From A Dig Motorsports’ “Tough Trucks” – The Road Course Blues
In a corner room of the building that looked like a church, sandwiched between a goofy toy shop and the offices of a monopolistic power company, on the other side of the road from another building that really was a church—concrete steeple towering overhead like a Space Needle of divine providence—nestled in the land of the white squirrel: Brevard, North Carolina, behind a dark oak, baroque-styled desk—shiny gilded handles, knurled wooden legs, and bestial faces carved into its woody façade: jutting out like 3-D sculpted doomsayers of mafia truth and mob tough guy mentality—sunken into the sumptuous leather high-back office chair like a man with a plan, sat the Don, Don Noodlesauce.
The door flung open. “Like,” Flash said. “What are you doing here?”
The high-back office chair swiveled round. Don Noodlesauce wore a three-piece suit—pinstriped and with a floral-looking square in the breast pocket of his blazer—black leather gloves and a gold ring on his pinky the size of a Jawbreaker. His gray eyes glassy and indignant. A white goatee, wrinkled cheeks, sunspots.
He sucked. His cigar lit up cherry red. Smoke swirled from its end like the wispy tail of a ghost.
“You don’t have any vision, kid,” the Don said.
Flash made her eyes slanted. “I totally do,” she said. “Like, I can read and—”
“Silence!”
“Whatever.”
Noodlesauce tapped his cigar. Ashes fell into a dish that looked to be made of quartz.
“What happened to the van?”
“Like,” Flash said. “That idiot Danger or his little buddy pushed it off a cliff.”
“I knew that silly idea of a floor polisher packed with explosives would never work.”
Flash chewed on a nail and spit.
“You’re like so totally wrong, man,” she said. “I’m the brains of this operation. And my plan was stupendous! No one would’ve seen it coming! A mobile detailing service with an extra powerful buffer, cleaning race trucks in the garage area and then making an enormous boom, killing off all those miserable man beasts.”
The Don puffed and blew out smoke. He stood and pounded a fist to the desk.
“That was your plan?” he said, wrinkling an eyebrow. “Floor polishers aren’t for ‘detailing,’ you idiot. They’re for waxing and cleaning floors. How were you going to maneuver that big beast around on the hood, a fender, a tailgate?”
Flash brushed off dirt from her flesh-colored, dental floss-covered firesuit and said: “Like, don’t you worry about that,” she posed like a bodybuilder and flexed. “I’m strong,” she said. “I could’ve totally made it work.”
Noodlesauce blew a smoke ring and then tried to pop it as if it were a bubble. He fell into his chair. It made the sound of whooshing air.
“You’re going to have to become a martyr,” the Don said. “Your disciples need motivation. Men die every day. They’ll need something more than just some race drivers and their friends to die in order to throw away all that money and become part of the club.”
Flash scratched her head. “Like, no way,” she said. “I’m not ready to die!”
“Sacrifice,” Noodlesauce said, “is the engine of growth. And in order to grow this business,” he gestured with his hand, drawing hieroglyphs in the air with his smoldering cigar, “we need the leader to die. A call for all to join and take up arms, to become united against masculinity, making the International Man-Hating Club of America the Spaghetti crime family’s number one money making scheme of all time.”
“Like,” Flash said. “When you guys bought up all those clubs and helped all those rainbow warriors in the fifties and sixties, there was no martyr? I thought this was like the same thing, man?”
The Don pulled on his cigar. “Times change,” he said. “People have to adapt. Businesses must adjust. And I’ve got a backup plan.”
“I’m so not doing it,” Flash said, frantically running her hands through her matted down, natural dark blonde hair. “My girls are loyal. They don’t need to see me ‘eat it’ in order to join the club. Besides, our membership numbers are off the charts! Growing like weeds in summer!”
“The location in Whitney Point is floundering,” the Don said, knocking gray and black into quartz. “We can’t afford this to happen all across the country. Fewer and fewer local PDs are excepting bribes. If we don’t act quickly and drum up interest, I’m afraid things are going to get bad. Real bad. The Feds are starting to sniff around.”
“Like,” Flash said. “The ratio of men to women in Whitney Point is like a hundred to one, man! We need that location!”
“If it don’t make dollars,” Don Noodlesauce said, “it don’t make sense.”
“Huh?”
“Closing soon.”
“No way, man!”
Noodlesauce reached for the telephone that sat on the desk. An old-timey square contraption, a landline. Its receiver was yellow, its base white, like a plastic banana split. The Don spun the numbers and made a call.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said. “I need a truck, a big one… you don’t have any? But you work at U-Haul, that’s your business, renting out trucks… oh, I see… you have a van, eh… how big… you’re sure ten barrels and wires and the detonation boxes will fit… OK, when will it be here… tomorrow morning… yes, that’ll be perfect.”
The Don hung up the phone and sat his cigar on the ashtray. He licked his fingers and slicked back his eyebrows. “Can you sing?” he asked.
Flash gyrated and then smiled. “Of course I can. I’m naturally charismatic, man! A true entertainer!” She cleared her throat and began to sing:“Mmmbop, ba duba dop, ba du bop, ba dooby doo do dop. Mmmbop. Ba du bop, ba duba dop. Ba du yeah! Mmmbop!”
“Wonderful,” the Don said, standing. “The concert will be at Bristol when you make your return. Hundreds of thousands in attendance and millions watching around the world, it’ll be perfect.”
“Like,” Flash said, shaking her leg as if she were ending her dance, “I totally have to give my epic speech first, man!”
Noodlesauce walked close and whispered into her ear: “I don’t give a damn about your speech, kid. You screw this up and don’t die, lose the van again, I’ll kill you myself… and, what’s that awful smell?”
Flash unzipped her firesuit and reached in. She pulled out a stick of Ridge Top Natural’s deodorant.
“I totally should probably freshen up,” she said, rolling on the stick. “Want some?”
“Do I look like one of your brain dead followers?”
“Well, actually… yeah.”
“Silence!”
Flash smacked her lips. The Don walked from the room and out to the limo that waited.
Interpersonal relations at Watkins Glen International were also a bit argumentative and uncooperative.
“I hate road courses,” Ricky said, from behind the wheel of The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy, riding around at pace lap speed.
Fatback looked at the blue sky and white clouds. He shielded his eyes from the bright sun, sitting atop From A Dig Motorsports’s war wagon on pit lane, and said: “Tough. Yinz ain’t got no choice. This where we racin’, son.”
“But—”
“Yinz ain’t have no twisties in Charlottesville, huh?”
“Well,” Ricky said, “not really.”
“How about them video games yinz’z always carryin’ on about?”
“I don’t like turning right.”
“Hell, how come?”
“Rotator cuff injury from when I was a Little League pitcher.”
“Yinz ain’t got’uh athletic bone in your body, son. Yinz just’uh—”
“Green! Green! Green!”
The field of NASCAR Camping World race trucks shouted into the hills of Watkins Glen, New York and motored down the front straightaway, beneath the shaking hand of the flagman, a green piece of cloth dancing to the transient gusts, fans cheering and standing on their feet, stomping and pointing.
In the first corner of the first lap, Ricky heard his spotter say: “Got one looking to your right. Still there. Still there. Clear.”
Charlton Sanders had sailed his Toyota Tundra beneath Ricky’s black-and-white race machine, stealing the position, kicking The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy one spot closer to dead last.
On corner exit, Ricky stood on the skinny pedal and started to snake his arms: right, then left, then right again, up the Esses and onto the backstretch. When he saw the white sign on the blue guardrail with the number 5—his braking point—Ricky lifted and slowed, settling his race truck, snaking his arms once again: right, then left, then right again, through the Inner Loop and into the long sweeping right-hander, Turn Five.
“Got another one looking to your right,” the team’s spotter said. “Clear. Clear. Clear.”
The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy had washed out of the racing groove, opening the door and allowing Devin Dean to motor past.
On lap two, it was a white race truck dancing about in Ricky’s rearview, flashing its set of chrome teeth and beeping its demonic horn. Entering Turn Seven, Steves Arvisais and his Silverado nearly made contact with Ricky’s Chevy.
Ricky’s attention had shifted from out the windscreen to out his mirror. He was late picking up the throttle, a listless jaunt down the frontstretch.
Into One, The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy paid the price. Ricky blew past his braking zone and slid wide. Arvisais pounced. His white race truck pinned itself close to the curb: a model racing line, and flew past.
“What the hell?” Fatback said.
“My rotator cuff is acting up,” Ricky said. “It’s catching when I turn right!”
“Stop making excuses, son,” Fatback said. “Yinz’z P-nineteen. Step on it!”
“Yes, sir!”
Two laps later, Ricky finally made a move.
It wasn’t all that impressive, however. The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy gained one spot, but it was only because a red-and-blue race truck was sitting sideways on the racetrack, trying to gather itself after a spin, spewing tire smoke and wheeling round.
On the very same lap, in Turn Six, From A Dig Motorsports’s black-and-white race machine once again lost a position.
First it was Evan Hallstrom in his KC HiLiTES Chevrolet Silverado blowing Ricky’s doors off and thundering past.
Then, in the next corner, the red-and-blue race truck of James E Robson that had spun out only moments earlier, gifting Ricky a spot, dove to the inside and muscled The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy out the way: dead last.
“Yinz’z bringin’ up the rear,” Fatback said. “This is damn near embarrassin’, son.”
“My rotator cuff!”
At the halfway point of the race, Ricky had lost complete sight of the pack. All he saw was open racetrack and trees. He thought about soaring like a bird, high above, free from the demands of turning right and playing caboose. At first, he thought he’d like to be an oriole. Then his thoughts shifted to flapping his wings like a blue jay, a robin, a hummingbird, waddling along slowly like a penguin.
“Where am I running?” he asked.
“Hell,” Fatback said. “Same damn spot yinz was four laps ago… last.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“I feel like I’m getting the hang of this. Neat!”
“I don’t think so, son.”
With four laps to go, still waddling along like a dopey penguin, The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy—once again in the Inner Loop, this time intentionally sliding out of the racing groove—got lapped.
“I ain’t’uh believin’ this,” Fatback said.
“What?”
“Yinz just got freakin’ put down’uh lap on a road course!”
“So?”
“So?” Fatback cried out, looking up at the sky and shaking his fist. “So? This here road course is two point four five miles long! Damn near unheard of for a race truck tuh’be put down a lap on speed alone, son. Yinz’z performance is ‘bout as bad as that time I tried to learn the banjo. Hell, I snapped that sucker in two after ten minutes.”
“Shut up, fatty!” Ricky barked, pressing the red button on his steering wheel. “I’m trying to race!”
“Son,” Fatback said, “racin’ ain’t what yinz’z doin’. Yinz in the way.”
Coming to the checkered flag, entering Turn Six, Ricky looked out his rearview: One, two, three, four hungry race trucks single file, readying themselves to make a pass. Ricky thought: Hmmm… maybe I am in the way. The road course blues. Yeah.
When The Black Dahlia Murder/Snap-on Chevy pulled behind its hauler, Ricky tore off his helmet and slithered out.
Fatback stood waiting, his cell phone to his ear. “Boss!” he shouted. “I can’t believe yinz finally answered, it’s so—”
Then Fatback despondently folded his phone and tucked it back into his pocket. He moped.
“Where’d we finish?” Ricky said.
“Dead last,” Fatback replied, matter-of-factly, looking down.
“What’s wrong?” Ricky said. “Were you just talking to the c-cops?”
“No.”
“Whew… what is it then?”
“I fell for it again,” Fatback said. “The boss’s durn recording.”
“Happened to me, too,” Ricky said.
“That’s ‘cause yinz’z stupid,” Fatback said.
“Sounds like you’re stupid, too, fatty,” Ricky said, bending over, taking the heat shields off his heels and tossing them into the truck.
Fatback busted his clipboard over his knee like a baseball bat and said: “Yinz laugh it up real good, son. As soon as them damn blue bloods find Flash, your little skinny butt is back on the couch, out of’uh ride. Maybe then we can run up front like we’z supposed’tuh.”
Fatback stomped off and went into the team’s hauler. Ricky unzipped his firesuit to his waist and climbed on top of his race truck’s bed—laying out, soaking up the sun.
After not finding any bodies at the crash site of the white van at the bottom of Steep Cliff Overlook, Agent Bearclaw returned to his Crown Vic and cranked it up. He drove down the sinuous path of the two-lane mountain road, a black car with tinted windows and chrome wheels suspiciously in tow.
The Crown Vic pulled into the parking lot of a motel: Allegheny Suites and Bedbugs Plus!
Agent Bearclaw got a room key from a desk clerk that looked like Uncle Fester. Then he returned to his car and popped the trunk. After moving a life jacket and relocating a fishing pole—the dazzling sight of Crime Don’t Pay still in his mind, Bearclaw grabbed his suitcase and shut the boot.
Something distracted the agent, sounds like bass beating and beating and beating, whahmmm, whahmmm, whahmmm, the janky rattle of a car without Dynamat. Bearclaw turned his head and saw a black sedan with its yellow running lights on, a driver behind the wheel nodding his head to the beat. Then their eyes locked. The man behind the wheel hurriedly flung open a newspaper and turned off his tunes.
Bearclaw casually wheeled his suitcase to his room. He’d seen this kind of behavior nine times: a hitman.
The agent tossed his suitcase on the bed, leaving the door unlocked, and ran to the bathroom. He cranked the shower up to hot. Then he waited… and waited… and waited…
Finally:
Knock-knock-knock!
Bearclaw slowed his breathing, focusing-in like a predator in the darkness.
Knock-knock-knock!
The door burst open.
From beneath the bed, all Bearclaw could see were dead bed bugs and the soles of the man’s shoes. When the soles disappeared, now only a faint click of the Oxford’s wooden bottoms on the tile of the bathroom floor, the agent silently wiggled out and tiptoed toward the steam.
He cracked his knuckles. He stretched his neck. He showed his teeth.
Just before the goon with stringy hair was about to throw back the shower curtain and bust a cap, Agent Bearclaw stormed the room and took the man’s back, digging a forearm into his windpipe, tightening it down with his other arm, locking up a rear naked choke.
The mobster tried to escape, bucking and gesticulating like a porpoise out of water, stumbling backwards, knocking Bearclaw into the sink, the mirror. But the agent remained steadfast, never loosening his grip.
Before the man with stringy hair fell to the floor, he gurgled and spit foam from his mouth. Bearclaw freed his arms. Then he kicked the goon in his ribs. Then he shut off the shower and locked the door: interrogation time.
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