"No, no, no. We gotta sit up top so we can see. I don't wanna get mud slung on my hood." Wayne pulled Aimee up the ramp to the top of the stands.
"But I wanna cheer!" she protested.
"Can't you cheer from up there?" Wayne asked.
"Not where she can hear me!"
Wayne's mouth turned down into a pout. "Fine. How about the middle?"
Strip followed Aimee as she helped her obviously intoxicated boyfriend drive to the far end of the stands. Tex assured him that such revelries were typical on Saturday nights in this town, but Strip was still very confused. What exactly was it they were watching again?
The sun had just disappeared behind the Dinoco building off in the distance when they'd parked. Wayne cracked open another can that he'd managed to sneak through the fairgrounds' gate, and started humming an unfamiliar tune. Aimee stole a sip every now and again from him, but didn't drink so much as to let it affect her. Strip, sandwiched between her and Tex, looked around and tried to figure out what this was.
It wasn't a rodeo. There weren't any animals around, which seemed odd for what he knew about county fairs. It wasn't a race, because the field down below them, while oval in shape, was far too muddy to offer any real track. And around it all, excited, inebriated cars were settling in for a night of entertainment.
"So, uh, what is this again?" Strip asked Tex.
"What, you ain't never been to a derby, either?" Tex asked, taken aback. "Boy, you need to get out more."
"What?" Aimee asked in disbelief. "Are you kiddin'? Oh, Strip, you are gonna love this."
"I don't know what 'this' is."
"Alright, so it's super simple." Aimee put down Wayne's drink and began a light-hearted, country lesson on demolition derbies. "That field down there? The officials over there are gonna let in bunch of competitors here before long. Once you hear the shot go off, there are no rules. The only goal is to be the last car standin'."
"They're gonna crash into each other until they can't drive no more." Tex clarified. "Ain't nothin' more fun than watchin' a bunch of idiots wreck themselves."
"Hey, now." Aimee looked offended.
"Sorry, Aimee. You know what I mean."
The speakers crackled to life as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The announcer's booming voice reverberated so poorly across the fairgrounds, Strip didn't understand a word he said. Whatever it'd been, it must have been exciting, because everyone else was cheering.
A line of beat up cars entered the muddy field and took positions around the edge, facing the center. The announcer stated their names as they entered through the gap in the concrete barrier at the far end, and different patches of the crowd situated around the field would cheer. Strip wondered how some of these cars were still functional. They had bent frames, lopsided suspension, and an astonishing lack of bodywork.
"Wooo!" Aimee screamed, jumping up and down as they called the last contestant to the track. "That's my sister! Go Lynda!"
Strip flinched at the sudden exclamation. Aimee's sweet voice seemed capable of pitches higher than a spooling jet engine. She reached out, tapped him on the side, and excitedly pointed to the silver station wagon that had just joined the fray.
"That's her!" she repeated.
"Oh?" Strip was surprised. Aimee's sister didn't look like the other derby cars. They were all older, rusty, and worn. She was so young, and still had that new car shine to her. He could only make out a couple major dents and scratches.
"Prepare to lose your hearin'." Tex leaned over and warned him. "Aimee likes to scream a lot."
Boy was he right. The second they fired that shot off into the air, Aimee took to hootin' and hollerin' like he'd never seen. But that wasn't anything compared to the chaos that erupted on the field below. Cars were ramming into each other with a vengeance, flipping each other over, pushing each other into other competitors. One car even flipped over the barrier and landed shiny side down in a drainage ditch. Even from so far away from the field, it was easy to see they were having a blast doing it.
Strip kept a watch on Aimee's sister, Lynda. She was by far the youngest, and one of only three or four girls down there. He would have thought she wouldn't stand a chance against these older, heavier cars, but she was holding her own. In fact, she was doing more than that. She was annihilating them, and looking good doing it.
He watched her played chicken with a rusted Bel Air, only to dodge to the right at the last second, catch him in the front bumper with her side, and use his own momentum to flip him over. Aimee screamed and laughed in support. There was no denying her skill was impressive.
It came down to the end, and Lynda and some other twisted heap of a veteran were all that were left. They stared each other down across the sea of wreckage between them.
"Come on, you can do it!" Aimee hollered.
Lynda looked up at her sister, smiled, and braced herself against whatever traction she could find. This old Buick was going down.
Strip found himself on edge as she charged the Roadmaster. The Buick hesitated, as if he didn't want to wreck the younger car, but he couldn't just back out and let her win. He went for her, clearly intending on straight up running her into the ground. One good ram in the side would totally incapacitate her.
What happened next was talked about for days in that small town. Lynda braked, spun completely around, and kicked it into reverse. The Buick's twisted frame made it hard for him to drive in a straight line, and he kept correcting to the left as he came for her. The warp in his frame lifted his bumper up off the ground about a foot higher than it was supposed to be, and that was his downfall. Lynda reversed into him, caught the underside of his bumper right above her trim line on her right side, and sent him toppling over as if he'd just hit a one-sided ramp.
The crowd cheered her on as they dubbed her the champion, but she wasn't done. For added flair, she made a small circle around him, and rammed him one last time straight in the undercarriage, knocking him over onto his roof.
"Yeah, that's my girl!" Aimee shouted.
Tex offered out a big 'yeehaw' and even lightweight Wayne, who was starting to fall asleep, hollered something unintelligible. Strip felt excited as well, but since he didn't know her, he stayed silent. Some sort of feeling in the back of his mind came to his attention as he watched her take a victory around the field, something he'd never felt before. He had no idea what it was, but it felt like an itch that needed to be scratched.
"I wanna go to sleep now." Wayne leaned against Aimee and prodded her to start moving. "Time to go home."
Aimee rolled her eyes. "Alright. I guess I'll drive with you to keep you from hurtin' yourself."
Strip looked over at his best friend, all slouched over against Aimee. He could remember the first time Wayne got his tires on a pint of high grade. It culminated in an intense argument with the TV over a penalty at last year's Dinoco 400, and ended with him passed out in the middle of the floor. Not much had changed, apparently.
Tex led the way down the stands with Strip on his tail as Aimee helped Wayne along behind them. Various tow trucks and wreckers assisted the immobilized derby cars, towing them away to the shops for their weekly repairs.
"Hey, hey!" Aimee called to her sister as they passed. "Great win today!"
"Thanks, girl." Lynda smiled at the group as they approached her. "I was feeling good toda- "
She cut herself off mid-sentence with a squeak as the resident water tanker emptied the rest of his tank on her, washing all the mud off. He drove away laughing as she sat there, shocked.
"Hank!" she yelled after him. "What'd I tell you about that?"
"Well, at least you're clean." Tex chuckled.
"Ye-ah!" Wayne offered. "Ssso, so good. As usual."
"You've been drinkin', ain't you?" Lynda looked Wayne over with an unguarded look of disapproval.
"Yeah, I'm gonna take him home." Aimee whispered embarrassedly, pushing him away. "See you later?"
Lynda nodded understandingly.
"Heyyy, Strip!" Wayne called to his friend as he pulled away. "Mi casa's tu casa, capiche?"
"Yeah, yeah." Strip waved him away. "I'll crash later."
"I think I'll head back, too." Tex yawned. "It's been a busy week. I hope I'll see you around more, racecar."
"Sure thing, Tex." Strip dismissed him.
As the golden El Dorado drove away, Strip suddenly felt very, very alone and quite uncomfortable.
What do I do? What do I do?
"So, racecar," Lynda asked as he hesitated to leave, "you that friend of Wayne's from the factory?"
"Uh, yeah." he stuttered. "Sorry, I shoulda introduced myself. Strip Weathers."
"Lynda Harding. Nice to finally meet you." she smiled at him. "You know, he used to tell stories about back when you guys hung out a lot."
Oh, Chrysler, no. His face must have said it all. She laughed.
"Was it the fire alarm thing?" he asked, his voice tight. Had Wayne been telling embarrassing stories all this time?
"Oh, yeah." she confirmed. "Total evacuation and everything."
Strip groaned and looked in the direction his friends had gone. Wayne was going to pay for this. How was he supposed to know tire smoke would set off the hallway smoke detectors?
"So, um." he had to keep talking to her. That little feeling he'd gotten earlier was flaring into something more along the magnitudes of a fire. "That, uh, derby was unlike anythin' I'd ever seen. The way you took out that last guy? How'd you see that?"
"Oh, well." she looked down, flattered. "It's just instinct, really. I like to use what they got against 'em, make 'em trip over themselves. Could've been better though, I think I busted a taillight."
Don't ask to look, don't ask to look. Come on, man, just ask her out already. You can do this.
No you can't. Don't do this. What are you thinking?
"Easy enough fix, right?" he didn't know where his words were coming from, or why they weren't stopping. He knew better than to do this. "Would you like to get a drink? I got to meet Tex and Aimee earlier. I'd like to talk to you."
Internally, he was screaming. This specific action was number two on his personal 'do not do' list, right underneath 'do not die'. He couldn't afford to get attached to someone on the outside, for both their sakes. That was too dangerous.
But then she smiled. "You buyin'?"
The Slim Trim was still bustling, even late at night. They found a corner table where the roar of the resident band wasn't overwhelming, and a couple rounds in, were conversing like old friends. He told her all about his dream of being a racer, and that box of old video reels he'd taken from the Chrysler library. He held no reserve describing what he'd felt on that racetrack earlier that day. She listened intently, admiring his enthusiasm.
In return, she told him all about her family, about how she and her sister were the breadwinners for their parents. She didn't just derby for fun (though that was part of it), she did it for a reliable paycheck and that's why she had to be so smart about it. She had to win. There wasn't much of a choice.
The bartender shouted last call after what felt like only a few short moments. Strip looked at the clock. It was two in the morning, how had that happened? Had they really been talking that long? Lynda said she probably should have been home hours ago, and motioned toward the door. Strip paid off their tab, grateful that at least he got paid to be of service to the manufacturer, and followed her outside.
"Mind if I drive you home?" he asked as they slowly rolled toward the empty street.
"I'd like that." she said with a slight smile.
He didn't know where they were going as they puttered along, side-by-side on the street, but he followed her lead down several streets. It seemed after a while that they might be going in circles, but he didn't mind. It had to be intentional.
"So why haven't I seen you around before?" she asked. "I mean, I know Michigan's a long way away, but it's been months since Wayne came to town. Is this really the first time you've come down here?"
"Yeah." he admitted. "It's, uh, just a thing about working for the manufacturer. It can be kinda hard to get away sometimes."
"What do you do up there?"
He gritted his teeth, trying to come up with a convincing answer. "It's specialized work. Company confidential, and all."
"Oh, okay. Sorry for askin'."
"No, it's fine."
She was silent for a moment as they turned a corner onto yet another street. He looked over at her, shining in the streetlights. Dents, scratches, and all, she was beautiful. He could feel his soul slipping into oblivion.
"I think, though, that I'll have a lot more free time. Time to get away, I mean." he mentioned. "The schedule changed a bit recently."
"Really?" she perked up a little. "Do you think you'll visit again?"
"Of course." his mind raced for something else to make it more concrete. "Company pays for airfare. It's only a two hour flight."
This was true. At the factory, he didn't have to pay for fuel, so technically they did finance his flight.
"Wow." she seemed impressed. "Killer benefits."
He winced at her phrasing. Those two words were more accurate than she'd ever know. "Yeah, it's alright."
She sighed as she pulled over in front of a house at the end of the street. "This is it."
Strip looked at the simple, white house. A bit run down, but compared to the neighboring places, not bad at all.
"Hey, thanks for taking me out. And driving me back." she turned to face him, smiling.
"Yeah, sure." he shrugged. "Anytime."
"Next time you're in town, let me know!" she said. "We can make plans to go do something, if you want."
He smiled. "Got plans for next Saturday?"
"I guess I do now."
For a couple seconds, they looked into each other's eyes. Strip could feel the butterflies in his carburetor doing some wonky stuff, unable to stay still.
"I'll be at Wayne's house by noon." he said, beginning to back away into the street.
"I'll be there." she promised, turning toward her house. "'Night!"
"Night." he said, slowly pulling away.
As soon as he lost sight of her in his rearview, he gunned it toward Wayne's house. He needed to talk to someone he had no secrets with, and he needed to do it right then.
He should have known his ever-reliable friend would be out of service for the rest of the night. Strip barged through the front door to find Wayne sleeping peacefully, passed out in the middle of the living room floor. From experience, he knew there would be no waking this guy up, so he rummaged around the kitchen for something to write with.
I'll be back next weekend. Gotta run.
-S
He left the note on the kitchen table and went back outside. There was no way he could sleep after the experience he just had, and so decided to take to the air, on a mission to go find the only other car he could talk to.
There wasn't a soul awake in the factory when he returned, and the sun hadn't even risen. Strip zipped through the living quarters, found Izzy's room, and burst in without so much as knocking. She jerked awake, eyes wide and confused.
"Izzy! Wake up! I need your help." he hissed through his teeth in a half whisper.
She glanced at the clock. It was five in the morning. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? What's wrong? You weren't around at all yesterday." She drove toward him a bit and started looking him over, worried.
"I met a girl. I need help."
"What."