Rocket Cars
Daniel L. Hilliard
I sat on my hands to keep them warm while Jess hiked to the bathroom. The stands marinated in tar fumes, exhaust and greasy smoke from the concession booths. I suddenly wanted a cigarette. I needed to pollute myself, and fast.
Penn Raceway is a quarter mile asphalt track with aluminum stands on one side and a circular track on the other for maintenance vehicles and race queues. It’s hidden behind a stand of scrub pines along U.S. Route 356, and you’d blow right by it if not for an airbrushed plywood sign and the stink.
It’s musk, really, and in certain situations it’s irresistible. Smoke an eighth of schwag on a November afternoon with a pretty friend and study a tree. Watch the way the leaves tickle the air, admire the girth of the trunk and the solidity of the whole affair. Then whip together a little engine oil, ground chuck, and rubber and light it on fire. You’ll see what I mean.
“You by yourself, hon?,” said a fat girl wearing jeans slashed at the thighs. Her lipstick was neon pink.
“No, I’m here with a friend.”
“Ain’t that the way,” said the fat girl, “Your girl?”
“No, just a friend.”
“Ain’t that the way,” she said, “Well, do you got change for a dollar? The Coke machine only takes quarters.”
I took out my frayed hemp wallet and swept the pocket.
“No, sorry.”
“Ain’t that the way! Well, thanks.”
“Hey, you don’t have a cigarette, do you?”
“Did you find any quarters?”
“No.”
“There’s your answer.”
She plodded away like a cow, shifting her entire weight from one foot to the other.
I kept my wallet open for a second to look at my girl’s picture. Ivy smiled at me underneath an arch that read, in glittery cardboard letters, “Burrell Prom ’03.” She wore a greenish gold gown with black lace straps. A bouquet of silk orchids spilled over her lap.
While Jess was away, two heats took off and made the quarter mile in less than twelve seconds. The first two cars were sleek, red and foreign. They hit the tripwires at 10.23 and 10.11. Few clapped. In the next heat, a greasy gray Volkswagen with “Iron Horse” stenciled on the hood blew away a black Subaru, 10.98 to 11.46. The crowd whooped and hooted. A scrawny guy to my left wearing a Corona visor slapped his knees and rocked forward, fingers under his tongue, trying to whistle.
Jess sashayed back a little after seven. The halogen lamps lining the track had begun to glow, highlighting the kinked brown hairs jutting from her sloppy ponytail. Her eye sockets were cavernous, and her forehead shiny. She wore a maroon corduroy jacket and matching socks.
“That must’ve been some dump,” I said.
“Shut up,” she said, pulling the vowels like taffy. I shoved her into the Corona guy. His eyes popped.
“Whoa, whoa hon,” he said, “Watch the beer.”
She scrabbled off his lap, laughing and mumbling an apology.
“Hey, no harm,” he said, eyes on the track. Beer foam sizzled in his mustache.
I crooked my eyebrows and stared at Jess.
“Why did you just assault that poor man? Say you’re sorry!” I said.
“I just did!”
“Say it again.” I pinched the wispy hair on the back of her neck. She grabbed my thumb and pushed it toward my wrist until I yanked it away.
“Oww ow. Fair enough. But don’t let it happen again.”
“You dork. I’m definitely not sharing this now.” She pulled a pretzel out of her pocket.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Can I have some?”
“Get your own!”
“Aw, Jess, c’mon. It’s freezing out here.”
“You’re such a pansy,” she said, wrenching the pretzel in half. Fresh steam poured from the break.
“I’ll get you something later,” I said, chewing on a hank of rubbery pretzel, “I didn’t even know you were going to the concessions. Did you get any mustard?”
“Ew, mustard. No. I’m going back there in a few minutes. They’re making kielbasa.”
“You haven’t seen a race yet.”
“They’re all the same. Tick, vroom, hum, screech. I only really want to see the rocket cars.”
“When are they supposed to race?”
“Ten, but it’ll be more like eleven.”
A turkey buzzard landed near the stands, picking at a dropped hotdog. A boy with a blonde rattail threw a handful of ice at it. His tiny teeth glinted in the failing light.
“Let’s take a walk. You can show me around.”
“Okay,” she said. “I can show you the bathrooms and the concessions. That’s all there really is to this place.”
“Fair enough.”
We stood and I stretched. A gust of wind blew Jess’ hair into my face. It smelled like rum and apples. I put my hand under her corduroy jacket and let it rest on her hip.
“Jess! Jessie!” A chubby kid wearing a tight Ghostbusters tee shirt and elephant jeans flew off the stands, his arms spread wide. Jessica looked at me and grimaced.
“Jessie! You didn’t tell me you were coming up? Wanted to avoid me, huh?”
“Hi Steve,” Jess said, “And yeah.”
Steve honked. Peach fuzz covered his throat and jowls.
“Oh fine, then. Don’t call me no more. I don’t want to see Jessie ever again.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“Ooh, testy around the boyfriend. Does boyfriend care if I pal around with youns guys?”
“I’m not the boyfriend,” I said.
“He goes with a girl from Burrell,” said Jess. She studied the cigarette butts littering the ground.
“Burrell? I used to see a girl from there. What’s her name?”
“Ivy.”
“Ivy Angelos?”
“Rayburg.”
“Oh, no. I was gonna say, you need to get out of that mess as soon as possible. She’s psycho, man. Get this. She called my mom at work when I didn’t pick her up for a movie. She cried to my mom on the phone. But it’s not the same Ivy.”
I pictured Steve kissing my Ivy, his fuzz brushing her cheek. I snorted, stuffed my hands into my pockets, and turned towards the track.
“Well, hey, then, Jess. Guess I can still have a turn, huh? Hah!” He threw an arm around Jess’s shoulders. My belly tightened. I took my hands out of my pockets and squeezed them into fists.
“Jess, thought we were taking a walk. Let’s go. I don’t want to just stand here with a thumb up my ass.”
“Yeah, let’s go!” Steve pulled Jess’ hair, jerking her head backward. I stepped between them and we marched towards the concession booths.
“Guys, I’m gonna get a hoagie. These ain’t like the ones my uncle used to bring back from Philly, but they’re okay. I get the Italian every week, minus peppers. It’s like a Steve Troy tradtion.”
He started towards the hoagie booth, looking back over his shoulder and smiling. Jess looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“Weird,” she said.
“Friend of yours?”
“A little. He’s just weird.”
“Thought just me and you were going to hang out today.”
“We are.”
“Not alone.”
“Well, I can’t tell him to go away.”
“Yes you can. He was hitting on you.”
“He was not. And what’s the difference?”
She dipped her chin and glared at me. I stared at a crumpled Coors Lite can over her shoulder. Muddy water had collected in the lip.
“Steve, we’ll be right back,” she said, still glaring. Steve waved and shouted something in reply. He tapped his hands on the hoagie counter, jabbering at the attendant.
“I just don’t like seeing you with losers like that. I was so happy when you broke up with that Atwood jerk. The one with the other girlfriend in West Virginia. You deserve so much. You’re such a good person.”
“Come on,” she said, and grabbed my hand. Her palm felt like wood.
We slipped around the concessions. The bathrooms were in a little concrete hut next to the parking lot. The scent of ammonia and soap cut into the musk of the raceway.
“There,” she said, rolling her hands and then springing them open, “The illustrious Penn Raceway shithouse.” She punched my arm and held up her tiny fists.
“Cheer up,” she said, “I know he’s obnoxious. He’s just a friend. Same as you.”
“I thought I was your best friend.”
“Yeah, you’re one of them.”
I sighed. She punched me again.
“I’m going to piss,” I said. I walked directly into the little concrete hut, entered a stall, and banged the door closed. I winced, flushed the toilet, and closed the lid.
Graffiti plastered the walls. Next to a tic-tac-toe board (X’s won) someone had etched, “E and B 4-EVA.” An entry in felt-tip marker advised anyone looking for a blow job to be in the stall on Mondays and Tuesdays at 9 PM. Someone had scrawled underneath, “Better time? 3-5?” Three Greek letters with an X scratched across them. Ray ’84. Carpe Diem. Go Bucks! Hardy ’97. 335-1260 will take care of you and LOVE it. Weber’s a queer.
I stopped at the mirror on the way out. The fine hair on my crown was standing up. I wet my hands in the sink, pressed the hair down, and watched it gruesomely ratchet itself back up.
Ivy used to like my cowlick. She’d flick it when she knew I was feeling self-conscious.
“You’re always handsome to me,” she’d say when I complained. She had coppery hair bobbed just below her ears, and golden freckles peppered across her nose and cheeks. Her lips were thin as yarn and her beak long and a little crooked.
“You’re always gonna say that. It’s like I’ve got the mirror at gunpoint. I just want to look nice.”
“You do look nice. I think you look nice.”
“Do you think anyone else does?”
“Who cares what other people think?” Ivy used to say.
Jess was standing alone when I walked out of the bathroom. She came to me and put a hand on my shoulder. I scraped my cheek against it.
“You’re scratchy,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s cute.”
“Hey Jess.”
I leaned close to her and my hand slithered to her back. I felt her stiffen beneath my fingertips. I noticed that her side was plumper than Ivy’s and the skin pebbled. Her eyes were auburn. Ivy’s were the color of pond water. Her breath smelled like peaches. Ivy’s smelled like peppermints.
“You’re an awesome friend, Jess. Really. I’m glad we kept in touch after graduation. And really, thank you for bringing me here.”
“I thought you’d like to try something different. Nothing good’s playing at the Oaks, anyway. Besides, the floor there’s always sticky.”
“I love trying stuff out. We should go to the zoo, sometime. They put in a new critter house.”
“Think they have tree frogs?”
“Probably. They used to have these tropical toads with big glossy teeth, like in a horror movie But I’d love to go with you. As friends. I love you, as a friend.”
“I love you too.”
I stabbed in the dark. The first time I kissed her chin. The second time we met and stuck. She laid her palm on my belly. I kept my eyes open to look at the glitter on her cheeks and eyelids.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Me too.”
“Was it okay?” I studied her face.
“I don’t know. It was my first.”
“At nineteen? Really, your first?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Did it make you tingle?”
“No.”
“I feel light.”
“I feel weird.”
I grabbed her hand and held it palm up, like I was checking her pulse. She stared at my belt.
“Look, it’s done. Not really sure why, but I don’t think you should regret anything. Every experience is worthwhile.”
She nodded.
“You wanted me to kiss you, right?”
She nodded again.
“Hey, it’s starting, it’s starting! Mom! Go! Let’s go!” shrieked the boy with the blonde rattail. He was tugging along a woman with a blue dragon tattoo coiled around her sagging left bicep. She sighed, tussled his hair, and let him drag her towards the track.
A buzz started up, throbbing and insistent.
“The rocket cars!” Jess said.
“Oh, good.”
“Come on. This is what I came for.”
Jess turned toward the track and walked off. I suddenly had the urge to turn the other way, climb into my gray Ford Contour and peel out of this redneck asshole. I felt unbelievably sticky. The grease stink was clinging to my shirt and jeans.
I closed my eyes and thought about blaring Jefferson Airplane as I weaved through the traffic on 356, turned onto Coxcomb Road and followed it all the way to the shower in my basement. I could turn the hot water on full there, point it at the door to get steam, and just stew.
“Ivy,” I said. I wondered if there was a phone around. I could run to it, slip a few sweaty quarters into the slot, punch in her number and shout, “Yeah, I touched her! I’m sorry, I thought I was missing something. I’m only missing out on you. I should be here with you.” Then I could hang up and walk away feeling hollowed out, so much lighter now that I’d cut through my orange skin and ripped out all the guts.
“You coming?” said Jess, her hands splayed.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve never seen a rocket car.”
When we got back to our row, the boy with the blonde rat tail and his mother were in our seats chugging Barq’s root beer and slapping handfuls of buttery popcorn into their mouths. A brownish dribble ran from the boy’s lips to his white Power Ranger’s tee shirt. The mother dug in her pale cleavage for a kernel that dodged her carp-like lips.
Jess and I sat a couple of rows closer to the track. She drew her jacket around her knees and leaned forward, eyes set.
Two needle shaped vehicles idled up to the white starting line. The first was bright pink, even the roll cage, and the driver inside wore a helmet painted to look like blonde hair. The second was navy blue with chrome exhaust pipes. The driver, a bald man with a huge paunch squeezed into his black racing suit, jogged to the car, strapped himself in and slid on a black helmet with “Doug” stenciled over the faceplate. The alternating buzz of the idling rocket engines thumped against the stands. My leg bounced to the rhythm.
I put a hand on Jess’ back and it laid there like a slab of meat. She stared at the red starting light, and I stared at the pink satin with white lace lurking just below the hem of her jeans.
The crowd hushed, except for the boy with the rat tail, who shouted, “Yeah! Yeah!” The red starting light dropped a peg and a bright blue pilot light appeared at the rear of each car.
The buzz became a whine. Then, the middle red light dropped to green, and the cars soared down the track, trailing blue, red, and yellow tails ten feet long. The pink car threw up a 6.9. The navy pegged 6.4.
I slumped, aurally slapped and optically stunned. My left ear was still whistling and I couldn’t focus on anything but the painted starting line. They were there, and then they were gone. That fast. Faster. I closed my eyes and exhaled.
“Hey! Thanks for waiting!” Steve bounded up the stands and plopped himself next to Jessica. His big pink lips gleamed with Italian dressing.
“Hey Steve,” said Jess.
“Hey,” I said.
“Wow, those babies burn, don’t they? My uncle’s racing in the next heat. You gotta see this thing, Jess. It’s got a Hemi in it. I helped build it. I’d lay out all the wrenches and run to Napa for parts while my uncle kicked the thing and put up Hustler posters. He said for every half hour he rides the damn thing it rides him for three.”
“Jess, are there anymore?” I said.
“Yeah, they’re coming up now.”
Two more rocket cars, both black, chugged to the starting line. One was snub nosed; the hood was almost flat and only about four feet long. The other was long and needle-like, like the first two.
“There it is! The snub nose! Hey, Uncle Ray!! Yah! You the man! Rock it!” Steve’s mouth stretched until I thought his face would crack in half, “Rock it. Rocket. Huh?”
“Yeah Steve,” said Jess, “It does look fast.”
“That’s because I’ve been polishing it for the past three weeks after swim practice. An hour a day, two applications of plain TurtleWax scrubbed with cheesecloth till you think you’re arm’s gonna fall off.”
Steve paused to slurp red soda from a Styrofoam cup. Some of it clung to the fuzz on his upper lip. He licked it away and looked at my hand, still camped on Jess’s back.
“Hey, you two, I’m not bothering you, am I?”
“No no,” Jess said.
“Cuz I understand if you wanna just hang out by yourselves a bit. I know how it is. Ivy was always on me bout never getting ‘quality time.’ Like the only time that counts in a relationship is the time you have to spend alone.”
He paused, slurped again and sneered.
“Besides, the fewer witnesses the better, huh?”
“What?” I spat. Jessica opened her jacket a little and leaned back, looking between Steve and me.
“Hey, nothing, nothing. I ain’t going to say anything. Everyone’s entitled to a little fun on the side. Ivy’s loud, anyway. I met her once when my Ivy took me red pin bowling at Plaza Lanes. I couldn’t wait for her to shut up bout this rat she bought.”
“It’s a gerbil,” I said, “And I don’t care what you tell her. She knows I’m here. We’re all friends, anyhow.”
“You kiss all your friends? Look, man, I don’t care·like I said, if it were me, I’d probably do the same thing.”
I reached out and half-slapped, half-clawed him across the lips. Bright red lines appeared under his nose. A little pink tear near the corner of his mouth suddenly welled with blood. Hot tears simmered under my lids. A solid lump pressed on my windpipe.
“Don’t you dare ever say anything about this to anyone,” I hissed.
“I said I wouldn’t! I said I didn’t care!”
He grabbed my arm and slapped me. My glasses flew beneath the stands.
“Cut it out,” yelled Jess. A few people turned to look, but the cars on the track had already begun to throb and hum.
“Go ahead and cheat on your girlfriend! I told you I didn’t care. I told you!”
I cracked him again, this time with my palm right above his left eye. Jess stood and flew down the stands. I followed. Steve grabbed at my arm, slid off, raking my wrist, lunged for my shirt, missed.
I heard him slap the stands with his sausage fingers, barking and exhaling, until the roar of the rocket cars flying down the track swallowed him up.
“Wait, Jess, wait,” I said. She was heading towards the bathrooms.
“What the fuck were you doing?” she said, spinning to face me.
“I don’t know. I really couldn’t take it·he’d been pushing me all night.”
“He didn’t say anything to you! You’re psycho.”
“He’s fine,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter! You hit him! You hit him!”
“He was talking about Ivy,” I said.
“He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. Friends don’t kiss friends.”
“So you regret it, is that what you’re saying? Tell me the truth, right now.”
“Of course I regret it. And I don’t feel like staying here with you any longer. I’m going back for my jacket and to apologize to Steve. Then, I want you to just drive me home. Don’t say a damn thing to me in the car, don’t even look at me. Just take me home.”
I sat in the car studying the pebbled dashboard until she came. In the brief light from the opened car door I saw red eyes, tear trails that had swept away some of her glitter, and thin white lips. She’d taken out her pony tail, as well.
“As soon as we get back, I’m calling Ivy. I’m going to apologize, but I’m also going to tell her that you kissed me. I love you, as a friend·and that’s why this has to stop right now. Now don’t say anything the rest of the way.”
I talked, of course. I said, “Please don’t,” and later I asked her if she needed to borrow my handkerchief. That’s all, though. I think, on the whole, I displayed some amazing self control.
