Go

He never knew it would be so easy to fall in love with racing. He thought he’d always be scared like he had been the first time his brother had brought him to watch. He’d been terrified of all of it—of the liquor that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, of frenzied fantasies of cops in squad cars, lurking in the dark to bust some late-night hooligans, and most of all of the cars in the harsh spotlight of street lamps and headlights that turned them into metal monsters. Now he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. As for the booze, he makes sure to have two beers before it starts—enough to get brave, but not enough to get careless. And the cops, well, fuck ‘em; they’d do what they wanted and so would he.

Since he’s been looking at cars in this light for a while now, he’s been thinking. His Corvette looks like a panther on its haunches, tense, ready to pounce. Benny’s Camaro is a falcon, sharp and harsh, and Pete’s blue Barracuda looks more like a fucking peacock than any kind of fish.

When he was younger and still on the sidelines, he used to think that they shelled out cash the way his old man tossed out beer cans. But now that he’s in the middle of it and has to go in close to make a deal, he sees the look in their eyes when the money changes hands and he knows he must look the same way. This money is their ego, their pride. How much does he think he’s worth? A lot.

But it’s about more than money for him, more than pride. It’s about vision. Because after the deals have been made and the rules have been set, he slides into the driver’s seat and he sees everything for what it really is, like looking through a microscope or staying sober at a wild party. When he’s in the driver’s seat he knows his dad is a drunk and won’t ever get better because he doesn’t want to. He knows his brother is going nowhere fast and isn’t any kind of hero. He knows he and Julia won’t last out the month because they’re only pretending to be in love so they won’t feel guilty about the things they do. And he sees himself, clearer than a mirror or a photograph—cool, smart, with a practiced half-smile that drives girls crazy, but needy, far too needy because he needs his brother and he needs Julia or some other pretty girl who’ll make him feel important and right now he needs racing. He needs a routine, or a passion, or a dream, or a real fucking family because he needs something, anything to hold onto so that he won’t drown in the tears of all the other kids with a sob story like his.

But all of this, it’s okay. Broken home, no future, so what. Right now he’s got a gear shift and an engine and that’s all he wants.

The girl in front of his car looks different than the ones he’s seen before. She looks like some sort of sacrifice in her white dress, pale hair floating around her in the October breeze. Her thin arms drop and he’s gone.

He used to think the racers must have been crazy to risk everything like this; it would be so easy to die. As faces are blurring past him, he knows he’s perfectly sane right now, so they must be the crazy ones. They’re already cold and dead, but his blood is pumping faster and hotter by the second. They’re all a bunch of corpses and he’s the only one who is really alive.