He laughed. “Ain’t done nothing yet, son, got to get the engine and tires warmed up.”
Perhaps I made a mistake and Mom was right.
We drove up a few streets, pretty fast, and then got on 49 for a couple of miles. Gramps was feeling it now. He took a couple of turns and we roared down Pitts School Road. The car heated up… a lot. I wiped the sweat from my face and hung on as we rocketed through a turn. Gramps jammed on the brakes as we closed in on a car, then punched it and passed the guy. We flew through another turn, a left one that crushed me into the door, the five point keeping me smashed against the seat.
Gramps studied the gauges. “Always liked left turns better.”
I looked and he held the wheel lightly, a day in the country. I gripped the door handle on my side, my knuckles white. The g forces, whether turning left or right, accelerating or braking, were incredible. I could go from plastered back into the seat to smashed against either side of the seat, the five-point seat belt earning its money.
“This is a ’68 Camaro, but I’ve done a lot of work on it,” he said over the roar of the engine. “Puts out around eight hundred horsepower.”
It felt like more than enough for me.
We flew past cars, light poles and houses, a continuous stream.
“Too bad the Speedway’s closed,” he said. “Without traffic we could really do some driving.” We seemed to be doing quite some driving, you ask me. “Let’s get on the freeway and open her up.” He spoke over the engine roar, but without any tension, a man at home in his car.
He kept speeding toward the onramp. No way could we make that turn. We would smash right into the guardrail, looming over the hood. Surely he was just messing with me. I braced my feet. He jammed on the brakes and threw the wheel right, the car slid and he punched it, pulling the car out of the slide. We launched down the onramp, Gramps clicking it into a higher gear like caressing a woman.
There’s a fine line between adrenaline rush and fear. The first half of the ride was fraught with terror—sliding through turns, accelerating like being propelled from a slingshot, and hard braking. However, by the time we hit the freeway I’d crossed over to fun, mostly because I learned to trust Gramps. Then we rode fast and free, and I laughed out loud. He looked at me and giggled. We were both sixteen.
We passed a couple of big rigs, then shot right and passed a car driving in the fast lane, and got into the lane. We shot ahead like someone had launched us out of a cannon.
“This car loves to go fast.”
“Well, I think you do, too.”
He glanced over and peered into my eyes. “I sure do.”
I watched his hands. They held the wheel lightly, a drive in the park, while the car screamed and pitched. Gramps looked totally at ease. The speed climbed. I couldn’t read the speedometer, it sat recessed into the dash. “How fast are we going?”
He glanced down for a moment. “One forty, forty five-climbing. Uh oh.”
“What?”
“Just passed a cop.” He peered in the rearview mirror.
“We gonna outrun him?”
Gramps slowed the car. “Nah. Can’t outrun a radio. They’d have a dozen cars, probably with the flat tire plates out. Ever watch a chase show on TV?”
“Yeah...”
“Ever occur to you that a helicopter was filming it? Tough to outrun a copter, too.”
He pulled over and shut off the car, the engine clicking as the steel parts cooled. The cop ran up to the car. “What’s the matter with you? I’m going to arrest you and impound your ca—” he looked down at the license Gramps handed him—“Mr. Wilson, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can’t believe it. Scooter Wilson. I mean, Mr. Wilson. Sir.”
“Listen, officer, I’m real sorry for that, I just took my oldest grandson for a drive and got carried away.”
“We have tracks for that, um, sir.”
“I know, but it’s closed on Thanksgiving and all. And this is the first time he took any interest in me and my cars.”
He smirked. “Kids these days. Hopefully you can school him a bit.” He handed him his license. “Just slow it down. Please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Um… Mr. Wilson, sir, could I get your autograph?”
“Of course.”
Gramps signed a couple of things for the guy. A hat, a shirt, and a piece of paper. The guy thanked him like Gramps did him a favor. Weren’t we going a hundred fifty or something? He waved us off and Gramps launched the car, not quite as fast as before, but not too easy, either.
“We better get on home.”
“I suppose.” I’d have ridden with him to California that night, but I was also just glad we were not in jail. We eased up to the shop and Gramps backed the car in, right on the spot it sat before, and shut off the car.
“Don’t tell your folks about any of that, okay? Your mom worries.”
I clicked the door shut. “No. Course not.”
He went over to the workbench and picked up the cigar. Held it up. “You mind?”
“I got all night.”
He relit the stogie, took a big drag, and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “That’s the most fun I’ve had since my... your grandma passed. I sure do miss her.” He took another drag. What could I say? I chewed the gum, even though the taste had disappeared long ago through the first crazy turn. Surprised I hadn’t swallowed it. Gramps smoked and told stories.
He finished the cigar and put it out. We headed for the opening and he slid the door closed. Then, completely out of character, he put his arm around me. “Next time we’ll go to the track. Do some real driving. Maybe you could take the wheel a bit.”
“Uh, that would be awesome.”
~
The first day of Christmas break. “Could we go see Gramps?”
My mother looked at me like I’d grown two heads.
“Um, sure. I need to do some Christmas shopping. I can drop you off.”
“Perfect.”
We knocked on his door and he answered, shocked to see both of us.
“Come on in.”
“I, um, need to do some shopping. But Justin asked to see you.”
“He did?” He peered at me. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Wow, did I feel stupid. We never stopped by to see Gramps, except holidays. Mom couldn’t wait to leave, air kissed us and took off. We stood on his porch.
“You want to come in?”
“Actually, I was hoping we could go in the shop.”
His wrinkled old face broke into a smile and lost thirty years. “Awesome.” He excused himself to get his coat, then came out, closing the door behind him. He started toward the garage, then stopped. “I got a better idea.”
“What?”
“Let’s go to the track.”
The track. Mom would kill me. “What about Mom? She’ll come back here.”
“Text her. Tell her you’ll be at the—wait. No. Just tell her I’ll be dropping you off.”
“Good idea.”
“Shall we take the Camaro?”
“Absolutely.”
“Have a stick of gum.”
~
We drove under the track and into the infield, a huge area, particularly with almost no cars or RVs anywhere. Gramps rolled toward the pits, the engine rumbling, heat waves coming through the floorboards. I unclamped my hand from the armrest.
“See those cars?” He pointed. A few cars ran around the track. “How fast you suppose they’re going?”
“Eighty?”
“Probably well past a hundred.” Gramps stopped the car and people turned to see the Camaro with the engine sticking out of the hood. They pointed and covered their mouths with awe. I saw one point and could tell he said, “Scooter Wilson.” We walked to the crowd and soon Gramps was signing autographs.
~
Sometimes you hit a fork in the road and don’t even know it. I often wonder what would have happened if after a forgetful
dinner, followed by a period of utter boredom, I hadn’t asked to see Gramps’ shop one Thanksgiving. Two very different people came together, their ages six decades apart. Gramps gave my life an exciting turn as he ushered me into the NASCAR life, first sweeping garages, until finally becoming a crew chief decades later. We chewed a lot of Beeman’s gum and had no time for Grand Theft Auto. Called ourselves Scooter Wilson Racing, and I prayed every night I’d live up to the name.
I gave him another life, too, as he found something worth living for after losing his wife of forty plus years.
While I’m a great crew chief, I’m still unfit to tie his shoes. And I could never drive like him, even later in his life. Nevertheless, I wish he could see me now. Wish I could see him.
There’s a Bible verse about how if a man waters someone else, he waters himself. Seems like we watered each other. Quite well.
New Jersey
We visited New Jersey just days before Hurricane Sandy hit. In fact, we flew west for a wedding and left the bike in a motel parking lot, where it endured Sandy’s wrath.
While touring Atlantic City, we walked to the end of The Pier, a mall consisting of trendy shops and stores, built on an old dock that juts out into the Atlantic. While I enjoyed the scenery, I noticed a dad stick his kid on the rail. It seemed pretty stupid to me. Am I paranoid, or just a writer who sees possible disasters?
KIDS
John sat on the deck at the edge of Caesar’s ‘The Pier’ and stared at the water, thinking. That’s why he came to Atlantic City—to think—and this seemed to be the perfect spot. The water, rough, crashed through the pilings below. People milled about, a kid with a basketball, a young couple that looked to be in love (or in heat, he couldn’t really tell), and another couple with a little boy. The sight of the boy pained him.
That’s the reason I’m here.
“John.” He turned, in shock, to the familiar voice and stood when Monica approached. He hugged her. She kissed him fiercely. “I’m so glad to see you.”
He stroked her hair. “I’m happy to see you, too. But how did you find me, in Atlantic City?” His mind reeled. She’d called, just a few minutes ago, he assumed from home.
Holding his hand she sat on the bench. “I called your brother. He said you’d be staying at Caesar’s. So I drove here. And called you. And remember? You said you were at the end of The Pier.”
“I remember that part. But why did you come?”
She stood and paced. “You told me you needed time to think. Fine.” She stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips. “But what about me? I need an answer. Are we getting married or not?” Crossed her arms. “I’m sick of ‘I’m not sure about being a father.’”
“Well, I’m not.”
She sat and held his hand. “You’d be a great father. And it’s getting late in the game. You’re thirty-eight, I’m thirty-six; we’re running out of time.”
The dad put his kid on the railing, his legs under the pipe and his bottom on the top. Being a specialist in accident prevention, John didn’t like what he saw. But because he saw and heard of so many accidents, he always looked for the possibles. All his life he’d worked at risk management, and as a result he seemed to see danger everywhere. A bus stop, how innocuous? Yet a drunk, last year, slammed through one, killing four people and injuring six. A kid climbed a tree in a park, he remembered a story of another kid falling to the ground, a quadriplegic. A woman carried her kid from the store to her car, set the car seat on the roof, and loaded the groceries. That one really bothered him. He watched her until she set the child in the car, his memory fresh with a mom who left her kid up there, killing him. Why couldn’t he just… enjoy? Live in the moment? His past didn’t help the marriage/risk situation either.
“Monica, we’ve been over this before. I’m a three-time loser.”
“I reject that.” She counted on her fingers. “Sandy, from the first marriage, was a psycho. You were twenty, a dumb kid. Easy mistake. Elise passed away, John. That hardly counts.”
That counts. You don’t understand the pain. If I were to lose you, or God forbid, a child…
She held up one finger. “Only Karen could be considered a loss.”
Loss. It was what he struggled to prevent. Carter Loss Prevention, LLC. The kid wiggled on the railing. Dad backed away.
“Honey, it isn’t just that. If I had kids with those women, those kids’ lives would be buried in loss. Missing dad because of his job, relationships that came and went, it would have been terrible.”
The kid wiggled and laughed, his feet kicking over the ocean twenty feet below. Dad held his hand.
Monica actually growled. “But that’s the past. Don’t you see? Yes, all three put together would have made for a tough ride for a kid. But now, the business is running well enough that you can leave it like you’re doing this week, and we’ll be okay, won’t we? What if it works? Why, for once, don’t you look at how it could work instead of how it couldn’t?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that... I’m wired for watching for loss, failure. Shoot, when I was a teenager, I spent the summer being a lifeguard.” He glanced at the kid. “And the business is all about watching for possible problems.”
She jumped up and ran to the rail. John followed and put his arms around her from behind. Felt her sob. “You’re crying.”
“It’s just that…”
He saw past her, the kid fell forward and out of sight. He heard the splash. He just fell! John handed the camera and wallet to her.
“Hold these.” The dad stood there, looking over the side. John vaulted over the side and hurtled to the water. A lot more than twenty feet. He rotated and saw the kid’s head. The water felt like an electric shock as he sank beneath the waves. Tasted salt. Swam up. Looked and located the kid, between the pilings. The waves crashed against them.
If that kid hits a piling, he’s done.
He swam with his head up, trying to keep him in sight. He disappeared under a wave. Closer. Saw his blond hair floating under the surface. Reached around his chest from the back. Lifted him. A wave sent them toward a piling, so he laid back and kicked off it. The kid was crying… a good sign. In the trough he swam toward the edge. Two more pilings. Another wave pushed them between the next row of pilings. Keep his head out of the water. Another big wave, wait. It threw them toward the next group of pilings, but John timed it so the next trough allowed them to get out. He swam toward shore, only a hundred feet or so. On a hunch, he tried the bottom and his feet hit firm sand. The kid continued crying so he must have been breathing. A wave knocked them over and the kid went down underneath him. John kept his grip and struggled to get his feet under them. Stood. Turned to the waves. Watched for waves and walked backward.
In a short time they got out of the water and he set the boy down, who sat in the sand and sobbed uncontrollably. John stood next to him, paralyzed. Without brothers or kids, he didn’t know what to do. Hold him? Pat him on the shoulder?
He squatted in front of him. “What’s your name?”
“T-T-Tyler.”
“Are you okay?” Brilliant question.
He shook his head no. Snot ran out his nose and mixed with the water of the Atlantic.
Probably should hug him or something, but afraid he’d be arrested as a child molester or something.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded and stood.
“Let’s find your mom and dad.”
The boy took a deep, shuddering breath and acted like he’d told him they were walking to the moon, but he struck out. Walking beside him, they both pushed through the fluffy white sand.
“What’s your name?”
Mr. Clark? John? “Uh, call me John.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“I’m four, almost five.”
John scanned the beach, looking for the parents. Surely they ran to the boardwalk to find their boy. No one looked like them. Nobody looked stricken, fri
ghtened.
“I’m cold,” he said.
Nothing dry to give the boy. John removed his sweatshirt and wrung it out. Stuck it on him and wrapped the arms around him and tied them to keep them from dragging on the ground. “That better?”
He nodded.
“Let’s find your folks.” He directed the boy toward the promenade, probably a hundred more yards through the dry sand.
“My dad lets me run on that board thing up there.” He pointed to the boardwalk, with people riding bikes and walking, ignorant of the near disaster, so close yet completely removed from their lives. “He said we’re going to rent bikes, too. Maybe go out in a fishing boat or fish from The Pier.” He continued prattling almost nonstop as they trudged through the sand, both weighted down with their wet clothes. As they walked over a sandy knoll, through the grasses, the boy chattered on.
“I rode that ride over there,” he pointed to the Ferris wheel. “It was scary.”
You just about drowned. That should be scarier. “Those are pretty scary.”
“Could you hold my hand?”
“Uh, sure.” John reached out, slid the sleeve of the sweatshirt up and took his hand. It felt small, cold, and damp.
“Where’d you learn to swim?”
“When I was nine my mother taught me. In a river.”
He stopped and looked out to the water crashing under The Pier. “Were you scared?”
“Back there? Yeah. Some. You?”
The boy nodded and turned back. “I bet my dad can teach me to swim.”
He better if he can’t keep a simple eye on you. “Maybe he could.”
“If I could swim, then we’d have been okay.”
“Maybe.” Those waves could have smashed us into the pilings. Brilliant! Make him as paranoid as you, looking for the downside of everything. “If you could swim, it would have helped a lot.”
“My clothes sure are wet. They stick to me.” He pulled his shirt away from his stomach and it returned to a stuck position.
“Mine, too.”
They got on the boardwalk as a police car raced up, lights flashing. Two cops got out and ran past them onto The Pier. John shook his head. A man and a boy, soaking wet... in street clothes... couldn’t they put two and two together?
They followed them into the building just as Monica ran up to them and hugged John. “You’re all right.” She bent, hugged the boy, then held his shoulders, and looked him in the eyes. “Are you okay?”