Lifemobile

by Jonathan Rintels

  “He’s not trying to win,” Kenny conceded. “I’m not trying to win. We will not win. Are you happy?”

  “Okay,” I conceded at last. “Bring it in.”

  “Roger that,” said Kenny.

  “Benjy!” I shouted, waving at him to come over from the pit wall. “You’re driving next!”

  He came over, eyeing me questioningly. “The plan is for you to drive next,” he said.

  “Kenny’s the captain and this is his order,” I explained, peeling off the safety suit we were sharing. “We’re a team, we gotta be flexible, and we gotta follow the captain’s orders.”

  “I don’t know,” said Benjy, un-persuaded. The idea of changing the driving order had thrown him a dozen curve balls all at once.

  “Benjy,” said Lydia, putting a soothing hand on his shoulder. “When the manager at McDonald’s gave me an order, I had to follow it. Right? Or else, I got fired. That’s the way it works when the captain of the team gives an order. You have to follow it.”

  He couldn’t resist her. “Right,” he finally said. “Okay.”

  Lydia helped him wriggle into the tight safety suit. As Kenny eased the Deathmobile into our pit stall and shut it off, I rolled his chair over to the car.

  “He ain’t ready yet?” Kenny groused, sliding into his chair from the safety seat. “Man, this’ll be the slowest pit stop in the history of the automobile. We’ll fall back twenty places!”

  “We aren’t winning,” I reminded him testily. “We don’t care about winning!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kenny mocked. “A guy cain’t have fun anymore.” Then he heard the ovation for him from the fans in the grandstand and the other race teams in the pits. He took off his helmet and bowed, beaming. Then he needled the crew in the pit next to ours that was fueling up the Fuzz Ball, their salvage police car. “We don’t need no stinkin’ gas,” Kenny teased. “We’re gettin’ great gas mileage and still blowin’ yer doors off!”

  Kenny signaled me to lean down so he could speak softly. “I think I sold those Fuzz Ball guys a Corvair. For real. They talked to me about it before the race.” He gestured to me to come closer and his voice grew so soft, I could barely hear it over the roar from the track. “When I got back from Iraq,” he said, “and I was in the hospital, and the days were bad, the physical therapist would tell me to imagine what my best day ever would be like, because one day, if I did the rehab, I would live it. This is not that day. This is a better day. So I really don’t care where we finish. Because I already won.” He paused, then asked softly, “But don’t tell Benjy, okay? Let him race like it means something. He’ll have more fun that way.”

  I desperately wanted Benjy to be a tortoise, but I couldn’t resist Kenny’s plea. As Benjy climbed over the wall, his helmet, gloves, and safety suit finally on, I nodded my agreement. “Move your tail, Kid!” Captain Kenny ordered gruffly. “We got a race to run!”

  “Yes, sir!” Benjy opened the door and buckled himself into the safety seat while I reviewed with him an endless stream of cautions he’d now heard over nine billion times. Nodding intently, he adjusted his seat and mirrors, murmuring his pre-drive checklist.

  “Radio check,” I ordered.

  “Benjy to pit!” came through loud and clear in my headset.

  With no more cautions to give, I had nothing left to say except, “Fire it up.” The Deathmobile started eagerly.

  “I love you, Benjy,” I said.

  “Okay,” he replied.

  I stepped back as he checked his mirror a final time, put the Powerglide in Drive, and cautiously nosed the Deathmobile out of the pit like a turtle sticking its head out of its shell.

  “Be a tortoise!” I shouted after him. Kenny glared at me. “I can’t help it,” I told him.

  “Rock and roll, Benjy!” Lydia screamed at the top of her lungs. “Woo woo! Put that hammer down!”

  I glared at her. “We’re driving like a tortoise, remember?”

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “Closet wannabe cheerleader.” She didn’t sound very sorry.

  Kenny intently watched Benjy merge the Deathmobile onto the track ahead of the Fuzz Ball. “Great,” he moaned, sensing trouble. “That cop car is on his tail, they got a cop car engine, and they’re heading to the S-curves.” He grabbed the radio headset from me and put it on.

  Through my binoculars, I saw Benjy give way ahead of the S-curves and let the Fuzz Ball pass him and open up a long lead. But in the curves, it had to brake hard as it wallowed from side to side. Meanwhile, Benjy confidently glided the Deathmobile through the turns, maintaining his speed so that he was soon right back on the Fuzz Ball’s tail. “That was good, guiding him on how to handle that police car,” I said to Kenny.

  “I didn’t say a word to him,” Kenny replied. “He did it himself.” He winked at Lydia, who hopped from one foot to the other, craned her neck, and ran up and down along the pit wall to watch every second of Benjy’s drive.

  In the back straightaway now, the Fuzz Ball used its gargantuan cop car V-8 to pull away from the Deathmobile. But entering the tight bus-stop turns, where the cars had to almost stop to go around a bus shelter, the cop car had to brake early and hard. Benjy stayed close, then in the last corner ducked low and inside as the Fuzz Ball’s bulk forced it out wide until it was nearly off the track and into the grass.

  “HE PASSED THE FUZZ BALL!” Lydia exploded, jumping and spinning in the air. “Take that, you Big Fat Energy Hog!” She high-fived Kenny, then tried to high-five me as well, but held back when she saw my glare.

  “Sorry,” she apologized again. “I just can’t help it. Aren’t you excited?!”

  “You’re fine,” I said. “I’m just not there yet.”

  “WELL, I AM!” she blasted, turning back to the track and cheering wildly as Benjy left the Fuzz Ball behind and took aim at his next pass—the alien-bearing Area 51 hearse now back on the track after pit repairs. “Eat that alien up, Benjy! Balls to the Wall!”

  “Lydia!” I shouted.

  “Let him alone,” she barked back to me. “Let. Him. Go.”

  I glared at her. Hard. And she glared right back. Finally, I turned away from her to watch Benjy drive. Fortunately, he wasn’t hearing Lydia’s shouts, because he wasn’t driving Balls to the Wall to pass Area 51. Instead, he bided his time. For one, two, then three laps, he brought the Deathmobile past our pit, stalking the Alien hearse. He drove modestly, even stolidly, yet on each lap he gained a few precious car lengths. Like a pro, he was setting the hearse up for a pass.

  Something was wrong, though. I wasn’t sure what, but, each time the Deathmobile passed our pit, I knew something was very, very wrong.

  I looked over to the grandstands where the crowd was hanging on Benjy’s methodical pursuit of the hearse, cheering him on. “Deathmobile!” saluted the partying fans, hoisting beer cups as Benjy flew past, gaining on the hearse. If only they’d known how we got here: that, just a few months earlier, Benjy wouldn’t or couldn’t get out of bed after his college rejection; he wouldn’t go to the DMV to apply for a driver’s license because he was certain he’d be rejected; the only racing he’d ever done was in his video game; he had no friends. And then he let a “different, but not disabled” car enter his life. And that car had changed everything.

  “DEATHMOBILE!” the crowd roared again as Benjy finished another lap, now just two car lengths behind the hearse.

  Yes, something was very wrong. And I had to put a stop to it. “Let me talk to him,” I said to Kenny, holding my hand out for the radio.

  “You can’t,” replied Kenny. “The mike is stuck open again.”

  “Is he talking?”

  Kenny shrugged evasively. He reluctantly surrendered the headset. “Don’t get all Aunt Mildred about it. He’s driving incredible.”

  I put on the headset and listened.

  Stalking the Area 51 Alien-Bearing Hearse down the back straightaway at Summit Point, Benjy Bennett, the talented rookie who has taken the Grand Prix by s
torm, knew the hearse was loose. It seemed to want to roll over in every turn.

  Still, Benjy was part of a team and he had strict orders. He was the tortoise in this race. But it’s the tortoise that eventually wins the race, not the hare, so at some point the tortoise must pass the hare. That time had come. It was time for the tortoise to make his move.

  There would be no nudging. There would be no swapping paint. This was not some kid playing a video game. No, the New Kid on the Block knew the difference between luck and skill, and he couldn’t rely on luck anymore; there was only his skill. He would have to outthink and outdrive the hearse and everyone else on the track today.

  Benjy was now on the bumper of the hearse as he passed the pit again, and again the crowd cheered him on. At the end of the S-curves, he made his move. The hearse had carried too much speed into the final curve and had to lock up and smoke its brakes to stay on course. Benjy held his speed and easily slid by. He’d patiently waited for the hearse to give him his opportunity, and he’d taken it.

  “DEATHMOBILE!” thundered the crowd after he pulled ahead of the hearse. And as Benjy roared past the grandstand, Lydia became the cheerleader she’d always wanted to be, leading the fans chanting, “DEATHMOBILE! DEATHMOBILE! DEATHMOBILE!”

  Every bone in my body said all this was wrong, terribly wrong. As I heard Benjy plot his next pass into the open mike, I removed the headset. I had seen and heard enough. His talking to himself sounded so appropriate, such a welcome change from the same reciting I’d heard every morning for the past five years. And he was driving responsibly, even beautifully. That only strengthened my resolve. I had to take action.

  Kenny saw my misgivings. “It’s harmless,” he said. “He talks to himself. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Just let him race. He’s a natural.”

  I handed Kenny the head set, then marched to the pit wall and held up our sign ordering Benjy to pit. A half mile ahead of the Alien hearse now, he saw the sign as he passed and gave a puzzled thumbs up, even though the stop wasn’t on the schedule.

  “He wants to know why he has to come in,” Kenny relayed from the radio.

  “Tell him it’s because his mike is stuck,” I shouted to be heard over the engines.

  “I cain’t tell him his mike is stuck when his mike is stuck! Ben, just cuz he’s reciting is no reason to pull him in. We don’t need the radio. Most teams don’t even have radios.”

  “He’s doing great!” Lydia shouted at me. “He’s not doing anything wrong! Why do you have to ruin it for him?”

  Kenny put his hand on Lydia’s arm to calm her down.

  “I am his father,” I said tersely. “I don’t need to explain or justify anything to either of you.”

  Kenny and Lydia threw up their hands—I was a jerk, ruining everything.

  “Look, this is important to me,” I tried to explain. “It’s between Benjy and me. I don’t expect you to understand.” I left them and walked over to the pit wall.

  Following race rules to the letter, Benjy slowed to a safe speed and eased his way down pit road, then expertly turned into our stall. He shifted the car to neutral, pulled up the parking brake, turned off the engine, and hopped out of the car. “What’s wrong, Dad?” he shouted at me.

  With a can of black paint that I’d found in Kenny’s tool chest, I hopped over the pit wall and completely sprayed over the “Death” in Deathmobile on Benjy’s door. I hated that word. I never wanted to hear it again.

  Above where I’d painted over “Death,” I wrote “Life.”

  “From now on, we’re driving the Lifemobile,” I informed Benjy. “Is that clear?”

  “Okay,” said Benjy. He eyed me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “Now get back out there and race,” I ordered. “Carefully.”

  Benjy didn’t wait for me to change my mind. He hopped back in the car and had pulled onto Pit Lane before I realized I’d forgotten to tell him to unstick his mike button. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t need my help out there.

  I walked back over to Kenny and Lydia.

  Lydia nodded, slowly raising her hand for a high five, and I gladly slapped it.

  Kenny offered his hand, and I shook it. He held on, then pulled me down into an embrace. He was crying.

  CHAPTER 20

  The cemetery’s grass was freshly cut; not a blade raised its head over Annie’s or Dad’s flat, simple grave markers. That impressed me—the management had no notice that I was coming. After the Grand Prix had ended, and we’d put the Lifemobile back on Kenny’s trailer for the ride home, the summer solstice sun was still high. We hadn’t won the race, of course, but we’d finished a very respectable 14th, still running strong as the checkered flag waved. The Almightiest Judge of the Grand Prix du Garbage was so ecstatic that he shook up a bottle of beer, sprayed it all over Kenny, and then came out of the closet, publicly proclaiming himself a Corvair-loving, Corvair-owning Friend of Ed. During the revelry, my thoughts had turned to Annie and Dad; they would have rejoiced in Benjy’s triumphant day. The cemetery wasn’t far from the racetrack and it was on the way to Lydia’s father’s house. So here I was.

  The first time I’d come here, I had buried Dad while still fuming about the sharp salesman that had him buy these family plots when he wasn’t thinking clearly. The next—and last—time I had visited, I buried Annie. So I never had fond feelings for the place. But now, as the sun set over the Appalachian Mountains, with the grass pristine and the manager patiently waiting for me at the gate, albeit after I’d slipped him $20, I found the place growing on me. Maybe, when Dad bought these plots, he knew exactly what he was doing.

  In the parking area below the graves, Benjy paced in a circle, furiously reciting, flapping his hand, still flying high from the exhilaration of his first race. I’d tried to persuade him to come with me up the hill to the graves. “No, thanks,” he insisted. A few months earlier, I might have insisted right back, loudly, that he join me, that it was his duty as a son and grandson. A shouting match might have erupted. But now I accepted his decision. Of course, having Lydia glare at me, silently telling me to let Benjy make up his own mind, was also persuasive.

  From atop the hill, I watched them; as Benjy paced, Lydia leaned against our Corvair and chatted with him, her eyes following him back and forth as if she were watching a tennis match. We’d butted heads a lot today, but Benjy was crazy about her, and she had been so wonderfully supportive of him. We both wished she wasn’t moving away.

  Although what happened next made me wonder if she was too supportive of him.

  “Still wired from the race?” I asked Benjy when I returned to the car.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “I can’t wait to do it again.” He stopped pacing. Then he said, “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mom and Granddad aren’t alive anymore. So when you were up there, you were only talking to yourself. They can’t hear you. You always tell me not to talk to myself.”

  “You’re right,” I confessed. “But, standing there at their graves, I thought, what the heck, if they can hear me and I don’t talk out loud, what a waste of time it was coming here. Or maybe I was just talking to myself. I don’t know.”

  “Dead people can’t hear, Dad,” he pressed. “So I don’t see why we had to come here. You can talk to yourself at home. We didn’t have to come to a cemetery. I don’t like cemeteries. They’re just full of decomposing dead bodies.”

  I eyed Lydia. “Is this what you were discussing while I was up there?”

  She shrugged innocently. “Among other things.”

  “Yes,” Benjy confirmed, resuming his pacing. “Since you were up there talking to yourself for so long.”

  “Well, here’s what I took so long to say up there, in case you’re interested. I told them that the Almighty Judges of the Grand Prix du Garbage unanimously chose you as their Rookie of the Year and gave you that big trophy in the back of the car. And I told them that you passed your driver’s test in our Corvair. Your Grandpa would
jump out of the grave and do back flips if he heard that. And I told Mom that you made two friends, Kenny and Lydia. She would love hearing that. And I told them that, after working unbelievably hard to pass your math assessment, you’re going to college, and that someday in the future I have no doubt you will live independently, just like you’ve always wanted. And I told them how incredibly proud I am of you and all you’ve accomplished, and all you will accomplish tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. And that I wish they were here to see it all, to experience the same love and joy and pride that I’m feeling right now.”

  “But they aren’t there in the dirt,” Benjy insisted. “So you could have told them at home.” He was not what you might call “sentimental.”

  “Benjy,” Lydia chided, “you’re missing the point. Your dad was complimenting you. It was nice. And appropriate. Give it a rest.”

  “It still seems like a double standard,” Benjy complained. “You shouldn’t talk to yourself, Dad. That’s the rule for everyone.”

  “I won’t anymore,” I pledged. “One rule for everyone.”

  “So now tell him what you told me,” Lydia urged Benjy.

  He firmly shook his head no.

  “What?” I prodded.

  Benjy hesitated. “Mom should have gotten a flu shot,” he said finally. “They were only twenty dollars at the pharmacy. I saw other moms get them.”

  “I wish she had, too,” I said. “I really, really wish she had. Because I miss her so much.”

  Suddenly turning purple, Benjy erupted into tears. I reached to embrace him, but he refused, wriggling away from my touch. “It’s okay to cry,” I told him. “I’m crying, too.”

  Soon, Benjy announced, “I’m okay. I’m fine.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  “We’ve been talking about a lot of stuff,” Lydia said. “As you can see.”

  I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and looked to Benjy. “Is there more you want to say?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Say it,” Lydia encouraged him.

  “What?” I asked. “She’s right. You can tell me.”