfast today.”

  “How come?” He checked his watch. Have to eat fast.

  “Intuition.” She was standing at the stove, her back to him. “You’re only seventeen years old, Kyle. You’re a work in progress. You’re still young enough to think you can do it all. Don’t let them take that away from you.”

  She popped whole wheat bread out of the toaster and brought his plate to the table. He started eating. It all tasted dry, overdone. “’S good.” Had to say something.

  She sat down across the table. She looked tired. He wondered if she had been up late arguing with Dad again. “Keep your options open. Don’t let anybody limit your choices.”

  He felt sorry for her. She had to talk in code, try to support him without being disloyal to Dad or the family. He wished he knew how to tell her he understood. Hildebrands don’t know how to say things like that, he thought.

  “Kris seems a lot better,” he said. “He’ll be back soon.”

  “Don’t count on that to get you off the hook,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two cars. Then three cars.”

  “Maybe I’ll want to drive one.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And maybe”—he imagined a long note on the trumpet, fingers moving—“I’ll pull an Uncle Ken.”

  Her head jerked as if he had slapped her. After she caught her breath, she said, “You’re not joining the army.”

  “No, I just meant, you know, make my own choices.”

  She looked sad. “I liked Kenny a lot. The army was the only way he could break free. It’s different for you. College. Maybe music conservatory. I hope. What made you think of him?”

  “His name’s been coming up.”

  She nodded. “If Kenny had stayed, your dad might have finished school, become an engineer. But he didn’t think he had a choice.” Her eyes looked faraway.

  On the way out, he kissed the top of her head. Hadn’t done that in a long time. “Gonna be okay, Mom.”

  She grabbed him and hugged him hard. “You’ve always been such a good boy, such a responsible boy. Don’t let them use that against you.”

  Nobody from quintet was in any of his Wednesday classes, and he went outside for lunch. He ditched his last period class to retrieve his trumpet from the band room, figuring the room would be empty this time of day. He was at his locker before he noticed Jesse in a corner, adjusting a tuba valve.

  “Hey. Missed you yesterday. The new kid’s lame.”

  “I’ll be back.” He fitted the trumpet, the mute, some music, and the soft gig bag into the hard case. “Try to practice some.”

  “Saw that film. Genevieve. Car racing. Dinah Sheridan, Kenneth More, and Kay Kendall’s got this hilarious trumpet solo—”

  He felt a flash of anger and slammed the locker shut. “Get a life.”

  He was almost at the door when he heard Jesse say, “Everybody’s busting your balls, huh?” Jesse’s voice sounded sympathetic. When he turned, he saw the big dark moon face looked sympathetic, too.

  “Kinda.”

  “Listen, man, we understand. Nobody thinks you’re bailing on us. Everybody knows family can put your Johnson in a clamp.”

  He nodded.

  “You coming to Mr. G’s dinner party?”

  “Didn’t know about it.”

  “Read your e-mails. Nicole’s been trying to reach you. It’s Sunday night at his house. Be there, Kyle. You have friends.”

  He wondered if he could talk to Jesse, but what would he say? He heard voices outside in the hall and remembered he wanted to get out before Nicole showed up for practice. “Thanks, Jesse.” That didn’t seem enough, but it was the best he could do.

  Jackman had Kris on the weight machines in the gym when Kyle got to the race shop. He watched them through the glass wall. Kris was sweating and slow, but he was lifting steadily. Jackman hovered over him. They stopped and waved Kyle in.

  “I could put you on a program too,” said Jackman.

  “For one week?”

  Jackman and Kris exchanged glances. Kris said, “Family Brands signed off on a new car right away, call it number twelve A. The plan is, number twelve is gonna move up to Busch, maybe even this season, and then to cup.”

  “This all happen today?” said Kyle. He felt a cold hard lump forming in his stomach.

  “Nailed today. But they been talking about it since Family Brands came around. Where you been?”

  “So even when you’re back…” Kyle let the sentence trail. He felt stupid. Didn’t matter if he had a plan or not. They had a plan.

  “You’re the man, man,” said Jackman.

  “What about the age waiver?” Kyle felt as though he were grabbing for a life preserver in a storm. “It was only for one—”

  “Family Brands gets what it wants,” said Kris.

  “About time,” said Uncle Kale, rapping on the gym’s glass door. “Go sit in the car.”

  “We got to talk,” said Kyle.

  “I need you sitting in the car while we tweak the engine.” Uncle Kale turned and started walking away. “We can talk later.”

  “Now,” said Kyle.

  “Go, bro,” said Kris.

 
; Uncle Kale turned slowly. “Lots to do. Talk fast.”

  “I want Jimmie back spotting for me.”

  “She quit.”

  “Get her back.” He liked the sound of his voice. He thought of a whip snapping.

  “Do her on your own time—this is a race team.”

  “Better keep your drivers happy, Uncle Kale.” Kris cackled.

  Kyle dug his cell phone out of his jeans. “I got her number.”

  “She’s disruptive. I don’t want her around.”

  “I want her around. Family Brands wants her around. Sir Walter wants her around.”

  Uncle Kale’s small eyes were hot as he watched Kyle dial a number with a quivering thumb. He took Kyle’s cell and raised it to his ear without ever taking his eyes off Kyle’s face.

  “It’s Kale. I want you at the shop. Now.” He snapped the phone shut and tossed it to Kyle. He was around the corner before Jackman and Kris whooped and high-fived. Kyle felt light-headed and scared. He had won.

  What had he won? And what had he sacrificed for the victory?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  They worked on the new setup the rest of the week and took it out twice more on the Goshen track. At first Kyle didn’t understand why Uncle Kale insisted he sit in the car while they tweaked the engine, wondered if it was just another case of him exerting control, maybe punishment for making him ask Jimmie back. But Uncle Kale never mentioned Jimmie, just yelled over the engine noise for Kyle to stay alert, to feel the vibrations. At first Kyle sat in the car, hot and bored, thinking about the trumpet in its case under his bed, wondering when he would play it again.

  But once he began to concentrate on feeling the differences in vibrations, on hearing the differences in sounds, time moved more quickly. The harder he concentrated, the more he heard the music of the car, the shifts in pitch and rhythm as rubber and metal and plastic reacted to acceleration, to the angle of a turn, to weather.

  Out on the track he became an interpreter of the car’s music, radioing back reports on the motor, the chassis, the tires, the springs, as he floated into the turns and opened up on the straightaways. Mostly Uncle Kale just grunted at what he had to say, but once when he reported a softness in the shocks and again when he felt a faint grind in the brakes, Uncle Kale called him back into the pits, where he and Billy were waiting with tools in their hands like surgeons in the ER. Those times Uncle Kale sent him back out again with an almost pleasant “Keep it up.” Kyle couldn’t help smiling. He began to understand that Uncle Kale was trying to turn him into a part of the machine, the human piece of the car. Or the monkey in the rocket.

  He saw Jimmie from a distance in the race shop, working with the fabricators bending a sheet of metal into a car roof. They were building 12A. Her face was flushed. She looked happy. He was thinking about what he would say to her when Jackman grabbed his arm and pulled him into the gym. He seemed to know what he was doing. He already had a checklist for Kyle. Cardiovascular and stretching exercises every day, different weight machines on different days.

  “Gotta build stamina,” said Jackman. “Drivers start making mistakes at the end of a race because they’re tired. Sitting for a couple of hours takes more out of you than you’d think.”

  “What do you think I do at band?”

  “At band nobody’s trying to spin you into the wall,” said Jackman.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  He saw Nicole at lunch on Thursday. She was sitting at the band table between Todd and the new trumpet, Justin. Kyle waved at her and she waved back, no expression on her face. That was it. He thought about going over, but there were no seats close to her. He’d be at the other end with the freshman horns.

  He sat with Billy’s grandson at a gearhead table. They knew all about the testing at Goshen and the second car. They treated him the way he’d seen Kris treated, everybody with questions but acting supercool to disguise their respect for a real driver. It was okay.

  He ate dinner alone with Mom Thursday night. Dad was taking meetings in Atlanta with Sir Walter and the suits. Kris was back in the apartment with Jackman. The doctors were pretty sure he could drive in another week.

  “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.” Mom hummed the old blues song as she served salmon and a salad. Kyle remembered playing it years ago with her.

  “Dad called,” she said. “They’re staying in Atlanta overnight. He said he’ll meet you in Monroe tomorrow.”

  “You going?”

  “Too many lessons. It’s recital season. You get a chance to practice at all?”

  “Only on the steering wheel.” He thought it was a good line, something to lighten the mood, but she didn’t even smile. “Maybe we can play after dinner.”

  That got a smile. “Be nice. What are you playing for Mr. Sievers?”

  “Some Vizzutti caprices…”

  “They’re hard,” she said.

  “…and some Leonard Bernstein for fun. He was annoyed I didn’t come Saturday.”

  “He should get in line.” She shook her head. “Music can slip away from you.” They ate in silence for a while. He imagined Mom was thinking about herself. She had met Dad in college. She was a music major. After he quit to race in Uncle Ken’s place, she started going to the track to watch him, and then eventually she quit college too, and they got married and had kids.

  Mom said, “I heard you made Kale take Jimmie back.”

  “She does a good job.”

  “She got you through the wreck—we’re all grateful for that.” Mom got up and came back to the table with a bottle of white wine and a glass. “Did you want to keep her as your spotter?”

  “Sure.”

  “You went up against Uncle Kale just for one or two races.”

  He sensed where she was going and tried to change the direction. “She knows her way around a car. They need more people.”

  “Of course they do.” She poured herself a glass. “What did they say to you about the second car?”

  He’d taken the wrong direction. Or she was just too slick for him. “They’re building it. They’re interviewing drivers.”

  “I’m sure they’d like to keep it in the family.”

  “Nobody asked me.”

  “Did you tell them no?”

  “I said nobody asked me.”

  “Sweetie,” she said, “they’ve been asking you all your life.”

  “I haven’t made any decisions yet.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it?”

  “Sure.”

  “So you understand that they want you in the second car, and this business about just keeping Kris’s seat warm is so much crap.” She never used language like that. “Hey, I went along with it, too. I should have put my foot down when they wanted you to spot for Kris.”

  “Maybe he’d still be driving if I hadn’t called the sling.” It was the first time it had come out as a fully formed thought.

  She raised her glass. “Take your guilt trips by yourself.” She took a long sip. “Kris would have done it without you and probably gotten wrecked.”

  “You think so?” He felt grateful.

  She shrugged. “I don’t really know. But that’s what Uncle Kale and your dad think.”

  “They never said that to me.”

  “Why would they? Go get your trumpet.”

  He took his time. He wanted to think about that. Why would they? Why wouldn’t they want him to feel guilty, to feel he had to keep Kris’s seat warm after helping knock him out of it? Everybody’s got their own agenda in this family. I gotta get one too.

  He checked his e-mail. Mr. G and Jesse and Del and Nicole all reminding him about the Sunday dinner. Funky casual, whatever that meant. I want to go.

  When he got downstairs, Mom was at the keyboard, her wineglass on the piano. She flashed a bright, forced smile. “What’s your pleasure, treasure?”

  He figured it would be a bluesy night. He remembered one of their old routines and tried to match her mood. “Think you can
play Dizzy?’

  “Only way I can play, pal.”

  “‘Autumn Leaves’?” He knew she loved that. She had found an old recording of Oscar Peterson on piano and Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, and they had tried to match it. Never came close, of course, but it was one of their best.

  “Too sad. Too much loss. How about ‘Jumpin’ at the Woodside’?”

  “Let’s see what you got, lady.”

  They wailed.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The crew went nuts when the red, green, and deep-blue number 12 Family Brands Ford qualified in fifth place for the Prince Pizza 250, the best pole position the car had won all season. They hugged Kyle and pounded one another and jumped on Jackman’s back. It was proof that all their hard work had paid off, the new setup worked, they had created a speedier machine. And the rookie could drive.

  They were standing outside the Family Brands hospitality tent when the final qualifying numbers flickered on the scoreboard. Dad punched Uncle Kale’s big chest, and Sir Walter grabbed both their heads and pretended to knock them together. A Family Brands video crew shot them. Winik and the other executives high-fived.

  Uncle Kale turned to Kyle and said, “Up to you now.”

  Later he wished he had thought faster and said something like It’s the car, stupid. But he was caught up in the excitement of being so close to the front. Can I hold that lead? Kris won with cars that didn’t even qualify in the top twenty, he was that good. I’m not Kris. Maybe that was what Uncle Kale was really saying. It’s your race to lose, Kylie.

  Uncle Kale signaled to the crew and lumbered off to the garage area. Jackman and the crew fell into line behind Kale like kids on a field trip. Follow the leader.

  “Ready to rock, li’l bro?” Kris knuckled his head. He almost looked like himself. You’d have to know him well, Kyle thought, to notice the fatigue in his face. Kris still winced at bright lights or sudden loud noises, but he was standing straight and the quick grin was back. So was the mischief. When two Family Brands guests, a couple of twenty-somethings whose boobs were jumping out of their halter tops, came over for autographs, Kris wrote, “From Kyle Hildebrand, little brother of the future king.” They squealed and kissed him.