Welcome, my ass.

I'd never been to the Elko Speedway, even though I've lived no more than 50 miles from it my entire life, and I found that I wasn't missing much. "International" was pushing it, especially from the announcer high up in the booth, talking mile-a-minute as though he'd had way too much of the Pepsi they sold at each corner of the track from ancient, decrepit Pepsi trailers.

I'd watched Jade's eyes lock onto the one that sold nachos as we entered the sacred and holy bastion of bottom-barrel, local-yokel racing. They looked nasty, but it didn't stop her from drooling. Some people were walking away with plastic containers full of the melted-processed-cheese and chip bombs, and they had something resembling Rainer's leavings after he'd given me the Grunt and the Look.

If it hadn't been for Elmore, I knew I wouldn't have been there, perched atop one of his brand new vinyl Winston Cup Racing cushions on a rickety old wooden grandstand, watching Bubba Joe and Cyrus P. Bumpus trying to make it around a quarter-mile track in less than 25 seconds while trying not to spin out or have his car shake to pieces around him.

Elmore had asked us to arrive around 5pm. Little had I known that I'd have to sit in the blazing sun as I watched these numbnuts 'practice'. I was assured by the psychotic announcer that they would 'qualify' at seven p.m., and start racing at eight.. Three hours... goddamnit.

Jade grinned.

I watched a man walk by the stands, holding an open can of beer in one hand, and three unopened cans stacked on top of each other. He was weaving, already quite drunk.

The rest of the afternoon proceeded in likewise fashion, with Jade munching nachos with the evil chili sauce and sour cream, Mountain Dew, and three hot dogs. She kept offering, but I declined. Food and the heat didn't mix well, even though I was ravenous from watching her scarf down hers. I saw several more men walk by who were soon to be drunk, sporting Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon t-shirts and black Harley-Davidson hats, wobbling merrily and balancing vast amounts of beer. Children raced by, oblivious to the all-encompassing noise from the junk circling the track. I also saw one or two die-hard race fans, clutching seat cushions like the one I was sitting on, huge, expensive cameras dangling from around their necks, and walkie-talkies attached to their belts.

She bent over, digging in her bag, and pulled out a walkie-talkie of her own, dangling it in front of my face.

A huge grin settled on my face.

Sam had been designated Crew Chief for the race. Bill and Ryan flipped, both of them being the Original Control Freaks. Elmore basically told me that he'd picked Sam because even though Bill was cool under pressure, he was working with Sam and Ryan, whom he was hardly ever cool with. Ryan was all pissed off, but it didn't last, simply because he'd decided he was having too much fun playing with the air wrench.

As the afternoon wore on, more cars came out onto the track. A few spun and smacked the wall, leaving black skid marks on a field of white concrete block. Most simply put the car back into gear and kept running as if they'd never been sidetracked, but a couple had to be hauled away. The drivers followed behind the truck, shaking a fist and swearing loud enough for even us up in the stands to hear him. Finally, Elmore appeared to qualify, a black and red monstrosity with number 04 painted on its sides and top. He took a 14.1 second lap, enough to give him a 8th position start in the big 100 lap race, and we yelled when he passed. One hand appeared at the driver's side, then he disappeared into the pits, which were behind the track instead of in the middle. The track was entirely too small to have thirty 'teams' hanging out there.

About five minutes before eight p.m., Jade excused herself and trotted down toward the pizza truck. The stands had filled steadily, and now there were people on all sides of us, except in front, where we'd deposited our bags and excess gear. There were still plenty of seats left, otherwise we'd have moved them. I was busy trying to figure out which tiny head in the announcer's booth was the motor-mouth commentator when I was tapped on the shoulder.

A middle aged, sagging-bottomed woman with a sour face and a huge straw hat was poking my shoulder and dragging an older man wearing a bass fishing hat who didn't look like he wanted to be anywhere near the noisy track. He was carrying a leather-bound book, and when he passed, I saw that it was an old copy of Moby Dick.

Jade returned carrying two slices of pizza, more Mountain Dew, and a bag of caramel popcorn. She handed the bag to me and frowned at the newly acquired heads that loomed in front of us.

There was so much noise, Sgt. Pepper and his lovely wife Broomhilda didn't hear Jade's question. She slid onto the seat next to me and handed me the pizza.

I held it. I wanted to throw it over my shoulder. It smelled like cooked armpit and it looked like it had enough grease sitting in pools on the surface to drown small children and large dogs in. The popcorn, on the other hand, looked edible.

I found myself swapping the putrid pizza for a 1 liter bottle of lukewarm Coca-Cola. I looked in amazement at this holy grail in my hands, manna from Heaven located within the sea of inferior caffienated beverages. Jade was grinning around a slice of pizza.

I ripped into the bag and popped a few kernels into my mouth. Pure heaven.

She held her hand three feet from where are feet rested on the rickety wooden plank.

I smirked and was about to answer when the loudspeaker roared to life. Yeah rah.

I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears. The speakers were way too loud. After a moment, I found out why. The cars started to trickle out of the pits and onto the track. Bombs of all ages, sizes, and degrees of repair hustled up to the front stretch of the track and started to line up in order of how they qualified. I watched for Elmore, and was greeted with the familiar red and black after a few moments.

I didn't realize I was standing, waving my bottle over my head like a drunken sailor, until Jade grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. The Wicked Witch of the West was watching me from the seats in front of me. I fought the urge to stick my tongue out, or worse yet, give her the one-fingered international hi-sign.

The sun had finally set, and it was cooling off. The problem was, instead of watching what was going on with the cars, I was watching the two weirdos in front of me. Mr. Fish Head had his nose deep into his book, but Mrs. Bad Wig and Evil Hat kept poking him in the arm.

He went back to his reading. She huffed and crossed her arms, looking around defiantly but not saying another word. Cow. Leave the guy alone. His taste in reading material might be questionable, but he had a good idea. If only I would have brought something to read. The back of a toilet paper wrapper would have been more interesting than this.

Jade poked me.

I looked back to the track, and there were several pickup trucks and vans and converted crap-haulers making there way from the pits, carrying men, women, and shitloads of tools and car parts. One of the vehicles was familiar.

Elmore's blue F-350, loaded down with his big red tool chest, spare parts, and two pissed off men, took their place on pit row. Sam Gerard got out of the driver's side of the truck, while Ryan and Bill started to unload the truck. As I watched, Ryan was easing the tool chest out of the truck, while Bill was receiving it. There was a minor scuffle when Ryan nearly dropped the Big Red Tool Chest on Bill, and Sam stepped in, breaking it up and scowling.

She handed me the scanner and a pair of headphones.

Jade held up another pair of headphones. I looked and found that there were two headphone jacks on the top of the radio.

I had a feeling she might anyway. As much greasy junk food as she'd eaten, she might very well be losing it all. Hopefully on the head of Attila the Hun in front of me.

Speaking of Attila...

The woman shoved a Brach's Pic-a-Mix bag underneath Rodney's nose. He slowly closed the book, one finger marking the page he was on, and turned to her.

Rodney carefully opened the time-worn book again and began to read. Ethel huffed and sighed again and fidgeted, worrying the bag of candy with both hands. She plucked a sweet from the bag and put it back in her purse, muttering loudly.

Again, "yeah-rah."

Both Jade and I were treated to the sound of thirty pieces of shit starting their engines simultaneously. (Actually, about twenty cars started simultaneously. Ten took a little more finessing, tape, bailing wire, and heavy prayers, to get up and running.) Bill, Sam, and Ryan stood in the little area they'd been given as their pit space, looking altogether useless. Sam was reading papers on a clipboard, Bill was standing on the pit wall, watching the cars pass underneath the yellow flag, looking noble, his hands planted on his hips, and Ryan was sitting beside him, engrossed in the workings of the air wrench. They all wore two-way headsets on their heads, and through my own headphones I could hear an incessant 'pirrirr pirrirr pirrirr' that coincided with Ryan pointing the gun-like air wrench at Bill.

We both giggled insanely as we watched Bill grab the tool and thrust it at Sam. He stalked off, and Sam, bothered out of his reading, stood holding the wrench in something like a daze. Ryan casually took it from him and turned.

Pirrirr, pirrirr, pirrirr.

Groan. Even through the all-encompassing headphones that I wore, I could hear the needle being dropped onto what was perhaps the oldest recorded vinyl copy of that particular re-recording of The Star Spangled Banner. It skipped, a terrible transition from the opening banjo pluck, jerking straight to the middle of "Oh say can you see..." I glanced down to see Sam smiling broadly, Ryan in a muddle of confusion, cradling the air wrench like he would a baby, and Bill with his arms firmly planted over each ear, while wearing headphones similar to mine, his hands clasped behind his head. He looked green.

The woman was obviously out of her mind. She tried for a young harlot look as she planted one gnarly hand, with bright blue nail polish, atop her straw hat, as if the non-existent wind would blow it off, and stood on her tip-toes, looking desperately around the track. Rodney never looked up from his book.

The song had been over for five minutes, and she was still looking for the incommunicado Country/Western group. I couldn't see through her head, and I was getting pissed. Finally, to the slight amazement of Jade, I told her to get bent or sit down.

The woman didn't even hear me. She had her hand planted above her eyes like a sailor looking to the horizon, swaying back and forth.

She whilrled on me.

Rodney never looked up.

Ethel set her jaw and harumphed, then slammed her ass down on her seat. She fiddled with her purse, extracting the Pick-a-Mix bag and jamming a sour ball into her sour face, muttering the entire time. It looked like she did a lot of that, and Rodney had no problem ignoring it.

Jade was snickering. She'd produced a corn dog from somewhere and set to knawing on the end of it. I shook my head and turned to the track, watching as the cars were parading at forty miles per hour around the speedway.

We waved at Elmore as he passed, but his attention was on the green flag, which the flagman held above the racetrack like a flare. As the two front cars, side by side, approached the white line, the flagman dropped the flag and wiggled it in front of himself in a pattern only a drunk could comprehend (and there were many in the crowd by now, so that wouldn't be a problem for the racing fans), and the cars took off to what appeared to be 60 miles per hour, straight into the first turn wall.

The car on the outside bounced off the freshly-painted white concrete wall, rolling backwards into the rest of the thirty car field, collecting several cars on it's way to the infield. Elmore dodged the obsicles and came out of the mess unscathed, to the satisfaction of his pit crew. They all had their two-way headsets on, and to our amusement, were using them.

There was a squak, then Elmore's voice came over the airwaves.

Ryan's face visibly fell, and he swung the wrench over his shoulder, catching it by the hose and letting it dangle across his back. I could tell he was simply itching to use the thing. For two weeks before the race, he'd watched the NASCAR events on television, amazed at the speed and grace of the various pit crews each driver had. The tire man would bound around to each wheel, spin the lugnuts off with his trusty air wrench, pull off the used tires, and thrust new ones on, tightening the lugs with the same tool he'd used before. Ryan had been enchanted. I could only wonder what kind of mayhem was being cooked up in that devilishly creative head of his. Elmore gave him the honors simply because he knew that he probably wouldn't need a tire change for such a short race.

Bill had opted for gas man, and Elmore knew that even though Bill was loud, obnoxious, and insane, he could be counted on for making things happen. He was instinctual, precise, and fast. That job was the only one he knew would have to be executed. He'd need gas before the end of the race. All of the cars would.

Sam was the planner, always with a map in his back pocket, and Elmore knew he would be there even if Ryan and Bill were brawling on the other side of the pit wall. If it came down to one person, Sam would stick with what he'd been asked to do. He was serious about everything he put his mind to, and even though the other two men could be trusted with Elmore's own life, this wasn't a life or death situation. They might end up fucking around. To Sam, everything was important. At least, he treated it like it was.

It took the track crew about forty-five minutes to clean up seven demolished cars and put down speedy-dry where the oil had leaked onto the blacktop. In the meantime, Jade had brought me some cheese curds and a one liter of lukewarm Seven Up from the same guy at the beer garden. Jade was chewing on a soft prezel, but had not shown any signs of wrecking herself yet. Ethel, who was proving to be more of a show than the race, was bugging Rodney for money, having been enticed by the evil smell of Jade's current food item. Rodney was busily reading and ignoring her with great aplomb.

Finally, they got all the cars sorted out and lined up, and they began the parading thing all over again, the flagman saluting the field like some sort of demented, goose-stepping soldier. He did the jiggling-thing with the flag, and the cars lurched forward, tires squealing and front-ends wiggling, but staying solid otherwise. Elmore started moving up through the pack, ending up at third when someone near the middle of the field decided he was Dale Earnhardt and started bumping the rear end of the idiot in front of him. Unfortunately, he whacked the guy way too hard and this caused a devistating chain reaction that took out half the cars on the track. Over the noise, I heard a yell over my two-way.

Pirrirr, pirrirr, pirrirr.

Pirrirr, pirrirr, pirrirr.

I could see Bill advancing on Ryan, and Sam, clipboard still in his hand, advance on the both of them. Just as things started to look ugly, racetrack security appeared, two men with their arms crossed. I saw three bodies instantly look innocent, trying to seem busy. The show was over, and I felt the call of nature beconing me to the ladies barn.

I bade my friend farewell and sidestepped a family of baboons to get out of the stands. I dodged more NASCAR shirt-wearing, beer-balancing, brewery-reeking men and women until I made it to the big, concrete block building that served as the restroom. I stood on the right side, the women's side, and watched as several groups of children played in the clearing next to the building. They were running around in the dirt, throwing beer cans at each other and trying to kill one another in general.

When I was done, I noticed the beer garden sign to the left. I glanced at the track--several cars were still piled up. It would be forever before they'd get them cleaned up. There was only one tow truck on the track, and one pickup pushing the cars that could still roll. I figured 'why not?' and wandered over.

Travis Lehman sat at a table in the back, two books on the table and one in his hand. In the other was a beer, and the pile of cans that Jade told me about had grown in size. It was, perhaps, four feet tall. He didn't look like he'd been affected in the least.

He looked up, and smiled when he said my name. It didn't look terribly sincere, but he didn't smile for many people, or for too many reasons, so I wasn't offended in the least.

I did, and tried to see the spine of his book. He flipped it over.

He folded down the corner of his page and closed the book. I sat there, feeling kind of... quiet.

Travis gave me one of those quick, crocodile smiles again.

I half-smirked.

He took a pull off his beer, then reached into his pocket for his billfold, took out a fiver.

Both statement and question were said in a purely light, yet solid tone. No anger there, but it also said not to step where you're not welcome.

Of course, I'm not always open to that sort of interpretation. I figured I'd play his game and ignore his tone, at least a little. I'd still watch my step.

I hadn't had anything alcoholic since before I was pregnant. When Lehman returned, he handed me a Miller Light.

Travis smirked.

I turned the other two books that were resting on the table around so that I could see their spines. One was a bland-looking law book, thick and worn. The other was a John Sandford novel.

I indicated the Great Mound of Beer Cans. He didn't say anything.

I looked around, suddenly uncomfortable with the relative silence. He was a wall when he wanted to be, and apparently now was the time.

He sounded bitter, especially when he said 'good boy.' He took another drink.

Lehman smiled.

I was getting annoyed. He looked amused.

He stood up, gathered his books.

Then Travis Lehman walked, very casually, a man in complete control of himself and his faculties, straight to the men's room. I sat there for a moment, watching him go and stewing in my own juices, then I finished off my beer and went back to the grandstands.

Jade was waiting for me. Miraculously, she didn't have anything in her hands, but she looked like she was faring well. I clambered up the stands, squeezed past Bubba and his large and fertile family of yard apes, and settled beside Jade again. She had a One-Liter Cherry Coke waiting for me.

Jade smirked.

She raised her eyebrow and gave me a fake Mexican accent.

The race was back underway, and so was the arguing. Sam was holding one hand out to Ryan, as a parent might do when they were tired of hearing a child making loud noises with one of their toys, and Ryan was pointing the air wrench at Sam, just as he had with Bill. All we could hear was whirring over our headphones.

I remembered why I didn't like car races. They were boring as hell when they got going, and too damn long, even though this one was going by really fast when there weren't any wrecks.

Ethel woke with a snort and turned around groggily, making a sour face.

Ethel growled, convulsed, then lurched up out of her seat and flung herself at my throat, bony hands looking for some sort of purchase. She was screeching something that sounded a lot like "peanut butter tomatoes and caulk" but really was probably "I'll kick your ass" or "I'll kill you" or "Eat my Metamucil", something like that.

She had absolutely no strength in her grip, but it was her presentation that scared the living piss out of me. She'd turned from this thin, meek, bitchy woman to this thin, short, screaming banshee, her hair whipping around her face, her eyes bulging, and her hat flying from her head. Instinctively, I shook my Cherry Coke and opened it, right in her face. She stumbled backwards into a guy (wearing a NASCAR shirt) seated in front of her, who broke her fall. She was rubbing her face, howling and growling.

Rodney looked up casually.

Ethel grabbed her hat, her bag, and her cushion and stomped down the grandstands. Rodney carefully folded down the corner of the page he was on, re-positioned his fishing cap on his head, and turned to me. He had friendly grey eyes, and deep crows feet at the corners of his eyes.

He smiled at me, then walked through the stands, following Ethel at a distance. I was watching them disappear into the crowd when there was a loud crunch close by.

The leader, Hellis, had smacked the outer retaining wall, and was hugging it with his front fender as he skidded around the third turn. Elmore was about seventy-five feet behind him, going low to avoid the debris. I looked to Jade, but she mouthed "Elmore didn't do it". Apparently, he'd simply lost control of the car and had smacked the wall. Just as Elmore passed below him, Hellis started to slide down the track, directly into oncoming traffic. It wouldn't have been as hard to avoid him, but he slid nose-first toward the infield, making himself a slow-moving wall in front of the rest of the field. There were many crunches, much smoke and dust, and very few survivors. The ones who *did* make it out sought shelter in the pit area. When the noise subsided, it I started counting cars on pit road.

Yes, it was a mess. Drivers were pulling themselves out of demolished vehicles, swearing and throwing helmets. After a time, they formed a small group near the edge of the infield grass, men of all sizes with their hands on their hips and their arms crossed, bitching and moaning about the various states of their cars. Then one pointed to the lone race car at the other end of the track. Hellis was standing by his car, smacking the hood with his helmet. As a group, the drivers started walking towards the car.

Hellis never saw them coming.

It took seven police officers in riot gear to break up the fight. In the interim, twelve teams and several teenagers who had climbed the fence were involved in the brawl, not to mention all the disgruntled drivers. Bill and Ryan would have been involved as well, but Sam had gotten to them first. They settled for watching them from a distance.

After it all broke up, the three of them wandered back and attempted to busy themselves while the track crew cleaned up the mess. Bill was squatting beside Elmore's window, chatting it up. Sam was chowing on a couple of hot dogs and watching Ryan as the Irishman sat on the pit wall, a wheel lying at his feet, screwing lugnuts off and on the wheel as fast as he could.

I was standing again, my Cherry Coke bottle perched atop my head. I had been bouncing up and down precariously on the wooden stand, and people were looking at me, fear in their eyes. I sat down quickly and took a drink from my bottle.

Ryan was now working on an entire set of tires. One, two, three, four, switch tires. One, two, three, four, switch tires. He'd unscrew four lugnuts, throw the wheel over his shoulder, and grab another one. Sam noticed just in time for one of the tires to barrel straight into Bill, knocking him down. The tire had bounced off of his hard head, and had knocked his radio on.

Everyone started responding on their two-ways, thinking that Bill had meant to do it.

Bill got up, watching as a wheel bounced off in the direction of the ambulance. The techs were checking out the drivers who had been involved in the wreck, and they were taking them into the truck one at a time. He saw where it was going, and bounded after it.

A driver, who had previously been pronounced healthy, received a face-full of rubber, knocking him flat. Bill nearly tripped over the man as he flew after the tire.

The tire nearly made it to the edge of the track before Bill tackled it. If it had rolled onto the track, it could have hit any number of track crew members before it settled somewhere. Bill got to his feet, hauling the Good Year Eagle and limping visibly, his face red and very very pissed.

Bill's head jerked up. I didn't think his face could redden further, but it did.

Bill stomped over to the pit area, dropped the tire in Ryan's lap, (Ryan: Ayiiiii! Christ Fecking Jesus!), and began to storm across the infield in the direction of the announcer's box.

I prodded Jade in the arm and pointed at Bill, who was flinging the gate below the flagman's box open and climbing through the chain link fencing.

I turned to look at her for a moment, and found that the evil food she'd been consuming all night was finally catching up with her. She was pale and sweaty, and was starting to push past me to leave. I leaned back and hoped to hell she'd get to the bathroom before she let go.

When I looked back, I saw that Bill was most of the way up the height of the grandstand, ascending to the announcer's box which overlooked the track. I was torn--go over there, which would take me forever because I was on the backstretch, or watch from afar and hope to holy hell that he wouldn't do anything stupid.

Yeah, right.

Bill threw the door to the announcer's box open.

Oh, shit.

There was the sound of scuffling over the airwaves, both in my ears and over the speaker system, but I was probably one of the few people who heard what really happened. Well, me, Sam, and Ryan.

He released the Announcer, just as Sam burst through the door of the booth and dragged Bill out.

The announcer was coughing a little and clearing his throat.

Bill shrugged out of Sam's grip, tore the headphones off his head, shoved them into Sam's stomach, and walked ahead at a fast clip, out to the parking lot.

It all went pretty quick from there on out. Elmore won the race, not even needing to stop for gas because he’d gotten a refuel every time there had been a wreck.l He had the best car out on the track, but the other two drivers didn't mind because it was the best they'd finished in their entire careers. I stood on my seat to watch the teams pack up, mostly to see Sam, Ryan, and Elmore pack up. I may have been the only person to see Ryan unfasten the air wrench's hose that attached to the air compressor, wind the hose up, and place the wrench in his bag, very inconspicuous-like. Jade finally dragged herself back, looking paler than ever, and announced to me that she wasn't going to put anything in her stomach for a week or two, just because she didn't want to ever have to see it all again. When the teams were gone, and the people had pretty much cleared out, we gathered up our stuff and shuffled out to the Cruiser. On our way out, we passed the beer garden, but there was no sign of the illusive Travis Lehman, save for his monumentous pile of cans that someone had carelessly knocked over. They turned the lights out half-way to the parking lot, but I didn't care. I knew where I was going. I was going to go home and slip into bed beside Bill and fall asleep, and I was going to give him shit about being a seventy year old gas man. And he was going to give me shit back.

I knew he'd be leaving in the morning for parts unknown, and I wanted to spend a little time with him, even if it was in sleep.

And I had a plan.