Running Wide Open

  “Well, Grandpa sure wasn’t gonna let that happen.”

  “Nope, and I never could understand it. What kind of man rejects his own kid?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I muttered, thinking about what Grandpa had said to Race at the hospital. “The more I learn about him, the more I wonder how Race could end up so laid-back.”

  Denny chuckled. “Race is hard-wired to be laid-back. But I think it helped that he found what he needed at the speedway. Family is everything to us racers. If you lack one, someone just takes you into theirs.”

  I thought about what Denny had done for Race and, later, what Race did for me. Suddenly I saw how my life was part of a pattern. Then an even bigger idea hit me. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that I had as much trouble with my parents as Race did with his. Maybe that was part of the pattern, too.

  In spite of what Denny had said about Race’s easy-going nature, I knew that didn’t completely explain the differences in how we’d handled the abuse. Somewhere along the way Race had made a choice about how he was going to let it affect him.

  My mind flashed back to the night Race had picked me up in Medford, and the memory of his words echoed through my skull. “You can’t change her, kid, but you can damned sure refuse to let her change you.”

  At the time it hadn’t made sense, but now I understood. I’d been letting Mom change me all my life.

  * * *

  As I watched the trophy dashes that night, I wondered who I could get to help us now that Denny’d refused. Jim was totally out of the question, and I didn’t know any of the other drivers well enough to ask.

  When the answer hit me I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. Addamsen. I’d been using his business card as a bookmark for weeks. But thinking of a solution was easier than implementing it. I felt like I was traveling behind enemy lines as I approached him after his heat.

  “Good run,” I said, trying to sound gruff and manly, but botching it when my voice broke.

  Everyone in Addamsen’s crew stared at me. They were rough, burly types—the kind of guys who could heft a bundle of shingles onto their shoulders and climb a ladder without breaking a sweat. I could practically smell the testosterone oozing out of their pores.

  Addamsen turned away from his conversation when he saw me. “It’s Cody—right? How’s Race? He gonna be out here anytime soon?”

  I looked from Addamsen to his crew. I hadn’t planned on having an audience for this conversation, but it was too late to back out now.

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about. Remember how you said that if he needed help he should give you a call? Well, he needs help.”

  Addamsen chuckled. “I knew he’d be too damned proud to ask me himself.”

  “He doesn’t even know I’m asking.” I glanced nervously at Addamsen’s crew again. I didn’t want to broadcast Race’s private business for them to hear.

  Shifting his eyes from me to his friends, Addamsen caught on. “Let’s take a walk,” he suggested.

  It helped, getting away from the others. As we made our way down the pit road, with Street Stocks rumbling past to line up for their main, I outlined what needed to be done on the car and why we were having so much trouble.

  “What makes you think he can drive if he can’t fix his car?” Addamsen asked.

  “It’s mostly his dexterity that’s messed up. You don’t need that to drive.”

  “Must be a bitch, him being an artist and all.”

  “No shit.”

  “So why haven’t any of his friends helped? I know you gotta be scraping the bottom of the barrel to ask me.”

  I explained how Jim had been acting and the deal Denny had made with Kasey.

  Addamsen barked out a nasty laugh. “Damn uppity women, thinking they’ve got some right to get between a man and his car. I can’t believe Race puts up with that.”

  Now I could see why Kasey didn’t like this guy. “Look,” I said. “I’m not here to debate sexual equality with you. Are you gonna help or not?”

  Grinning, Addamsen shook his head. “Sure, I’ll get a couple guys together and come over tomorrow. Lord knows Denny’s the only one who’s given me a challenge in weeks. Jim’s been worthless since that wreck—guess he’s worried he’s gonna be the next one to get his brain scrambled.”

  I pulled a concession stand napkin out of my back pocket, on which I’d jotted down the shop address. “Here. There’s no phone, but we’re usually there by nine.”

  “It’ll take me a couple hours to get a K-member,” Addamsen said. “I’ll see you around noon.”

  Chapter 29

  I got up the next morning to find Race crashed out on the couch with the TV on and Winston curled against his side. Kasey, having overslept, was in a hurry to get to the shop. It was no use protesting her seven-day workweeks. She didn’t listen. Ironically, she refused to let me help out more than five afternoons a week.

  I picked up the remote and silenced the television.

  “You got more interviews today?” I asked Kasey as she bustled through the living room.

  “Yes, though I don’t hold out much hope. I swear I’ve spoken to every mechanic in Lane County.” She paused to clutch at a ream of work-orders that were trying to slither out of her arms.

  “Maybe your standards are too high. I keep telling you all you need is a regular mechanic. Race could do the welding.”

  Kasey glanced toward the couch. With typical cat arrogance, Winston assumed this attention was directed at him and meowed.

  “I gave Race the opportunity to help two days ago, and you saw how that went. At any rate, I think you might be reading more into his abilities than he can deliver.”

  “Kasey, I’ve seen it.”

  “And just what do you know about welding?”

  The words caught me like a roundhouse kick, and I gave her a scalding look. What did she think I was, stupid?

  Kasey sighed, scooping her keys off the coffee table. “I’ll tell you what, Cody, if you can get him to agree, we’ll give it a shot.”

  * * *

  Once Kasey was gone, I shook Race’s arm.

  “Wake up. We’ve gotta get down to the shop.”

  “Go ’way.”

  I let him sleep awhile longer, hoping he’d get up on his own. He’d be less grumpy that way. When he finally began to stir I glanced at my watch. Nine-thirty. It would only take fifteen minutes to drive to the shop, but I figured we needed half an hour to be safe.

  “C’mon, dude. You gotta get moving. We’re gonna waste the whole morning.”

  “Not much we can do without a new K-member,” he mumbled.

  “We can work on the door bars.”

  “Pointless waste of time.”

  I spent the next hour gently cajoling him, knowing if I pissed him off too much he’d never leave the house. My efforts had no effect on his leisurely morning ritual. By eleven o’clock I was desperate. I hadn’t put all this together just to have him blow it off.

  “Look,” I said, sitting down across from him at the kitchen table. “If you don’t want to work on your car that’s fine, but I haven’t gotten anything done on the Galaxie since before the wreck.”

  Race pushed his empty cereal bowl away and flipped the page of the Sunday comics.

  “Maybe another time. I’m not in the mood.”

  Not in the mood? My temper revved and—like an engine screaming past redline—blew. I slapped my hand down on his newspaper.

  “Damn it, Race, I’m getting sick of your attitude! I put up with your moodiness, I put up with you snapping at me—hell, I even put up with you acting like I don’t exist—but I’ll be damned if I let you quit. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and get your ass out in that van.”

  Race gaped at me, staggered by the outburst. It was the first harsh thing anyone had dared to say to him since Grandpa’s tirade.

  “Welcome to tough love,” I said as I turned to leave the kitchen.

  Five minutes lat
er, Race was ready to go.

  I knew better than to say anything about Addamsen before we got to the shop. Race would just turn around and head home. But to spare everyone an awkward moment, I figured I had to give him a heads up at some point. I waited until I had the torch lit and was fish-mouthing a door bar, then broke the news. “Umm, I forgot to mention it earlier, but we might be getting a little help today.”

  Race glanced up from the measurement he was making. “Who, Denny?”

  “Addamsen.”

  A mismatched assortment of emotions paraded across Race’s face. Surprisingly, he said nothing. Ten minutes later a white Chevy pickup bearing the Addamsen Construction logo pulled up outside the open bay door. Race watched stone-faced as his nemesis and two crew members got out.

  Addamsen gave my uncle a curt nod and went round to the bed of his truck to unload a goo-encrusted K-member. He dumped it at my feet. “Get this cleaned up,” he said. Then he turned to Race. “So what needs to be done?”

  It was weird, seeing the two of them regard each other with such stiff formality—the only sign they shared a less than amicable history. Without any indication that the circumstances were unusual or the least bit unexpected, Race said, “The old K-member has to be pulled.”

  “John, you wanna get on that?” Addamsen waved a hand at one of his friends then looked back at Race. “What else?”

  “We need to fit these bars and make a new door skin.”

  Addamsen ordered his other crew member to take charge of the sheet metal work before settling in to help Race with the roll cage. Figuring it was best to fade into the background, I found a sheet of plastic and a couple cans of Gunk, then got to work cleaning the K-member.

  It was a surreal afternoon, with everyone trying to act normal even though they must have felt as uncomfortable as I did. After a couple hours Addamsen sent one of his guys to Dari Mart to grab some food and a half rack of Hamm’s.

  “Have a beer, Morgan,” Addamsen said, slapping a blue and white can down on the roof of the Dart.

  I grinned at the idea of Race’s first beer in six weeks being of the cheap, American variety. But he simply opened the can and took a drink, doing a decent job of not letting his disgust show.

  As Addamsen and his crew plowed through the Hamm’s, things loosened up. Race nursed his beer all afternoon, so I knew something other than alcohol was improving his spirits. By four o’clock the roll bars were in place, the new K-member was installed, the engine rested in its motor mounts, and a fresh door skin sat waiting to be painted. Race looked as confident as a guy with a twelve-car-lead on the last lap of Daytona.

  “We’ve gotta get rolling,” Addamsen said as he wiped his hands on an old T-shirt. “But I might be able to make it back over here Thursday or Friday night if you need help with that suspension.”

  “Nah, you guys have done enough. Cody and I can handle the rest.”

  “So we’ll see you at the track on Saturday?”

  “Better make it two weeks,” said Race. “I want to get a few practice sessions in first.”

  Addamsen nodded.

  “I appreciate the help,” Race told him.

  “Well, I had to do something to liven things up at the track. It’s damned boring out there without you nipping at my heels.”

  As luck would have it, just as Addamsen’s pickup backed away from the door, Kasey’s Charger pulled up. I wondered what she was doing here. She hadn’t been to the shop since before the wreck.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Race eyed her coolly. “Just getting a little help with the car.”

  “From Jerry Addamsen?”

  “I’m hardly in the position to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, you ran off everyone else.”

  Kasey peered accusingly in my direction.

  “Don’t look at him like that,” Race said. “It wasn’t hard to figure out for myself. Every time I mentioned the car to Denny, he changed the subject.”

  Without saying a word, Kasey shifted her gaze to the nearly finished Dart, a storm building in her eyes.

  “We’re getting close,” said Race. “We might just have her back together for practice on Wednesday.”

  “No.” Kasey spoke the word softly, more to herself than to Race. It wasn’t an order—it was denial. She glanced around the shop, her eyes coming to rest on the new door skin, the tweaked K-member, and finally the beer cans Addamsen’s crew had left scattered around.

  “You were drinking,” she said.

  “Oh, come on. I only had half of one, and you can’t even call that crap beer.”

  “It contains alcohol. Alcohol’s a neurotoxin.”

  Furrows formed in Race’s forehead as his newfound spunk gave way to agitation. “So how long do I have to wait before I can have a drink? Six months? A year?” He looked at her hard. “I don’t think you’ll be satisfied even then.”

  “You’re not ready. You shouldn’t be drinking, and you shouldn’t be driving that car.”

  “Damn it, Kasey, haven’t I lost enough without giving this up, too?”

  “I don’t expect you to give it up, I just want you to wait.”

  The last vestiges of Race’s patience evaporated. “I’ve been waiting long enough!”

  “It’s too soon,” Kasey said, the pitch of her voice rising.

  “That’s not your decision to make.”

  “You push too hard. That first day you drove the van—”

  “Did it ever occur to you that you could have prevented that? I asked time and again for your help with the car. We could have taken it easy and done it your way, but you wouldn’t even give me that much.”

  The two of them stared at each other like cats swishing their tails. Then Race’s expression softened and he sighed.

  “I know what you’re trying to do, Kasey, and it’s not gonna work. You can’t control the world. You might think you’re keeping me safe, but you can’t protect me from everything.”

  “Race—”

  “No, listen.” Race’s voice took a more soothing tone. “I understand how hard this has been. I know I scared the hell out of you. But I can’t change what happened, all I can do is be more careful from now on. I owe it to you and Cody to make safety my first priority, but you can’t ask me to stop racing. I won’t.”

  Kasey shook her head, looked away, closed her eyes. For the first time I understood how big her fear was and how out-of-control it made her feel.

  Apparently Race did, too. He stepped forward, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled her close.

  Kasey trembled in his arms, on the brink of tears, but not giving in.

  “You don’t know how sorry I am,” Race whispered. He rested his cheek against her hair.

  For several long moments Kasey let him comfort her. Then she pushed away, palms flat against his chest and face taut with sudden comprehension. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I have been holding you back.”

  “I understand.”

  Kasey’s eyes reflected a rush of thought. “I need to go,” she said. “I have to make a call.”

  “What?” Race blinked down at her.

  “To Denny,” she said. “To see if he’ll lend us Big Red.”

  Chapter 30

  After vowing that first thing Monday morning she was going to have a phone installed at Race’s shop, Kasey went to Dari Mart to make her call. When she came back she told us Denny had to work late the next day, but he promised to load Big Red onto his trailer so Race could swing by and pick her up. Finally, she filled us in on what had made her drop by to begin with.

  “I’ve hired a mechanic. His name is Eddie and he just graduated from the automotive program at Lane. He doesn’t have much experience, but I’d rather train somebody myself than put up with deep-set bad habits. Besides, I like Eddie’s attitude. He has a real passion for old cars.”

  “Can he weld?” I asked.

  “He’s taken a class, but I decided you might
have a point, Cody. Maybe Race would be willing to take care of the welding.” Kasey turned her attention from me to him, a question in her eyes.

  “I’m still lousy at sheet metal,” Race confessed. “Too much starting and stopping. My fingers don’t wanna do it.”

  “Then teach Eddie,” Kasey said. “That’s another thing I like about him—he’s eager to learn.”

  * * *

  The next day, Race went with me to Kasey’s shop to get an idea about what he was up against. We found her in the office, shuffling through a pile of payroll forms and receipts.

  “Cody, why don’t you show Race what we’re working on. I need to get this finished so I can run it over to my accountant. I’m already facing a penalty.”

  Race cocked his head to study the papers. “Quarterly payroll taxes? Shouldn’t you have filed those in July?”

  “I should have, but I didn’t.”

  “Kasey, you can’t let that stuff slide. You’ve got enough problems without riling up the Feds.”

  “I know, I know.” She held up a hand to ward off the criticism. “But paperwork bores me to tears and it’s not one of my strengths. Why can’t the government leave me alone and let me restore cars?”

  “It’s part of owning your own business,” Race said, as if he were some sort of authority on responsible behavior.

  I leaned heavily against the doorway. Being of like mind with Kasey, I was bored just talking about paperwork. “Isn’t that what accountants are for?” I asked.

  “No, accountants file taxes. They don’t do bookkeeping,” Kasey explained. “Or so my CPA keeps telling me. He said the next time I show up with an oil box full of work orders and receipts, he’s locking the door and turning off the lights.”

  “This stuff doesn’t bother me,” Race said. “I can have a go at it if you want.”

  “How do you know about payroll taxes?” Kasey asked. “You’ve never had any employees.”

  “They covered that stuff in one of my business classes. So how ’bout it? It’ll give you time to get caught up on the important stuff.”

  “I’d want to pay you.”

  Race rolled his eyes. “It’s not enough that you’re feeding us and putting a roof over our heads?”

  “Cody’s father compensates me for his room and board. Besides, if I paid you, you’d be able to buy the groceries for a change.”