St. Dale

One, Rusty, Dale, Robby Gordon, T. Labonte, Mark Martin, Rusty’s Little Brother, Little E, Awesome Bill, Ten.”

“If you want to change codes, you might try using Bible verses,” said Bill Knight. “Oh, wait, they’d probably catch on to that here in Concord, too.”

“Bible verses?” said Harley.

He laughed. “Yes. I used to use that code to leave messages for people back in college. We had hall phones in those days, and you couldn’t be sure that whoever answered the communal phone would pass along a message, so the trick was to make it a memorable one.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the one I used most often was Job 13, verse 22.” He waited with an expectant smile for someone to shout out the verse, but after a few moments of respectful silence, he gave it to them. “‘Call thou, and I will answer.’ It worked every time.”

Justine giggled. “I think Terence would enjoy hearing about the NASCAR number code,” she said. “Bet you anything that nobody in Manhattan would get it.”

“Some of them would,” said Harley. “There used to be a NASCAR speedway in Trenton, and I hear they’re looking to build another one somewhere closer to New York City.”

“The Hoboken 500,” said Bekasu with inebriated solemnity.

Bill Knight said, “I wonder if they use that code up where I live.”

“Don’t you know?” asked Justine.

“It would have gone right over my head,” said Bill.

“Gotta trivia question for you,” said Harley, downing the last of his most recent beer. “In 1986, when Geoff Bodine won the Daytona 500, what driver sold souvenirs in the nearby K-Mart parking lot that afternoon after the race?”

“Umm…” Justine considered it. “Must have been one of the young drivers who was a kid back then…not Jeff Gordon, surely. He was probably in Indiana by then. Maybe Jimmie Johnson? Kurt Busch?”

“Or maybe one of the second generation drivers, who was there in Daytona because his dad or his older brother was racing that year?” said Karen. “How old is Dale Jarrett? Or the younger Wallaces?”

“How about Sterling Marlin?” said Shane.

“Not Dale Junior?” said Cayle.

The other drinkers nodded, exuding beer fumes and solidarity. “Could be him.”

Harley shook his head sadly. “Naw,” he said, blowing his nose on a cocktail napkin. “None of them. The answer is…Geoff Bodine. ”

Everybody froze as the name sank in. Then Bill Knight said, “Harley, that can’t be right. You just said he won the race that day.”

“S’true, though,” said Harley. “He did win. That was the year Earnhardt ran out of gas nearing the finish line and Bodine won it. But in the eighties the 500 wasn’t the big old hype monster it is these days. No flying off in your private jet to the Letterman show. Back then you just did your victory lap, talked to a few sports writers, and went on home. So Geoff Bodine’s parents…s’parents…were selling souvenirs from a little old stand in the Kmart parking lot down the street and he went over…” his voice broke. “And he helped them.” He dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve.

There was a shocked silence in the bar, and then Cayle began to sniffle too. “Pore old Bodine,” she said.

There were rumbles of agreement.

“Well, that’s not fair,” said Shane. “Everybody these days gets a gazillion dollars and their picture on magazine covers, and on the day of his greatest victory Geoff Bodine has to sell keychains! That’s not right.”

“And now he can’t even keep a sponsor,” said Jesse Franklin, thumping the table. “Even that old Indian casino in Florida has dumped him…”

“Poor old Bodine,” whispered Harley, wiping away a tear. “Sometimes I think I must have been a Bodine brother that got stolen away by the gypsies or something, because I sure do have the family curse-you work hard enough for two people, and you’ve got the talent to make it big, but you never, never get a break. And now no ride.”

But nobody was listening to Harley’s lament.

Bill Knight shook his head sadly. “The race is not always to the swift…”

“What number is that?” asked Bekasu.

“I forget. Ecclesiastes somewhere.”

“Well, what are we gonna do about it?” Justine demanded. She opened her purse and fished out a twenty. “Let’s pass the hat! Gimme that cap, Jesse!” She snatched off his Winged Three hat and waved it over her head. “Let’s see some greenbacks, y’all. Come on. Toss ’em in there. You can spare it. Anybody got an address for Geoff Bodine?”

“I’m not usually expected to add to the collection plate,” said Bill Knight, smiling as he tossed in a five-dollar bill.

“You’re going to send him cash through the mail?” said Karen. “That’s not safe.”

“We could write him a check,” said Cayle.

“Not anonymous enough,” said Justine. “We don’t want to hurt his feelings. This isn’t charity. It’s restitution.”

“I doubt if a few dollars will be much consolation to him,” murmured Bekasu.

Justine sniffed. “Okay, Miss High-and-Mighty. You call Letterman and Larry King and get Bodine on their shows, but until that great day, I say we make the gesture. Shaking our fists at the fates and all.”

“Maybe you could buy a money order at a gas station,” said Jesse Franklin, adding a pocketful of crumpled, tobacco-flecked dollar bills to the pot.

Harley looked at the hat full of fives and ones nestled alongside Justine’s twenty-dollar bill. He was picturing Geoff Bodine’s dismay if he should ever find out about this. Better try to set them straight before the disaster went any further.

“Okay, maybe he didn’t get all the laurels that he deserved,” said Harley, backpedaling for all he was worth. “But Old Geoff is not down and out. He was rookie of the year in ’82. He’s on the list of the 50 greatest drivers ever.” And he will kill me if he finds out I had anything to do with this, he finished silently. “And-and-let’s see-Okay, did you know that Geoff Bodine invented the bobsled used by the U.S. Olympic team? The Bo-Dyn bobsled. Famous for it. The man’s a genius. And he’s been racing a long time. Heck, just this year, old as he is, he was right up there with Ward Burton at the finish of the Daytona 500.”

“With Ward Burton?” said Shane. “Well, what difference does that make?”

Harley blinked. He was about to point out that since Ward Burton had actually won the Daytona 500, it made quite a bit of difference, but before he could voice this thought, Karen tapped Shane on the arm to ask him a question, and Justine, who had been canvassing other tables, appeared at Harley’s elbow with the hat full of money.

“I know he’s rich,” she said. “Or at least not missing any meals. I just felt like we ought to make the gesture, that’s all. I hate it when people don’t get a fair deal in life.”

“That must keep you awful busy,” said Harley.

She gave him a playful tap on the arm. “Oh, you know what I mean! I just naturally root for the underdog, that’s all. I just never know what to do about it. Most of the time I just write a check and hope it helps.”

Harley remembered a cartoon he’d seen once in one of his dad’s Saturday Evening Posts. It showed a fellow in the water, obviously drowning, and a man in an overcoat on the dock was saying, “I can’t swim. Would twenty dollars help?”

“Now, Harley, do you reckon we can get this hat full of cash turned into a money order or something?”

He groaned. “If you are hell-bent on doing this, I think there’s an all-night gas station down the road. They’ll probably sell money orders. But where are you going to send it?”

“Don’t you know? I thought all you race drivers were buddies.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have my Christmas card list on me.” He’d be damned if he was going to tell her about the pile of business cards on the nightstand back in his room. In fact, if Bodine found out about it, he would definitely be damned.

“Oh, come off it. You know where to find him.”

Harley sighed, thinking that Justine Holifield must go through life the way Dale Earnhardt went around a race