The Last Open Road Read online

  The taste of fear was like dirty pennies in my mouth as I inched Cal's MG up to the line, and I was glad my knees were hidden under the dashboard where nobody could see them shaking. But I gritted my teeth, nodded "ready" in the general direction of Sally Enderle, and gave it everything I had. And boy oh boy, was it ever hectic! First you accelerated through first and second to a nasty right-left combination called "The Devil's Elbow," followed by a steep grade up through a tunnel of trees to a sweeping set of esses that some guys (like Cal, for instance) bragged they could take in third, followed by a final banzai charge to the finish line. I guess it sounds pretty simple now, but that's not what it felt like at the time. Not hardly! Trees and fence posts and telephone poles whipped past in a frothy blur on both sides, and every damn hump, twist, bend, and crest in the road seemed to JUMP OUT! at me like those spring-loaded spooks on the Ghost Train ride at Palisades Park. I swear, that was the longest one minute, thirty-eight-point-three seconds I'd ever experienced in my life! And I must've done it all on a single breath, since I found myself gasping for air after I crossed the finish line. My hands ached from hanging on so tight and I could hardly get my feet to work the pedals and slow down once I'd cleared the top. But by God I made it! And without spinning, crashing, or over-revving the engine. Not even once.

  I have to admit, I was pretty damn proud of myself.

  At least until my buddy Cal went up an hour later and knocked more than ten whole seconds off my time. And the sonofabitch claimed he was going slow, on account of he was just trying to learn the stinking course!

  While we waited for our next run, Cal struck up a conversation with the owner of a shiny black MG TD lined up a few spaces in front of us. The car was absolutely showroom new, right down to squeaky-clean red leather that hardly looked like it'd been sat in and chrome hubcaps that glistened like wet mirrors in the sunlight. Standing next to the TD was this pale, somber-faced guy with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and a scant few strands of hair plastered down east-west across the top of his head as if to fool people into thinking he wasn't really bald. That never works. His name was Carson Flegley, and it turned out he'd just bought his TD from Colin St. John a few days before and that Giant's Despair was his first-ever S.C.M.A. event. So it came as no surprise that he was pretty well rattled (which I could certainly appreciate!) and his car wasn't helping any since it was running like shit up the hill. Oh, she'd start and idle and highway cruise just fine, but trying to power full throttle up that steep incline made her stutter and gag something awful. Naturally, my friend Cal figured he was now an Accomplished Master when it came to S.U. carburetors (I mean, he'd spent the better part of an hour watching me set the ones on his engine, right?) so it wasn't five minutes before he had his head wedged under the hood of Carson Flegley's new TD, fiddling indiscriminately with all the various float level, jet height, throttle position, and needle depth settings that make S.U.s work. At least when they feel like it, anyway. You could see Cal was making a real mess of it, but I let him go for twenty minutes or so before casually leaning in and asking, "Uh, Cal, did I ever explain Butch Bohunk's First Rule of Engine Tuning to your?"

  He looked up at me over the bridge of his aviator sunglasses and shrugged. "Can't say as I recall. What's it about?"

  I cleared my throat and did my best to deliver it the way Butch would have, right down to spitting on the pavement when I was done for proper emphasis: "Y'all make sure you got yer damn sparks in order before y'start fuckin' around with th'God Damn carburetion."

  "Oh?" Cal said, reaching for the TD's distributor with both hands. It wasn't long before he had that poor MG screwed up so bad it wouldn't even run. He'd have Carson Flegley tug on the starter knob and she'd just grind and fart, grind and fart, and every now and again blast a two-foot sheet of flame back through the carburetors. Carson's face looked like milk going sour, and I got to thinking it was time to maybe reach in and lend a hand.

  But you can bet your ass I waited for Cal to ask.

  With Cal safely out of the way, I step-by-step put all the settings back where they belonged and only then went searching for the real trouble. And it didn't take long to find the renegade tuft of insulation that was jamming the advance mechanism in the distributor. Ah-ha! On top of that, the point gap was down to six thousandths and the dashpots on both S.U.s were bone-dry. No question the mechanics at Westbridge had performed a truly piss-poor pre-delivery inspection. Anyhow, I decided to do this Carson Flegley fellow a favor and put it all right for him. I mean, there wasn't much of anything else to do, was there? When I was done, that sucker fired up on the first pull and settled down to an absolutely perfect 800-r.p.m. idle. "There," I said, wiping an imaginary drip of oil off the rear carburetor dashpot, "that oughta do it." And it sure as hell did! On its very next run, that TD pulled clean and strong all the way to the top, and Carson Flegley came down off that hill happy as a guy who'd just gotten his ashes hauled by Rita Hayworth. He even sort of smiled. "Hey," he said, sticking out a pale, bony hand, "thanks a lot."

  "Hey, no problem," I told him.

  "Here," he said, reaching for his pocket, "let me give you a little something. . . ."

  "Not a chance," Cal broke in. "You just put that away. Glad we could be of service. Isn't that right, Buddy?"

  "Uh, s-sure," I grumbled as Carson's wallet disappeared back into his pants.

  "Gee whiz," he sighed, "I sure wish I could find somebody like you to work on my MG all the time."

  That's when I noticed the Jersey plate on his TD. "Might not be a problem," I told him. "You come from anywheres near Passaic?"

  "Sure do!" Carson grinned, his head bobbing up and down. "My family runs a funeral parlor over in East Orange. I'm there most every day. Passaic's only a few minutes away."

  To tell the honest truth, undertakers have always sort of given me the willies, mostly on account of I can't help thinking what it is they exactly do with the stiffs. Or if they wear gloves while they do it. But in Carson Flegley's case I had to put my personal feelings on manual override and make an exception, not only because he seemed to be a pretty nice guy and liked low-slung British two-seaters, but also because he had the makings of a grade-A service customer over at Old Man Finzio's gas station. Especially if he kept running his MG in events like this hill climb, which are absolutely guaranteed to wear out English mechanical parts even faster than normal street abuse. I figured a few more solid, cash-money service customers might just change Old Man Finzio's attitude about sports cars. Or at least keep him from firing me, anyway. "You just bring the little rascal over to Finzio's Sinclair in Passaic whenever she needs a little attention," I told Carson Flegley. "I'll keep her runnin' right."

  Once I got done field-tuning Carson's MG, the three of us hung around by the starting line, drinking lukewarm bottles of root beer and watching Sally Enderle flirt with all the drivers. Every time a new car rolled up to the line, she'd find some excuse to lean in and check her lipstick in the fender mirror or maybe kick up a heel like there was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe or bend clear over as if she saw some worrisome split on one of the tire sidewalls. But whatever she did, Sally Enderle made damn sure every red-blooded adult male on that hill was paying close attention. I know I was. "Saaay," I wondered out loud, "I thought she was supposed to be Creighton Pendleton's girlfriend?"

  "Yeah, I guess so," Cal nodded, taking a swig off his root beer. "When he's around, anyway. . . ."

  "You mean, not always?"

  Cal shrugged. "I hear Creighton's over in England this week, checking out some superspecial new Jaguar race car. I don't imagine Sally Enderle's the type to just hang around by the phone, waiting for some guy to call."

  "No, I guess not."

  And that's about when Sally decided it was getting a bit too warm over by the starting line, so she asked the next driver to wait just a second, parked the green flag between two perfect knees, and tied her shirttails together in front of her, exposing a magnificent expanse of sleek, tanned female m
idriff. "Oh, Lordy," I moaned, "that's got to be the most beautiful creature I have ever seen."

  "Yeah," Cal agreed. "She thinks so, too."

  We each got another run in later that afternoon, and although I went six seconds quicker than before (and—ahem—measurably faster than Carson Flegley and his new TD) Cal beat us both. By a bunch. In fact, his time of 1:26.8 was the second-fastest MG run of all, just a few tenths behind some well-known local hotshoe with a Shorrock supercharger on his TD. The rank-and-file S.C.M.A. regulars were mighty impressed with that, and a lot of them started casually wandering by every now and again to see if they could pick up on some of the closely guarded speed secrets we'd developed behind the tightly closed doors of my Aunt Rosamarina's garage.

  It was actually kind of funny.

  Naturally, I was happy for Cal, but I must admit it was gnawing at me a little how the sonofabitch could be seven whole seconds quicker than me up a ninety-second hill. In the same damn car! And that's how poisonous thoughts like Why should he be so much FASTER than me? and We both put our pants on one leg at a time and worst of all By God, I'm gonna SHOW 'em! started rattling around in my head and making me just a little desperate. More than a little, even.

  So my jaw was set hard as pre-stressed concrete when I climbed behind the wheel for my third and final run up the hill. I was hell-bent on knocking at least five seconds off my time (maybe more!) and I wasn't too particular about how I got it done. I wasn't scared of that damn hill anymore. Not one bit. Nor was I particularly worried about crashing Cal's raggedy MG. No, I'd fallen victim to the single greatest fear a driver can have when he hops into a racing car: the fear of not going FAST enough. Which meant my eyes were narrowed down to gun slits as I rolled up to that sneering asphalt waterfall for my final run. Sally Enderle raised the green flag and flashed me her trademark thousand-kilowatt smile. "Y'all ready, darlin'?"

  I looked right into her luminous green eyes, jammed the shifter into first, tightened my death grip on the wheel (in fact, it's amazing the rim didn't shatter), gunned the engine—WWAAAHHHHHH!—and nodded. And that's about when the number four connecting rod broke in half and flung itself (along with assorted valve pieces, piston bits, and crankcase fragments) clear through the side of the block—WWAAAAHHHHHHHH-KLANKKK!—and I suddenly found myself enveloped in a foul-smelling cloud of steam and oil smoke as the green flag fluttered down and everybody—Sally Enderle included—burst out laughing like a pack of hyenas. Haw-haw-ha-haw-haw-haw! A raw hole melted open in the pit of my stomach. "Hey there, sport," Sally Enderle giggled, damn near gagging on it, "that's one pretty fast MG you got there. . . ."

  Haw-haw-ha-haw-haw-haw!

  I felt my face burning like a short in a battery cable, and I remember wishing I could shrink down to the size of a field mouse so's I could crawl through the hole in the TC's oil pan and be alone in there with all the other busted junk. Then Cal came stomping through the smoke and coolant mist with his fists clenched so tight it made all the blood drain out of his knuckles. But after standing there for a minute or two, alternately glaring at me and staring in utter disbelief at the pool of oil and motor fragments beneath the TC's engine compartment, it was like some sort of magic safety valve opened. Cal reached out and gently put his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, no problem," he said through the thinnest of smiles. "Why, it could've happened to anybody. . . ."

  And in my heart, I knew he was right.

  After all, I hadn't murdered Cal's old TC. Not at all. The damn thing had simply decided to commit suicide while I was in the driver's seat. I mean, we weren't even moving, for gosh sakes. And we knew up front the oil pressure was down, didn't we? But somehow none of that offered much comfort. I watched Cal walk solemnly around to the front of the TC, slowly remove his stolen aviator sunglasses, and proceed to haul off and kick that damn MG squarely in the radiator core. Hard as he could. "You worthless, two-faced pile of shit!" he bellowed, giving it a couple more shots. "We sweated fucking BLOOD over you!"

  But the MG just sat there, contemptuously drooling oil off its undercarriage. And then—all by itself!—the radiator sprung a leak right where Cal kicked it and peed a thin stream of steaming-hot engine coolant all over his Bass Weejun loafers.

  No doubt about it, that car had a sense of humor.

  And an ugly one, at that.

  But one of the nice things about sportycar people is how they rally around a fellow racer who's hit a patch of trouble. Especially if there's a wreck involved or a mechanical disaster serious enough to be hopeless (which of course means nobody will actually have to do anything except maybe stand around shrugging their shoulders and murmuring condolences). As you can imagine, our new friend Carson Flegley turned out to be rather adept at that sort of thing (in spite of this being his first-ever S.C.M.A. event) but then, I guess you'd have to rank Carson as something of a ringer in the condolence business. For sure he had that look of sadness, hope, and deep, deep understanding that guys in his line of work have to turn on and off like a faucet a dozen times a day down pat. "Gee, that's a shame," he said with great yet understated emotion. "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Tell you what," Cal said without skipping a beat, "I'd sure as heck like another crack at that hill. . . ."

  Carson looked at Cal, then at the hill, then at his shiny new TD, and back at Cal again. "Er . . . uh . . . ah . . . ," he stammered, swallowing a half dozen times while Cal flashed his absolute best rich-kid smile directly into Carson's face. "S-Sure. W-Why not," he said in a crumbling voice. "H-Help yourself. . . ." And, just like that, he handed over the keys to his brand-spanking-new MG. Can you believe it?

  "Hey, thanks!" Cal grinned, pumping Carson's arm till it damn near came loose at the shoulder. Then he took off with the keys before Carson could think twice about it—just in case Carson came out from under the ether and had himself a change of heart. That left Carson and me to push the TD forward as each car took off on its final, balls-out charge up the hill and we rolled another dozen feet closer to where Sally Enderle was standing in her fabulous white tennis shorts.

  Cal didn't come back for damn near forty-five minutes, and you could see Carson was getting a little nervous as we inched closer and closer to the starting line and Cal (not to mention the keys to Carson's MG) was nowhere to be seen. But Cal didn't reappear until he had eyeballed every hump, bump, bevel in the road and pavement heave on that hill. He also watched how all the fast guys were taking the corners, and tried to figure how he might do it even a little better. Far as I could tell, Cal was about the only driver who did that all day.

  We'd rolled Carson's TD all the way up to second in line by the time Cal came sprinting down the hill (at the last instant, natch) and gracefully hopped behind the wheel. "Well," he said, fastening his helmet strap, "I guess it's showtime." Before Carson could say a word, Cal fired up the engine and nodded to Sally Enderle. "Okay, gorgeous," he said, patting the TD's dashboard, "let's do it!"

  And did he ever.

  Cal had the revs just right and sidestepped the clutch the instant Sally so much as twitched, and that black MG shot away with a smooth, solid screech off the right-rear tire. He snicked it into second precisely at the redline and arced out of sight with his foot buried in the floorboards, and you could hear that little four-banger wailing Wide Fucking Open all the way up the hill. He even took those fast esses at the top without lifting—in third!—and when his time came down, it was the fastest damn MG run of the day. 1:25 flat! And in a bone stock, right-off-the-showroom-floor TD that he'd never so much as sat in before!

  It was quite a performance, no two ways about it.

  There was the usual blowout trophy party afterward, and naturally Charlie Priddle made a big show of collecting the first place mug he'd won by being the only car entered in the "Over 2-Liter Vintage Touring Class." Why, you'd have thought the asshole won the damn twenty-four hours of Le Mans the way he strutted up to the podium to get his lousy tin cup. And that after he made such a show of barely creeping up the hill—
not even trying to go fast—and then acting like he could've gone as quick as anybody (maybe even quicker) if he'd only felt like bringing his supercharged Maserati single-seater instead of that monstrous old Rolls. That pissed Cal off to no end. "He's nothing but a damn poacher," Cal snarled into his beer. "What he does takes away from all the guys who really get out there and try."

  Even I could appreciate that, and the sooner Charlie Priddle was off the podium, the better I liked it. Fortunately, Charlie and some of his old-money buddies had a dinner engagement at some fancy restaurant in town, and they took off in his enormous old Rolls as soon as he'd collected his hardware. Meanwhile, all the MG guys were crowding in around Cal and Carson and me, toasting us and congratulating us like Cal was the great all-American quarterback who'd just won the big homecoming game and we were, well, the guys who got to carry his shoulder pads and helmet. But it was nice being the center of attention, and the MG crowd kept us well-supplied with Dixie cups of cold beer (one right after the other, in fact) throughout the entire ceremony. The funny part was that the S.C.M.A. still had Carson Flegley listed as the driver of the black TD, and that's how an exceedingly happy undertaker from East Orange wound up swilling beer out of a shiny first-place mug at his very first S.C.M.A. speed event. Cal told him to keep it, too, which was a mighty nice gesture. But Cal never cared much about the medallions and mantelware they handed out after the racing was over. Just about the driving itself.