in humanity that elevated one person’s death to the level of tragedy? Some quality of glamor or drama that made strangers weep for them. The death of Princess Diana had set off a spontaneous wave of worldwide grief, while scarcely a week later the death of Mother Teresa in India had elicited little more than a collective shrug. Which proved, he supposed, that goodness had nothing to do with it. Why Elvis and not John Lennon? He would have said that Lennon was the more spiritual, the more universal, figure. But it was Elvis who had received the secular canonization. Why after a quarter of a century did weeping strangers still flock to Graceland to mourn the passing of a man they never knew? And now-Dale Earnhardt? His nickname had been the Intimidator. Could there be a more unlikely angel?
Knight felt that he had been given an opportunity to watch something unfold and he hoped that he would be given the wisdom to make sense of it.
“I didn’t know you were a racing fan, Bob.” As soon as he said it, Knight realized that this was an unworthy thought. Just because Bob Henderson was a lawyer, he had assumed him to be somehow above the thrall of stock car racing, but he ought to know by now that you couldn’t pigeonhole people by your own biases.
“Because I don’t drive a pick-up truck with decals on the back window, you mean?”
“I’m new to all this,” said Knight by way of apology.
“Well, you’re a couple of decades behind the times with that image, but, yeah, I was as big a fan of Earnhardt as anybody. He was one of a kind. I have a signed picture of him in my office. You’d be surprised what an icebreaker that is with clients sometimes. Gives us something in common.”
“But why Earnhardt in particular?”
“Because he didn’t take any crap from anybody. It was his way or no way. I think he would have made a hell of a lawyer. I think he could have gotten the devil himself off with a reprimand.”
In spite of the seriousness of the man’s tone, Bill Knight smiled. “I thought that was Daniel Webster,” he said.
“I see you’ve been reading up on New England’s folklore,” said Henderson. “It’s hard to explain the attraction of Dale Earnhardt. You don’t follow racing, so you wouldn’t get it. When I said he’d have made a hell of a lawyer, I didn’t mean that Earnhardt was a silver-tongued orator. He wasn’t. But without looks or pedigree or education, he managed to make himself a celebrity and a multimillionaire-in a profession that the opinion-makers sneer at. That’s quite an achievement. He just wouldn’t give up. It was that certainty that he was right and that nobody else’s opinion was worth a damn. I’ve always thought saints must be like that.”
Knight thought about it. “I suppose some of them were,” he said. “That’s why I’ve never wanted to meet one.”
On a Sunday evening in winter the Speedway parking lot should have been empty, but as they pulled in, he saw dozens of cars and even a couple of eighteen-wheelers already in the lot.
“Trucks?” he said.
“Interstate,” said Henderson. “They’ll have heard the news on the radio. Makes sense for them to come here, I guess. Dale was here last summer, racing, you know. He was here when Adam died.”
Knight nodded. “Adam Petty. I know about that. I wasn’t here then, though.”
Consecrated ground.
They parked next to a red pick-up, and began to walk toward the main gates, where a crowd was already gathered. Taped-or perhaps tied-to the fence was a square of white poster board bearing only the number 3 outlined in black-and-red marker. On the ground beneath it light flickered from red glass candle holders that might have been taken from the table of a restaurant. Above the wind, he heard the muffled tones of a radio that someone had thought to bring, but the crowd was quiet. No one sang or wept or talked except in low murmurs. They were just waiting. Or coming together, perhaps, to pool their grief. The odd thing was that many people had felt the need to bring something. He understood the custom of bringing food to a bereaved family or flowers to a grave site to honor a departed friend, but what instinct made these strangers bring tokens to a place so far from the death scene, so far from the man’s family or final resting place, to someone they had never met? He supposed that the offerings were grief made visible.
On the ground beside the candles he saw potted plants and bundles of convenience store roses, left over from Valentine’s Day, now offered up to the memory of a man killed two thousand miles away. In this cold, he thought, they would not last the night, but at least the gesture had been made.
As Knight stood taking in the scene and wondering what he ought to do, a big man in a plaid jacket edged past him. He was carrying a plastic pine Christmas wreath, which he set down against the wall. A black toy car dangled from the red satin bow of the wreath. The man knelt down, propping the wreath so that it would not fall, and making sure that the die-cast car faced outward, the white number 3 visible on its tiny door. As he straightened up, he saw Knight looking down at the wreath, and tried to smile, a bit shamefaced at this uncharacteristic display of emotion.
“I felt like I had to bring something,” he said.
Knight nodded. “People do,” he said.
“I didn’t watch the race,” the man said. “I was all set to, but I’m a plumber. Had an emergency call-frozen pipes at a mobile home. Anyhow, I left my wife home watching the race, and as I went out, I said to her, ‘Dale knows I’ll be pulling for him.’ Well, my wife can’t stand Dale Earnhardt. She says he’s a bully on wheels. Likes that California surfer boy, that Jeff Gordon. Anyhow, I’m going out the door, she yells after me, ‘I hope your old Dale gets run into the damn wall!’ And I was coming back home, hoping to catch the end of the race when I heard the news on the radio. I went on into the house, and Judy was sitting there white as a sheet. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she says to me, but I didn’t even look at her. I just went on up into the attic and got the Christmas wreath. ‘I’m going out to the track,’ I told her, and she asked did I want her to come with me, and I said no. I didn’t want her. She isn’t hurting for Dale. But I am.”
“I’m sorry,” said Knight. That seemed to be all there was to say.
Nearby a woman in a red ski parka was crying. She held a candle that she was trying to light with a cigarette lighter, but the wind kept extinguishing the flame, making her cry all the more. “The flame has gone out,” she said. Finally, she put the unlit candle down against the wall with the wilting flowers and walked away without looking back.
“I’ll bet the Shaker Museum has a run on candles tomorrow,” said Henderson.
Bill Knight nodded.
“You know, when Princess Diana died, my wife got up at some ungodly hour before dawn to watch the funeral and I laughed at her for being so upset about it. But, by God, now I know how she felt, I guess. You feel like you knew them. It hurts.”
“And Dale never won a race here at New Hampshire,” said a heavyset older woman in the crowd. She was wearing a black-and-red Earnhardt jacket, but shivering anyhow. “He never did. Every year I’d go to the race, hoping this time would break the charm, but now it’s never going to happen.” Quietly, she began to cry.
A man in a black leather jacket and work boots stopped to look at the toy car on the Christmas wreath. He did not smile. “I wish I’d thought to bring something,” he said. “All I had in the truck was a can of beer, and that just didn’t seem right.” He pointed to one of the big rigs in the parking lot. “I got a load of Texas onions on their way to Maine,” he said. “Couple of tons of Texas sweets. And, you know what? They ain’t getting there. ’Cause I’m turning around. I can pick up I-95 outside of Boston and take it to Washington-twelve, fourteen hours. Take 66 west out of DC over to I-81 down the spine of the Blue Ridge. At Wytheville, Virginia, go south on I-77, and from there it’s a two-hour straight shot into Charlotte.”
“Charlotte?” the wreath man said.
“Charlotte.” The trucker nodded. “The funeral will be there. Bound to be.”
That made sense. Everybody knew Earnhardt was from a little town just north of there. “Do you suppose they’ll let ordinary people in?”
“Doubt it. But I can be there. Stand outside. I can say good-bye.”
“I don’t know about going to the funeral,” the wreath man said. “Drivers didn’t go to funerals. Too close to home, I guess. Knowing that the next race might be their turn.”
“Well, I’m going. The chance will never come again.”
A white Chevy pick-up truck pulled into the parking lot and the driver emerged carrying a poster portrait mounted on cardboard: Earnhardt in black-and-white coveralls leaning against his number 3 car. A gaggle of mourners helped the newcomer attach the poster to the fence above the pile of freezing flowers but some of them
