Ah, I get it. You’re looking for a Rocky story, huh? A humble cornerstone who weathers adversity, sticking like glue to it’s chiseled foundations?

P-Shaw, says I. Doesn’t happen. He with the most mortar will not win in the end, not anymore than the sandstone that was deemed too soft and so was chucked atop the undesirables’ cairn. That one can hold up another is illusory. After all, that wedged-in smaller chunk was part and parcel of the larger once, was it not? Back before selfishly breaking away? And is it really any stronger having gone? Nah. Is just one more gravel in the bag.

All the stones, big and small, wind up dust on the scattered ground, by-the lonely-bye. So don’t put too much weight on the little guy... he’s having a tough enough time just keeping his own chips together.

Lonnie Levis awoke from a most horrible dream to an even worse reality; being naked in a strange bed in a strange room, his hands and fingers dug with an intense cruelty into the neck of some unfamiliar and equally naked woman whom he had incredulously discovered lying beneath him. That the two of them had done “it” was obvious, though he remembered nothing of it, and he wanted no part in it. He had obviously blacked out, but why? How? None of this was like him! He was married after all, if only somewhat happily. And there were kids to consider...

Still, here he was, his eyes locked onto those of a dying woman, their examination of his so desperate for relief that it frightened him to see it. Could she not see that he was no killer? Yet here he was. And there was such comprehension in her eyes… such awareness that she was nearly gone, leading Lonnie’s addled consciousness to the same conclusion. Yet something was off here. Something was wrong, something that made Lonnie cling to his grip, something as yet unseen in the dingy, filtered light emitted through the nicotine-stained shade atop the headboard wall lamp, a light which illuminated her mottled face even as her legs and abdomen spasmed beneath him in their last feeble attempts at air. Lonnie’s own eyes watched the light fading in hers and alerted the fact of it to his brain which screamed for him to let her go, but his hands would not. They could not.

“What was it?” He wondered, almost calmly. “What was the thing that felt amiss here?“ And so despite Lonnie’s full-on gasp of the direness of the situation… even still, he did not let her go.

He wanted to let go. Honest he did. But how? Who was this woman? Why was she here? Why was he here, for that matter, and what had led them to this? His thoughts were so scrambled the he could not remember, and so he held tight to the one thing that felt concrete, even though it was not. She would go to the police if he let go. She would surely tell them what he was currently engaged in doing to her, wouldn’t she? Of course she would! He would not even blame her for that. He would expect his wife, or his daughter, to do as much if they found themselves in such a situation. And the police would believe her, too! The woman is always believed, isn’t she? He would end up in jail! He would become just another negative racial crime statistic despite a lifetime committed to family, God, and purpose; not necessarily in that order.

But then as the light in her eyes faded scenes began flashing through Lonnie’s mind; dream-like memories of warming the barstool which served him as an escape from the coldness awaiting at home, memories of drinks consumed to wash away that home’s troubles, and the memory of a woman in a slinky, black dress seating herself on a vacant stool beside him… this very woman whose life he now held in his hands. And throughout this flash of remembrance the pleasant way this woman had smiled at him stood out keenly, and how that smile had made him feel; manly and desirable, when just moments before his whole existence had felt completely unraveled.

He had been played. He was sure of it… but how?

Lonnie had never been with a white woman. It was his brag that he liked his women as “black as his coffee,” and he appreciated a black woman’s aura of strength. Yet he’d also always harbored an unspoken, back-of-mind curiosity, a fantasy if you will… a fantasy that would never be realized, of course. How would it be with a white woman, he wondered? What would her kiss be like? How would she feel beneath him? On top of him? How would he feel inside her? Different? And if different, how so?

Fantasy and situation in mind, it would have been easy, wouldn’t it? When the timing is right, and the opportunity? A returned smile, some light conversation, a bought drink, that unmistakeable signal of a foot “accidently“ pressed to your leg. Even he could see how it might have happened… but had it?

Lonnie Levis was a proud man, and so it pained him that he had somehow lost his wife’s respect. He was a smart man, too. Smart enough to know that that’s what all this came down to. Dominique would never talk to him the way she currently did if she still respected him, not if she respected him the way she had in their early days. Lonnie was not even exactly sure of when the change had taken place, but over time there had been a slow transformation in the way she greeted him when he came through the door, beginning with an indifference which had, over time, morphed itself into a displeasure which gradually worsened to actual disgust until Lonnie was now at his breaking point.

That’s just it, too. A mere woman had broken him, hadn’t she?

A good man, Lonnie had tried and tried again, attempting to combat her manipulations with alternating indignation and docility, but nothing he attempted satisfied her. One resolved issue only revealed another. He wanted his marriage to work, so he tried. God, how he tried! He loved the life he and Dominique had built. He loved his children, but what does a man do when his best is no longer good enough? Lonnie was at the point now where he knew before he arrived what awaited him at home; a wife’s anger fueled by a combination of Chardonay and phone conversations convened with a divorced best friend named Natasha who sported a big ass and a bigger mouth, both of which spelled out to Lonnie the smallness of her brain. With his peace gone, life had gotten to the point where Lonnie did not even want to return after a long day at work to the home he so loved… and so tonight he hadn’t.

But damned if he didn’t wish himself there now.

But giving Dominique her due, Lonnie knew he was not the perfect man. He had put on a few pounds since college, and he was usually exhausted after long shifts walking the floor of the distribution center where it was his job to keep things moving at an inhumanely required pace. But he did it, didn’t he? And he never complained about it. And he’d gotten Dominique away from the East Side hadn’t he, just like she’d wanted? And she was driving the car she wanted, and watching the big screen television she’d wanted while lounging on the sofa she’d demanded… but it wasn’t enough, was it? It never was. What more can a man do? And after working hard to get her all of those things, she now complained that he was never home.

No shit.

So he’d determined that tonight he would show her, hadn’t he? Tonight he wouldn’t go home! Tonight he’d get a room at the Marriott and turn off his cell phone. Tonight she‘d get a taste of what it was like to be alone. Tonight she would see! He’d show her!

But he hadn’t counted on this, had he? This white woman? He had taken no account of pouty lips, innocent eyes, or a softly rounded figure... just the type he was attracted to.

He hadn’t taken them into account then, but he sure was now. Dear Lord, was he!

And it was at that very moment when he saw it, out of the corner of his eye... an i-phone leaned a little too purposefully against the blinking clock radio on the bed stand.

That was it! That was the thing… the subconscious reason he couldn’t let the woman go! In his excitement at the discovery Lonnie released his death grip on her throat to reach for the phone. When he did the body that had stilled beneath him jumped as if pricked, jack-knifing around his own body which sat astride of her. And as it jumped, it sucked in a voluminous amount of air, choking and spitting as it did so. Unmoved by her thrashings Lonnie leaned over next in the other direction, reaching for the eyeglasses placed on the other bedside without actually offering the woman beneath him any additional freedom. Calmly placing the glasses on, he took his time, studying the phone curiously this way and that. Touching the screen, it immediately lit up, revealing what he suspected. She had been video-taping the whole thing!

”What is this?” He asked. “Who are you? What are you doing?”

”Give me the phone and I’ll explain.”

”No. Just tell me.”

”I can’t. I have to show you.”

Still astride of her and seemingly in control of the situation, Lonnie could see no harm in it. “All right, but this ain’t over yet. Don’t you mess with me, you hear?” He handed her the phone. “Now, tell me who you are?”

She took some deep breaths, surprising him with how fast her looks returned to normal with just a few breaths of life. “My name is Bethany Childress.” She said, the words coming out in great gasps. “Dwayne Henderson sent me.”

”Dwayne Henderson? That TV lawyer?” Lonnie showed his confusion.

”Yep.” Hitting play, Bethany Childress showed Lonnie the video, all of it; the barstool flirting, the two of them laughing their way up to his room, the sex… that part embarrassing him with how rough it became, and by how she so obviously coaxed him into pushing things further and further with her sounds, and her movements, and no small amount of her own devilments. And crazily, watching himself on the screen was like watching a stranger perform for her, as Lonnie could remember none of it.

But how would he understand? How could he? Slipping the pill into his drink had been the one thing she’d left off of the video. And then, as he watched in amazement, her finger reached up and tapped the “send” button, emitting an ominous chill up his spine.

”There.” She actually smiled at him. “Dwayne Henderson has it all now.” She tried pushing him away, and began to wiggle from under him when that didn’t work. “So then,“ she continued, “thank God that is over! You can get off of me now, you fuckhead!”

“But what would Dwayne Henderson want that tape for? The man doesn’t even know me?”

She stopped herself mid-wiggle. “You really are a dumbass, aren’t you? No wonder your wife wants out. She hired him, of course.”

”Hired him? For what?” But she didn’t have to answer. The woman he’d committed his life to: the one who had cut off having sex with him seven years ago, who’d begun berating him five years ago, who hired in the cleaning and ordered in the cooking the last three years, had found her way to take it all from him… house, kids, and car.

It crossed his mind to grab hold again; to choke the arrogant conceit out of this nostril pierced 304, and then to go find Dominique and give her some of the same.

But he would not. He could not.

He could not, because Lonnie Levis, for better or worse, was fated to be the good man.

Whatever...

Where moments ago had been chaos all was suddenly still. The pre-silence of presumed death had assumed the crowded saloon, a murky silence bathed in the pallid smoke of canned whale oil which burned on the card tables and bartops in the place of candlelight, some from glass lamps while others had been set straight a-light in peeled open cans, these contrived lanterns somehow glowing as smoothly and evenly as the trimmed-wick lamps, such is the magical cleanliness of whale oil.

And through that dim obscurity gleamed the youthful countenance of a fucker, his face as juvenescent as my own, with wooly hair spilling out from it’s dirty bowler that was as fine and white as was the foolish dalliance of it that curled down around the corners of his upper lip, vanities achieved both of wishful desperation and of laziness, as it was unfathomable to imagine that anyone would purposely add such a pre-pubescent greasiness to themselves otherwise?

It had taken the merest comment, spoken off-handedly, a slight of character concerning the volume of his cursing. That was all that was needed to set the entire room cold to include him, he who had turned at that spoken comment to face me, a willingness in the hand which hovered impatiently atop the butt-end of his holstered Patterson’s Colt, it’s walnut grips not very dis-similar from my own. That willingness was revealing, as were the notches carved into those wooden grips. A small thing, notches carved into a gun’s butt, but telltale about the owner’s character. The notches told me that this very moment was his reason for his being here; not the gambling, not the booze, nor the whores… well, maybe the whores too, as whores (the same as any woman) enjoy a dangerous man. This was a fact I was well aware of. So much did they enjoy him, I had learned, that the whore sometimes forgot to ask the dangerous man for her rent at night’s end. This alone was ample reason for that fucker’s willingness, and for my own.

And feel assured that as we glared each other down through the sooty smoke we both saw the light. Sure, one of us would die tonight, his blood briefly soiling the sawdust floor.

But the other would live gloriously… his drinks and women free.

And in the impatience of youth, is that not enough?

I’d be pretty durned crazy if I talked to my dog, wouldn’t I? I mean, talked to him like he was a person?

Pretty… durned… crazy!

But it would be crazier still if I thought he could understand, if I believed he was actually responding to my idiocy. Wouldn’t it?

Like this morning, when I whispered, “That woman on the bench there sure is hot. I wish we could meet someone like her!”

And Jolly immediately trotted over, sat at her feet, and shot her dead with the sad eyes.

That’d be pretty crazy, huh?

Yes, Sir-ee.

Pret-ty… durned… crazy!

“anything” sows doubt;

innocent of everything,

trusted with nothing

Can no one follow direction these days? Sheesh.

I believe it was the summer of '78, or possibly '79. Please humor my looseness around such details, as I think we can all agree that either one of those summers would have been a long, long time ago.

Anyways, when I pulled in from work that day there was a girl sitting on the curb in front of my building; a melancholy looking girl with her chin cupped in her palms, her elbows propped up on her closed knees, and her toes pointed disjointedly inwards. I’d seen the girl a couple of times in the past week or so, coming or going from the apartment across the hall from mine, an apartment where at least three rowdy young guys lived along with their mean-assed Pit Bull dog, although truthfully it was hard to say exactly how many lived there, as there were generally a slew of kids hanging around that apartment, to recently include this girl who was currently perched on the curb right where I liked to park. Having just turned twenty-two and trying to be beyond all of the kid-crap drama that was forever going on over there I did my best not to pay these punk neighbors of mine any mind, though most times that was hard, as they were so loud and destructive on the nights they stayed home that it had crossed my mind more than once to go over and teach them some manners, but like I said… there were three of them and a Pit Bull dog. So while I intentionally ignored the guys living over there, I had (as any guy without attachments is prone to do) noticed the girl.

I wasn’t dating much back then, not seriously anyways, as I was no catch. I fully understood that I needed a year or two of polishing before any potential value could ever shine through the cheap, pawn shop veneer I was wearing. I’d just broken away from my own rowdy “friends” and was doing (strictly by my own standards) pretty well on my own; by that I mean that work was going well enough to keep the lights and water running, there was a little something in the fridge besides beer, and the truck started most mornings. Not to say that everything was great, as the complex I was living in was shit, my job was still lower level (although I was working hard at displaying the proper behaviors required to change that), and that damned truck still only ran some of the time. But the thing was, I had realized at this stage in life that I was different than my old buddies, and I had decided to do something about it. I was in the process of civilizing myself. I’d been instinctually aware through my party years that I was different, though I'd admittedly put in extra effort in trying to fit in. My “friends” had sensed it too I think, and had shielded me from any really bad trouble, understanding that I would "go good" someday and that I might be of some value to them when I did. So there at the end, while the rowdies I’d hung around since high school were still rebelling against the system, that is to say they were pushing back against a traditional life and it’s values, I had become more of a reluctant observer to their underworld schemes and dealings then I was a bona fide participant, a Jane Goodall if you will; an outsider who was accepted amongst the beasts so long as I stayed on my rock and didn’t make any unexpected motions… so long as I didn’t rock their boats, so to speak.

The girl stood up from the curb as my truck veered into it's spot, but she didn’t move away, forcing me into a short and sudden pull-up, revealing my monetary failings as well as the danger of her chosen seat through a nasty squeal from over-worn brake pads. Jamming the shifter into park and rolling up the window I gathered my things together and climbed out, eager to find out what her “deal” was, though I half-ways expected to find a drugged out glaze to her eyes along with a dim-witted expression. But surprisingly, upon closer inspection she appeared to be sober and bright enough, if unemotional.

"You all right?” I asked her.

She nodded in the affirmative, her bored expression unchanging. Still, this was a pretty shit neighborhood we were in, what with low-income housing directly across one street and an Air Force base, runway and all, on the opposite side, so it rubbed against my grain to leave her out here alone. It was no place for a young woman, and by young I mean that she looked to be seventeen, or maybe even sixteen (if not younger), it's always so hard to tell with girls that age. Regardless she was far too young to be hanging around outside in this neighborhood with darkness approaching. ”You got someplace to go?”

I took her frown as a “no.”

"Those punks ditch you?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

Stupid kid. Of course they had, once they’d had their fun with her and she became nothing but a drain on their slim resources.

"Can I take you somewhere? Home, maybe?”

She only shrugged. Again, I had to accept her unhappy expression as a “no.”

“All right, then.” I resigned. “But listen, if you need anything I’m right up there.” I pointed to my apartment, though I suspected she knew which one was mine, just as I suspected she’d known which parking spot was mine. While it is true that a guy will generally notice a girl, I wasn’t so naive as to think that a girl doesn’t notice things, too.

She sat back down on the curb when I reluctantly headed up, the gentleman in me feeling sufficiently rotten about leaving her there. I figured maybe those clowns across the hall would come back soon? But after changing my shirt and popping a cold one, a quick glance out the window revealed that she was still there.

"Shit!" Now you see, don’t you? This type of situation was exactly why I never could pull-off the “low-life scoundrel bit” that my rougher friends played-off of so well. It was such an easy thing for them to do, as they truly didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. But me? I was cursed with a fucking heart, so against my better judgement I grabbed the truck keys and headed back down… the dumbass cavalry to the fucking rescue.

"I’m going for a burger. You hungry?” Her eyes widened at that. She pushed herself up from the curb and headed wordlessly towards the passenger-side door, leaving me to suppose that she was hungry. In any case she was thin enough that she should be hungry, even if she wasn’t.

The place the truck squealed to a stop in front of wasn’t much, an old beer joint two blocks off the beach with sandy floors, few customers, and an old-timey jukebox. While it wasn’t much to look at, what the place did have was a wonderful deep-water, driftwood smell that I loved, plus the food was cheap and the beers were cold, making it my kind of place. I worried about her age when I ordered two, but the guy didn’t ask her, and I didn’t either. She scarfed her food down before I was half done with mine.

“I guess you were hungry, huh?” I said it jokingly and was rewarded with a smile, so I slid the rest of my fries over for her to start in on, scowling as she dipped out grotesque amounts of ketchup to lube them up with before swallowing them down whole.

”Not a beer drinker?” She hadn’t touched hers. She shrugged again in the negative, still not offering up a single word despite my having bought her dinner and given her half of mine. In fact, she’d been so quiet I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with her… you know, upstairs I mean?

Reaching for her beer, I waited a short second for an objection which never came before tipping it back myself.

When I came out of the restroom a bit later she was standing at the jukebox reading through the song list, so I pulled what little change there was from my pocket for her as I passed. The cold beer I’d ordered was waiting on the table, so I sat down to give her a more critical examination while she agonized over the unfamiliar musical selections the old-timeu jukebox offered her. She was somewhat tall as girls go, her height flexing her into a seductive, back-arching forward lean over the machine as she worked out the smallish print. Long, black hair framed high cheeks which squinted her eyes, cat-like. The feet and ankles beneath the long, blue skirt she wore were bare, dirt stained, and were currently hiked up onto their tip-toes, accentuating well-toned muscles in her calves. Above the skirt she wore a lacy white tube top which wrapped itself tightly around her torso at tit level, leaving her midriff and shoulders bare, which while tanned with sun were not the blistery dark hue that most of the beach girls around here strove to acquire. She was pretty though, if obviously young… much too young to risk it, unfortunately. Unfortunately, that is, if a guy considered himself half-ways wise. My old buddies now, they wouldn't have given her age a thought, nor would those guys in the apartment across the hall, but fuck me if I didn't consider it. Yet, even as I watched she began swaying along to her first chosen tune; Tommy James’ “Crimson and Clover,” a song I knew to be the very first, original power ballad. “How is it,” I contemplated as I watched her, “that every girl knows how best to move to any and every song?”

“Ah... now I don’t hardly know her

But I think I could love her

Crimson and Clover”

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection. It was not the song I expected from an underaged beach girl just escaped from a hell house full of freaky-haired, drugged-up punk rockers.

So it was with mixed emotions that I drove back from the burger joint that night. The devil on the one shoulder was hoping the lights were still out next door and the wild boys remained away, while a wiser devil silently prayed on my other shoulder for the loud music and fairy-dust smoke that typically poured out from their opened window when they were home, so that I might be rid of my new, underaged charge. And while I do generally listen to my better devil, I must admit that this time I was quite thrilled to see that the tell-tale window was agreeably dark and quiet, leaving the evening vastly more interesting. I mean, who really likes going in for the night alone?

Neither of us made a move to exit the truck when the harsh squeal of worn brakes finally brought us to a lilting stop in its usual, oil stained spot. Both of us sat staring instead, our faces tilted upwards at my neighbors’ blackened window, the silence between us becoming more awkward the longer we sat.

“They aren’t back.” The words were a feeler more than anything else, sent out to test her waters.

"Good.” It was the first word she’d spoken, and it gave me confidence.

"You want to come up, then?”

Without a word she opened the door and climbed out, slamming it to behind her. I had to suppose that she did.

When I flipped on the light switch there wasn’t much for her to see; an old, cloth upholstered sofa, a scratch-and-dent coffee table, a sagging Lazy-Boy, the walls themselves bare but for a dart board on the far one and a framed print of James Dean on another... you know the photo, that shot of him in the red jacket with the “devil-may-care” smile? When I emerged from the tiny kitchen with a cold beer I noticed that her eyes were rested hopefully on the guitar in the far corner.

“Do you play?” She asked me.

“Not very well.”

“Play something? For me?” She took on an even more youthful, wide-eyed expression as she clapped her hands in a cute, kid-like gesture as she said it. “Please?”

Any modesty in me being false I did play after knocking it free of dust and giving it a necessary tuning, beginning with Tommy James’, “Crimson and Clover,” a song I believed she would appreciate.

“Hey!” She leaned in enthusiastically after the first line. “The song from the jukebox?”

"You don’t know it?” I asked her.

"No!" The girl who had hardly spoken the entire evening actually laughed aloud at that, her whole demeanor seeming to change at the prospects offered by the guitar, her face and eyes lighting up brightly at my puzzled expression. And I should probably have expected the confession which followed, though I somehow didn’t. “I didn’t know any of the songs on that old machine. I chose that one because of the title. It made me think of destiny.” Her cheeks blushed pink as she said it. The “Crimson” part felt like love, and the "Clover" part like luck.”

"Yep,” I kept the thought to myself, the intelligence in her snap interpretation surprising me. “This girl is definitely going lead me into trouble.”

But sensing that her fascination stemmed from the guitar itself rather than from my playing and singing I offered it over to her, resting it properly across her thighs. Guiding her one hand to the proper fret I molded a “G” out of her fingers and then showed her a simple strum pattern with the other. After some expected fumblings a clear enough chord soon rang out, producing an excited and surprised smile along with it, so we copied the same procedure with a “C” chord, and then a “D”. After an hour she was, if rather slowly and with some difficulty, managing to change the fingerings from G, to C, to D on her own. As she did so, I ever so slowly worded along, hardly what you’d even call singing:

“Ahhh, now I don’t hardly know her…”

I waited patiently through the long pause as she fumbled with the fingerings.

“But I think I could love her.”

Another pause, followed by a careful strum.

“Crimson and clover.”

Pause... and strum.

“Ahhh, when she comes walkin' over….”

Wanting to get the rhythm right she tried going faster, both of us giggling along to her many mistakes, but that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? When learning to play? Trying to go faster, to make the notes happen in tempo, the song itself forcing practice, and improvement? Satisfied at seeing her face scrunched in concentration as she practiced I retrieved still another beer from the refrigerator, staggering a bit as I went, the day’s long hours telling on me. I started back into the little living room, but changed my mind when I saw her in there so hard at her work.

"Hey, I’m gonna crash. Make yourself at home. You can play as long as you like. It won't bother me.” I stopped myself short of offering the other side of the bed when she was ready, figuring that she would return across the hall when, and if, her friends came home. So beer in hand I headed to the back bedroom, where I kicked off my boots before dropping across the bed, jeans and all. Yet from somewhere in my addled dreams the sounds of slow-changing and mis-fingered chords drifted into my consciousness, producing upon my inebriated countenance a lazy, lingering smile.

When I woke it was to morning's soft, gray light through the window slats, and to those same, tentatively changing chord progressions which had drifted in from the other room the night before, G to C to D and back, along with the hazy recollection of a heaviness in the bed beside me, and of what some might consider to be a chastisement coming to me through my alcoholic fog, “you drink too much.”

“Yea.”

And that was all.

But today was Sunday, my one day off, and I wasn’t one to waste it lying around, so after a short stint in the bathroom I made a grandiose entrance in knee-length, Hawaiian-print trunks and a clean, white t-shirt. She did not stop practicing, nor did she smile at my attire. It seemed rude, but it also seemed like her regular disposition, so I let it slide.

"It's sounding better." I said, and meant it. With that, I continued on down to my truck, where I pulled the refurbished pads I'd bought from behind the seat and started removing tires to change them out. Without bothering to come down the girl raised the window and called down from above.

"Hey? What are you doing?”

"I’m adjusting the brakes.” I called back without looking up.

"Duh! I can see that. Why?”

"So the truck will stop.”

"That’s not what I meant. Why now? It’s barely light outside on Sunday morning! Who does something like that at this hour?”

"We can’t hardly go to the beach and to breakfast unless I get them changed out, can we?”

"Ugh…I don’t really wanna go to the beach.”

"You can bring the guitar.”

"Oh, cool! Ok then!”

”Get yourself a shower while I finish here.”

”I don’t need a shower. I’ll hop in the ocean.”

”It wasn’t a question. If you want breakfast, take a shower.”

“You don’t have to be mean.” She sniffed her armpit as she said it. “I’m not that bad… yet." She started to slide the window down, but stopped herself. "Say!" Her curiosity finally getting the best of her. "What’s your name, anyways?”

”It's Huck.”

”Alrighty then, Huck! I’m Joanie. Let's have a breakfast date!“

It was still early yet for tourists when we got there. The waterfront was thankfully quiet but for breaking waves and shrieking gulls. Her skin had lost its flush from the shower, but her hair remained damp. I propped the tailgate down for a seat, which we did, and with the guitar positioned across her lap we watched as the red-trunked life guards pried row upon row of tourist umbrellas into the soft sand. I felt a bit sorry for her in her thin clothes, as the breeze was cool enough off the water yet to pimple her arms and quiver her bottom lip.

“How long will you be?” She asked.

”About an hour. I’ll run down the beach a couple of miles, and then swim back.”

”Why?”

”Because it feels good.”

“Ugh.” Her expression showed that she wasn’t buying it. Her eyes rolled skeptically away from me before dropping back down to the strings where they could once again assist in her uncoordinated fingerings; G-to-C-to-D. But before I left her I took time to show her the A and G minor chords. She was progressing quickly, and if she could get the new chords down by the time I got back I would begin her on that old Roger Miller tune:

“Trailer for sale or rent.

Rooms to let, fifty cents.

No phone, no pool, no pets…

I ain’t got no cigarettes.”

She would like that one, “King of the Road,” It was another 60’s oldie, but it was a fun one that was easy to play.

The sun was doing good work by the time I got back. Joanie’s shivering had stopped, and she had her new chords down, just as I‘d thought she would. ”But my fingertips are starting to hurt.” She complained.

”Yea. That happens at first. They’ll callous up pretty quick, though.”

Stopping at a McDonald’s Joanie wolfed down an Egg McMuffin as quickly as she had last night’s burger.

”Do you have some more things somewhere? Clothes, and what not?” I asked her as she ate.

She shook her head no.

”Not even shoes?”

She didn’t bother responding.

Here was a problem. I certainly couldn’t afford to outfit her. Hell, I could barely take care of myself. "If you're going to hang around with me we’re going to have to find you a job.”

She scowled at that, grabbing at the half-a sausage biscuit I’d left lying on it’s wrapper.

”Where do you live, then? Where’s home?” To which she only shrugged her shoulders.

Not knowing what else to do, I supposed I had no choice but to keep her around, which was secretly ok by me.

There was no one else in the laundromat this early, and so to add her few clothes to my weekly load Joanie pulled an oversized t-shirt of mine overtop of her own clothes before sliding the skirt, and then her top down over hips lean enough to offer little impediment, managing to remove them from under the t-shirt without giving miscreant me even a single little peek of forbidden skin. When I mentioned my disappointment she turned playfully around and, with her back arching her buttocks towards me she used both hands to flip the bottom of the t-shirt up, rewarding me with a shapely half-moon before plopping down in one of the plastic chairs, naked but for my t-shirt. And then, as usual, she turned her attention from me and picked up the guitar, resting it atop her lanky and naked legs.

“That washing machine is pounding out a pretty steady beat,” I offered helpfully. “Why don’t you try to keep time to it, like it‘s a bass drum.” So she did, keeping up with the tempo pretty well for just her second day playing. Thinking back, I tried to remember how well I was playing on my second day? The recollections were fuzzy, but I knew my improvements had not come this quickly, and I had been nearly as obsessed with the guitar back then as she was now… nearly.

Leaving her and the guitar to guard the laundry for a moment I crossed the street to a quick mart and returned with a six pack in hand, earning myself one of those curled-nose side looks that a girl will give when something metaphorically smells bad around them. But hey, my thirst was none of her concern.

”What?” I asked in response to her obvious displeasure.

”It’s not even nine o’clock yet.” She scolded me.

”No?” Pretending to be wearing a watch, I looked down at my wrist. “No, it surely isn’t,” I confirmed before ripping a frosty can from its plastic holder. I held the can out spitefully for her to witness as I popped the tab and took a long pull from it whilst simultaneously pulling my other purchase from the back of my shorts where I’d hidden it. I held my "surprise" out to her as a peace offering… a pair of cheap, pink flip-flops. While these did not exactly earn me a pass, they did melt away the tenseness that had appeared in her strumming. Bingo… chalk a point up for the beer guy.

But more importantly she was gaining confidence in her playing, singing along now as she played, and I liked hearing it. She had a good voice, one that managed to hit its pitches even though they emerged a bit blustery and poorly shaped, her voice being untrained and unrefined. “When we get home,” I thought to myself, “I will teach her how to push the air up from her abdomen, rather than singing strictly through her throat.”

“… when we get home?” Funny, that. It was the first time since moving into that shitty apartment that I’d thought of it as “home”.

After our many errands were done she was holding the stairwell door for me and my two-handed load when one of those neighbor kids ran into us on his way out, one of those guys from that apartment across the hall. The half-starved, spiked-hair punk was almost comical in his fake leather pants and worn combat boots. He laughed when he saw us, but it was not a happy laugh.

“Joanie! I see you’ve found a new landing spot already! You didn’t have to go far to find one either, did you? Huh? Right across the fucking hallway?” He turned his eyes to me. “Hey dude? Did she give you the crabs yet? She gave me the fucking crabs! Ha, ha!” His eyes returned to her. “Fucking bitch!” Pushing between us the asshole was gone before I could even set the laundry basket down.

I’ll give her kudos for not crying. Most girls would have cried in that situation, I think. I set a goal to help her shake it off, but I didn’t have a lot of experience with helping girls cycle through their emotions. “Fuck that guy.“ I said. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

"No. He’s right. I did give him the crabs. Something was wrong down there, but I didn’t know what. Everything he said was true.”

"Yea? Well, fuck him anyways. He still didn’t have to be such an asshole.”

"I thought I loved him.”

"That guy?”

"I know. Funny, right?” Only now she was crying. “I hate myself for it, but I did. I don’t even know how I got the fucking crabs. There wasn’t anyone else.”

"If you climbed into that guy’s bed, then that’s probably where you got them.”

"Ugh… you think?”

"Yea, I think.”

I thought then about the weight I’d felt in the bed beside me the previous night. I understood the obvious danger in the moment, but the question on my mind needed to be asked. “You don’t still have them, do you?”

"No. I swiped some shit from the drugstore.”

“Oh?”

"Yea. And I shaved it.”

Shrugging the unsavory comment off, I headed up the stairs. Guitar in tow Joanie followed me up, her new flip-flops echoing loudly through the stairwell as they slapped against the souls of feet which were at least less dirty today than they had been yesterday, though they were still not altogether clean.

I woke up much later sprawled within the arms of the Lazy Boy, empty beer cans piled on the floor beside me. The room was dark but for an incandescent glow through the doorway from the kitchen stove light. She was on the edge of the couch, Joanie was, quietly humming along to a new chord pattern, one of her own, a hauntingly melodic tune, though Joanie occasionally stopped her humming in time to mouth some indistinguishable words, piecing in the lyrics to her own song.

Too drunk to listen, I got up and staggered down the hallway to bed, though I was not yet asleep when I felt her climb in behind me, her hand settling on my arm in the darkness as she whispered, “Thank you, Huck… for everything.”

We slept there together, her smaller frame spooned warmly and softly against mine despite the thin layers of clothing which along with my gentlemanly disposition separated us sexually as effectually as any olden day “bundling bag” could have. And she was still there in the morning, beside me. I awoke before the alarm, lying there a good while so that I could enjoy the comfort of her body snuggled-up to mine. These moments were rare for me these days... but someday? Yes, perhaps someday I would have someone beside me like this every morning to give purpose to the coming day?

But not now.

Even still, I could allow myself this innocent moment, could I not? Though this particular girl could not be mine? It was cruel, wasn’t it? How propriety had long since declared her too young for the likes of me, even though she was plenty old enough for some other, more rotten scoundrel?

And so, instead of rolling over and taking her suggestively offered comforts, I rolled the other way; away from pleasure and into the lot of the “good man”… his lot being another cold, hard work week.

And though I hadn’t taken her during the night before, she was surprisingly still there in the apartment at Monday’s end, perched on the edge of the sofa as always. Only she wasn’t playing the familiar chords I had taught her. She was playing something new, a two stringed, stretched-finger blues riff on the lower-toned strings that I had not yet taught her. And if I had not shown her that, then it was left to wonder who had?

Fuck, I needed a beer. I hadn’t wanted to love her. I hadn’t intended to make love to her. But sometimes things happen to a man that he doesn’t intend, and sometimes it is the woman who makes the man’s mind. That is how it went with young Joanie and me. that last night together.

And that is pretty much the end, but for the memories of it all, and the "Afterwards."

Afterwords

She stayed that last night, Joanie did, though there was little beer drinking done, and no sleeping. We broke every statutory law there is, committing our crimes on her terms, rather than mine. She pleasured me over and over again in what I can only assume was some sort of raunchy “thank you” for the lessons, the meals, the place to crash and the guitar (which, like her, walked out of my life forever that next morning, although I later saw them both together on an album cover). It seems that she’d set a goal to keep me awake and sober that night, and one thing about Joanie Jettbaum, that kid was relentless once she’d set her mind on a goal, as every time I reached for a beer that night she reached for me (or I should say she reached for a specific part of me), setting lascivious things in motion all over again. I also think it’s safe to say that, being young as she was, she sure knew what to do with it too, once she’d grabbed hold, but then, the little Joanie I knew never did care much about her bad reputation. It shames me somewhat to say that the lessons learned that night were mostly learned by me, though I was appreciative of the knowledge. It had been years since I’d remained as sober as I did through that night, and it would be more years until I would be so again.

It seemed that those punks across the hall had heard her practicing through our paper thin walls, and had liked what they heard, even though I still hadn’t had time to work with her on her voice. So they sent her old boyfriend Thommy, their drummer, over to knock on the door while I was away at work, inviting her to come out on the road with them. Thommy was an asshole, sure enough, and he treated her like shit, but while poor Joanie (who later made some ever-so slight adjustments to her name) hated herself for loving him, she still, for whatever reason, chose his rock-n-roll fantasy over the “wife and family” ambitions of mine. Looked back on, I cannot blame her for it. It is the nature of her gender, after all. A woman always will go with the sleaze bag given a choice, proving true the old adage that, “women respect gentlemen, but sleep with cads.” And besides, her youthful inexperience with life at that time must be kept in mind. Whatever her reasoning was, it worked out well for us both, proving that we were not meant to be, however well our fit.

Amazingly, they made it to some small degree of success in the tough world of music, that little band of black hearts across the hall. I actually bought their first album when it came out on cassette tape, for nostalgia’s sake only mind you, as by that time I was already a happily married man, married to a good woman who did care about her reputation, though she was still, in all her goodness, able to teach me some things that Joanie hadn’t.

But sometimes when I’m alone in my fancy new truck I’ll submit to those guilty pleasures and forbidden memories of yesterday, popping the old tape into the player and cranking it up loud, eagerly fast-forwarding ahead to my favorite song:

”Yea… well I’m not such a sweet thing

And I’d do everything

Such a beautiful feeling

Crimson and Clover

Over and over…”

... and over, and over.

Is there anybody hungry?

Is that gnaw even around?

When everybody’s fat

and burger joints abound?

I mean, if addict‘s can score hits

just by standing in a line,

then if anyone’s still hungry

it’s a bureaucratic crime!

Are there any kids still out there

with nutritional wishings?

Can you feel a hunger pang

whist obliviously Twitch-ing?

Or when Welfare pays you better

than the factory down the street,

so you’ve thrown your worthless man away

whose paycheck can’t compete?

And can there still be hunger

in a country so sublime,

that it‘s arming the Israelis

while aiding Palestine?

And if everyone’s invited

cause our borders don’t exist,

should we cry for who is hungry

but who will not dig a ditch?

Forgive me my foolish follies,

I know to you I sound obtuse.

But is emotional intelligence

not put to better use,

by placing useless passions

upon yesterday’s shelf,

and instead giving assistance to he

who cares to help himself?

The face in the fly-specked mirror was a hard one, shaped even meaner by the rusty room. An aura of stagnant humidity lingered behind the stinking mixture of excrement and paper that filled the mineral stained toilet in the graffiti scratched stall; a literal shit-hole. Cyrus Bohannon had recently added his own bloody shat to the odorous pile in the bowl, carefully hovering himself overtop so as not to touch his ass to the filthy seat.

“Perfect!” He cursed aloud. “No hot water!” An undeterred Cyrus shaved in the tepid water anyway, dribbling it disgustedly over his cheap, pink, “toss-away” plastic razor. His toothbrush remained in his pocket, though. He did not pull it out, fearful that somehow the putrid, humid air might carry the shit smell into its bristles. He was successful in washing the sweat from his skin and face, but the tired redness would not rinse from his eyes, no matter how hard he scrubbed.

Cyrus Bohannon’s whole life smelled about like this cankerous Arkansas highway rest stop.

So Cy reached into his other pocket, the one without the toothbrush, removing from it a clear sandwich baggy, the baggie’s bottom a rainbow of colorful pills. His arthritic hands split one of the capsules in two rather deftly before pouring the powdered contents of each half into the hollow made at the base of his left thumb and index finger before tossing the empty halves into the sink’s trickle. Lastly, Cyrus Bohannon lowered his face into the powder and inhaled deeply, feeling the burn that sucked through his nostrils until came the familiar acidic drip down the back of his throat that preceded the rush.

The sun was bright upon re-entering the world, so Cyrus squinted into it, using a hand to shield his raw and red-rimmed eyes. Worn boot heels gave the old man an uncomfortable looking, bow-legged stride, or maybe that was the hemorrhoids, it would be hard to guess between them if an observer were to try.

Cy climbed up onto the cab’s fuel tank, grasping for the grimy Stuckey’s bag he had shoved between the rig’s seats. There were picnic tables close by the toilets, but Cyrus did not care for company so he found a shaded curb near the rig where he lowered himself gently down to the concrete, mindful of the electric pain from his arse-hole. He gripped the greasy bag tightly in his shaking hands, not really hungry but knowing he needed to eat. That was the problem with the speed, you never, ever felt hungry.

Once seated Cy allowed his eyes to close for the briefest moment. On the highway behind him the hum of tires and throaty roars of the “Big-Rigs” zipped along with a frequent and soothing irregularity, that and a warm sun lulling him despite the jittery-tingle of the pills. In a brief, but vivid dream a blinding silence of snow drifted around the Freight-liner’s cab as it slid down Monteagle while a desperate Cy fought at the wheel, the dream so real that he actually heard the lonely whine of air-brakes squelching high-pitched and hungry just before the crash. At the end Cy lay dead in a twist of metal, but he couldn’t be dead could he? Can you be dead and still feel the heat of the day, or the weight of the crushed door pressing your thigh?

“No, you cannot,” he reasoned. But still there came to him the whoosh-wooshing of passing cars on the highway, so Cy squeezed his eyes tighter yet, wishing to go back to being dead, but he could not ignore the cab door moving against his thigh, pressing harder now. Reluctantly, the “dead” being so peaceful, Cy peeked open his unwilling eyes.

He was surprised to find that it was not the door of the cab pressing against his leg, after all. No, it was a damned dog, a lowly mutt that had crawled its way up beside him while he napped, a damned flea-bag stray! Cy “shoo-ed” it angrily, willing it away. And it did take a wary step back, but it did not go. Instead, it whined… the same whine as the air-brakes in Cy’s dream? Cy “shoo-ed” again, and the dog took another step away to where Cy could get a better look. “Just a damned mutt, spotted brown and white like a Holstein cow, long-eared and long-tongued. Ugly, is what. You are one ugly dog!“

Shamed, the dog took a circle at these denigrations, sitting itself down on Cyrus’ other side, but leaning itself up hard against his right thigh this time.

“Shoo, dog!” He hollered it this time, angrily. Once again the dog stepped off, but not far away. Instead it stretched its nose toward the Stuckey’s bag, eyebrows high and hopeful. Cy noted then how thin it was, even for a dog. He pulled the burger from the bag then, tickled when the dog sat down. Curious, Cy put the burger back in the bag, it amusing him when the dog stood back up. Cyrus took it from the bag again, “hooting” this time when the dog sat down once again.

“Well, how about that?” Cy didn’t even realize in his excitement that he was speaking aloud. He unwrapped the burger now, smiling when the dog sat back down. He took a bite, surprised when there was no reaction from the dog, not even a whimper. Not hungry himself, he pulled the patty from between the buns and tossed it at the dog, who promptly snagged it out of the air and smacked it down.

“Whooeee! I reckon you are a smart dog!” Cyrus took out the french fries next, and tossed them one-by-one at the cur, who yanked each one from the air and smacked them all down, just as it had the meat patty.

Fries gone, Cyrus wadded up the bag. The dog sat.

“That,” Cyrus thought aloud, “is really something! I reckon she knows just when to sit. You are a smart bitch, ain’t you now?”

As if it could help, Cy grabbed at a handful of air, pulling himself with it up from the curb. The dog stood as well. Limping his way towards the Freightliner, he glanced back to see the dog limping along behind. A mini-van sailed by on the highway, its children waving at Cyrus and the dog through its opened windows. Cy found himself waving back, though he wasn’t sure which was more noteworthy; children waving at him, or him waving back?

He climbed into the cab then, settling his hemorrhoids into the warn cloth of the Freight-liner’s seat. Triggered, the big diesel roared beneath his boots, shaking the cab like an atmospheric re-entry. The dog sat hopefully below, patiently, its wide eyes looking up at the driver’s side door. With the hissing of brakes and a grinding of gears the big rig shuddered forward fifty slow feet before the brakes hissed again, lurching the rig to a stop. The man climbed back down and gestured toward the dog, who dropped her ears and trotted happily forward.

At sixty-four years of age Cyrus Bohannon finally caught a break. He found his luck just outside of Little Rock, so that’s what he called her. And so that everyone would know, he painted it beside the Queen of Hearts on either side of his cab:

Cyrus Bohannon

Owner/ Operator

Me and My “Little Rock”

It is older than old

this Paleo soul

which drank whole deserts dry

Then rested on mountain crests

pondering stars

which have burned but the blink of it’s eye

Father to daughter and mother to son

one solitary soul

older than old, bolder than bold

A bridge to the question of why

I have no idea where I am going with this except to say that I’m a sucker for a good documentary and I watched one yesterday. In fact, the one I watched was so good for someone with my upbringing that I feel compelled to complete the circle, and to document it in turn.

I stumbled across “In the Blink of an Eye” on Prime Video and started watching it with low hopes, but it did what good documentaries do, pulling me in, tickling my memory back to one of the passions of my youth; a passion which, as happened with Christmas at an even younger age, had its glory stolen away by the money grab of commercialism.

Those of you who know anything about me from my time here on site know that I am a redneck sprung from rednecks. I do not say this proudly, although I could. It is simply fact. And being a redneck, I like automobile racing (at least I did, once upon a time). In particular I like southern stock car racing. Like me, NASCAR sprung up from the red clay of our shared southern home; a heavy, sticky soil that packs out smooth and hard as hawked-out cement until it is perfectly suited to race cars on. So they did just that, those good ol’ boys of another era who came home from WWII having gained the three things required to create the perfect twister of a red-dust storm; mechanical knowledge, engineering experience, and a lust for excitement.

I vividly remember my first time at a race track. My father took me out to East-Side Speedway one night around 1970, when I was still small enough to be toted in his arms late at night. I remember the glow of the lights in the distance from where we parked, the roaring of cars which could not yet be seen, the anxiousness in my dad’s step to get those cars into view. I remember the roughness of the wooden bleachers beneath my bare feet, the glimmer of the lights off the whirling metal, the smells of wetted dust, burning high-test, popping corn and suspense. It was only small-time, small town racing, but it was sprinkled liberally with the magic dust of Grand National dreams.

A couple of years after that night, and right after the divorce, the old man called up my mother one Friday and asked if he could take me with him up to Martinsville, to see the “big boys” race. Caught quick like that and without an excuse handy Mom said yes. That weekend was the highlight of my childhood; camping out in the back of Pop’s pickup truck and joining in frisbee games where fifty-or-so Blue Ribbon and Marlboro toting fathers gathered in an outside circle throwing a bunch of frisbees across to each other while their screeching flock of kids in the middle happily chased down, and tussled over, any wayward throws (myself right in there with ’em). There were banjos picking over in that direction, and race cars roaring in the other, colorful flags flying on high with a blimp slow-rolling against the clouds, and best of all Richard Petty was right yonder; King Richard we called him, a sparse man sporting a big hat beside a sky-blue race car any of the three of which… man, hat or car… were already larger than life. It couldn’t possibly get any better for an eleven year old, yet it did. After that weekend followed Bristol, Rockingham, and finally Charlotte, the crown jewel of racing. What a summer!

You have to keep in mind that this was all pre-1979, when began an unquenchable thirst throughout America for all things NASCAR. Prior to 1979 Winston Cup racing was little more than a southern joke. The races were held in the south, the drivers were from the south, and there was little to no television coverage (the Daytona 500 being the lone exception as a once a year novelty event on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”). The Daytona 500 is unique in that it is equivalent to NASCAR’s “Super Bowl”, but it is strangely held as the first race of the season, rather than the last. They run it first, in late February, because Daytona is usually warm then while the rest of America is still frozen. This was especially the case in 1979, as a gigantic snowstorm had settled over most of the east coast, forcing people inside on a Sunday afternoon, and this after the NFL season had ended and before baseball season had begun… the horror! With no other sport available for bored men to watch on an inside day they tuned into the Daytona 500, and those bored men were coincidentally treated to the greatest race in NASCAR history. For stock car racing, that snowstorm turned out to be the perfect storm, as a fantastic race culminated in a last lap crash, allowing NASCAR’s only nationally recognized name, Richard Petty, to sweep through to the checkered flag. And better yet, immediately after Petty flashed across the finish line in his famous STP branded racer the cameras panned back to the wreck where two drivers were fist fighting in the infield, and still another driver had leapt out of his car to come to the aid of his brother, the three of them throwing haymakers until the service trucks could get there to pull them apart! It was glorious, this two on one melee after a fantastic race with millions of first time viewers! It was the perfect storm indeed for a second rate sport, as fans from all over America began heading down south to watch those crazy-assed southerners race their hot rods. It was the height of happiness for me to see the rest of the country embracing my favorite sport!

For a while, at least.

Then my happy bubble burst. Mom moved us further away from Dad. Worse, she moved us to the city. Trips to race tracks ended for me. City life and time changed my priorities, as will happen, turning me away from “out of sight, out of mind race cars,” and toward girls, rock-n-roll, and a car of my own. But then came cable television. ESPN and TBS began showing races nearly every weekend. I found myself drawn back in by the ’84 Firecracker 400, hearing Ronald Reagan issue the “Gentlemen, start your engines” command from a phone in Air Force 1, and then seeing in real time, albeit on television, the image made famous by Sports Illustrated of Air Force 1 cruising in to land with that iconic STP car in the foreground, racing alone down Daytona’s backstretch. It was not my luck to be able to go to the races anymore, but I’ll be damned if racing wasn’t reaching out to me and pulling me back in, or so it seemed at the time.

A few years later my buddy Dave and I got us a place down at the beach. Dave laughed at me on those hot summer afternoons when I‘d hop on my ”beach cruiser” to pedal back up to our 17th Street apartment in time to catch my heroes on TV. My asshole friend would yell, “go on then, you hillbilly fuck” as I flipped him off on my way. The bikini-clad tourists could wait, I figured. Girls would always be there, but Talledega only came around twice a year. I guess those priorities hadn’t completely changed.

I will admit to being a little bit ass-hurt when my friend called me a “hillbilly fuck,“ so I did the only thing I could do. I loaded up my truck with beer and weed, shoved Dave into the passenger seat, and I converted him; two long-hairs in cut-off shorts and Van Halen t-shirts on a NASCAR roadtrip. What a fucking blast we had! I’ll never forget the joy on his face that entire weekend. We’d been to a lot of rock and roll shows, but there is a huge and obvious difference between 18,000 headbangers at a one-night stand, and 80,000 redneck wall-bangers rockin’ a racetrack for an entire weekend. Upon arrival Dave completely bought in to the laid-back party style of it (in particular to a group of redneck girls we came across as they bathed boldly shirtless in the dangerous southern sun, Dave kindly offering to shade them with his own naked body at much hazard). And to my chagrin he also bought in to the whole “Intimidator”, “Man in Black” thing, and so became a Dale Earnhardt fan (plus he knew I hated the driver whom many fans, myself included, referred to as Ironhead, rather than Earnhardt. You have to keep in mind that Dave was, as most maturing young men are with each other, a real butt-wipe).

Our front-stretch seats for that race were low down in the stands, a bit close to the track for comfort’s sake, but perfect to hear the sounds, sense the speed, and to get caught up in the drama of it all. Dave remained skeptical of the actual racing right up through the warm-up laps, looking at me like I was an idiot when I warned him that he’d best take off his brand new Earnhardt cap before they came around again or he would lose it. You see, it takes a minute at a track like Charlotte for speed to accumulate. Heavyweight American muscle doesn’t zip off the line like a sissy little European racer does. It gathers it’s momentum slowly, needing every bit of the mile-and-a-half, high banked speedway with the dog-leg rounding out it’s start-finish line to get it’s gears sorted out. Once that space and speed is gathered however, watch the hell out!

That first lap circled about like slow motion. I looked over, unsurprised by a cynicism on Dave’s face which only made me laugh, as I knew what was to come. Like two trains vying for supremacy the twin lines of cars drove away from us down the backstretch, circling bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side-by-side through turn three, the fans in the bleachers standing in salute before the onslaught. As they rounded through turn four you could feel a difference in the air, and in the crowd, and in the concrete seat beneath you as they came, the roar from forty-three, 600 hp engines screaming angrily towards you, the cars nervously jockeying for position like a boy at the movies on a first date. Like everyone else, Dave and I were also standing now as they approach us, me screaming and waving my driver forward, Dave watching them roar past in mesmerized wonder… and blissfully hatless.

It is not a difficult game, racing, though there are nuances to know. I recall at one point Eddie Bierschwale’s car got sideways and lifted completely up off the ground as if held there by a giant, invisible hand as it flew directly towards us. I was standing and could see the car’s undercarriage, exhaust system and all as it hung like a toy in front of me. Joyful, I turned to find Dave curled up in a humorous ball beneath his seat. Yet by day’s end my rookie friend was an expert, educated in every phase of racing; driver’s, strategies, and courtesies. Having hooked my fish, those Sunday afternoons watching races alone in our little apartment became parties of two when we were broke, which was much of the time, and roadtrips when we weren’t.

They say you can’t go home again. I found this to be true. Dave and I stayed in touch after I moved to Charlotte. I even bumped into him unexpectedly at a race once. I assumed that racing was something I would always have, and that my friend Dave and I would always share it, but time is fickle, taking Dave away for good and changing my beloved NASCAR into something almost unrecognizable, with ”Cars of Tomorrow” that all look exactly alike (some are even foreign, eee-gads!) and that are unable to pass one another without difficulty. And the racetracks are mostly as alike as the cars are, besides their being spread into far away geographies where there are no hardcore fans, hence the empty grandstands in Kansas, California, and Vegas most weekends. Ticket prices have become as ridiculous as those for NFL games, and then you have these drivers with midwestern names who whine when they lose, rather than fight. Nah, me and a hundred thousand other southerners will take a pass on that.

So I am pretty much done with racing. I still turn to some of the bigger races when I am home on a Sunday, but my attention quickly wanes. Gone is the Ford and Chevy rivalry, gone are the short tracks with their noon starts, gone are the drivers in open-faced helmets having a smoke at 200 mph, gone are the kids clinging to the catch fences, and the chicken bones and soda cans tossed down to the walkways, gone are the beer brands on cars, the cigarette brand on the trophies, and the pretty girls kissing the winner at race’s end (Well, the pretty girls might still be there, I honestly don’t know. Seems a bit sexist though, for this day and age?). It seems that, as everything does, Southern stock car racing has run its course.

But that documentary, now. I’ve got to say, that was pretty darn good. The racing scenes got me going, seeing the old guard strapped in again, hammer down and hell-bent for glory. It’s a shame my old buddy Dave and I can’t load up the truck for one last NASCAR roadtrip. I’ll bet he would like that, if he was still here with us.

I know I would, just once, for old time’s sake.