The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  We had to work late into the evening to get that XK120 clutch job buttoned up, and when we were done, Barry Spline packed up his gear, bid us good night, and took off for town in one of the customer MGs (on a strictly professional evaluation test-drive, you understand), leaving Butch and me to pretty much fend for ourselves. The sonofabitch didn't even ask if we needed a couple dollars for dinner or maybe a room with a decent shower and clean sheets on the bed. What a guy. But Barry was a stickler about never getting your weekend pay—not one cent of it!—until the job was complete, and that meant back at the Westbridge shop in Manhattan on Monday. Or even Tuesday, if he could get away with it.

  Then again, you couldn't really blame him, since race mechanics with fresh wads of cash in their pockets have sort of a reputation for frequenting quaint, small town drinking establishments and subsequently calling to get bailed out of quaint, small-town jails at 3:30 in the morning. And even if your crew persons managed to avoid encounters with the local police or unpleasant complications with prematurely developed high school girls, they still wouldn't be worth dog shit come the next day. So no way were you going to get dime one out of Barry Spline until after the last spark plug, oil filter, spool of wire, and can of brake fluid were safely restocked in the Westbridge parts department on Monday morning.

  Butch and I made the best of things and set up camp in the parts truck, moving the compressor and most of the larger boxes outside and gathering up newspapers and shop rags and such to make a sort of half-assed mattress. Luckily, we also gathered up several free beers and a couple hefty snorts of rye whiskey from various mechanically bedeviled sportycar types still hanging around the paddock, and I'd have to say Butch and me slept like newborn babies that night.

  Come Saturday we had more car trouble when one of the MGs started popping out of second gear and another had the needle-and-seat jam in the rear carburetor and leak fuel all over the exhaust manifold, resulting in a brief but spectacular engine fire. There wasn't any serious damage, but cleaning up after a fire (and, worse yet, a fire extinguisher) can be a pretty messy business. And how. Plus we had the usual prerace checking of fluid levels and tire pressures and beating a final make-sure tap on the knockoffs, not to mention continued moaning from the Allard drivers, who were coming in off the circuit with their eyes popped open like fried eggs. No question those cars were a handful here, leaping and pounding from one bump to the next like shallow-hull speedboats in choppy water. In the end, the Allard drivers decided to have a major sitdown with the S.C.M.A. armband squad after Saturday morning's final qualifying session, and the upshot was that they all volunteered to withdraw their entries and not run in the race later that afternoon. Volunteered, can you believe it? No way would Tommy Edwards have gone along with a program like that.

  The races started after lunch, and that's when you suddenly run out of stuff to do. So I asked if Butch and me could go watch the races and Barry said ok, just so long as we checked in every now and then and came back to help load up at the end of the day. Fact is, old Barry was in a pretty agreeable mood, and you could see why when you caught a glimpse of the bulge in his back pocket. That was all folding money— more than an inch thick of it!—and I doubt many of those bills had President Washington's or Lincoln's picture on them. Yes sir, the West-bridge Motor Car Company, Ltd., had itself one very successful weekend at Grand Island. And without laying out a lot of extra cash for mechanics' expenses, either.

  Anyhow, I loaded Butch up and we headed over by trackside to find ourselves a decent vantage point, and right away I discovered another Big Convenience about pushing somebody around in a wheelchair: You don't have to shove your way through a crowd. Why, people move aside without even looking at you. In fact, they make a big point of not looking at you, sort of aiming their eyeballs up and to the right as if they recognize a famous circus trapeze act or a rare species of South American fruit bat just a few feet above your left earlobe. Which means you can finesse yourself a much better than average spectating spot with a cripple and a wheelchair.

  The track at Grand Island was a lot like Bridgehampton, what with 3.7 miles of narrow, bumpy blacktop stitched together in a big, uneven rectangle. There were uphills, downhills, two bridge crossings over Spicer Creek, a few fast, sweeping curves down East River Road, and four 90-degree rights to string it all together. Butch and me set ourselves up across from turn one, where Whitehaven Road teed into East River, and it was easy to see why the Allard guys were having problems. Not only was the surface narrow and ripply, but there were also a significant number of solid objects close by the roadside that a slightly out-of-control sports car might easily collect. Like spectators, for example.

  Fact is, they didn't have much at all in the way of crowd control at Grand Island. Not hardly. Oh, they had the usual tire and sparkplug company banners strung up to keep people back, but those came down early, and afterward the fans pretty much wandered wherever the hell they felt like wandering. Even right across the damn track if some ignoramus thought he could make it between race cars! The armband types tried their best to stop them, but all they could do was holler and wave and jump up and down like kids with busted coaster wagons, and that didn't do much good. Even with the P.A. announcer alternately begging, pleading, insisting, and demanding that spectators stay the hell back. But there were only a handful of loudspeakers, and what with the engine noise and echo effect from one to the next, it all came out pretty garbled. Sure, if you stood smack-dab in front of one and listened real close, you could make out: "KEEP OFF THE COURSE! PLEASE!! CLEAR THE RACECOURSE!!!" But if you stepped back even a few feet, it sounded like they were broadcasting Polish through a window fan and no way could you understand a word of it. Not that anybody was much listening, seeing as how everybody wanted to get down close, you know, so they could feel the hot shock wave of exhaust on their shins as the cars thundered past just a few feet in front of their noses. It was nuts! And believe me, I know, because Butch and me were right down there in front with the rest of the goofballs.

  The first race was a tenlapper for rank novices, and it was pretty entertaining, what with lots of flailing elbows and cars squirreling all over the place. A guy named Bob Ryberg won in a blue XK120M similar to Skippy Welcher's (except I don't believe it was ex-anything) and our boy Carson Flegley was in there, too, hustling his black TD along in an agitated manner toward the back of the pack. He was one of those white-knuckle types who hang on to the wheel like they're dangling off the landing gear of a Sopwith Camel while it's strafing enemy trenches. I'd picked up enough from Cal and Tommy Edwards to know that was no way to drive a racing car. But you had to hand it to Carson for being so damn determined, even if he was all jerks and edges and had the bad rookie habit of turning in early, missing his apex, and then having to square off the end of the corner to keep from skating into the dirt. That never works. He ultimately dropped two wheels off, tried to horse it back in line, and wound up snapping back the other way and mowing down a row of mailboxes. Right in front of us! That caused one of the local cops to have a chat with the S.C.M.A. officials about getting the spectators the hell away from that corner. So a couple of them ran over and started shouting and shaking their fists until they'd herded us twenty or thirty yards up Whitehaven Road. Right in the middle of the braking zone. On the next lap, some overeager doofus in a green Jaguar locked all four and looped it through a plot of staked tomato vines just a few feet from where we were standing. So now the cop and the armband people were a little perplexed as to exactly where they should tell us not to stand. Not that it made much difference, since no matter what they said or did, it wouldn't be five minutes before another wave of fans rolled in and filled up the space again. The crazy part was that nobody except the cop and the armband crew seemed the least bit worried. Like we were somehow all in on it—right along with the drivers!—and trusted them not to do anything so brave or foolish as to put their lives (not to mention ours) in jeopardy. Which made no sense at all if you'd spent any time around an
S.C.M.A. paddock and met some of those assholes face-to-face. I mean, people like Carson Flegley and Skippy Welcher didn't exactly fill you with a sense of cool confidence and self-control. Not hardly.

  But in spite of the spins and Carson's trip through the mailboxes, there was no serious damage, and the program moved on to a ten-lapper for small-bore production cars. The field included lots of Porsches and MGs and a couple of those nifty Italian Siatas that looked like miniature Ferraris but sounded more like power lawn mowers, Two of them were running up front, dicing it out hammer and tongs with a couple Porsches and a supercharged MG, when all of a sudden the cars stopped coming around and everything got real quiet. Spooky quiet. I thought the P.A. announcer maybe said something about an "accident," but you couldn't make it out, so now everybody was standing around mumbling and shrugging their shoulders and trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Then a white Cadillac ambulance whooshed by—siren wailing, mars lights flashing—and you could sec some poor guy stretched out in back with a doctor bent over him. The ambulance disappeared up the road, heading toward the bridge, leaving behind a silence so deep and empty you could hear water moving in the river a half mile away.

  We waited the better part of an hour for the S.C.M.A. to get things squared away, and then—like nothing had happened!—the smallbore cars came out to finish their race. Tom Hoan won it in a supercharged TC, but he was pressed hard by some guy named Hansgen in one of those pretty little Siatas. No question he was getting all there was out of that car, and I made a mental note that this Hansgen guy might be worth keeping an eye on. All in all, it was a pretty decent contest. But of course nobody much cared, since all they wanted to know were the latest rumors and whispered grisly details about The Big Wreck and what happened to the poor guy they carted off in the ambulance.

  We got part of the answer between races, when a local tow truck came groaning up East River Road dragging the remains of a Porsche coupe behind it. Jee-zus, what a mess! The roof was all flattened down with big clumps of turf hanging off it, the hood and decklid were ripped clean off, both doors dangled open, and every piece of glass was shattered. The left-front wheel was missing entirely and you could see the left-rear was folded way underneath the fender, so the Porsche was kind of wobbling and skittering along behind the tow truck, making ugly noises like chalk screeching on a blackboard. It was a total—no doubt about it—and you couldn't help wondering and worrying how badly the guy was hurt.

  Or maybe if he wasn't hurting at all anymore.

  Naturally, the accident put everything way behind schedule, and the S.C.M.A. had to shorten the big-bore race and the Grand Island Centennial Grand Prix finale in order to finish before dark. Neither was much of a show, since Creighton Pendleton the Third was on hand with his new 4.1 Ferrari and waltzed off to easy victories in both heats. What with Tommy Edwards home and all the other Allard drivers too chickenshit to run, nobody could so much as catch a whiff off his tailpipes. Far as I was concerned, watching Creighton Pendleton and the gorgeous, chestnut-haired Sally Enderle taking another victory lap in that bright red Ferrari of his was getting a little stale.

  After the checker, I wheeled Butch back to the paddock and helped Barry load up, and we overheard a lot of loose talk about the guy who crashed the Porsche and how it happened. The general gist of it was that he got a little loose through Ferry Bend (by far the fastest turn on the circuit) and compounded things by making about the biggest single mistake a driver can make when his car starts getting away from him: He lifted his foot off the gas. Once that happens, it's usually all over but the cleanup, since no mere mortal is quick or subtle enough to catch it when a car snaps back the other way. Especially a Porsche. Anyhow, the car shot off the road backward, hooked a rut all funny, and went into a series of violent end-for-end flips. The driver damn near came out on the second one, and that's how his left arm got caught between the roof and the pavement when it crunched back down again. On the next roll, eyewitnesses said his arm cracked in the air like a damn bullwhip. It was a real nightmare, no lie.

  Late word from the hospital said he had multiple fractures of his left arm and right leg, a couple cracked ribs, all kinds of cuts and bruises, and a severe concussion. Far as I could see from the remains of that Porsche, he was damn lucky to be alive. Worse yet, the S.C.M.A. didn't have any accident insurance at Grand Island—not one penny!— so the paddock officials were passing the hat to sort of help the guy out with his hospital bills.

  But by far the luckiest people were the spectators down at Ferry Bend. Somehow that Porsche managed to cartwheel down the track at better than 80, bouncing off the scenery and shedding wheels and chunks of hardware every which way, and yet never got into the crowd. And those people were pressed in five- and six-deep along both sides of the road! If you ask me, it was a genuine miracle. Honest to God it was. In fact, the only injury of any kind was a bruised knee some guy got off the front wheel after it tore loose and went bouncing down the road on its own. But just imagine if that Porsche had flipped into the crowd. Jee-zus, arms and legs would've gone flying like bowling pins!

  It made you sick inside just to think about it.

  11: HOME GAMES AND ROAD GAMES

  IT TOOK Saturday night and all day Sunday to make it back from Grand Island, and along the way Butch and I pooled our resources (if you can call four dollars and eighty cents "resources") and rented ourselves a tourist cabin at a cheap mom-and-pop place east of Binghamton. It needed paint and a few windowpanes, but at least the beds were clean and there weren't any bugs. But I kept having dreams about Julie, and what it might be like if she came up to the races and we wound up sharing a room like the one Butch and me were in. Or better yet, a little nicer. Then the scene would shift and we'd be at the racetrack, and that's when everything started to turn all strange on me—like it does sometimes in dreams. I'd be over by the parts truck, trying to fix three MGs and two Jags and the brakes on Tommy's Cad-Allard like some wrench-wielding cartoon octopus, and meanwhile, Julie's just standing there like she's waiting for a train that's five hours late. Barry Spline's there, prancing up and down like a damn drum major—clipboard in hand—cheerfully lining up even more cars to fix. Then, right out of nowhere, Creighton Pendleton comes screaming up and whips his Ferrari around in a magnificent figure-eight powerslide, showering gravel that sparkles like rhinestones, coming to a perfect halt directly in front of Julie. Damn near runs her over, in fact. So Creighton jumps out like he wants to make sure she's OK, and next thing you know, the two of them are sort of smiling and giggling and talking in whispers, and I can't do a thing about it because I'm stuck in the background like a piece of stage scenery, fighting with a frozen-up water pump on some piece-of-shit MG. Every time I take off a nut or undo a hose clamp, it seems to grow another one. And another one after that. And by now Julie and Creighton are nuzzling into each other and even kissing (and French, at that!) but I can't say anything on account of I'm holding the new water pump gasket in my mouth. You know how it goes in bad dreams. I want to run over and make them stop, but it turns out my wrists are shackled to the damn exhaust manifold, and I realize I can't go anywhere until the job is finished. So I try working faster. And faster. And pretty soon I'm spinning wrenches so fast my hands are nothing but a raw-knuckled blur. But it's no use, and in the end all I can do is stand there by that stinking MG with my guts turning to jelly while Creighton Pendleton the Third roars off into the sunset with my girl next to him in that blasted bright red Ferrari of his. . . .

  I told Butch about my dream over coffee and a couple scrambled eggs the next morning, and he thought it was colossally stupid. After all, what would a handsome, bucks-up, well-bred asshole like Creighton Pendleton want with some blue-collar carhop dolly from Passaic? Especially when he already had a magnificent, rich, classy girlfriend like Sally Enderle? Why, he probably wouldn't give somebody like Julie a second look. And that got me even more upset.

  Not that I was getting to see much of Julie since I'd been fired from
her uncle's gas station. In fact, I wasn't seeing her at all, what with my endless work-and-travel schedule as a highly skilled (albeit highly underpaid) Westbridge race mechanic. And it occurred to me, as we headed toward home that quiet Sunday morning, that I really missed seeing Julie. Why, I even missed working at Old Man Finzio's gas station, in spite of him being about the orneriest old fart I'd ever met in my life. I was on my own hook at the Sinclair, running jobs and figuring stuff out for myself instead of playing bottom-of-the-totem-pole grease flunky at Westbridge. So by the time we reached Jersey, I knew I wanted to quit my fancy-ass race mechanic job in Manhattan and move back into my old life. Problem was, I'd come down with a pretty serious case of the racing disease, and once you get a dose, there's just no getting rid of it. Real life is just so damn dull and predictable by comparison. But I had this hot little kernel of an idea in my head that there might be some way, what with Big Ed and Carson Flegley both hot to trot and living close to Passaic, that I might be able to make it all come together at the Old Man's Sinclair.

  After I dropped Butch and his rusted-out Ford off in Newark and took the bus back to Passaic, I stopped at the corner grocery and put my very last dime in the pay phone to call Julie. Sure, I could've done it for free in my Aunt Rosamarina's house, but that phone always came with an extra set of ears and at least four arrogant felines staring you in the face while you were trying to carry on a private conversation. Which is why the pay phone at the corner grocery had become my personal command center ever since I'd moved into the space over my aunt's garage. I mean, there was no way a guy earning race mechanic's wages at Westbridge could afford a frivolous luxury such as his own private phone. Besides, what good would it do, since I was hardly ever home to answer it?