there was someone out there who cared that you wished for anything at all.
The ginger tom interrupted his reverie with a butt of its head against his arm. Obligingly he stroked the cat’s head, as it arched its back in contentment. It seemed well fed, so it wasn’t a stray, but why would it hang around a public park dedicated to motor sports. “So, Cat, who are you the reincarnation of?” he mused, glancing up to see whose plaque was stationed opposite the bench.
Cayle, who had been walking by at that moment, smiled at the pair of them on the bench, and she stooped to scratch the ginger tom’s ears. “I didn’t think Episcopalians believed in reincarnation,” she said.
“No. No, they don’t. I was just being whimsical. He seems so proprietary of this place, as if he belongs here. Probably lives across the street.”
She nodded. “I suppose he does. Somehow I can’t imagine any of the people on these plaques being reincarnated as a house cat. A cheetah, maybe-for speed.”
Bill detached the cat gently from his lap, and stood up to walk with Cayle. He gave it a final stroking along its arched back. “Well, he isn’t the Exxon tiger. That checkered wall over there was donated by Texaco.”
“It’s peaceful here,” said Cayle.
“Yes. Something beautiful that came about because of a tragedy. There may be a sermon in that, but I’ve resolved to be off duty for this trip. I would like a photo of the brick walkway, though, for my pilgrimage lecture.”
“Consider it done,” said Cayle.
He scanned the park again for Matthew, who had scampered off the bus ahead of him. The boy was standing beside Justine near the flagpole on the brick walkway, and the two of them seemed to be studying a piece of paper, perhaps a map.
“The children are all right,” said Cayle, following his gaze. “At least if they get into mischief, they’re together.”
“She’s very good with him,” said Bill. “Does she have any children of her own?”
Cayle nodded. “One son from her first marriage. He’s grown and gone, though, so we don’t hear much about him. He’s a professor somewhere, and I gather he doesn’t approve of her.”
“Why not?”
Cayle shrugged. “Well, she’s impulsive and funny, but she’s not anybody’s idea of a sedate parental authority. I think Scott took after his father. Or maybe he would have preferred to be the flamboyant one, and for that he’d need a calm center, but Justine would never be that. I think she’s meant to be a comet, not a sun.”
“There are some children who’d find fault with their parents no matter who they were,” said Bill.
“That’s Scott. If he had Mr. Rogers and Mother Teresa, he’d complain that they weren’t Clint Eastwood and Madonna-and vice-versa. It’s mostly that, I think. Or else he’s still mad about a divorce that happened twenty- something years ago. She doesn’t talk about him much.”
“She’s a law unto herself obviously, but she seems like a very easy person to get along with.”
“Yes,” said Cayle. “But maybe not an easy person to compete with.”
They reached the midpoint along the outer path and started up the brick walkway that led through the center of the park and joined the encircling path on the other side. Matthew was kneeling on the bricks, tracing the inscriptions with his finger.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the path. “Some of these bricks have messages written on them.”
“Yes, Matthew, I see that. Interesting, isn’t it?”
The boy wandered up the path to examine more of the bricks. Bill knelt down to read some of the tributes that fans and well-wishers had left. Many of the messages were in honor of Davey Allison himself-“True #28 Fans, Bernie and Denise”-but some of the bricks bore inscriptions addressed to Earnhardt as well. “In Memory of Dale Earnhardt,” one said. A couple named Pat and Mike wished good luck to Dale Junior on their brick. Others commemorated fans’ wedding dates or honored the memory of a friend or family member.
“I’m glad to see some bricks in honor of Earnhardt as well as Davey,” said Cayle. “It’s good for people to have a place to say good-bye.”
“It’s odd that so many people seem to see Earnhardt as a saint,” mused Bill.
Cayle stared. “As a
“Well, the outward trappings of beatification, anyhow.” Bill smiled. “I’m being technical here. The winged threes on cars. Threes in Christmas lights on the roofs of houses. Tee shirts with slogans like ‘God Needed a Driver.’ Bekasu and I were saying that it reminded us of the way people reacted when Thomas Becket was martyred. A sudden recognition of the loss of an extraordinary presence.”
“That connection would never occur to his fans,” said Cayle.
“No. I think it’s instinctive. The object changes over the years, but human responses stay the same. Perhaps we have a fundamental need for reverence.”
“How strange.”
“It is strange. For instance, Shane-”
Before he could finish telling her, Matthew came running up waving a brochure. “Did you know you can buy a brick for the walkway here? And they’ll write whatever you want on it, and put it right here on the path.”
Bill Knight glanced down at the litany of tributes. “I gathered as much,” he said.
“The brochure says it costs sixty bucks for three lines of a message, and Justine said she’d buy me a brick and send in the form for me-is that okay?”
“It’s very kind of her,” said Bill.
“I just told him he has to promise to come back some day and visit his brick,” said Justine.
“So we’re gonna sit down over there and work on what we want it to say,” said Matthew. “You have to count every letter.”
Bill Knight had thought of asking Cayle to elaborate on her experience of seeing the late Dale Earnhardt, but she had walked away. He didn’t believe her, of course. He wondered if he would have believed someone who had claimed to see Thomas Becket in Canterbury in, say, 1171.
It had been a long time since he’d had the kind of faith that kindles saints. He had to think all the way back to childhood to find that reserve of belief. Of sitting beside his mother in church-so small that his feet didn’t even touch the floor yet-and while all the congregation had their heads bowed in prayer, Bill would try to peek out of the slits of his eyelids, hoping-but also dreading-to catch a glimpse of an angel on the sill under the big stained glass window of Jesus in Gethsemane. He had really believed that the angel hovered there during services, but he knew that the sight would be a terrible one. No sappy Valentine cherubs for him. Bill’s dad had been a minister, too, so he knew his theology, even as a kid. Angels were soldiers. They had kicked the devil’s butt out of heaven, so they were not to be trifled with. As a kid, you didn’t know what might be true and what wasn’t. There were rules for everything. Would stepping on a crack break your mother’s back? What if you sneezed and nobody said bless you? What if you died without saying your prayers? There was a belief that was more terror than faith, and he was glad to have outgrown it. How much of the belief in the hereafter was just the fear of letting go or the fear of nothingness?
Before he could consider the implications of selective faith, he saw that Harley was coming toward him, carrying the wreath box. “I thought this would be the best place to leave the Talladega wreath,” he said. “And maybe since this is a memorial park, you ought to be the one to say a few words over it.”
“Of course.” Bill Knight had been dreading this moment, wondering what he could say that would satisfy his traveling companions without trespassing on their beliefs. He took a deep breath and tried to compose his thoughts while the others gathered on the outer path around the bronze plaque dedicated to Dale Earnhardt.
The wreath this time was a hubcap-sized circle of white silk lilies and eucalyptus. By this time, thought Bill, the florist must have been getting giddy from doing a succession of tribute wreaths to Dale Earnhardt. A black ribbon stretched diagonally across the lilies said in white letters,
Bill looked out at the peaceful expanse of green lawn with its red brick walkway bright in the afternoon sun. “We’d like to think heaven is like this,” he began, letting the place speak to him. “A familiar place filled with the colors and shapes with which we feel most comfortable. Blue sky. Grass. Trees. A companionable cat.” He smiled a little as he nodded toward the ginger tom, still sprawled on the bench in hopes of more attention from the visitors. “Every now and then somebody will even write a hymn about a heaven for country singers or movie stars. There
