“But you said to pick somebody that I might like as a human being.”
“I know I did. But you picked Ebo because he reminds you of a stray dog.”
“So?” she asked. “What’s the matter, you don’t like strays?”
“I don’t have anything against strays. I’d just rather have a greyhound if I was in a race.”
“Well, strays have more common sense,” she said. “Good breeding is highly overrated.”
“Suit yourself,” I told her. “You just better hope Ebo doesn’t start chasing his tail.”
Seeing how she was such an expert on dogs, I asked if she had a canine of her own.
She shook her head. “Not anymore. My mom doesn’t like animals. She claims she’s allergic, but she’s really just a hypochondriac.”
“What about your father? Where’s he?”
She looked away again, scanning the crowd in the pits. I think she was looking for someone else to poke fun at. Finally, she gave up. She turned and offered me that blank stare of hers.
“He had leukemia,” she said. “It was two years ago.”
She said it like it had been an event, something that happened all in one day, like Pearl Harbor or the moon landing or Evel Knievel jumping the Snake River Canyon. I didn’t know what to say next. Our conversation had slammed into a wall.
It was closing in on race time, and still no Cash. I began to worry. And then, finally, I caught sight of him and Nick. They were making their way through the crowd, grinning and smoking cigarettes. Cash was wearing his white coveralls and black suede Converse.
I wasn’t expecting Nick, not with his busy schedule. He threw his hand up in the air and gave me a goofy wave. Then he draped his arm around Cash’s neck.
“You need to keep a closer watch on your driver,” he said. “I just found him under the stands experimenting with mind-altering substances.”
Both of them were giggling, severely red-eyed and stoned. Cash had clearly exceeded his prerace half-joint limit. He shoved Nick away, stumbling over his own feet in the process.
“Your brother’s a bad influence,” he said. “Somebody oughta lock his ass up.”
“They’ve tried,” Nick said. “But there’s always some asshole bail bondsman willing to spring me.”
They were practically doubled over laughing. Neither of them had noticed Rachel standing there beside me.
“Listen,” Cash said, “me and Nick already got the postrace meal planned. We’re gonna hit the Varsity. Chili dogs, onion rings, fried peach pies, PC, Frosted Orange, milk shakes, glorified steaks, pimento cheeseburgers…”
Cash closed his eyes and swayed his head as he recited the menu. He looked like a preacher who was feeling the power of God move through him.
In closing, he made this proclamation: “We’re gonna eat the whole motherfucking menu.”
Nick moaned like a porn actor in the throes of carnal pleasure. “I don’t think I can wait two more hours, Cash. Why don’t you go ahead and wreck your car in this first race and get it over with. Hell, you’re not gonna win tonight anyway.”
“Man, shut the fuck up,” Cash said. “That shit affects my chi.”
“Horseshit,” Nick said. “Your chi just got affected by some bad-ass weed.”
Cash snorted. “Considering the source, I probably got some paraquat poisoning. My goddamn kidneys are probably shutting down as we speak.”
Nick frowned. “That’s not funny,” he said. “You know I sell the best shit around.”
They started laughing all over again. They didn’t even hear the loudspeaker crackle. The announcer tapped the mike and spoke up in his high, inflamed-sinus voice that always reminded me of Mr. Haney from Green Acres.
“Heat Two drivers, report to your cars.”
Tools rained down on the infield dirt. Everyone started to get their shit together. Everyone, that is, except for Cash.
Rachel was wearing that beautiful smirk of hers. “I thought you said he was meditating.”
“He was. They smoke pot in the Shaolin temple, you know. It calms the nerves before they whip somebody’s ass.”
I decided I’d better try to do something, so I started yelling at Cash and Nick.
“Quit dickin’ around. The race is gonna start in five minutes.”
I picked up Cash’s helmet and the bandanna that he wore underneath it. I set them on top of the car, and then I pointed an accusing finger at Nick.
“I’m holding you responsible if he comes in last. This is all your fault.”
Nick was selling a ferocious sens hybrid that summer. Rachel and I had actually smoked a little of it secondhand—by way of Stan—and it had knocked us on our asses. We’d ended up stripping down to our underwear and taking a 2 A.M. dip in the Holiday Inn swimming pool. Lyndell would have been proud.
Nick held up his hands in a plea for leniency. “Guilty as charged,” he said. “Nolo fuckin’ contendere.”
The two of them finally made the connection between Rachel and me. It had only taken about five minutes of seeing us standing right beside each other.
“Did we pick up another crew member?” Cash asked.
I proceeded with the introductions, explaining that Rachel and I worked together at the Holiday Inn. It looked as though things might settle down. And then, just as Cash was swinging his leg through the car window, we heard an engine snarling on the backstretch. Everybody on the pit road craned their necks to see who was causing the racket. A black El Camino. The car was just sitting there, quivering, nose stuck low to the dirt, poised like a mountain cat ready to pounce. The big V-8 would bust out with a roar and then settle down into a pop-pop-pop growl. Very predatory.
The people in the stands ate it up. They stood and cheered and started to chant something that I couldn’t make out right away.
And then the loudspeaker crackled again.
“Ladies and gentlemen—we have a late entry. In the black El Camino at the back of the field. Number eighty-eight in the program and number one in your hearts…”
This is where the announcer paused for effect, letting all that yelling and clapping percolate like a big pot of Maxwell House.
“Yes, he’s back from a short stay at a county facility. You’ve voted him the most popular driver in the hobby stock class four years running. You know him, you love him, and you had better get the heck out of his way. It’s Leee-roy ‘Speedy’ Brown!”
The crowd just went ahead and let themselves go ape shit, chanting, “Spee-dee! Spee-dee! Spee-dee!” They were jumping up and down and waving their arms and stomping the metal bleachers on the backstretch. All that clanging metal sounded like a freight train blowing through.
As if that wasn’t enough, the PA guy started cranking “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” over the speakers. Before long, everybody stopped chanting and started singing along, adding special emphasis to the word Bad!
While the crowd celebrated, a cloud of dismay settled over the pits. The drivers were shaking their heads and looking as solemn as if they’d just learned that OPEC had embargoed every damn barrel of oil in the Middle East. Ebo was chewing and rocking a lot faster than before, and Carl Bettis kicked at the dirt and looked skyward in a helpless way.
“Well, just fuck me where I stand,” he said.
Although most of the drivers appeared unnerved by Speedy’s presence, Cash was flat-out agitated. He’d already taken off his helmet and unzipped his coveralls. He was all puffed up like a bullfrog, looking like he was getting ready to kick somebody’s ass.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled.
Cash pointed at Speedy’s car. “I’m fixing to grab that motherfucker’s ass and put him in my trunk.”
I asked why he felt persuaded to do this.
“Because I posted a five-thousand-dollar bond on his skinny little ass last month. And then he up and beat feet the day before his court date.”
Nick scratched at his chin like he was thinking over a problem in a crossword. “What’s his name
again?”
“Leroy Brown,” Cash said. “But everybody calls him Speedy. Dirtiest motherfucking driver on the track.”
Nick snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah. I was in the can with his brother, Walt. He got busted for cooking crank in his attic. From what I heard, Speedy used to snort that shit like it was going out of style.”
Cash just nodded. “That’s Speedy, all right. Broke into a Scientific Atlanta truck and got off with about a hundred cable TV boxes. Can you believe that shit? Out here in the boonies, half the damn county ain’t even wired yet, and he’s going around thinking he’s gonna sell illegal hookups. Wade Briggs hauled his ass in.”
Cash picked up his helmet, all the while keeping his eyes on Speedy’s El Camino. Speedy was in the midst of a slow, celebratory lap. It was the first time I’d ever seen one taken before a race rather than after. He had his arm stuck out the window, waving to the crowd.
As Speedy came up the front stretch, I got my first look at him. He was no Burt Reynolds, that’s for sure. Just a skinny guy with tattooed arms and barely a suggestion of a chin. His helmet had been spray-painted black, and a scraggly mop of brown hair poured out from the back of it.
Cash leapt onto the hood of his Cougar and pointed at Speedy. “Hey, Speedy!” he screamed. “Remember me?!”
Speedy turned his head. When he got a load of Cash standing there, his eyes lit up like a pair of high beams. He made a futile attempt to shield the side of his face with his hand, as though Cash might not notice it was him.
Cash may have had a legal right to be pissed, but Speedy had numbers on his side. He might as well have been Richard Petty, the way all of those people were cheering him. Once this fact had dawned on him, he lowered his hand, narrowed his eyes into a diabolical squint, and stuck his arm back out the window. But instead of waving to the crowd, he looked Cash square in the eye, smiled at him, and gave his crooked middle finger a little bit of the up-and-down. The gesture almost appeared courtly.
Cash fired his helmet at Speedy’s car. It ricocheted off the Amoco advertisement on the driver’s side door. Speedy ducked down and hit the gas, kicking up a rooster tail in the dirt. That’s when the crowd’s cheers turned to boos. They aimed their wrath squarely at Cash. I even saw a few drink cups fly onto the track in our general direction.
Nick started laughing. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re not booing. They’re yelling, ‘Caaash! Caaash!’”
Cash jumped off the top of his car. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He was severely pissed. “Fuck them,” he said. “Redneck motherfuckers.”
He stalked the length of the car a couple times, like a restless dog on a short leash. Rachel moved in behind me. She was standing real close, with a concerned look on her face.
“Do they ever have riots at these things?”
“Not that I’ve ever seen,” I told her. “Of course, anything’s possible.”
Carl Bettis had fetched Cash’s helmet. He handed it back to him with a look of resignation. “He’s gonna wreck us all now.”
Bettis turned to go back to his own car, stumbling a little as he changed directions. Rachel and I grabbed his shoulders and steadied him.
“Are you okay to drive?” I asked.
He laid his hand on his belly and fixed me with a sad and practiced gaze. “Oh, yeah. I’ll be fine. I’ve just had me a touch of that stomach bug that’s been going around.”
The drivers eventually set their apprehensions aside. They climbed into their sleds and fired up their big blocks, ready to go racing. It sounded like a pit of giant wasps had been stirred up. Even Rachel clamped her hands over her ears.
I leaned inside the Cougar to give Cash a last-minute pep talk.
“Try to move up front in a hurry,” I said. “Maybe Speedy’ll get hung up in traffic.”
Cash grunted, rolled his neck around a couple of times, and romped on the pedal in an angry sort of way. That 428 Cobra Jet let out a nasty roar of its own. It was a reassuring sound, filling the car with the sharp smell of gasoline.
“Tell Nick to watch the gate,” Cash said. “And you get the truck ready to go. I don’t want Speedy slipping out of here when this race is over.”
“I’ll unhook the hauler and start the truck,” I told him. “Don’t worry about any of that stuff. You just be aggressive out there. Kick some ass.”
Cash slid his goggles down over his eyes. “It’s time to break out some Iron Monkey kung fu driving.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna bang the shit out of some people?”
“You’re goddamn right it does.”
13
The drivers circled the track, their cars packed together as they waited for the green flag to be waved. Even with the engines cooking at a simmer, the ground quaked from all of the horsepower.
Nick took his spot behind the gate in turn four, and I unhooked the hauler from Cash’s white pickup. I reached inside the window and slid the key into the ignition.
“What are you guys planning to do?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t think we have a plan, exactly. But it looks like Speedy might be a flight risk. We just wanna make sure we keep him boxed in.”
We sat on the roof of Cash’s truck to watch the race. Cash started near the back, on the eighth row, but moved up steadily, overtaking two cars on the first lap and one each on the next three. He was catching most people on the backstretch, driving high and then diving down into turn three, where he’d go into a smooth, controlled slide. By the twelfth lap, he was sitting fifth. He laid off Carl Bettis’s bumper while Carl tried to ram his way through the car in front of him. Finally, Cash went high again and cut in front of Carl as he was coming out of turn three.
“We’ve got a mover,” the announcer said. “Cash Bishop, sliding into fourth place ahead of Carl Bettis.”
The crowd had not forgotten Cash’s dispute with their golden boy. They poured another wave of boos on him when he passed Carl.
Speedy, who had started last, was also making hay, bumping and banging his way to the front of the pack. Any time I’d hear the clang of sheet metal against sheet metal, I’d look back to see Speedy laying his El Camino into the hip of a cowering Chevelle or Matador. He moved into sixth place on the fifteenth lap and bore down on poor old Ebo. Ebo was eyeing his mirror and rocking to no end inside his white Caprice. You’d have thought a shark was chasing him. After living through two laps of sheer terror, Ebo just flat-out surrendered, pulling down onto the track apron and letting Speedy go by. Devastated by fear, Ebo laid his head on the steering wheel. He was dead still.
Cash worked his way into the lead with five laps remaining, giving the first-place driver a little fake-high, drop-low move coming out of the second turn. Rachel grabbed hold of my arm with both her hands. She actually had an excited look on her face.
“Is Cash going to win the race?” she asked.
The only response I could muster was to cast a wary finger in the direction of Speedy’s El Camino. He was sitting third. Shortly thereafter, he applied a savage blow to the second-place driver’s rear axle. The car shot down the track and slammed nose-first into the infield retaining wall.
“Damn!” I said. “That’s a Goody’s headache.”
It wasn’t long before Speedy had Cash lined up in his crosshairs.
“Cash is gonna have to play dirty to win it,” I told Rachel. “He’s gonna have to put Speedy into the wall. Either that or Speedy’s gonna put him into it.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” I told her. “Closest my father ever came to winning a race was this one time when he was leading with five to go. Some guy who drove like Speedy waited until the last lap and then pushed him right up into the fence.”
Speedy caught up to Cash with two to go. He gave Cash a little love tap to let him know he was there. But Cash refused to drift high. He held his position like he was willing to fight for it. Speedy bumped him again coming out of turn four. This time Cash fishtailed a little, and Speedy rus
hed underneath, into the sliver of daylight that had opened up. Cash straightened the Cougar and went right back at Speedy, bashing into his rear bumper on the front stretch. The crowd was loving it, I was loving it, and the dust was swirling around like God himself had gotten all stirred up over the race.
Cash stuck to Speedy’s bumper and gave him another shove going into the last lap. Speedy slid high and Cash ducked back into first. They were hurtling down the backstretch with Speedy on Cash’s bumper. Rachel was holding my arm, and I was holding her arm, and the bleachers were throbbing.
Cash left Speedy a little bit of room going into turn three. It wasn’t enough for Speedy to move completely underneath Cash, but it was plenty for him to slide up under there and give Cash a firm shot to the rear axle. And that was pretty much all she wrote. Cash spun sideways, and Speedy darted under him. The back side of Cash’s Cougar slammed into the wall right as Speedy took the checkered flag.
Rachel and I sagged against each other.
“What a fucking dick,” she said. “He did that on purpose.”
She looked like she wanted to fight Speedy, herself. I just shook my head.
“I told you it was coming.”
Cash climbed out of his car, and Speedy proceeded to cut his victory lap short. He steered the El Camino toward the back gate.
Rachel and I jumped off the truck in a hurry. I climbed inside and started the engine. Rachel rushed to the window. She had a concerned look on her face.
“Wait. What about your license?”
I dropped the truck down into drive. “Don’t worry. I’m just going over to pick up Cash. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
At least that was my plan. But when I got out to the track, Cash dove in on the passenger side and told me to floor it.
“Hurry the fuck up,” he said. “We’re never gonna catch him.”
“I can’t. I don’t have a license. Remember?”
“The fuck you can’t.” And to illustrate his point, he reached over with his own foot and stomped the accelerator, à la Bev.
We headed off down the backstretch. It was even more fun than I’d imagined as a kid, the way the lights played off the red dirt, the little bump-bump-bump feeling of the ruts on the track, and the way the banked turn seemed to pull me around it with no effort at all. I even did a nice little slide for Rachel, who was still standing in the pits looking bewildered. I tapped the brakes right before the last light pole on the backstretch and then eased back on the throttle, spraying up a wave of dirt. At the last possible instant, I hit the brakes again and whipped the steering wheel back to the right, launching us through the gate and into the parking lot.
Drive Like Hell: A Novel Page 14