Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942

Jinx Heap

As Slim Hines rolled the midget racer onto the track, the crowd in the bowl let out a roar of laughter.

“Jinx!” a raucous voice called.

“Say your prayers, kid!” someone else yelled. “It’s a coffin on wheels!”

Slim gulped. He was new to the midget racing game and hadn’t know what he was letting himself in for until a short time ago. That afternoon he had ridden to the dusty track on his old motorcycle and drawn up alongside a funny-looking job with a circle “12” on its tail, and a grimy, disgusted-looking fellow bending over the motor. The man looked up and pushed his hat back.

“Brother,” he said to Slim, “I’d trade this heap for anything with a workable engine.”

“Fooling?” Slim grinned.

“Nope!”

“Mister, you’ve made a trade!”

Slim understood now, why the man had smiled so broadly when he said slowly, “I sure have!”

And the transaction was made on the spot. Before he drove away, the fellow looked back. “By the way, this is an outlaw track. You can drive anything, anytime here.”

His ability to make “anything” run was Slim’s pride and joy, but it took him nearly six hours to get even a cough out of the Circle 12, and when he’d finally gotten it running, more or less steadily, it was nearly race time!

Then the wisecracks had started.

“Big John” Purcell, the ace of drivers, came over. “Well, well, look what we have here! The last time this load got in a race it took a week-end to locate all the parts!”

The group of drivers had gathered around, snickered.

“Remember the time the bailing wire broke and the motor buried itself in the track?” One guy laughed, “That was rich!”

“Yeah,” said another, “once over in Gurfield, the gears slipped into reverse when they were starting her and kick-back jammed up a whole line and broke a pusher’s arm.”

Seeing the Slim was annoyed by this time, Big John turned to the others. “Let’s leave him to his troubles, boys, and tune up. We go on in ten minutes!”

By this time, Slim had the motor purring nicely, and he asked a couple of local lads to help him push.

“Sure,” one answered, “if you don’t think it’ll come apart before it reaches the track.”

Slim stepped back and looked at the car. Light blue in color — the chromium trim was a little rusty — a fan-tail gave it a smooth look, and the Circle 12 on the blunt snout might make anyone think it was a class “A” job.

“Say, what is the matter with this buggy anyway?” One of the boys looked at him strangely.

“Well, nothing exactly, ’cepting it always comes apart! Seems like a crackpot, who works for a junkyard, made it out of a couple dozen wrecks he picked up around the tracks.”

“That ain’t all,” the other lad put in. “She’s a contrary cuss. When she stays together she won’t go, and when she goes she won’t stay together!”

“Well,” Slim sighed, “let’s go out and get the trials over with.”

They pushed the car on the runway and ran it out. The other drivers, who waited to take the trial run, laughed with the crowd.

Big John, leaning on the pit rail, sneered. “Keep outa my way, bum, or I’ll run over you!”

That was all Slim needed. “Listen, pipsqueak,” he snapped, “one funny move from you and I’ll climb this jalopy right over your frame! Maybe you’re the big apple around here, but, I don’t know about it... so, if you have any brains left in that big head of yours, stay on your own side of the track!” The crowd in the stands heard this, and never having taken to Purcell because of his nasty driving, gave Slim a big hand.

“That’s cleaning his plow for him,” one spectator shouted. “Tell him where to get off!” Billy, one of Slim’s pushers, took him by the arm.

“Listen, mister, Big John’s gonna go for you out there, sure as shootin’, so watch your step! Nobody can tell him off like that without him getting it back!”

“Thanks, Billy, I’ll be watching.”

How he got through the trials, Slim never knew. Twice, he almost went through the rail, and once, in the backstretch, he skidded completely around. But, his nerve carried him in, and he made the main event by a tenth of a second.

The announcer was calling for places. Slim found himself fifth, on the inside. He crawled into the tiny bucket and, like a huge snake, the line crawled off. One by one, the engines coughed into life and so did the engine of the circle 12. The cars idled around the track twice, and then the starter’s flag came down.

The race was on!

Big John, who was on the rail, jumped ahead, and through the dust and smoke at the first turn, Slim found himself in seventh place. For, in the mad swirl around the first turn, three cars had skidded to the outside and had gone through the rail! He held his position for two laps when, without warning, his radiator fell off!

“Well,” Slim thought, “I won’t have to worry about my cooling system now!”

But on the next lap the wind got under the hood and, before he knew it, Slim saw his hood go sailing into the infield. The driver on his outside seemed a bit anxious, wondering whether or not it was safe to take a chance and pass. Slim, by this time, was plenty disgusted; he was getting nowhere fast, and, losing his racer piece by piece!

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eyes, Slim spied Big John pulling up alongside of him, and his disgust turned to anger.

“Doggone if that guy’ll pass me!”

He jammed his foot down hard on the gas and fairly flew into the turn! When he came out of it, he looked behind and almost fell out of his seat — half his tail assembly was missing, and Big John was still alongside of him. He saw Big John’s front wheel pulling in dangerously close, and he knew Big John was trying to run him off the track. Down went his foot on the gas again, this time all the way. Twice he was bumped by Big John, and each time his luck held. He saw Big John pulling in to hit him again, and the car, as if suddenly finding itself, shot ahead! At the same time, he heard a wrenching sound. He gave a quick look around, saw with a start that Big John’s last bump had knocked off the remaining part of his trail, but Big John went through the rail, himself, and piled up for the day!

From the grandstand it looked as though Slim had suddenly gone speed-crazy. He whipped around the turns like a madman, and flew down the stretches. Slowly, he caught up to the leader and skidded around him. In the final stretch he ripped by like a house afire. His crazy jalopy was humming a new song of power. Ridiculous as he looked, sitting strapped in an almost bodyless motor on wheels, he was first when the checkered flag came down!

He made his extra lap as did all the rest of the cars, but for some reason or other, made ten more before he finally slowed up and stopped in the backstretch. A crowd of pitmen rushed over to greet him. After the handshakes, one looked at him quizzically.

“But why all the extra laps, bud?”

Slim grinned, “Well, the last time I was bumped, the gas throttle stuck and the breaks no longer worked, so I had to let it rip until I ran out of juice!”

“How come you didn’t throw the switch, mister?” someone asked.

“OH — never thought of that!” Slim grinned — sheepishly!