too tired to rout out his inner receptionist, that hail-fellow persona he dredged up for social occasions.
Finally, though, he asked how things had been in the waiting room.
“Subdued,” said Bekasu. “Reverend Bill was working up some kind of a lecture. I don’t think it was a sermon. Anyhow, he’s making notes comparing Dale Earnhardt and Neil Bonnett to Gilgamesh and Enkidu-never mind, Harley, it’s rather obscure-I think he’s planning a whole segment on NASCAR in his shrine collection. And Cayle is now convinced that R.D. is the person who fixed her car for her outside Mooresville. She’s so relieved not to be the Joan of Arc of motor sports. I think they may have to drop him off in the bus when they’re ready to leave.”
Harley felt a chill at the back of his neck. “Didn’t somebody already come by and pick him up?” he asked, willing himself to sound indifferent.
“He was still up there in the waiting room when I left,” said Bekasu.
Harley said nothing, but he fumbled in his pocket for another cigarette, and found there wasn’t one. He decided that he was never going to say anything about that incident in the parking lot. For one thing, people might think he hadn’t got over that concussion from the wreck, and for another, it wasn’t such a big deal. Not compared to the
“And Matthew was asleep on the sofa beside Justine, who was trying to top his score on the Game Boy,” Bekasu was saying. “Everybody else was watching a racing show on television. By the way, Jeff Gordon won today.”
“I know,” said Harley. “Apparently we had reached our bag limit on miracles.”
“Well, you get the betting pool.”
“Yeah. I’d rather have Jeff’s ride.”
Enough time had passed since the end of the race to evaporate the traffic jams, so when they reached the Speedway the Lady in Black was living up to her name-a dark shape in a starless night.
There were still a few cars in the parking lot, but Harley didn’t see anybody around. He pulled up in front of the white building in front of the Speedway, where a black banner bore portraits of Earnhardt (in a panama hat with “Darlington” written on the band) and Richard Petty (in his customary black Stetson) staring out through their respective dark glasses as the world drove by. “How about under his picture?” said Harley, getting out and popping the trunk lid. He was thinking,
At his side Bekasu nodded. “I think so. What does this one say?”
He lifted the wreath out of its cardboard box. It was made of holly.
“Holly,” said Bekasu, touching the wreath. “Bill Knight would have loved the symbolism of this one. Holly doesn’t die in the winter when the rest of the leaves fall and the flowers wither away. So it’s one of the symbols of life everlasting. Or of not taking no for an answer, I guess-not even from Mother Nature.”
Together they propped the wreath up against the wall, beneath the portrait of a smiling Intimidator. “I’m glad nobody else is around,” said Bekasu, edging closer to Harley. “I’d feel silly.” Then she straightened up and touched the painted face on the wall. “I feel like I know you now,” she said. “I’m finally beginning to see what people were going on about all these years. And I’ll bet you’d probably think we were very silly, if not downright impertinent, to be leaving flowers for you at a succession of speedways, but I guess you’ll never know about it.”
“And maybe the love and grief we feel for someone who has gone isn’t supposed to go out to them anyway. Maybe it’s supposed to evoke something within ourselves. And so if we all came together because of this man, and if good things came out of it-friendships and help for those who needed it, and kindness-then we thank you for being the inspiration for those good deeds. That is miracle enough.” She turned away and ended with a muttered, “No matter what my sister Justine says.”
Harley wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He wondered if there was anybody listening to what they were saying, other than themselves. But he supposed it didn’t matter. He was going to speak respectfully-why risk getting run down in the parking lot by a phantom 1994 hot pink Chevy Lumina? “Well, you changed the sport and you changed the world, man,” he said to the face on the wall. “You’re a lap ahead now, but then you always were. You don’t need us to tell you that. But if you’ve got any luck lying around that you don’t have a use for where you are, I could do with some right now. Thanks for the ride, Dale.” He gave the three-peace salute and turned away.
They were silent for a few moments. The tour was over. The last wreath placed. Now what?
“You did good,” Harley told Bekasu. “You listened, and you took part, and you didn’t make everybody miserable. That’s good.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll make you a promise. Next time I hear one of my friends make some condescending remark about racing, I’ll call them on it. I will.”
Harley nodded. He didn’t much care what smug, dumb yuppies thought, but he knew that the gesture was kindly meant. “Do you want me to take you back now?” he asked her.
“Not especially,” she said. “It’s not very late. That is, if you have nothing better to do.”
Harley shook his head. “Nowhere to go,” he said. “Why?”
She shrugged. “There’s one thing Dale Earnhardt has made me realize. I’ve been on a short leash all my life, Harley. I was the honor student in high school, too uptight to run with the fast crowd, but always wondering what I missed out on while I was home studying. All this has made me face the fact that life doesn’t go on forever.”
“Well, life’s too short for restrictor plates, anyhow,” said Harley.
“I feel like I want more out of this trip than sitting in a bus or watching a couple of races.”
“Uh-huh.” Harley was beginning to detect the family resemblance between Bekasu and Justine. The family madness was simply better camouflaged in the judge. And it took you longer to realize that she was pretty, while Justine practically hit you over the head with pheromones.
Bekasu was taking deep breaths of the moist summer air and shaking her head like a horse getting ready to bolt. “Can we do some laps out there on the track?” she said. “I want to see what it feels like to go that fast.”
“Uh-I can go ask the guard. If he’s an old-timer here, he’ll remember me.”
“Good. Can we do a yard?”
“’Scuse me?”
“That’s what the gang kids say sometimes in traffic cases. It means to go a hundred miles an hour. Doing a yard.”
“I think I can manage that. And then would you like to go get some dinner?”
Bekasu was on a roll. “How about we find a beer joint somewhere? Live music and sawdust on the floor!”
“One lap at a time,” said Harley.
She smiled. “You remind me of this I guy I knew back in high school. I was always scared of him, because he was so remote. Like he was encased in ice, and the rest of us were beneath his notice. I always wondered what he did when he wasn’t slouched in the back row of class, reading
“What ever happened to him?”
“God knows,” said Bekasu. “But
Well, it would be a hell of a week, thought Harley, but sooner or later she’d start talking about getting an associates degree in automotive whatever, and then he’d start checking out. Or maybe not. She was right about one thing: if you don’t start, you can’t win.
Bekasu’s eyes were shining. “You go ask if we can use the track. I just have to tell Justine not to wait up.” She walked out toward the road, wondering what on earth she would say to Justine.
Harley started to walk toward the guard’s hut to the right of Gate Six, hoping that whoever was on duty tonight was old enough to remember when “Junior” meant “Johnson.” He had his NASCAR license on him, though, and that ought to count for something.
In the halo of the parking lot streetlight, Bekasu opened her purse and reached for her cell phone. Tucked in its case was the one souvenir she had bought on the Number Three pilgrimage: a 1995 sports card photo of a young Winston Cup driver.
