Photo by Diana Orey
Trusting Jeremy
John Timm
Most summer days, Jeremy would sleep for as long as his mom would let him. Today he was up early. Sunday school early. Not that it was Sunday, or that he was going to church. It was another kind of day, a special day, marking the beginning of something that happened once a year every second week in August. Jeremy wasn’t going to miss a minute of it.
The race-car haulers had begun arriving at the county fairgrounds late Wednesday night into early Thursday. The first morning was reserved for tech inspection, chassis set up, and practice. There’d be time trials in the afternoon and late model races that night. Friday, there’d be the winged sprint heat races, trophy dash, sprint B-main and the late model main. They’d run the big one–the winged sprint A-main–Saturday night. Jeremy knew all of this by heart.
At breakfast his mother had little to say.
“Don’t do nothin’ stupid up there. Keep your wallet in your pocket, lock your bicycle–and be back home as soon as it’s over. Hear me?”
The boy hoped she’d say something else. Something like, “Say hello to your daddy,” or “Tell him to call me,” or “I’d like to see him while he’s in town,” all of which would have suited Jeremy. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t likely to happen. But Jeremy could always hope.
His mom stood beside the back door, her first smoke of the day. Jeremy mounted his bike, then paused, one foot on the pedal, the other on the ground, looking over his shoulder at her. Maybe she’d say something now. She didn’t.
His dad had called earlier to say they’d have a pit pass waiting at the pit gate. After Jeremy signed some kind of paper, the lady sitting in the little booth at the gate handed him his pass on a short lanyard.
“Keep this on you at all times. If you don’t have it with you, you’ll get kicked out–don’t matter whose kid y’are.”
Jeremy felt important. With the pit pass secured around his neck, he wished the whole world could see him and share this special moment. Once he was through the gate, he paused to look around.
He’d been there a couple times before. The last two summers, actually. Still, he had to get his bearings. Things inside the track looked so different from what the paying customer sees. The empty grandstand seemed strange and far away. In the middle of the infield he saw the improvised colony of motor homes. The haulers were parked closer to the track, on either side of the flag stand, where the pits would be. Gravel at best, mud at worst, the pits were hidden behind a concrete barrier intended to keep errant race cars out on the track where they belonged. This was good in theory, not always in practice, although none of this mattered to Jeremy, who’d never known danger beyond falling off a skateboard, or pain beyond a toothache.
His dad’s race car was painted orange, the color of this year’s sponsor, so Jeremy set out in search of an orange hauler. There were two of them, one close, one further down the way. He recognized the name of the sponsor and the car number, 63. And then, alongside the trailer, he recognized what he’d come for.
Short and a little on the stocky side, his dad was in his tan driver’s suit, leaning against the roll cage and talking with a stranger–everyone there was a stranger except for his dad.
“This is my boy Jeremy.”
The stranger nodded at both and headed off to another pit. The father and son reunion had begun.
“Keep your eyes open and stay out of the way. Things can happen mighty fast around here. And don’t ever touch these.”
Taking the precautions of a caring adult, and in this case, a loving father, Jeremy’s dad pointed to the exhaust pipes–chromed, shiny and attractive, but blazing hot.
“I know, Pop. I’ve been in the pits before.”
“That don’t mean a damn thing, if you get careless.”
Every so often, someone would fire up an engine in an adjacent pit, causing Jeremy to jump. He soon got used to it. He liked the noise and the activity; he even liked the slightly acrid, slightly sweet smell of racing fuel.
He asked a million questions: “Why are the tires wider on this side than the other?” Or “Tell me again what you mean when you say the car’s pushing?”
During time trials that afternoon, Jeremy’s dad had fourth fastest time. That would give him a good position for the B-main, provided he did well in his heat race. If he finished in the top five of the B-main, he’d be in the A-main–the big one–on Saturday night. Jeremy was proud and growing prouder.
Jeremy arrived back home around nine, eager to share the day with his mom, get a bite to eat and a few hours of sleep, and head back to the track in the morning. His mom wanted none of it.
“You’re covered with dirt and sweat. Get a shower before you go anywhere near your bed. I don’t spend my time doing wash just for the fun of it.”
She didn’t ask about his father.
Jeremy’s dad was running in the third heat race–an inverted start with the fastest cars at the back of the pack. Most of the pit crews, the car owners, and the various hangers-on sat in lawn chairs on top of the haulers for a better view. Jeremy climbed up to join the rest and got that familiar important feeling.
Five laps into things, somebody zigged when they should have zagged. It happened so fast and right in front of him. The left front wheel of the orange number 63 went up and over the right rear wheel of the blue number 15, setting in motion a nasty tumble. Jeremy was stunned. He wasn’t a spectator now. He was a participant–in the only way a blood relation to whoever’s in the cockpit can be.
The track ambulance checked out Jeremy’s dad. A bystander offered, “Your old man’ll be okay. He’s just got his bell rung, that’s all. It ain’t the first time . . . or the last.”
After a quick check-up in the back of the ambulance, Jeremy’s dad was back, standing in the pits, looking at his squashed race car. The wing was all busted up, and the roll cage was bent and would have to be replaced. Otherwise, the car would be good to go for the B-main.
“We got two spare wings and another roll cage in the trailer,” his dad said. Sure enough, within a couple hours, the car looked and ran good as new. The B-main went off without a hitch, Jeremy holding his breath for every lap. His dad finished in the top five, right where he needed to be.
Jeremy didn’t say anything about the accident to his mother that night, waiting until morning to recount to her what had happened. She turned pale for a moment, but said nothing. He forgave her silence. Maybe it meant she still cared, still loved his dad. He took it as a good sign.
Jeremy never understood exactly why his parents divorced. He knew it had something to do with money. Money and racing. At least that’s what he’d figured out from bits and pieces of conversations overheard. He remembered one time when his mom said to somebody on the phone, “He spends all his time and all our money workin’ on the damned race car. And he turns customers away while he’s tinkering with it. We got no money for groceries, and we’re behind on the rent at the garage.” That was just before the landlord came and locked up the place for good.
After that, his dad went on the outlaw racing circuit full-time, Jeremy remained in town with his mom, and that was the end of their family. At least for now, Jeremy hoped. Just for now.
His dad didn’t ask about Jeremy’s mom until Saturday evening, an hour or so before the A-main. It was an awkward question, posed even more awkwardly.
“Does she ever say anything about . . . giving you another daddy?” His dad was talking like Jeremy was only five or six, but Jeremy understood what his father was trying to say and forgave him.
“No. She never talks to me about nothin’ like that.” That was the truth. Then Jeremy said, “She has boyfriends who visit. Some stay longer than others–”
“You don’t have to do no spying for me, Son. I just wondered.”
That put an end to any more questions.
The big overhead lights were on now, hosting swarms of summer bugs that likely wouldn’t last much longer than the event itself. The PA system crackled to life with the usual pre-race ceremonies and driver introductions. The drivers’ hometowns held a special fascination for a boy of eleven, almost twelve, who’d never been more than a hundred miles from his birthplace. Fairview, Ohio . . . York, Pennsylvania . . . Salem, Indiana . . . strange, exotic names. Jeremy assumed these were far off places . . . and different. Anywhere but where he was. They announced his dad. Jeremy cheered and grew prouder still.
Then he heard, “All rise for the playing of our national anthem.” A young lady with a tiara–The Fairest of the Fair–announced, “Gentlemen, start your engines.” The push trucks went into action, the cars thundered off down the track, and fifty laps of loosely-controlled pandemonium began, the rooster tails of flying clay pelting the pits and the fans, nobody caring because this was the big one.
At ten laps, there was a lead change, a couple of spins, several near-misses. At thirty laps, another lead change, another spin. Twenty laps left, more lead changes. Ten laps to go, with the crowd on its feet and engines at full cry, cars going three and four wide on the turns, Jeremy’s dad in the middle of it all, charging to the finish line with the rest of the pack, a part of Jeremy didn’t want to look. A part of him couldn’t help it.
And just like that, it was over with a wave of the checked flag and a third-place finish for his dad. More than respectable.
The engine noise stilled. The crowd noise was now just a murmur, as the last of the cars rolled silently to a stop in the pits. The dust remained thick, a brown haze hovering over the track. The boy’s ears were ringing–his throat hoarse, his nose and mouth filled with grit. None of it mattered. A third-place finish for his dad, who was safe–that’s what really mattered to Jeremy.
The crowd hung around for another hour while the cars were loaded into the haulers and Jeremy’s dad signed autographs. Somebody turned off the big overhead lights around eleven, a signal for the stragglers and the clouds of bugs to go elsewhere. The motor-home colony had begun to disperse.
Now the team was packed up and ready to go. No time to rest. They’d be up in Missouri in the morning for a Sunday afternoon show, then on north to Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania before Labor Day. After that, they’d follow the weather south to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, before ending the season in Florida at the holidays.
His dad handed Jeremy an envelope.
“Give this to your momma. Okay?”
Father and son hugged. And hugged again. There were no more words. There was no need.
Jeremy might have been tempted two, maybe three, times before the envelope made it, intact, to his mother’s hands. He could have ripped it open, read it, changed envelopes. Nobody would have known the difference. But that would be a betrayal, and Jeremy could never betray his dad, no matter how much his mom might have wished that. Then again, maybe the thought never entered his head.
Sunday morning, Jeremy and his mom shared breakfast with a man he didn’t know.
“Show your manners, Son,” said his mom. “Say hello to Jack.”
The subject of last night’s race didn’t come up, not even after the man left.
Jeremy vowed never to give up. To try again. There was always next year. The haulers would be back. The racers and the fans would be back. His dad would be back, and Jeremy would be back. He’d make sure of it.
John Timm
Most summer days, Jeremy would sleep for as long as his mom would let him. Today he was up early. Sunday school early. Not that it was Sunday, or that he was going to church. It was another kind of day, a special day, marking the beginning of something that happened once a year every second week in August. Jeremy wasn’t going to miss a minute of it.
The race-car haulers had begun arriving at the county fairgrounds late Wednesday night into early Thursday. The first morning was reserved for tech inspection, chassis set up, and practice. There’d be time trials in the afternoon and late model races that night. Friday, there’d be the winged sprint heat races, trophy dash, sprint B-main and the late model main. They’d run the big one–the winged sprint A-main–Saturday night. Jeremy knew all of this by heart.
At breakfast his mother had little to say.
“Don’t do nothin’ stupid up there. Keep your wallet in your pocket, lock your bicycle–and be back home as soon as it’s over. Hear me?”
The boy hoped she’d say something else. Something like, “Say hello to your daddy,” or “Tell him to call me,” or “I’d like to see him while he’s in town,” all of which would have suited Jeremy. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t likely to happen. But Jeremy could always hope.
His mom stood beside the back door, her first smoke of the day. Jeremy mounted his bike, then paused, one foot on the pedal, the other on the ground, looking over his shoulder at her. Maybe she’d say something now. She didn’t.
His dad had called earlier to say they’d have a pit pass waiting at the pit gate. After Jeremy signed some kind of paper, the lady sitting in the little booth at the gate handed him his pass on a short lanyard.
“Keep this on you at all times. If you don’t have it with you, you’ll get kicked out–don’t matter whose kid y’are.”
Jeremy felt important. With the pit pass secured around his neck, he wished the whole world could see him and share this special moment. Once he was through the gate, he paused to look around.
He’d been there a couple times before. The last two summers, actually. Still, he had to get his bearings. Things inside the track looked so different from what the paying customer sees. The empty grandstand seemed strange and far away. In the middle of the infield he saw the improvised colony of motor homes. The haulers were parked closer to the track, on either side of the flag stand, where the pits would be. Gravel at best, mud at worst, the pits were hidden behind a concrete barrier intended to keep errant race cars out on the track where they belonged. This was good in theory, not always in practice, although none of this mattered to Jeremy, who’d never known danger beyond falling off a skateboard, or pain beyond a toothache.
His dad’s race car was painted orange, the color of this year’s sponsor, so Jeremy set out in search of an orange hauler. There were two of them, one close, one further down the way. He recognized the name of the sponsor and the car number, 63. And then, alongside the trailer, he recognized what he’d come for.
Short and a little on the stocky side, his dad was in his tan driver’s suit, leaning against the roll cage and talking with a stranger–everyone there was a stranger except for his dad.
“This is my boy Jeremy.”
The stranger nodded at both and headed off to another pit. The father and son reunion had begun.
“Keep your eyes open and stay out of the way. Things can happen mighty fast around here. And don’t ever touch these.”
Taking the precautions of a caring adult, and in this case, a loving father, Jeremy’s dad pointed to the exhaust pipes–chromed, shiny and attractive, but blazing hot.
“I know, Pop. I’ve been in the pits before.”
“That don’t mean a damn thing, if you get careless.”
Every so often, someone would fire up an engine in an adjacent pit, causing Jeremy to jump. He soon got used to it. He liked the noise and the activity; he even liked the slightly acrid, slightly sweet smell of racing fuel.
He asked a million questions: “Why are the tires wider on this side than the other?” Or “Tell me again what you mean when you say the car’s pushing?”
During time trials that afternoon, Jeremy’s dad had fourth fastest time. That would give him a good position for the B-main, provided he did well in his heat race. If he finished in the top five of the B-main, he’d be in the A-main–the big one–on Saturday night. Jeremy was proud and growing prouder.
Jeremy arrived back home around nine, eager to share the day with his mom, get a bite to eat and a few hours of sleep, and head back to the track in the morning. His mom wanted none of it.
“You’re covered with dirt and sweat. Get a shower before you go anywhere near your bed. I don’t spend my time doing wash just for the fun of it.”
She didn’t ask about his father.
Jeremy’s dad was running in the third heat race–an inverted start with the fastest cars at the back of the pack. Most of the pit crews, the car owners, and the various hangers-on sat in lawn chairs on top of the haulers for a better view. Jeremy climbed up to join the rest and got that familiar important feeling.
Five laps into things, somebody zigged when they should have zagged. It happened so fast and right in front of him. The left front wheel of the orange number 63 went up and over the right rear wheel of the blue number 15, setting in motion a nasty tumble. Jeremy was stunned. He wasn’t a spectator now. He was a participant–in the only way a blood relation to whoever’s in the cockpit can be.
The track ambulance checked out Jeremy’s dad. A bystander offered, “Your old man’ll be okay. He’s just got his bell rung, that’s all. It ain’t the first time . . . or the last.”
After a quick check-up in the back of the ambulance, Jeremy’s dad was back, standing in the pits, looking at his squashed race car. The wing was all busted up, and the roll cage was bent and would have to be replaced. Otherwise, the car would be good to go for the B-main.
“We got two spare wings and another roll cage in the trailer,” his dad said. Sure enough, within a couple hours, the car looked and ran good as new. The B-main went off without a hitch, Jeremy holding his breath for every lap. His dad finished in the top five, right where he needed to be.
Jeremy didn’t say anything about the accident to his mother that night, waiting until morning to recount to her what had happened. She turned pale for a moment, but said nothing. He forgave her silence. Maybe it meant she still cared, still loved his dad. He took it as a good sign.
Jeremy never understood exactly why his parents divorced. He knew it had something to do with money. Money and racing. At least that’s what he’d figured out from bits and pieces of conversations overheard. He remembered one time when his mom said to somebody on the phone, “He spends all his time and all our money workin’ on the damned race car. And he turns customers away while he’s tinkering with it. We got no money for groceries, and we’re behind on the rent at the garage.” That was just before the landlord came and locked up the place for good.
After that, his dad went on the outlaw racing circuit full-time, Jeremy remained in town with his mom, and that was the end of their family. At least for now, Jeremy hoped. Just for now.
His dad didn’t ask about Jeremy’s mom until Saturday evening, an hour or so before the A-main. It was an awkward question, posed even more awkwardly.
“Does she ever say anything about . . . giving you another daddy?” His dad was talking like Jeremy was only five or six, but Jeremy understood what his father was trying to say and forgave him.
“No. She never talks to me about nothin’ like that.” That was the truth. Then Jeremy said, “She has boyfriends who visit. Some stay longer than others–”
“You don’t have to do no spying for me, Son. I just wondered.”
That put an end to any more questions.
The big overhead lights were on now, hosting swarms of summer bugs that likely wouldn’t last much longer than the event itself. The PA system crackled to life with the usual pre-race ceremonies and driver introductions. The drivers’ hometowns held a special fascination for a boy of eleven, almost twelve, who’d never been more than a hundred miles from his birthplace. Fairview, Ohio . . . York, Pennsylvania . . . Salem, Indiana . . . strange, exotic names. Jeremy assumed these were far off places . . . and different. Anywhere but where he was. They announced his dad. Jeremy cheered and grew prouder still.
Then he heard, “All rise for the playing of our national anthem.” A young lady with a tiara–The Fairest of the Fair–announced, “Gentlemen, start your engines.” The push trucks went into action, the cars thundered off down the track, and fifty laps of loosely-controlled pandemonium began, the rooster tails of flying clay pelting the pits and the fans, nobody caring because this was the big one.
At ten laps, there was a lead change, a couple of spins, several near-misses. At thirty laps, another lead change, another spin. Twenty laps left, more lead changes. Ten laps to go, with the crowd on its feet and engines at full cry, cars going three and four wide on the turns, Jeremy’s dad in the middle of it all, charging to the finish line with the rest of the pack, a part of Jeremy didn’t want to look. A part of him couldn’t help it.
And just like that, it was over with a wave of the checked flag and a third-place finish for his dad. More than respectable.
The engine noise stilled. The crowd noise was now just a murmur, as the last of the cars rolled silently to a stop in the pits. The dust remained thick, a brown haze hovering over the track. The boy’s ears were ringing–his throat hoarse, his nose and mouth filled with grit. None of it mattered. A third-place finish for his dad, who was safe–that’s what really mattered to Jeremy.
The crowd hung around for another hour while the cars were loaded into the haulers and Jeremy’s dad signed autographs. Somebody turned off the big overhead lights around eleven, a signal for the stragglers and the clouds of bugs to go elsewhere. The motor-home colony had begun to disperse.
Now the team was packed up and ready to go. No time to rest. They’d be up in Missouri in the morning for a Sunday afternoon show, then on north to Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania before Labor Day. After that, they’d follow the weather south to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, before ending the season in Florida at the holidays.
His dad handed Jeremy an envelope.
“Give this to your momma. Okay?”
Father and son hugged. And hugged again. There were no more words. There was no need.
Jeremy might have been tempted two, maybe three, times before the envelope made it, intact, to his mother’s hands. He could have ripped it open, read it, changed envelopes. Nobody would have known the difference. But that would be a betrayal, and Jeremy could never betray his dad, no matter how much his mom might have wished that. Then again, maybe the thought never entered his head.
Sunday morning, Jeremy and his mom shared breakfast with a man he didn’t know.
“Show your manners, Son,” said his mom. “Say hello to Jack.”
The subject of last night’s race didn’t come up, not even after the man left.
Jeremy vowed never to give up. To try again. There was always next year. The haulers would be back. The racers and the fans would be back. His dad would be back, and Jeremy would be back. He’d make sure of it.