The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  "Then you're in," Spud nodded, grinding his cigar stub out in his saucer.

  "So, where'd you guys race before Syracuse?"

  "Hmm. Lessee," Spud mused, thinking it over. "We ran the week before at Du Quoin, Illinois. I think it was Chuck Stevenson won that race. Sammy was up to fourth, but we lost a cylinder. Plug wire shorted out. Damn insulation melted, y'know? Anyhow, that would've been Sunday, I think. The day before we were up by Detroit for a hundred-miler. Sammy did good up there and finished third. . . ."

  "It was fourth."

  "OK, fourth. Billy Vukovich won that one for J. C. Agajanian. Drove his ass off, too."

  "He's a wild one," Sammy Speed agreed with a mixture of awe and defiance. "Someday I'm gonna have me a car that good. Then we'll see what's what...."

  "Your time'll come, Sammy. No doubt about that."

  "Nope. No doubt a'tall." You couldn't miss the fierce look of determination in Sammy Speed's eyes.

  "Where was I?" Spud asked. "Oh yeah. Detroit. The week before that was the Milwaukee State Fair, and two weeks before that was Springfield, and, geez, I can't remember it all straight without my notebook. It's out in the truck. . . ."

  "So that's all you guys do? Just go around to the races?"

  "Yup. We're on our way to Denver for a race on the twenty-eighth, and I'm hoping we can maybe stop home in Fort Worth t'give the old crate a little rebuild and a few fresh parts. She's pretty wore out right now—the race car and the tow wagon both—and it wouldn't hurt t'check in on my wife an' see if I'm still married. Then we'll haul on up to Denver for the race at Centennial Park, head south when that one's over for the race in Phoenix. If the money holds out, anyways. But that's the last one on the schedule. Fr'this year, anyway. And, like Sammy says, we got some irons in the fire for a little better sponsorship deal and maybe even a newer chassis and engine fr'next year. . . ."

  "Yeah," Sammy sighed, rubbing his eyes. "That'd sure go a long way toward putting a few more beans on the table."

  "Might even get us in the first couple rows at Indianapolis come next May. That's where the real money is."

  "Wow!" I said, giving the two of them a low, respectful whistle. "I can't believe you guys actually make a full-time living off this!"

  "Neither can we!" Spud laughed.

  "Well," Sammy allowed with a tough, weary edge to his voice, "we been at it three whole seasons now, and somehow we're still at it."

  "Yeah," Spud grinned, shooting me a sideways wink, "only just puh-leez don't ask us how."

  16: ANOTHER HOMECOMING

  I HAD a lot to think about during the long drive across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was a beautiful September day, and the green C-type was running sweet and turning heads everywhere it went. But I couldn't just lean back and enjoy it, on account of I was coming to understand that I would never amount to more than a grunt-level working stiff at Westbridge, and the fact it offered me a chance to rub shoulders with a bunch of rich, stylish people with entirely too much time on their hands and money in their pockets didn't necessarily mean any of it was going to rub off on me. Sure, I loved the exotic cars and the excitement of the races, and no question it was rewarding to put your time and effort into a machine and then have some topflight hot-shoe like Cal or Phil Hill or Tommy Edwards really put the spurs to it and finish up front. There wasn't anything like that in everyday life.

  But after meeting Sammy Speed and Spud Webster—two guys who were out there on their last couple nickels, rolling the highway from one dirt-track bullring to the next, trying like hell to break into the bigtime before they went broke and make an actual living out of automobile racing—well, all of a sudden those rich sportycar guys started looking like a bunch of lah-de-dah Play Racers. It was all about money, see, and I was coming to understand that poor, dull, blue-collar grunts like me generally wound up working for the Colin St. Johns and Barry Splines of this world, or wound up living hand-to-mouth on the road like Spud Webster and Sammy Speed. Or—worse yet—wound up with a lifetime position as some rich dork's Personal Racing Squire like that poor geek Milton Fitting was for Skippy Welcher. And here I was, heading back across the Appalachians in one of the two rarest, fastest, most valuable sports cars in the whole damn country, thinking on and off about Julie and how this really wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Sure, I wanted to stay around the racing, but I wanted to earn a decent damn living at it, too! It was a shame my old man wasn't around to hear all that stuff going through my head. I mean, it sounded a lot like all that "responsible adult" garbage he used to lecture me about after the ninth inning was over and there was no beer left in the refrigerator. Then again, who wanted to give him the blessed satisfaction? It made me wonder just what the hell was going on inside of me, you know?

  No question some of the glamour had faded during the long road trips and sweaty garage nights and rocky mornings-after. Especially after seeing the look in Sammy Speed's and Spud Webster's eyes when they talked about tire money and how far they were from home and all the nights they'd slept in the back of the truck just so's they'd have enough gas and coffee money to make the next event. And I came to realize I was coming down with a pretty serious touch of the Racing Disease myself, where the days start running together and you're forever swallowed up by the thousands of little details that have to get themselves handled before the next green flag falls and turns the cars loose again. And all of a sudden I saw how a bright, eager, enthusiastic young guy could turn himself into a haggard, bleary-eyed, weak-willed chunk of meat stuck at the end of the socket ratchets and box-end wrenches that actually got the work done. On the other hand, who the hell wanted to make a living doing dumbass tune-ups and brake jobs on the ordinary Fords, Chevys, and Henry Js that all the ordinary rank-and-file lunchbuckets of this world drove to work every morning and out to grandma's house for dinner every Sunday afternoon? But where was the damn future in being a race car mechanic?

  I did a lot of deep thinking as the C-type and I tooled our way east across New Jersey. The one thing I tried not to think about was my night with Sally Enderle up at Elkhart Lake. Not that you could really call it a night, since the entire episode took less than an hour. Truth is, I kind of wished it never happened and wondered if Sally felt the same. And it dawned on me that Sally Enderle probably didn't much care one way or the other. And that, more than anything, was why I felt so, you know, cheap.

  So my strange experience with Sally was sitting there in the back of my head like one of those old licorice tins eight-year-old boys hide under their mattresses for their mothers to find, usually full of month-old night crawlers or collections of mouse feet from old traps in the basement. But anytime I caught myself starting to wonder and worry over Sally Enderle, it was no problem at all to start myself wondering and worrying over something else. By the time I finally rolled into Passaic around 6:30, I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I headed straight over to the Doggie Shake to see if maybe Julie was on duty. And for a change, I was in luck. From almost a block away, I could see she was standing outside the curb-service window, shooting the breeze with the other girls and waiting for the next burger baskets and root beer floats to come out of the kitchen. I pulled over and did my best to straighten my collar and pat down my hair, then gave the C-type a modest bootful and came swooping into the lot in a reasonable facsimile of a hellacious powerslide. Boy, you should've seen the way everybody jumped up and jammed their noses against the window! That's a thrill you never outgrow in a really sexy sports car, no matter how long you've had it or how many miles you've covered together.

  But Julie Finzio wasn't the type to let herself get snowed by any goddam automobile—not even a low, sleek, obscenely expensive racing car like that C-type! She took her own sweet time meandering over to say hello. "So," she said like I was driving a damn Nash Rambler, "what'll it be tonight, stranger?"

  Still, you could see in her eyes that she was pretty damn impressed with the Jaguar—not to mention happy to see me!—and there was
no question I felt exactly the same about her. But no way would a girl like Julie allow herself to go all soft and mushy with the other Doggie Shake girls watching through the front window. Especially when I'd been off someplace without her for the past couple days. Or at least not without busting my hump for a few minutes to show me how things were. "So," Julie asked again, pretending like it was all she could do to keep from yawning, "you planning to eat something here tonight, or did'ja just drive up to show off your damn car?"

  "I came to show off the car, of course," I shot right back. "After all, guys who drive cars like this don't generally eat dinner at dinky roadside drive-ins."

  "I'm sure they don't," Julie sighed. "And maybe someday you could see your way clear to introduce me to one of them. I've always been real partial to dumb guys with money." She looked the Jag up and down. "What the heck does one of these things cost, anyway?"

  "I'm not sure," I said, casually inspecting my nails, "but I heard it's around six or seven times as much as your average, run-of-the-mill Ford or Chevrolet." That was actually a bit of an exaggeration, since it was more like four or maybe five times as much. But guys always tend to pump stuff up when they're talking to girls as a matter of routine procedure. I think it has to do with glands or something.

  Julie let out a low whistle. "Wow!" she said in little more than a whisper. "Then I guess the guy really is rich, isn't he?"

  "Most of those sportycar people are."

  "And dumb, too."

  "How can you tell?"

  "That's easy. He's lettin' a bozo like you drive it!"

  "Well, maybe he inherited the money and doesn't care."

  "Must be."

  I was staring so deep into Julie's eyes that it reminded me of those dark tunnels Tommy and I raced through on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. "So," Julie asked without moving her eyes one-thousandth of an inch, "you actually know how to drive this thing or what?"

  "Sure thing!" I grinned. "Why, I can drive any damn thing with four wheels and an internal combustion engine."

  "Oh, of course!" she laughed, rolling her eyes.

  "Hey, don't take my word for it. Hop in an' see for yourself. Lemme take you for a quick spin around the block. . . ."

  Julie glanced over at the crowd watching us from inside the Doggie Shake. "I dunno, Buddy," she said, backpedaling a little. "I'd love to. Honest I would. But I'm not so sure Marvin'd go for it. . . ."

  "Marvin? Who the hell is Marvin?"

  "He's the new night and weekend manager. He's the owner's cousin or something. Anyhow, I'm not so sure he'd like me taking off in the middle of my shift."

  The little hairs on the back of my neck sprung to attention. I mean, who the hell was this Marvin character, anyway? Why, I still got P.O.'d every time I thought about that David Sweeney guy who used to manage the kitchen at the Doggie Shake and had the nerve to take Julie out a couple times when I was all tied up over at Westbridge. Not that I had any business feeling that way, you understand. Especially not after what happened with Sally Enderle up at Elkhart just a few short days before. And of course the instant I started thinking about it, my ears started burning bright cherry red and I caught myself staring into the Jag's driver-side footwell like I'd lost a screwdriver or something down there.

  But Julie didn't seem to notice, and I can only assume it was because I was so blessed sun- and windburned from riding cross-country in the C-type that she couldn't tell the difference. Anyhow, she went inside to see if she could maybe go for a spin around the block, and I felt real relieved when I saw Marvin the Night Manager waddle out from behind the counter. Why, he didn't stand an inch over five feet and must've weighed 230 or so—a real bowling ball with legs!—so he didn't figure to be much of a threat with Julie. And he was obviously putty in her hands, since it didn't take her more than thirty seconds to convince him to let her go. Just once around the block, you understand. I must admit my heart skipped a beat when I saw Julie take off her yellow-trimmed Doggie Shake apron and matching car-hop cap and head out the door toward where I was parked in the C-type. Jeez, you really should've seen her smile and the sparkle in her eyes!

  At least until she tried getting into the car, anyway. I still had all the racing gear and my dirty clothes and such piled next to the passenger seat and packed into the footwell, and all Julie could do was assume a sort of deeply reclined hammock slouch with her legs arched up over Tommy's track gear and the boxes of spare parts we'd brought along from Westbridge. "You comfy?" I asked her.

  "Oh, sure, Palumbo. Like I'm about to give birth."

  "Great!" I said, patting her on the knee. "Now hang on!" And with that, I punched the starter button and watched Julie jerk damn near upright as the exhaust pipes exploded to life just below her left ear. She struggled to keep herself up as I reversed out of the parking slot, but flopped right down again when I snicked the lever into first, gave her about 4000 r.p.m., dumped the clutch, and left two smoldering black stripes all the way down Fremont Avenue. I took it clear up to the redline in first, snapped the shifter back hard into second, and gave it one more blast before backing out at around 60 and dropping her gently into fourth. Julie's eyes were bugged out like a goldfish on a living room carpet.

  "Jee-zus, Palumbo," she gasped. "Is this thing ever fast!"

  "I'd say so!" I nodded enthusiastically. "And you know what else it can do?"

  Julie shook her head.

  "It can stop!" And I proceeded to double-clutch down to second, whip around onto a side street, yank her slapl-slap! left-right up an alleyway between two buildings, and jammed on the brakes so hard the car damn near stood on its nose! We were behind the loading dock of Martino's Appliance Store, and before the Jag even rocked level again, I reached over with both hands, grabbed Julie by the shoulders, and planted the Kiss of the Century right smack on the center of her lips. And she kissed me back, too! "Jesus, Buddy," she gasped when we came up for air, "what the hell was that all about?"

  "I dunno," I told her, my face turning red again, "I guess I just kinda, you know, missed you or something. . . ."

  And I guess I really did, too.

  I kept the Jag overnight in my Aunt Rosamarina's garage, and drove down to Westbridge early the next morning with every intention of quitting. Julie'd told me how her uncle was still having some health problems that he wouldn't talk about, and she'd already kind of greased the way for me to come back to work at the Sinclair if that's what I wanted—and as a Management Trainee, no less. I guess the Old Man had been through another couple more "professional automobile mechanics" (the latest one tried to steal the station's customers so he could work on their cars as side jobs at home) and Old Man Finzio was well past ready for somebody he could actually trust. So I made a point of dropping in on him early that morning before I headed across the bridge into Manhattan. Believe it or not, the Old Man seemed almost happy to see me, and I even thought I detected the faintest wee glimmer of a smile. But you could never be sure about that kind of thing. Anyhow, he ran his eyes up and down the green C-type and gave it a grudging nod of approval. "Well, well, would'ja just look at this here," he rasped. "Looks like one a'them famous international racing mechanics I heerd so much about."

  "Aw geez, Mr. Finzio, it's just me. Buddy Palumbo."

  "Well, so it is. So it is. Didn't hardly recognize you."

  "Must be the car."

  "Yeah, that must be it all right." He pulled a wrinkled-up Camel out of his back pocket and lit it up. "So," he wheezed, trying hard not to break down in one of his coughing jags, "what brings an important guy like you around to a little old streetcorner gas station?"

  "Well," I told him, sticking out my hand, "I came t'see if maybe I could get my old job back." Now, the truth of it was that I didn't so much want my old job back as to maybe put together a deal for a better job. One where I could fix and maintain a lot of fancy European sports cars right there at the Sinclair. One where I could wind up running the shop one day, and running it the way I thought a really high-class fo
reign car shop ought to be run. I had this idea in the back of my head that I could bring in enough high-dollar sports car work to make a really decent living there at the Sinclair. I mean, there wasn't anybody else in the area doing it, and every day you were seeing more MGs and Jags and such all over the place. You could charge plenty on those cars, too—lots more than you ever could for Dodges and DeSotos and Buicks—and most of those sportycar customers were only too happy to pay if you could just do the damn work properly and get it finished on time. Why, I might even get a few racing customers so's I could keep heading off to places like Bridgehampton and Elkhart Lake every now and then. Only this time I'd be the one who finished up the weekend with a wad of tens and twenties and fifties in my back pocket instead of Barry Spline, you know? And, judging by the yellowish-green tinge to Old Man Finzio's complexion and the ugly noises going on inside his chest, he was gonna need somebody to run the place for him.

  But you had to be careful about what you said and how you acted around the Old Man. I mean, he'd kicked the shit out of enough sick, crippled-up, old mongrel dogs in his lifetime to know that the last thing you wanted to be was old and sick and crippled-up. In fact, I'd have to say that morning was the first time I ever recognized pure, coldblooded fear drifting around like a mist in Old Man Finzio's eyes. It wasn't fear of being sick or even fear of dying, but that Worst-of-All Fear of winding up helpless and having to rely on other people. The thought of it had turned the Old Man all withered-up and trembly inside, right below the surface where you could see it plain as day if you knew him well enough.