Running Wide Open

  In spite of my hopes, in spite of Race’s kindness, it was hard to believe those words. “You . . . you would?”

  “Of course, kid. You think I’d just leave you there?”

  I didn’t know what to think. “What about Dad?”

  “What about him?”

  “Isn’t he pissed about me taking off?”

  “Nah, he doesn’t know. I was hoping you’d come back and we could pretend it never happened.”

  My throat went tight. After all I’d done, he still hadn’t given up on me.

  “Tell me where you are,” Race said, “and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  That was it. No lecture, no demands for better behavior in the future. I gave him the exit number and the name of the truck stop.

  While I waited I sat in the restaurant, writing about the day in my notebook and feeling totally relieved. Since I no longer had to worry about money, I stuffed myself with pie and drank cup after cup of coffee. I remembered Race saying he couldn’t stand the stuff. It wasn’t my favorite thing, either, but at least it was hot and they gave you free refills.

  “Ready to go?”

  I looked up, startled. It had only been two hours. I’m no math whiz, but it wasn’t any trick to figure that Race must’ve done close to eighty to get there so fast. Was it just his racer’s instincts coming out, or was he that anxious to see me?

  His dark eyes peered into mine, trying to figure out if this was for real. Then, shaking his head at the four plates flecked with crumbs, he picked up the bill.

  “Let’s go. It’s late.”

  The van was warm when I climbed into the passenger seat. I had to slam the door twice before it latched. Settling back against the well-worn vinyl, I rested my feet on the dash.

  Race started the engine. The wiper blades squeaked lightly over the rain-sprinkled windshield and Jimmy Buffett, having found his way back into the stereo, reminisced about being the son of a son of a sailor. I guess Race must’ve felt pretty comfortable around me because he sang along. Or at least he tried to. His voice held all the appeal of a spoon in a garbage disposal.

  “So . . . do you, like . . . want me to apologize or something?” I asked.

  Race signaled his turn onto I-5 then glanced across the cab. “Do you want me to?”

  “What for?”

  “For not listening to you. Marty told me what happened.”

  “Marty?”

  “The little kid you were sticking up for yesterday.”

  I snorted and turned away. “It wasn’t any big deal.”

  “Maybe not, but I could’ve given you a chance to explain. It just threw me to see you whaling on a little kid.”

  “He wasn’t that little.”

  “No. I guess I tend to forget that, since I know he’s only twelve.” Race cast me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Cody. I saw you laying into him and lost it. You might act like an obnoxious jerk sometimes, but it shocked me to think of you as a bully. I should have known you’d have more integrity than that.”

  Integrity. Nobody had used that word in reference to me before. I let my head fall back against the seat. This was so weird. I’d been expecting a lecture, and instead I’d gotten an apology.

  “It’s no biggie,” I said.

  “It is to me. The last thing I want to do is act like my father.”

  I glanced over at him. “Grandpa’s a real hardass, huh?”

  “You might say that.”

  The bitterness behind the comment was so far from Race’s normal easy-going nature that for a second all I could do was stare at him. I didn’t know my grandpa very well. We’d stopped doing the holiday thing in Eugene the year after Race had drawn the Superbird for me. Dad had put his foot down for what must have been the only time in his life, saying he didn’t want to drive a hundred miles twice a year just to eat turkey or open presents. Mom still visited to bum money or go shopping with Grandma, but she never took me. If it hadn’t been for the trek Grandma made to Portland each summer to see me, I wouldn’t have had any contact with my grandparents at all.

  “I haven’t talked to my folks in five years,” Race said. Even across the dim expanse of the cab, I could see a faint flicker in the muscle of his jaw. “Dad was always a tyrant, but when he cut off my college fund because I wanted to study art instead of business, it was the last straw.”

  “So you dropped out?”

  “Nah, I transferred to Lane Community College and put myself through the graphic design program. Took me three years to get a two-year degree. It humbles me to think Kasey got her bachelor’s in engineering in the same amount of time.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, Kasey’s a regular genius.”

  I studied the dark highway in front of us. It was late now, after eleven-thirty. Traffic on the interstate was sparse.

  “What about Grandma?” I asked. “She seems kinda strict, but I never got that she was mean.”

  Race gave a caustic little grunt. “Let’s just say she always does what’s proper, no matter how it affects anyone else.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. Grandma was totally caught up in appearances—an uptight, high-society woman who knew her position in life and never failed to act accordingly. If any warmth lurked beneath her drill-sergeant posture, I hadn’t seen it.

  For a good ten miles, we rode in silence. “Race?” I said finally.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why’d you let me come live with you?”

  For a second I thought he wasn’t gonna answer. He stared out the windshield, his face faintly lit by the glow of the instruments in the dash.

  “I guess I didn’t want you to go through what I had to,” he said. “The family made my life hell when I was a kid. When I found out Saundra might be doing the same thing to you, I couldn’t turn away.”

  “Is that why you’ve been putting up with my crap?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The white lines on the freeway flashed by. Jimmy Buffett was now wishing he had a pencil thin mustache.

  “Maybe I’ve been cutting you slack because I figured with Saundra for a parent, you had good reason to be angry and defensive.” Race glanced across the cab of the van. “Look, I know she’s your mom and you care about her, so I probably shouldn’t run my mouth, but if it was up to me, I wouldn’t trust her to raise a stray dog, let alone a kid.”

  “I don’t care about her,” I corrected. “You can say whatever you want.”

  Race choked off a laugh. “Sorry, but I don’t believe that. I remember what she’s like.” His eyes locked briefly on mine before he returned his attention to the road. “Saundra was the coolest, most charming big sister a guy could ever want. But she was Daddy’s Little Princess, and she squashed me like a bug every chance she got.”

  I gaped at my uncle. He’d been through it, too? No one ever seemed to get that while Mom looked perfect on the outside, she was like a beautifully painted Easter egg that had been left behind the TV for three months. I could hardly believe Race understood.

  “It sucks,” I admitted, my voice so quiet it got lost in the murmur of the engine.

  “Well, you can’t change her, kid, but you can damned sure refuse to let her change you.”

  Leaning my head against the passenger window, I puzzled over what he meant by that. How could Mom change me? She was over a thousand miles away.

  Chapter 7

  While it was no happily-ever-after when we got back to Eugene, over the next week Race and I managed to fall into a pattern that both of us could live with. I started school—which was torture since I was the new kid—and he worked. Then in the evenings he put in a few hours at the shop. Even though he gave me the option of staying home, I usually went with him. I could do my homework there just as easily as at the trailer, and it gave me an excuse to see Kasey. Sometimes Jim or Denny would drop by. They were both easy to like, but for different reasons. Jim had a wicked sense of humor, while Denny was quiet and radiated a calm, solid sort of vi
be, maybe because he was older.

  When he wasn’t working on his own car, Race spent the evening hours earning money. Now that he had the roll cage finished, he was lettering some guy’s Super Stock. Envy needled me as I watched his brushstrokes transform into a recognizable logo, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to write stories with that kind of confidence and talent.

  Though I wasn’t sucking up to Race, I stopped going out of my way to piss him off. Not that I didn’t end up rattling his cage almost daily. Like Wednesday afternoon, when I took off and left the trailer unlocked. I didn’t see why it was any big deal—I was only down by the river—but Race reacted like I’d left a big welcome sign for every thief in the neighborhood. As if anybody would want his crap.

  Sometimes irritating Race wasn’t completely unintentional. He was just so damned gullible I couldn’t resist doing stuff to get him going. Thursday was a prime example, when he was late coming home from the shop.

  “Oh good, you’re here,” I said as he walked though the door. “You can pay for the pizza.”

  “Pizza?”

  “Yeah. I ordered one for dinner, since I couldn’t find any clean pans to cook with.” I gave him an innocent look. “You don’t mind, do ya?”

  Race sank into the chair by the door, which in only four days had already resumed its former status as his closet. “It never occurred to you to wash some pans?”

  “We’re out of soap.”

  Race frowned a little, like he wanted to object, but couldn’t find a way to argue with such impeccable logic.

  When the Domino’s guy showed up, Race paid him, all the while grousing about the need to educate me on where to get a decent pizza. Apparently Track Town, over by the University, made a pie that was the stuff of legends.

  “Tell me, kid,” Race said a few minutes later, as I devoured the remains of my first slice and licked the sauce off my fingers. “If I hadn’t shown up, how were you gonna pay for this?”

  I still had that twenty the truck driver had given me, but he didn’t know that. “You’ve got a checkbook over there on the counter.”

  “You have to sign checks, y’know.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “but I coulda done it before the delivery guy got here and said you’d signed it for me.”

  Race gawked like he actually believed I would. “Kid, forgery is a Federal offense.”

  “Only if you get caught.”

  While it was never hard to mess with my uncle, the easiest way to do it was to mention Kasey. Race’s confidence dried up like a snowflake in southern California every time I talked about her in a way that didn’t relate to racing. And God help me if I said anything he could interpret as the least bit disrespectful. Sometimes I had to get creative to string him along. Other times the opportunity just fell into my lap, which was what happened Friday morning.

  I was rummaging through the kitchen for breakfast when I knocked a dirty pan off the counter. Race gave me his usual glare from the couch.

  “Sorry,” I said as I opened the fridge to grab the milk.

  “Right.”

  “You working here or at the shop today?” I never knew where he was gonna be. A couple days before, he’d walked in on me scribbling in my writing notebook. Luckily, he seemed to think I was doing some homework.

  “Here,” Race said. “I’ve got a logo to finish.”

  I opened the milk and held it up to take a chug.

  “Hey, get a glass! I didn’t pay a buck fifty for that milk so you could slobber in it.”

  The instant the liquid hit my tongue I knew something wasn’t right. It took a second for the sour taste to really register, then I was running for the sink, spitting and leaning my head under the tap to run water in my mouth.

  “Why all the melodrama?” Race asked.

  “The milk’s sour.”

  “Can’t be. I just bought it two days ago.”

  “Well, you taste it, then.” I thrust the carton at him.

  “I think I’ll take your word for it.” Race crawled off of the couch and hunted through the laundry on the chair for a pair of jeans. Coming up empty-handed, he pulled some from the dirty clothes mound that had rematerialized under the coffee table. They looked like they’d been used to mop up Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez ran aground.

  “Just have a Pepsi instead,” Race said.

  “On my cereal?”

  “Eat it dry. I’ll get more milk later.”

  I reached into the refrigerator. “Hey, this stuff’s warm.” I checked in the freezer and discovered a couple pounds of hamburger, some microwave burritos, and Race’s Twinkies lying in a melted half-gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

  “Gross. I hope you don’t expect me to clean this up.”

  “You could use that ice cream on your cereal,” Race suggested.

  I didn’t honor the comment with a reply.

  “Well, let me take a look.”

  “Oh, yeah, the great mechanic. What makes you think you can fix the fridge if you have to get a chick to work on your race car?”

  “Hey, none of that sexist bullshit in my house.” Race looked in the fridge, smacked it a few times, then wiggled it forward to check the cord. It was still plugged in.

  “So, like, what’s the diagnosis?” I asked, perching myself on the counter where I could get a better view of his futile attempts.

  “It’s, like, broke.”

  I gave him a look of mock surprise, ignoring the dig at my grammar. “Really? God, Race, you’re a freakin’ genius.”

  “Hell, I don’t know anything about refrigerators.”

  “Guess we’ll have to get a girl to fix it.”

  Race scowled at me. “Go to school.”

  Laughing, I hopped down from the counter. “Hey, don’t let it getcha down, dude. While Kasey’s fixin’ the fridge, you could always sew some curtains for her living room.”

  Race cocked an ear toward the door. “Isn’t that your bus I hear?”

  I glanced out the window. “No,” I said. “It’s a garbage truck. And I think there’s a woman driving it.”

  * * *

  It had rained most of the week, but Saturday morning a stiff wind blew away the clouds. Kasey stopped by to look at the fridge before we left for the track. She laughed when she saw my Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives shirt. Then, in about thirty seconds, she figured out why the refrigerator wasn’t working.

  “The condenser coils are filthy,” she told Race.

  “Imagine that,” I said. “And in such a surgically sterile environment.”

  When Race went out to the van to get the Shop-Vac, Kasey eyed me in a way that made me want to crawl under the nearest large object.

  “You’re a smart kid, Cody, and I realize Race plays right into your hand, but just because you know how to push his buttons doesn’t mean you should.”

  “It was a joke! It’s not like he doesn’t know how to sling it right back.”

  Kasey patted my shoulder. The gesture sent a tingle surging along my spine. “I’m just suggesting you might want to tone it down,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of her reprimand. “Try using your gift of intuition for good instead of evil.”

  * * *

  At the speedway that night, my uncle qualified faster than everybody in his class. It was apparently the first time anyone but Addamsen had done that since halfway through the previous season. The announcer made a big deal about it, and about the fact that Race was now only two points behind his rival. The idea must’ve torqued Addamsen, because he smoked Race in the trophy dash. Fortunately, the dash wasn’t worth any points. That was one thing I’d learned this week.

  “So when are you gonna let me take this baby out for a few laps?” I asked later, patting the hood of the Dart where I sat scarfing down a hot dog. Out on the track, another trophy dash was heating up.

  “Maybe in thirty years or so.”

  “Aww, c’mon. I won’t wreck it.”

  Race gave me a measured loo
k. “Do you even know how to drive?”

  “Nah, Mom wouldn’t let me get my permit.”

  “Well, that’s just a crime. On Monday, I’m taking you to the DMV right after school.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I can’t have it getting out that my fifteen-year-old nephew doesn’t have his driver’s permit.”

  A couple of the Super Stocks tangled and smashed into the wall. Within seconds the stomach-turning stink of burnt rubber drifted into the pits. Both tow trucks scrambled toward the track and a big black car rumbled past us through the cloud of dust they left behind.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The track ambulance.”

  “It looks like the Ghostbusters car.”

  “Almost,” said Race. “It’s a ’67 Cadillac hearse. You’re only off by about eight years.”

  “Isn’t that kinda morbid, having a hearse for an ambulance?”

  “Well, it’s not like it’s a real ambulance. If anyone ever got seriously hurt they’d call 911.”

  “Still,” I said. There was something warped about the idea.

  Race’s heat began with a snarl-up that slammed him against the outside wall. In spite of it, he immediately gained three positions when they got the race restarted. Then after a couple of laps, something began to change. Each time Race went into a corner, the back end of the Dart would hang out so far that the car was sliding almost sideways through the turn. It looked way cool.

  “Why’s he doing that?” I asked Kasey.

  “It’s not intentional. I think he has a tire going down.” She glanced at me, weighing my level of interest. “When the rear end wants to come around that way, it’s known as being ‘loose.’ I just hope he makes it through the next three laps.”

  One advantage to having the Dart handle like that seemed to be that it took up an awful lot of the track in the corners. The car directly behind Race, a white Camaro, didn’t have a chance of getting around him. When I mentioned that to Kasey, she pointed out that the slightest tap from the Camaro would send Race into a spin.

  “Driving at the limit like that, he wouldn’t have a prayer of getting it back under control.”

  Addamsen hovered right behind the Camaro. If he passed it, I knew Race would have a real problem on his hands. Last week I’d seen how closely Addamsen could ride a guy’s bumper. After the threats he’d been slinging around at the payoff window, I figured he wouldn’t be above spinning Race intentionally. I spent the last two laps holding my breath.