Friday Fiction: Five Words. On Green Eyes and Slick Tires.

Five Words

By Mark H. Walker

       The five words silenced me.

       The airport bar was somewhat smoky. Somewhat deserted. Quieter than most bars in Key West, but it was, after all, the off-season… not really the off-season, but May, the fringe season. The season when it was not quite warm up north, but was getting there, and it was not quite sweltering in the Keys, but damn sure borderline. The season for everyone who couldn’t afford to take real vacations. Those real vacations that flew you out of 12 inches of snow at Logan International and into a paradise of white sand, palm trees, and barely clothed, beautifully-curved, woman’s bodies.

         The beaches and bodies were still there in May, but where whereas the sand and trees felt fresh, washed, and recently cleaned in December, they were showing the wear of five months of tourism by May—an empty Miller Lite can here, a crumpled pack of Marlboros there, the darkened neon “L” in Sloppy Joe’s, changing the name to the somewhat less cheery, Soppy Joe’s.  And the wonderfully-curved posteriors that in December road caboose on beautiful college co-eds were now somewhat less well-curved and belonged  to recently divorced thirty-three year olds who spent too much (or not enough) time in the gym trying to compete with the younger versions of their gender.

One such sat beside me at the corner of the bar. We were not in the corner of the bar, but rather at the corner of the bar, her facing the entrance, and me facing the rows of offered beer on display behind the barkeep. We were both slightly drunk, both feigning interest… at least until she spoke the words.

I was a day out from the Grand Prix of Miami, a week before the next race in Cleveland. Not actually THE Grand Prix of Miami, which boasted the big names of the Indy Car Racing, but rather the support race featuring the “stars of tomorrow” as the track-caster boomed. Most of us, however, weren’t. One or two in a field of twenty might rise from the obscurity to race with the Indy Cars, but the rest of us would only dream, lacking the talent, team, or both. In my case it was probably both, but the previous day had been my best, taking fourth after losing a race-long duel with a newbie named Sam Clark.

“Why do you love it?”

It was her second of two doosies. The first, “Why do you do it?” was also a rarity. Most I met offered banal gems such as, “It must be exciting,” or “Have you ever met Marco Andretti? He’s cute.”  I told her that I did it—the “it” being piloting 600 horsepower cars at 170 miles per hour within a whisker of concrete retaining walls on what the other 362 days of the year are simply downtown Miami thoroughfares—because I loved it. She nodded, pursing her not unattractive lips, peeling the label off her sweaty Lowenbrau, and then sipping the contents. Sip taken she focused amazingly clear, green, and gold speckled eyes on me and asked, “Why do you love it?”

It’s not that I didn’t know, but rather that no one has ever asked. I took a swig from the Tecate bottle and shrugged. That wasn’t good enough. The green gaze remained fixed, and she repeated the question, sort of. “I’m serious. Why?”

“It’s an addiction.” She nodded sagely at my comment, but continued staring at me, obviously wanting more.

“It’s just a feeling. I grew up watching racing on TV. Marco’s Dad, Marco’s granddad, Al Junior… before the sauce got him, Fittipaldi, Senna, all of them. I loved it and I thought I would love doing it, but you never know.” She nodded as if she knew, and I continued.

“I started in Formula Fords. I remember the first time I went on track, 4300 RPMs in second gear and I was scared silly. I just knew I’d never be able to drive fast. I mean eighty miles an hour scared me. How could I bend that car into a fast sweeper at one-hundred and thirty?”

Another swig of beer. Still she gazed. She knew I wasn’t finished. How did she know that?  

“But I couldn’t quit. All my friends were there. So, I took it around, eventually got into top gear, settled down enough to get it through driver’s school and then into races.”

“And you loved it.” They were the first words she had spoken since the question.

I shook my head. “Not really. It scared the snot out of me.”

“Yuch!” she squeaked through grimaced face.

I laughed; then swigged. “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, it did. Everything was always too fast, too sudden, and too much. I’d boom down the straight and wait till what I was absolutely sure was the latest nano-second a human could slow and still survive the ensuing corner, yet three cars would out-brake me and dive by on the inside. I’d take the fast bends almost flat out, my knuckles whiter than my new driving gloves, so scared I’d forget to breath, but someone would blow by me on the outside. Then, however, it happened.”

She didn’t ask what “it” was, just nodded and sipped.

“I was racing at Roebling Road in northern Georgia. A small regional race, maybe eight cars. Somehow I managed to avoid qualifying last, snatching the coveted seventh spot.”

She chuckled.

“Two laps in, the black Croswell that qualified behind me went by. So there I was, dead last.”

She held up a silencing hand. “So let me guess, you girded the proverbial lions, got over your fear, won the race, and fell in love with racing.” 

“Nope, I quit.”

The eyebrow cocked over the left eye, and I raised the Tecate for a drink.

“I just said fu…” I caught myself and grinned sheepishly past the neck of the bottle, cleared my throat, and rephrased. “I just said to heck with it.”

“It isn’t the first time I’ve heard the other word,” she smiled.

“Yeah, well, that’s what I did, just quit. I decided then and there that this wasn’t for me, so I stopped pressing. Didn’t park the car mind you, but mentally punched out. Of course pride kept me from dogging it, so I just told myself to relax and enjoy the last eight laps of my racing career. And I did, but two laps into the relaxation, I nailed turn five.”

“The fast sweeper on the south side of the course?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” I was into the story now, too far into the memory to take much note of what she said, or how she even knew there was a fast sweeper on the south side of the course. “I’m not sure how. I braked, downshifted, got back on the throttle and came out at full song, three-hundred RPMs higher than ever before.” I paused, and then added. “Racers don’t measure speed by miles per hour. There’s no speedometer in the cockpit. We measure speed by the tachometer. More RPMs, means more speed.”

“I know,” she replied.

“Anyway, two turns later I did the best hairpin I had ever done. Braking at the last second, carrying a good amount of speed into the corner, and then exiting at full throttle. I got the next corner too. You see,”  I placed my hands in front of me thumbs together, palms out, tiling them to form a combination steering wheel and viewer, “suddenly, the track looked different. It was if I could see further ahead. I no longer felt as if I was playing catch up to my car, but rather that I was part of it. My motions, the car’s motions, were slow, rhythmic, understandable, almost sexual. I knew I was on the edge, but the car felt solid, strong, as if it wanted everything I could give it and more.  It was the most completely exhilarating moment of my life. The birth of this addiction, this love.”

           “So, when you quit,” she made quotation marks in the air surrounding the word “quit,” you finally relaxed enough to get in the zone.” She nodded, her eyes thoughtful, before taking another sip. “Did you win?”

           “No, I passed the black Crossle and three more, finishing fourth, but it didn’t really matter.”

           The small airport’s PA system scratched out a flight departure announcement, prompting my astute listener to finish her drink before gathering her purse and small carry-on bag. She stood, and it was then that I noticed her carry on was a helmet bag. “No, the win doesn’t always matter.  If you do what you love, you win no matter what.”

            She turned to leave, and I placed a hand on her arm. “I never got your name.”

            She hesitated and then smiled. “I’m Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. Sam Clark.” She winked. “I’ll see you in Cleveland.”