The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  "He sure does!" Cal shouted right back. "And I bet he's not done yet!"

  "Not hardly!" I hollered, jumping up and down. "Not hardly at all!"

  It was a good hundred yards before the next cars came by, and sure enough it was Phil Hill in the silver C-type with Creighton Pendleton's Ferrari glued to his decklid. You could see the Ferrari was faster in a straight line and trying to pass, but Phil kind of clogged up the middle so there really wasn't room for a decent move on either side, so Creighton had no choice but to think better of it. By the next time around, Phil had enough distance that it wasn't much of an issue anymore. After those two came a bunch of other Allards and XK120s and right away Cal and me looked at each other with the same question in our heads: Where was The Skipper and his green C-type? But no sooner had we thought of it than Skippy's Jag appeared, stuttering and banging up the start/finish straightaway at barely a walking pace until the engine cut completely and he coasted to a silent halt right in front of us.

  Oh, Lordy, I thought. What's he done to that poor car?

  The C-type had come to rest in a pretty bad position—right on the line Tommy'd taken to pass that third-place Cunningham—and of course Skippy was grinding the starter like he was ringing the doorbell to an empty house, trying to fire it up again. It obviously hadn't occurred to him that there might be a reason why the fire had gone out. Milton Fitting was nowhere to be seen so Cal and me hopped over the fence to see if we could help out. Or at least get him out of the way before the cars came around again. We had a little less than four minutes before the cars came around again, so we flipped the latches and lifted the one-piece alloy hood—The Skipper still grinding away relentlessly on the starter—and it didn't take a mechanical genius to figure that Skippy's new C-type Jaguar was out of gas! We were just a few yards up the road from that Atlantic station where I'd gotten Big Ed's tires handled, so I vaulted the fence, ran to the pumps, and the kid who'd helped me that morning was already out there with a jerry can, filling it for us. I figured we had a couple minutes at best, so as soon as he had a few gallons in, I grabbed the can, crashed my way through the snow fencing, and did a high-speed jerry can waddle back to the green C-type. Skippy was still hard at it with the starter button, and you could hear it was already groaning and making that occasional, disheartening click-click-click-click noise that starters make when the battery has had quite enough of them, thank you.

  We fueled her up and slammed down the hood, and by then there was no way that poor old car could start itself, so Cal and me and the armband people who'd been screaming at us to "GET OUT OF THE GODDAM WAY!" gave the Jag a hefty push (putting, I might add, several nice-sized palm dents in the alloy rear deck) and the C-type caught after about fifteen feet and stuttered away, gasping for the float bowls to fill up and feed the suction. Me and Cal gave each other a quick appreciation nod, and then the armband types were shoving us back behind the fencing because the leaders were due any moment.

  And this time Tommy was up to second! And bearing down on the lead Cunningham, too! But I couldn't help noticing that Briggs himself was in the lead car, and I wondered if the other two Cunningham drivers were maybe holding back a bit to see if Briggs could stay ahead of Tommy's Allard. Surely if he got passed, the other two would be within their rights to run a little harder and pass Briggs so a Cunningham could still win the race.

  Phil Hill was about halfway between those guys and Creighton's Ferrari, running all alone, and you got the idea that he might be a factor before this thing was over. The C-type may not have had the legs on sheer power, but you could see how smooth and nicely balanced it was running by itself, and Phil Hill was getting the most out of it and yet still saving plenty of car for the last half of the contest. A hundred miles is a long, long way around a track like Watkins Glen, and the really gifted drivers have the knack and patience to see all the way to the checker flag from the instant the green goes down.

  We strained our eyes up Franklin Street again, and this time the first car to appear was—Omigod, it was Skippy Welcher in the green C-type!—-sailing out of the last turn in an unkempt broadslide and blaring that sweet Jag six right past the redline in every gear as he charged towards us. But not thirty yards behind was Tommy's roaring black Allard—in the lead!— with the three Cunninghams in a vicious clot right behind him. You could see that Tommy was going to pass The Skipper just as they approached the braking point for turn one, and I could feel the hairs rise to attention on the back of my neck. The corner workers were waving the blue overtaking flag furiously, and Skippy obviously saw them, because he looked down at the mirror on the dash and nodded like the situation was well in hand. Tommy swept out to pass on the inside, and that's when The Skipper did the one thing a slower driver should never, ever do when being overtaken. He pointed his finger towards the outside, and pulled right across the Allard's nose to leave room for Tommy on the proper racing line. He was just trying to be courteous, actually. Only Tommy was already committed, and he had no choice but to yank Hard Left to avoid The Skipper while the Allard was already up on tiptoes under heavy braking. The car slewed left, tail swinging wide, then caught traction for an instant and swung back the other way—for a heart-stopping moment teetering up on two wheels!—and then made that final, uncontrollable snap back the other way. It would have spun all the way around . . . if only there'd been room! Instead it sideswiped the snow fencing, sending fence slats and cardboard boxes and race programs and half-eaten hot dogs flying like an explosion. Then the outside wheels bit hard and the Allard went into a tumbling, flailing barrel roll, shedding wheels and fender panels and headlight buckets and even Tommy Edwards himself. The car skated across the pavement and smashed into a light pole— upside down—while Tommy's body skidded and bounced up the racetrack, coming to rest in a tightly curled lump right in the middle of the road. With the whole damn field bearing down at a hundred-plus miles an hour! Corner workers grabbed every flag they could find and brandished them wildly, and I saw Tommy's form curl even tighter as race cars came thundering around him on all sides, some missing him by inches—even fractions of inches!—time and time again. It seemed to take a lifetime before the last car passed. . . .

  Somehow—incredibly—none of them hit him, and as soon as the final car cleared, I was over the snow fencing and running full speed toward where Tommy's body was curled up on the asphalt, twitching. I got there before anybody, but didn't know what to do. I was afraid to touch him—like I might make things worse—and a wretched feeling of helplessness came over me. Then Cal got there with a few armband people, and it was Cal who finally reached down and tapped him gently on the shoulder. "You OK down there, Tommy? Can you hear me? Are you OK?"

  "Believe it or not," Tommy's voice came from what sounded like very far away, "I think I am." He eased his helmet up between his shoulder blades and gingerly eased it left to right and up and down. "Bloody hell," he said in an amazed whisper. "I do believe I am. . . ."

  "You sure?" one of the workers asked.

  "Don't move!" Charlie Priddle commanded.

  "Oh, piss off," Tommy groaned, and pulled unsteadily to his feet. You could see he had a bad cut on his forearm and an absolutely huge pavement raspberry down his thigh, but as he gently shook himself here and there and here and there again, nothing else seemed terribly amiss. "No broken bones apparently," he said with a halfhearted smile, "but I reckon I'll be pretty bloody sore tomorrow."

  "Thank God!" I told him, totally amazed that anybody could be that lucky.

  "But I suppose I've about used up my bloody car." He turned to take a look, and that's when he saw all the anguish and confusion going on where he'd sideswiped the fence. Spectators were scattered like fallen bowling pins with corner workers and armband types crouched over them and the first medics on the scene dashing madly from victim to victim, trying to assess the damage and take care of those who needed it most. And there, right in the middle of everything—crumpled against the curbing like a heap of soiled laundry—was the
crushed, battered, and lifeless body of a seven-year-old boy. "Oh my bloody God." Tommy gasped, sagging to his knees, "Oh my bloody God in heaven. . . ."

  18:DEATH IS NEWS

  IT TOOK forever to get things sorted out that afternoon at Watkins Glen. A bunch of ambulances came to take care of the people who were hurt, and most of the injuries were just cuts and bruises and broken arms and shinbones from when Tommy's Allard hit the fence and sent people flying. Except for that poor little dead boy, who was pressed right up against the slats and probably froze solid when he saw that car careening toward him instead of diving for cover like your average grown-up. Tommy's left-rear fender caught him dead center at about 70 or so, and that's all there was to it.

  I have to admit the S.C.M.A. armband types and local volunteers did a pretty good job cleaning everything up—especially given the circumstances—and then there was even a brief discussion about whether the race should be restarted. A few of the S.C.M.A. clubbies who'd driven in from all over the country wanted to do it, and the truth is there was a certain heartless merit to their argument. I mean, nothing on God's green earth was going to mend those broken bones or close those open wounds or bring that seven-year-old boy back to life, and the idea of quitting because people got hurt just didn't sit right with many of the racers. And the fans, too. But the State Police had other ideas, and the discussion was finished in a hurry once those guys put their collective feet down. The party was over, and it was time for everybody to pack up and go home. There's nothing more to see here, folks. . . .

  Tommy Edwards was in pretty rough shape. He tried walking back to the paddock with us, but he didn't make it more than a few choking, unsteady steps before the exhilarating I got away with it rush bled off and he realized that he was hurt worse than he thought. Turned out he had a broken wrist, five cracked ribs, and a dislocated shoulder in addition to the cut and the pavement rash you could see at first glance, and he finally had to sit down kind of sideways on the asphalt and wait for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Cal and me tried talking to him, but he was off in a different world, just staring straight ahead without seeing anything and shaking a little every now and then like he was cold. "Do look after the car now," he said blankly as they loaded him into the ambulance.

  Big Ed's car needed looking after, too. The ivory Jag came down the hill on a hook about an hour later, and things didn't look too promising when I popped the hood and saw oil all over the place and a jagged hole about the size of a league ball in the side of the engine block. Obviously, he'd wound it so tight a damn rod broke, and no question this was going to be one of those "devastatingly expensive repair bills" the other XK120 owner warned Cal about earlier in the day. "I was right next to this guy, see," Big Ed explained ruefully, shaking his head, "and I couldn't hear my own motor because his was makin' so much racket." He looked down at the oily mess in the engine compartment. "I dunno, maybe I just forgot to shift. . . ."

  At least you had to hand it to him for not coming up with a bunch of lame excuses. Anyhow, we had a hell of a time making arrangements to get Big Ed's broken Jaguar and Tommy's wrecked-and-rolled Allard back home. There weren't any spare trailers around to get the job done, and it would've cost an arm and a leg to have one of the local tow truck operators haul the Jag all the way to Jersey. And Tommy's Allard was well past towing in any case. Big Ed finally managed to get hold of one of the truckers who hauled scrap steel for him, and they dispatched a flatbed semi with a bunch of rope and tie-downs from someplace in northern Pennsylvania to pick the cars up. Without even thinking about it, I told him to have them both hauled back to Old Man Finzio's gas station in Passaic.

  Naturally there was also a big official flap going on with Charlie Priddle and his armband posse. This was a major opportunity for them to flex their muscles and actually do something, and by God, they were not about to miss out on anything as irresistible as that—regardless of the seriousness of the occasion. They huddled in a private banquet room in the Jefferson Hotel for hours, listening to eyewitness reports and jabbering back and forth and interviewing anybody they could lay their hands on like the damn House Un-American Activities Committee. They were still hard at it long after we got the remains of Tommy's Allard dragged back to the Atlantic station where the Jag was stashed. Big Ed had slipped the kid there a fiver, so the weekend was really a step into a brand-new tax bracket for him.

  Nobody heard the official results of the Jefferson Hotel meetings until a week later in New York. They pulled Tommy's racing license for a year—can you believe it?—and hit Skippy Welcher with a dinky little one-race suspension. I mean, he pointed, right? Far as I was concerned, it was the most flagrant miscarriage of justice since the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. But it sure got everybody's attention, and, when you get right down to it, that was really the whole idea.

  Big Ed and me wound up riding home in the back of Barry Spline's parts truck, sitting on cases of 40-weight Castrol and kind of wedged in sideways between the spare wheels and tires. Truth is, I don't remember anything about that ride except it was uncomfortable as hell and seemed to take forever. Oh, and Barry charged both of us halves on the gas (but I guess that went without saying, you know?). Anyhow, it was well past one by the time we hit Big Ed's house, and he lent me the black Caddy to follow Barry down to Westbridge so's I could pick up my stuff and a bunch of Butch's tools that I'd weasled over there. I wanted to be sure and have everything ready over at the Sinclair come Monday morning. It was amazing how right and natural that seemed. It was like from the very beginning I'd known my job at Westbridge was only temporary, and that I somehow belonged back in Jersey, working at the Old Man's gas station and sleeping in my own bed every night and, most especially, being closer to Julie.

  For sure I'd miss Sylvester, but then I knew I'd see him all the time when I came over to pick up parts for Big Ed's Jag and any other British cars I could line up as customers at the Sinclair. And somehow I knew there'd be quite a few. So I didn't feel anything particularly sad or momentous as I loaded Butch's tool chest into the trunk of Big Ed's black Sixty Special. Except maybe it was much heavier than I remembered it, what with all the British Standard sockets and wrenches I'd added to his collection. It was a pretty damn complete set of English sports car tools now, and that's exactly what I intended to need over at the Old Man's gas station.

  I arrived back at my aunt's house on Buchanan Street just as the first purplish-black silhouettes of the trees started standing out against the sky, and I made sure to lock up Big Ed's Caddy before heading up the creaky stairway to the apartment over her garage. And did I ever have a surprise in store when I opened the door and gave the light cord a tug. Somebody'd been in there while I was gone and cleaned it up for me! Jeez, the floor was swept and there were no orphan socks scattered everywhere and all the dishes were squeaky clean and neatly stacked under the sink and all my clothes were washed and ironed and folded away in the little broken-down chest of drawers I had over by the window. Why, the damn bed was even made! And with fresh sheets and pillowcases, too.

  At first I thought maybe my mom did it, but that didn't make any sense. I mean, she had enough to do cleaning up after my dad. And it sure wouldn't be like Aunt Rosamarina to go snooping around somebody else's apartment, even if she did own the building. And no way would any of my sisters make my bed unless it was to short-sheet it for me. No, it had to be Julie. Sure enough, under the pillow was one of those sappy Hallmark cards with hearts and flowers all over it. "Welcome home, Buddy," it said inside in Julie's perfectly rounded script, "Love, Julie." And then, down at the bottom: "P.S. I threw away those horrible magazines you had hidden under your mattress. They're disgusting!" And I knew right away she'd looked through every one.

  I felt my ears starting to burn, but at least it made me smile. That was the first smile I could remember in what seemed like ages. But there was no way I could relax and go to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept seeing my own personal newsreel footage of Tommy's wreck over and ov
er on the inside of my eyelids. I had this crazy feeling like it was just some kind of nightmare, and if I could just manage to stay awake, the day somehow wouldn't be over and there was some impossible chance that things might turn out differently. But if I allowed myself to drift off, that day would be sealed forever and turn into history that could never, ever change.

  That's when I opened my eyes to brilliant sunlight streaming in through the window and heard some of my mom's birds chirping back and forth in the trees. My alarm clock said it was past 12:30, and I'd already jumped halfway out of bed before I realized it was Sunday and all I had to do all day was unload Butch's tools over at the Sinclair and get Big Ed's Cadillac back to him. It felt strange and unnatural not to have some desperate emergency to attend to and I even felt a little guilty while I made myself a cup of coffee and laid down in bed again. But I couldn't go back to sleep. And as I laid there, staring a hole through the cramped little tin shower stall my dad and I put up at the far end of the room, everything that happened over the weekend started seeping back like a slow water leak, and I knew I had to get up and get out if I ever wanted to be able to sleep there again.

  Outside was a gorgeous late-September day, with a late-summer sun beaming down and the trees all turning and the smell of burning leaves rising from smoky piles along the curbsides. I saw families walking home from twelve o'clock Mass and it reminded me how far I'd drifted from that kind of life. Why, I used to go to Mass with my mom and sisters every Sunday. My dad'd crack me one if I didn't. Sometimes he'd even come with. Truth is, I couldn't remember exactly when or why I stopped going, except I knew it was about when my dad and me stopped getting along. I think I did it as much to piss him off as anything else. Not that I liked going to church all that much (I mean, who does?) but I could take it for an hour a week just to keep the peace.