Death Is a Lap Ahead

Chapter II Sucker Punch

They had lunch together at a stand near the track. When they got back a few people were drifting into the stands. They had come to watch the time trials. By then most of the irons had arrived. Whitey counted twenty-five. He guessed off-hand that probably six or seven wouldn’t qualify. That still left a very packed track for the race. Three hundred laps. Two and a half hours of bitter, deadly grind, the sort that leads to complete physical and nervous exhaustion.

The sleepy track of the morning hours suddenly began to have a deadlier look, a competitive look. Whitey wondered about death. He looked down the line of cars, wandering which one, twenty-four hours from that moment, would be headed on the grind that would leave it a mass of scrap that might have to be torch-cut to haul away.

The track was bitter hot all through the afternoon. About half the time trials were run and four cars couldn’t qualify. Whitey recognized two more drivers from the old days. Veteran drivers. Skip Morgan and Red Lariotti. And neither one of them came near him. He saw Bob looking at him with puzzled concern. He began to wish that the kid had been told about Whitey Edison and about how a man can lose his nerve and his courage and all the things that hold him together.

At dusk they took their bedrolls from the sedan and spread them on the dust close to the yellow wagon. Bob wandered off down the pit line. Whitey knew that he couldn’t stop the boy, that he couldn’t prevent the boy from going and talking to the others. Whitey snapped his cigarette away and said a silent prayer. If only none of the others, the old-timers, would let the kid know until after the race was over. Then it might not make so much difference. But to have it happen before the race...

After a time he dozed off. He woke up with a start, and it took a few moments for him to realize where he was. In a neighboring pit a floodlight had been rigged. A poker game was going on, pebbles weighing the cards against a gusty breeze that had come up to cool the night.

The floodlight cast edged shadows across Bob Oliver’s face. He was sitting near Whitey, his hands locked around his knees. Whitey couldn’t read his expression.

He yawned and said, “How do the other crates look, Bob?”

“Maybe you want to be sociable, Whitey? Maybe I should go get you a bottle?”

“They went out of their way to tell you, didn’t they, kid?”

“Not very far out of their way, Edison. You’re kind of a legend, you know. A yellow legend.”

“Kid, maybe you’re being rough about something you don’t know anything about.”

“I know all about it, Edison. When they started to tell me, I started to ask questions. They all had the same story. You were a brave guy, weren’t you? And then you fizzled out like a wet match.” A hint of tears came into the boy’s tight voice. “Hell, Whitey, if you’d told me, I could have thought up some excuses for you. But you tried to hide it from me. You filled me full of gunk about what a great driver you were. You were a yellow driver and a drunken mech.”

“What I was and what I am are two different things.”

“Are they, Whitey? Are they? You haven’t got a bottle in your hand right now. How soon will you have one? Tomorrow? Next week?” The boy stood up.

“Don’t forget we’re partners in the car, kid,” Whitey said softly.

“I can’t squeeze you out until after the race, Edison. But our partnership ends then and there. Don’t kid yourself.” He walked away, his shoulders stiff and square silhouetted against the floodlight.

Whitey sat, feeling very old and very alone. He smoked a cigarette, got up with a sigh, went out onto the highway and caught a bus to town. He sat in a back seat, staring woodenly out the window. Several times he licked his lips. Hell, it was easy to move along. Another town, another garage. Maybe a few hours or weeks of forgetfulness in between.

He rode the bus down into a street of bars. He got off and made his pace slow as he walked to the nearest one. He bellied up to the bar, ordered a double rye in a hoarse voice.

The bartender took the bill, gave him a dime change.

Whitey Edison stood for a long time at the bar, looking at the deep tobacco brown of the liquor in the heavy glass. His blunt fingers were white against the edge of the bar. He could hear Bob’s voice, “...haven’t got a bottle in your hand right now. How soon? Tomorrow?”

Bob’s voice was somehow confused with the half-forgotten voice of Steve Jantz, a voice that spoke with a distant eerie hollowness. “You lucked out, Whitey. Pure luck. If you hadn’t hit that south turn too high in the sixth lap...”

Other voices: “Edison, I refuse to tolerate drunkenness among the employees of this garage. Draw your time.”... “Pal, if you’re hungry, go see the Salvation Army.”... “Three canned heat? That’ll be thirty cents.”

With a wide sudden sweep of his hand he knocked the glass spinning, turned toward the door, ignoring the bartender’s angry yell.

Bob wasn’t at the pit. He took a walk down the line, staying well in the deeper shadows, listening for the boy’s voice. He wasn’t on the line. Whitey went back to his bedroll. It was still too warm to slip inside it. He stretched out on top, but he couldn’t sleep.

The luminous dial on his watch said three o’clock when he heard the distant raucous singing. He propped himself up on one elbow. The singing grew louder. Two lights near the front of the stands made a feeble glow across the asphalt.

They stopped near the yellow wagon to put a spirited and out-of-key finale to “The Old Mill Stream.”

“Goodnight, you guys!” Bob yelled thickly, the words slurred. They went down the line, ignoring the men who yelled at them to shut up. Bob stumbled against the yellow iron, dropped onto his bedroll.

Whitey went over, squatted beside Bob and touched his shoulder. Bob pulled away. “Lemme alone,” he muttered.

“Kid, you got to drive tomorrow! What are you trying to do?”

“I’ll drive fine. Any old time Bobby Oliver can’t drive why...” The words faded off and the boy began to snore.

Whitey went back to his own bedroll. His cigarette end glowed red against the night. He held it so tightly between his thumb and finger that it was difficult to draw on it. He had recognized the voices of two of the other singers. Yobe and Skip Morgan. He guessed that neither one of them had taken on as big a load as Bob had. He wondered how many of Bob’s drinks had been forced on him in such a way that it would have been too hard to refuse. He wondered how much of the drinking was due to the shattering of Bob’s belief in his friend, Whitey Edison.

At last he slept.

In the morning Bob was sullen and unapproachable. He said, “Edison, you check over the car.”

Whitey looked at him. The boy’s color was bad and his hands were shaking.

Whitey shrugged and began to check the car, losing himself in his work. He came to with a start over an hour later to hear the speaker blaring. “Oliver, Robert — driving an Edison Special. Ready for qualifying heat.”

He looked at the stands, spattered with the light spots of color of men with their jackets off, the gay cotton dresses of the women and the kids. They had come early. They wanted a good seat from which they could watch death in the hot afternoon.

Bob came running up, his face flushed, his mouth oddly loose. He clapped Whitey on the shoulder. “How we doin’, Whitey, old boy? Running like the clock the man talks about? Good old Whitey’s got it all tuned up.”

Whitey caught the ripe smell of alcohol on the boy’s breath. “You been drinking, kid?”

“Best thing in the world to straighten you out. Sig and I split a few. Feel wonderful now. Where’s the gloves? Come on, damn you! We got to roll it.”

Whitey stood very still, barely breathing. His eyes were narrowed. He looked at the boy’s flushed face, and he remembered a few awkward words that Stan Oliver had said before turning on his heel and walking away.

Whitey looked at the oval. He smiled placidly. He held out the gloves in his left hand and said, “Here you go, kid.”

Bob reached for the gloves. Whitey brought his big meaty right hand up from the ground. It exploded on the point of Bob’s chin. The boy’s shoulders smacked against the yellow deck of the car and he bounced off onto the dust, face down.

Breathing hard, Whitey looked down at him. He dragged the boy over to his bedroll, unbuckled the helmet and pulled it off.

The official came up, his voice high and irritated. “What’s the delay here? Didn’t you hear the P.A.?”

“Sure, but my partner doesn’t feel so good. Whitey Edison driving the Edison Special. Have him change the announcement.”

He settled down behind the wheel, his eyes just above the cowl, looking along the gleaming yellow slant of the hood.

The motor caught after he was pushed forty feet. He pumped it, felt the surge of power that pushed him back against the pads. The oval was empty. For half the first lap it was like driving too fast along a macadam road. Then the objects on either side began to blur. The white fence rushed at him, spun away behind.

He caught the flag out of the tail of his eye, pushed the pedal the rest of the way to the floor. Once again the acceleration pushed him back hard, his neck against the leather cushion. An angry world screamed by him, roaring at him, tilting and slamming by him with an almost physical impact. He took it flat out, pulled back a notch going into the west corner, slammed it back down again to whip the responsive car out of the turn.

The straightaway gave him enough push so that he had to drop it back just a bit further on the east corner. Then the stands were a gray blur on the right. In the distance the flag twinkled, flashed down and he went by.

He lifted the throttle, took the entire lap to slow down under compression, eased it into the pit and cut the motor. He heard the announcement then. “Whitey Edison, driving the Edison Special, qualifies with a one lap speed of one hundred fifteen and six tenths miles per hour.”

There was a mild murmur from the stands. It was fair speed. Not good enough to win the best post positions. Good enough to qualify with an adequate margin.

His fingers were stiff from just one lap. He pushed the goggles up, wiggled out of the car, feeling soft and old and too tired.

Bob approached, his face white with anger, a dull red patch on his chin. Sig Carter, sardonically amused, stood behind the kid.

“Just what are you trying to do?” Bob said thickly, his voice dangerously low.

“Yeah,” Sig said. “Ain’t you getting a little virtuous in your old age, Whitey?”

Whitey knew that he could drop the helmet, gloves, goggles in the dust, turn and walk off the track. It would be far easier than trying to force himself into the main go.

“You can’t drink and drive, kid,” he said softly.

“Maybe you can’t,” Bob said. “These other guys can. So can I. Put up your hands, Edison. Nobody sucker-punches me and gets away with it.”

“Give it to him, kid,” Sig said softly, his eyes shining.

“Just a minute!” Whitey snapped. The tone of his voice stopped the slowly advancing boy. Whitey pushed by him, walked up to Sig. Sig tensed. “This is private, Carter,” Whitey said. “Move along.”

“I like it here,” Sig said.

Whitey slammed a big hand into Sig’s middle, stepped inside the looping right and knocked the lean man down with his own right. Sig gasped in the dust, his eyes momentarily glazed. He shook his head to clear it.

“Now go home,” Whitey said.

Sig got up slowly, moved off with painful dignity, with apparent unconcern. Fifteen feet away he turned and said, “Better let the kid drive, Whitey. I might take it in my head out there to send you after Steve.”

Whitey swallowed hard on the nausea that filled his throat. He turned, grabbed the front of Bob’s shirt in his left hand, slapped the kid backhand and forehand across the mouth in steady rhythm, backing him slowly up against the iron pipe fence at the back of the pit.

He stopped slapping. Bob stood woodenly, a trickle of blood on his chin.

“Sucker!” Whitey hissed. “Chump! No-good green kid! Suckered right out of a chance to build a rating. Look at you! You can’t even stand straight! The smart boys sucked you in, laddy. They were afraid of the car. You wouldn’t last fifty laps. This is a man’s work, kid. It isn’t for big-mouth boys. I’ve got half the car. And I’m driving. Get that straight!”

Bob said uncertainly, “They told me you can’t drive.”

“Maybe I can’t, kid. I don’t know. But there’s no doubt about you. I’m sure you can’t drive.”

Bob twisted away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His fists were doubled. Whitey stood calmly and stared at him. Bob finally turned away, his shoulders slack, his feet scuffing in the dust. He sat at the edge of the pit, his head cradled on his knees.

For a few moments Whitey had felt that the clock had turned back, that he was a driver, like he had once been. But the fear was deep inside him. It had merely been waiting. Fear was a quiet gray, viscous pool that lapped slowly at the walls of his heart. Forgotten for a moment, it began to seep up through him again, parching his mouth, tightening his throat, coating the heavy palms of his hands with oily sweat.

He looked down the line, saw Sig Carter standing next to Yobe. They were talking. Yobe was laughing.

A car whined by, flat out, the wind of its passage spiraling up dust-devils at the edge of the pit. It was a virulent orange car. Above the cowl he saw the unhelmeted bristle of Red Lariotti’s bullet head. He watched with professional interest, gauging the stability of the orange iron as it hit the west corner. Lariotti was a contradiction of terms, an old driver and an uncautious driver. He shouldn’t have lived so long.

Whitey looked at the track and knew he would have to drive the race. The yellow car, which had looked so sleek, so reliable, suddenly had a sullen, deadly look about it. The look of a blued-steel barrel pointed at his head. The gleam of a yellow knife, cool across his throat. He wanted a drink badly. He wanted the courage that a drink would give him. He looked at his watch. Starting time, three hours away.