by Burt Levy
I finally got back to town about four in the morning, and everything was dead quiet except for a little breeze rustling through the trees and a faint, threadlike squeaking off the party lanterns still swaying gently to and fro over Lake Street. I still didn't feel sleepy, but there was nothing to do but go back to the room. I was pretty damp from my long walk and all the other things that had happened, so I stepped in the shower and turned the hot tap up until I could hardly stand it and went over my body again and again until my fingers were wrinkled like prunes and the bar of soap was worn down to nothing. But no matter how much I tried to clean myself, I still felt scummy all over.
15: A NIGHT ON MICHIGAN AVENUE
IT DIDN'T seem like I was asleep for more than two minutes before I was awakened by engines firing and Charlie Priddle's irritating voice booming through the loudspeakers outside my window, calling for all drivers in the Kimberly Cup smallbore race to get themselves to the grid. Gee whiz, it was almost ten ayem! I hopped in the shower again just to wake myself up, threw on my dirty jeans and T-shirt, and carefully folded duds. Ernesto Julio's Cinderella clothes and set them gently on the windowsill. I made a mental note that I really ought to have them cleaned and pressed (and maybe have that little rip mended) before I gave them back. At least I felt a little more like myself again in my old wrenching clothes. I went downstairs and bummed a cup of coffee from the back door of Siebken's kitchen, then wandered out front to see the first race.
The smallbore contest looked like it would boil down to a scrap between a bright red OSCA driven by a guy named Bill Spear, one of the quicker Porsches, a couple heavily modified MGs, and a highly regarded little homebuilt from the West Coast based on parts from a small French sedan called a Simca. To tell the truth, I wasn't too interested. But then I recognized Cal's familiar old polo helmet sticking up out of Carson Flegley's black MG TD about halfway down the pack, and all of a sudden I was right up on the fences, shouting and waving my arms and yelling for Cal to "Give 'em hell!"
And did he ever. He charged right down the inside into that first hard left and immediately picked up three or four positions, and by the time they completed lap two, he was up to about tenth or so and easily leading all the other stock MGs. In fact, he was having a hell of a scrap with one of the modified TCs that should've been a whole lot faster. Only Cal more than made up the difference, and you could see he was really enjoying getting under this guy going into the corners and passing him only to have him scream past on the straightaways so he could do it all over again! The guy in the hopped-up MG didn't seem to be enjoying it one bit, and you could see he was getting more ragged and desperate each lap as he tried to hang on to through the twisty bits. Finally, he lost it in a big way—right in front of me!—getting into one of those ugly left-right-left-right deals and snapping into a spin when he simply couldn't steer fast enough to keep up anymore. The MG plowed into the fencing right smack-dab in front of the Osthoff Hotel! The car wasn't really going all that fast by the time it hit, and about all it did was knock some people over. But there were a few cuts and bruises and one lady got a broken leg when somebody fell on her. So they waved a bunch of yellow flags and ambulances came wailing in from all directions (no question they were prepared for the worst at Elkhart that year) but most people said they'd seen worse at high school football games.
Anyhow, that Spear guy's OSCA ultimately won the race, and my buddy Cal took the trophy for best finish by a truly stock MG and afterward acted like it was nothing special at all. I was coming to understand that about really great drivers: Given any sort of competitive machine and decent opportunity, they expect to win.
They got the mess in front of the Osthoff mopped up pretty quickly, and everything was back in place in plenty of time for the thirty-one-lap Elkhart Lake Cup at 12:30 P.M. But it was kind of a letdown after all the close dices we'd seen in the other heats. Simply put, nobody could keep up with the Cunninghams. In fact, Creighton Pendleton didn't even make the grid with his Ferrari. Somebody heard he'd had some valve spring problems, but I was right there when they loaded it on the trailer, and it sounded healthy as all getout to me. There were a couple nicely finished local specials called Excaliburs that looked an awful lot like Sabre jets, but they were just cut-down Henry Js underneath and not really up to the challenge. But they looked neat as hell, and the guy who built them—that industrial designer out of Milwaukee named Brooks Stevens—wanted to mass-produce them as a sort of all-American answer to the MGs and such from overseas.
Tommy and Phil Hill rolled out with our C-types, and, along with Eddie Dearborn's rambunctious Cad-Allard, they looked to be the only possible threat to the Cunninghams. And I must admit Tommy didn't look that sharp, what with his face all pale and drawn like he had a bad case of stomach flu. When the race finally started, it was the three Cunninghams thundering away at the green and roaring away from the field in close formation. Johnny Fitch in the number three roadster and Phil Walters in the evil-looking C4RK coupe soon pulled away from Briggs himself in the other roadster, and you could see those two were just sort of playing with each other at that stage, mindful that 200 miles is a long, long way, and that it's all too easy to use up a race car in short order if you really start flogging it. Phil Hill drew a fourth-row starting position and had to do a little fancy footwork to slice through traffic, but then he reeled in the third-place Cunningham and even managed to pass Briggs after being bottled up for a few laps. Then he took off after the leaders, and you could see that he really had the bit between his teeth. But the Cunningham team signaled their drivers that the C-type was after them, and right away Walters picked up the pace and passed Fitch, and then Fitch turned up the wick and repassed Walters, and the gap to Phil Hill's C-type began to grow.
But it wasn't really Phil's fault, on account of the tin-can muffler had burned through on the inside where you couldn't see it, and the way the air came down the side of the car and up over the door was putting all the fumes directly into his face. At first he didn't realize what was happening or why the road seemed to be wobbling and staggering away from him all the time. But he figured it out after Briggs repassed him for third place, and he spent the last hundred-odd miles with his head hanging over the driver-side door, trying to get a little fresh air and clear out the cobwebs. Meanwhile Tommy worked his way through to a boring, solitary fifth overall after a brief skirmish with Eddie Dearborn in his brutal J2X Allard.
So it turned into a pretty dull procession, with Fitch running a few seconds ahead of Walters (but neither one of them really pushing it to the limit), then a long gap to Briggs in the third Cunningham, another long gap to the woozy-but-recovering Phil Hill, and yet another thirty seconds back to Tommy in our Jag. Fact is, the only race worth watching was between a few standard-issue Jag 120s back in the pack, but I didn't know any of the drivers, so it really didn't mean anything to me.
After the races, I helped Tommy load our stuff into the green Jaguar and we said our good-byes to Ernesto Julio and Phil Hill and Chuck Day and I wound up giving Ernesto Julio his clothes back all wadded up in a ball. But he didn't seem to mind. "Have a good time in them?" was all he said, and I told him I did.
There was a big awards banquet scheduled for 6:30 that evening, but a lot of folks who had twenty- or thirty- or fifty-hour drives home were packing up and heading out just as soon as they could. The spectators had already leaked off down Route 57 toward Milwaukee, and it appeared the big S.C.M.A. victory bash was going to look more like a wake for a poor relation.
Tommy hadn't said much of anything all day, and you could see he was having trouble coming to terms with the way Phil Hill had smoked him. Plus all the hooch he'd packed away hadn't helped matters. But he disappeared with a couple of guys from the Cunningham team after checking us out of our room, and when he came back an hour or so later, he had a little of the old sparkle back in his eye and some small portion of the customary military snap to his step. "I say, sport," he said through a tight grin, "I need you to do me
a bit of a favor."
"Sure thing," I told him. "Just name it."
"I have to go someplace right after dinner."
"No problem. I'll give you a lift. Doesn't matter to me."
"No, you don't understand, sport. I need to go somewhere with one of my friends from, well, nevermind from where. But the point is I need you to take Creighton's car back to New York for me."
"Creighton's car??"
"Of course. He owns the green C-type. Didn't you know?"
"I don't get it. I thought that car belonged to Colin St. John."
"Well," Tommy explained, drawing close, "it's all supposed to be terribly hush-hush, but Creighton owns the green car. Bought it sight unseen, the way I heard it. But the bloke wanted to know if it was faster than his Ferrari before he took a chance with it. Smart move, that. Didn't want to burn his bloody bridges with Carlo Sebastian and the Muscatelli brothers. So he asked Colin to keep things quiet and find somebody decent to drive it for him, and Colin rang me up to see if I'd be interested."
"Wow."
"Yes sir, he's a pretty shrewd customer, that Creighton Pendleton is. But he didn't bloody figure on the second car. Didn't bloody figure on it a'tall. And I'm sure old Colin quite forgot to mention it during the negotiations."
"That sounds like him. So now what happens?"
"Well, I go take a hot shower, get myself some dinner, and head for the airport. As for the rest of it, I suppose Creighton'll have Colin St. John sell the Jag before anybody else finds out he's owned it. Then he'll most likely write Carlo Sebastian a rather huge personal check and buy himself whatever the next hot new Ferrari turns out to be."
"You don't think he'll keep the C-type?"
Tommy shook his head. "I expect not. Oh, it's a wonderful driving car, and possibly the best in the whole bloody world over distance, but it's just not powerful enough for our kind of racing. At least, not on tracks like this one, where torque and top-end power are at such a premium. You need yourself a real brute of a car with a god-awful monstrous engine if you want to run with the Cunninghams. . . ."
"But aren't they in a different class?"
"So what? Classes aren't what's important. At least not to somebody like Creighton Pendleton. Or myself either, come to that. People like us need to be in there, you know?"
"In there?"
"Right. You know, scrapping it out at the front of the pack and that sort of thing. That's why I'm going back to my Allard first bloody chance I get."
"You think your Allard is faster than a C-type?" I mean, that just didn't sound right. Why, the Jaguar looked a whole generation lower and lighter and sleeker and, well, more refined than any blessed Allard I'd ever seen.
"Oh, maybe not now," Tommy allowed, "but mark my words, my young mechanical friend, it will be. . . ."
"I don't get it."
"Nor should you, Buddy. Nor should you," Tommy grinned. "Just remember what your fine president Mr. Roosevelt once said."
"You mean about there being nothing to fear but fear itself?"
"The other Mr. Roosevelt. Theodore. Do you recall?"
I shook my head. I mean, all I knew about Teddy Roosevelt was that he had buck teeth and wore spectacles and led some calvary charge up San Juan Hill.
"Well," Tommy whispered with an exaggerated wink, "Mr. Theodore Roosevelt advised that one should speak softly and carry a big stick, and I believe I've discovered exactly where such a bigger stick might be found."
"I'm still lost."
"No matter. This is still the time for speaking softly, my young friend. Just get that Jaguar of Mr. Pendleton's back to New York without a scratch, don't let on to anyone that it's his car, and be ready to put some bloody long hours in the next few weeks before Watkins Glen." And with that, he handed me a neatly folded wad of twenty-dollar bills.
"Geez, Tommy, what's this for?"
"Road emergencies. Bed and board. Phone calls. You know. But I'd actually appreciate a bit of change back when I see you again in Manhattan." He shot me a wink. "But not too awfully much."
And without another word, Tommy Edwards lifted his leather overnight bag out of the passenger-side footwell and headed back into the Osthoff. "And by the way, sport," he called back over his shoulder, "do try not to get arrested."
I decided not to hang around for the big victory banquet, and after Tommy made his mysterious exit, I just flat couldn't wait to get back on the road and home to Jersey. I wanted to see Julie, you know? In fact, I took off with every intention of driving straight through without stopping for food or gas or even to take a damn leak. But that notion faded a little south of Milwaukee, when I about dozed off at the wheel and came to the sudden realization (as I narrowly avoided putting the C-type into a ditch!) that I was tired as hell and desperately in need of some sleep. Driving solo in the green car was lots different from chasing after it in the silver one, and without Tommy out there in front like a carrot on a stick, it wasn't near so much fun. Sure, people still stared at me goggle-eyed out of their Nashes and Plymouths, but I was past getting excited about it. It was just hot and cramped and uncomfortable, and I couldn't believe I'd never noticed it on the way out from New York. Of course, we'd been traveling damn near the speed of sound when Tommy was leading the way, and I was afraid to go much more than ten over the posted limits on my own. I mean, what the hell was I going to tell a cop if he stopped me?
I was past dead tired by the time I reached the suburb of Winnetka about forty minutes north of Chicago, and you should have seen some of the houses there along the lakefront on Sheridan Road, all lit up with columns and archways at the end of long, gated driveways. Why, you could almost smell the antique Oriental carpets and wall safes hidden behind oil paintings and perfectly straight teeth on all the kids. It was a world you could never even dream of breaking into from the outside, and I knew it.
But I could maybe sneak a little peek into that life every now and then through racing. And that's why I decided to put myself up for the night at one of those big, fancy hotels on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. I told myself it was just so's I'd have a safe place to park the Jag, and I figured that old Tommy would probably go along with a story like that. So I followed the ghostly sweep of the Palmolive beacon down the Outer Drive into Chicago, and stopped just about smack-dab in front of it at the Drake Hotel. The doorman was all dressed up in gold braid and brass buttons, and once he got a look at the C-type, he didn't need any excuses for my grubby T-shirt or ragged windbreaker or dirty tennis shoes. "Will you be spending the night, sir?" was all he said, and when I told him to be extra-careful with the car, he bristled and said, "Of course, sir," with a little touch of frost in his voice. So I tipped him a whole dollar, just to melt the ice. And it worked like a charm, just the way Big Ed always said it did.
My room at the Drake Hotel cost more than an entire week's pay as a Westbridge race mechanic, but I didn't care. The bed had silk ruffles and you could look out the window and see the Outer Drive arcing gracefully northward toward the suburbs and the searchlight sweep of the Palmolive beacon as it rotated through the low-lying clouds at regular intervals. It was well past 10:30 (which meant it was almost midnight back in Passaic), but I decided to take a chance and call Julie anyway. She answered the phone herself, thank goodness, and I can't tell you how great it felt to talk to her again. She seemed pretty happy to hear from me, too. "So, how've y'been?" I asked.
"Same as always. How'bout you?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"I haven't heard from you in quite a while, Buddy."
"Yeah. I know. I been real busy. . . ."
"That's what I figured. The girls told me you stopped by the Doggie Shake with that English guy on your way out of town."
"Tommy Edwards."
"They said he's pretty cute."
"Cute?" Somehow "cute" was not exactly the sort of word I would have ever used to describe Tommy Edwards. But then, girls have their own private language when it comes to stuff like that.
"So
where are you?"
"In Chicago. At the Drake Hotel." And I told her a little about my room and the swell view out my window.
"Sounds nice," she whispered dreamily. "I almost wish I could be there with you. . . ."
"So do I, Julie, so do I," I heard myself whisper back while all sorts of new thoughts and feelings swirled around inside me. Or maybe they were just urges. Sometimes it's hard for a guy to tell the difference. Anyhow, we kind of hung there on the phone line for the longest time—not saying a thing—just sort of running up my long-distance bill and listening to each other breathe and maybe even pretending a little like we were actually alone together in that wonderful and perfect hotel room overlooking Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
After we hung up I didn't feel much like sleeping, so I took the elevator downstairs and went for a stroll up Michigan Avenue toward the Chicago River. It was chilly that evening, and I had to zip up my windbreaker and pop the collar up around the back of my neck. But it was a nice walk anyway, past all the fancy shops and the Tribune Tower, which looked like a big, empty stone cathedral. Across the street was the Wrigley Building, all lit up and glowing like carved ivory, and every minute or so the Palmolive beacon would sweep across the sky above it. Fact is, I'd always thought Manhattan was about the prettiest city in the world, especially the view across the Hudson from the Jersey side around Englewood Cliffs. But as I walked across the Michigan Avenue Bridge to the other side of the Chicago River and watched one of the late-night party boats pulling in at the dock down below, I had to admit it didn't have all that much on this town.