Black Flag (Racing on the Edge) (20 page)

The crowd roared to
life, screaming in contrast to the thunderous rumbles of the track. My heart
pounded watching the cars come by for the four-wide salute, a tradition created
by the World of Outlaws where the cars line up four wide and make a lap that
way prior to throwing the green flag. All the drivers then stick their hands
out the side and wave to the crowd.

 “This is so
exciting!” Emma yelled over the thunder of the engines.

It was exciting. In all
the years my dad owned this track, I’d never been up here when the World of
Outlaws
were
on the track.

The standard protocol
for the A-Feature event are the introductions, the 4-wide salute, fireworks
going off and finally the cars doing their warm up laps.

Every time Jameson
passed by the flag stand, he’d throw the car in sideways spraying dirt up for
the fans.

Fans were screaming,
engines were revving, vibrating my entire body. Now I’ve never been pregnant
before. And I was only fifteen weeks but in that moment, as Jameson passed by
the flag stand once more and revved his engine
...
I felt our child inside me move. It was just a flutter, as
though someone flicked my stomach but I knew it was
our
baby, kicking to
the sound of daddy revving his engine.

I cried. My hand
clutched my stomach and Emma put her hand on my stomach too, hoping to feel it
but it was so soft I could only feel it. I wanted so badly to share that moment
with Jameson, but I also knew having a race car driver as the daddy, there
would unfortunately be many things he would miss in our child’s life.

The race was
entertaining. Jameson, Tyler Sprague, and Justin West, battled with Jimi all
race but of course Jameson pulled back and let the guys who actually ran the
series weekly battle it out for the lead.

I think he stayed up
there for the first twenty laps just to prove to them he could race in the cup
series and still come out to compete with the good ole boys on the dirt. More
importantly, prove he could still race with the boys at his hometown track.

As the evenings events
wound down it was time for the concert.

Gasket – Jameson

By the time I made it
up from the pits to party with my family I was one, already drunk, two,
planning my prank on Emma and three, horny again. That damn dress was haunting
me tonight. I couldn’t find Sway but Van assured me sure was with Emma by the
stage making sure the band members had everything they needed. And the best
part, she was safe with him nearby.

When I walked toward
the infield for the concert, I found my target and my accomplice. For my prank
that is.

“So here’s the plan,
you distract Emma by telling her something trivial—”

Lane raised his hand.
“What tribal?”

“Tell her about your
day.”

“That’s tribal?”

“No Lane
...
it’s trivial, it’s spelled with a V not
a B.”

“That’s what I said.”

I rolled my eyes and
continued. “Just tell her something so she is looking at you, not me. I will
then stand back with the monkey and shoot him through the air at her.”

“Uh
...
” he looked at me with a wary
expression. “Wait
...
you repeat my part
again?”

“Did you listen to
anything I said?”

“I’m three.” He looked
up at me again with his big blue eyes and blinked in disbelieve. “I not pay
attention to anything.”

“Right.
Tell me again why I
chose you to help?”

“Because I awesome!”
Lane jumped, his hands over his head pumping his fists in the air.

Eventually after
explaining Lane’s part again, I got him to walk toward Emma and sit on the
table she was sitting at with Sway.

After positioning
myself a good fifteen feet away in the shadows of the stage, I took the monkey
out of the bag just as Spencer walked up.

“Hey dude, Lane said
he’s helping you do something tribal. I came to make sure no guns or arrows
were involved.” He laughed when he saw the monkey. “She’s going to kill you.”

When Emma was about six
years-old, we went to the San Diego Zoo one summer. Spencer and I convinced
Emma that the monkeys liked to be laughed at. So she pointed and laughed at
them. Because of this, the monkey flung its shit at her. We laughed. Emma
cried.

Ever since then, she’s
been deathly afraid of monkeys. I don’t know how flinging shit at her resulted
in her fearing them but at any rate, Spencer and I had fun with it over the
years.

“That thing looks
real.”

I nodded with a grin.
“I know
...
but what’s even better
is the sound it makes.

“What does it do?”

“You turn it on and
when it flies, it screams.”

“This I have to see.”
He said with a chuckle.

We positioned ourselves
out of the way again, Lane gave the wink, and I threw the monkey through the
air. Lane pointed to the flying monkey; Emma turned to see what he pointed at
and screamed at the top of her lungs. It took all of five seconds and she was
running away from it.

Mission accomplished.

Spencer and I exchanged
a nod along with a fist punch. Lane came bounding back with a huge grin. “I do
good
?”

“You did awesome little
man.” I replied giving him his own fist punch.

“Told you I awesome!”
And then he was back to jumping and pumping his fists in the air.

The evening passed in a
blur. Before I knew it Spencer, Justin, Tommy, Aiden and I were on stage
helping the Eagles cover band and singing
Heartache Tonight
. Aiden tried
to convince me to propose on stage in front of the entire town. I almost did
...
but when a
drunk
Aiden tied a lasso around Sway and pulled her toward the stage, I chickened
out. I didn’t particularly want Sway to look back and think of me as drunk and
a lasso wrapped around her when she remember how I proposed. Not romantic.

So I didn’t propose.
Instead, I broke out into a solo and got down on my knees in front of her. Sway
just laughed, so I leaned forward placing a soft kiss against her stomach and
then returned to my seat.

Someday the timing will
be right, but until then, the ring remained in my pocket. I caught a lot of
shit from the boys for not doing it.

Spencer and Aiden
hassled
me about not doing it on stage.

“I just
...
” my fear broke through. “I don’t even
know what to say to her.”

Spencer waved his hand
around, spilling beer all over the place. “It’s simple here
...
” he grabbed a napkin off a nearby
picnic table. “You say
...
I love fucking you. I
want you to be the only one I fuck for the rest of my
life
...
marry
me!”

“Really?
That’s what you say?”
I smacked his forehead. “Funny
...
I
thought it was supposed to be romantic and I’m pretty sure the words “fucking
you” should
not
be said.”

“I’m disgusting
...
” Spencer replied with a shrug. “Sue
me.”

Aiden nodded in
approval, Spencer ignored us.

Cramming the note in my
pocket, I went toward the mechanical bull.

Gasket – Sway

“Watch him.”

I never liked those
words. Over the years, they always ended badly for me.

“Why do I have to be
the one to watch him?”

“Because
...
I have to take my son and get him into
bed before midnight,” Alley explained shifting a sleeping Lane to the other
arm. “You gave them the bottle of Jack Daniels, you watch them.”

“This hardly seems
fair.” I mean, yeah, I handed over the bottle but it was either that or
Tequila, I chose the better one.

“Wait until the kid
pops out
...
nothing is ever fair
again.”

“Shouldn’t we tell
Jameson that the mascot’s Dana?” I asked Alley hesitantly before she left. Dana
Sloan was stalking Jameson, disguised as a bear. Dana Sloan was nice enough,
but really strange and had this unhealthy obsession with Jameson.

“Nah, where’s the fun
in that?”

“He’s going to kill
us.”

“Like I care,” Lane’s
head flopped to the side. “Remember don’t lose Spencer and for Christ sakes,
make sure he keeps his goddamn clothes on.”

Alley left after that
and I played babysitter. Keeping one eye on Spencer, I felt someone touch my
shoulder.

 “Oh hey Sway, how
are you holding up with Charlie?” Langley O’Neil, one of the drivers on the
World of Outlaw series asked.

“I’m good.” I replied.
My eyes then focused on Jameson on the mechanical bull. Just coming off an
injury like he did, that just seemed like a stupid thing to be doing.

With a smile, Langley
walked away leaving me to my bottle of water.

Do you ever wonder why
people go crazy?

I wonder why they
don’t. With everything we have to lose in an instant, I wondered what kept us
all from going insane.

People were constantly
asking me how I was doing since they found out about Charlie. How in the hell
was I supposed to know? Was there a mood ring built inside of me that I could
look at and say well, you know, it’s purple so I guess I’m okay right now.

After the tenth person
came by and asked me how I was holding up, I got to the point where I was
acting like Jameson and ignoring questions I didn’t want to answer. If he could
do it with the media, I saw no reason why couldn’t do it.

I’d blame it all on the
pregnancy hormones but really, I was just annoyed. There my boyfriend was
falling down drunk. Spencer was riding a mechanical bull. Emma was pretending
to read peoples palms and Aiden well; he was playing a practical joke on
Jameson and I really didn’t care to know the specifics. There I was, sipping
water, trying to keep an eye on four crazy drunks all at once. I had enough on
my mind; I couldn’t concentrate on how I was doing.

 
“Sway?”
Tommy called out, his orange hair matted with what
appeared to sweat. “Hey, uh, isn’t Jameson like allergic to crab?”

“Yes—why?”

“Because,” He pointed
toward the vendor food booths where Jameson was now competing in an “all you
can eat” crab feed with Spencer and Justin.

“Tommy—what
the fuck?”
I yelled. “That could kill him!”

“I’ve been watching for
like twenty minutes
...
this is a hoot.”

“You fucking idiot,” I
punched his shoulder. “If you were watching and you knew he was allergic to
crab, why didn’t you say something?”

“I wasn’t
sure
if he was allergic to crab and clearly, that shit is entertaining!” he pointed
toward Spencer who started barfing on the side of the stage.

 “Jameson!” I
screamed over the crowd when he walked off the stage. “Jameson!”

His eyes searched for
me and when those swollen eyes found me, I could tell he was already having a
reaction. His lips were puffy, his eyes were bloodshot, swollen, and his words
were slurred.

“
Swwwwayyyy
...
whrrr
...
carrrr
yoooouuu
?”

I managed to get
Jameson over to our track care center and amazingly, they had some Benadryl. I
handed him the small cup full of Benadryl and told him to drink it while I peed
for the hundredth time tonight.

When I returned Spencer
was with him, the bottle of Benadryl was completely gone and Spencer was now
handing him a bottle of Jack Daniels, with a straw.

“I will never make it
through the entire night like this.” I thought to myself when the bottle was
gone.

Around four that
morning, wishing I was sleeping; I was searching the house for Spencer.

“Where’s Spencer?” I
asked Jameson, kicking his legs as he sprawled out on my bedroom floor.

“I don’t know.” His
arms flung over his head when I turned the light on.

“What do you mean,
you
don’t know?”

“That’s exactly what I
mean.” Jameson threw himself back against the floor after kicking his boots
off. “I lost him in the crowd.”

“How did you lose him?
He’s like six foot two and the size of a goddamn bear.”

“This is hardly my
fault. He was your responsibility to watch.”