Chapter Twelve
In the following weeks, things just seemed like they started to fall into place. At every chance—football games, the diner, the school halls—everywhere, people from every high school came up to us and asked about our car club.
Runaway was reveling in it all. She told them how to get started—she laid down the law about the cars… nothing newer than 1970.
Multiple car clubs started appearing in every high school within our area. People now began to study the Wall of Fame to find club names and what school they were from. Besides our club and Bret’s, there were The Kings, The Roadmasters, The Imperials, and The Cruisers.
No matter how much we were into racing, Friday nights were first reserved for football games. After the game, it was race night.
Officer Tessler was always present, keeping an eye on things as racing became more popular. He was also in charge of having all the clubs put their names into a hat. Races would then be run against whomever’s name was drawn.
The Wall of Fame was growing by leaps and bounds—Mr. Thompson kept wondering where he was going to put all the pictures. The diner was more crowded than ever, and we basked in its glory.
One Sunday night we had gone to the diner to do our homework. We were arguing over who was going to read which part of Geoffrey Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales,
so we could all finish in time for school tomorrow. We had Mrs. Hill for English and it always seemed like we were doing homework from her class. Tonight it wasn’t any different. We were trying to decipher the old English text
,
and it was confusing. Chaucer had this crazy idea to have a bunch of pilgrims tell stories, but it wasn’t just one story—it was multiple parts of one story and it didn’t work for me.
“Why do there have to be so many?” I lamented.
“What ‘many’ are you talking about, Topher?” Stephen asked. “There are three stories. Are three stories beyond your capacity for understanding?”
“Three? How in the hell do you get three?” I looked at him incredulously. “There’s the prologue
,
which has to describe something like twenty-eight pilgrims and then talk about what each of them wore. Then there is some story…”
“Tale,” he interrupted.
“Whatever,” I shot back, “… about some idiot guy who goes looking for death. Do you get that? He goes looking for death… and the idiot guy dies at the end. Duh!”
I was just getting started. “And to add to it, that guy has his separate prologue—like he just can’t tell the stupid story once. Why does he have to have two separate stories?
And then there’s this other story about some stupid broad who is trying to figure out ‘what women want.’ Seriously? What women want?”
Completely innocent, Grant never looked up as he said, “Well if you’re Runaway…”
“Hey,” she snapped as she looked up from her copy of
Canterbury Tales.
“Leave me out of it, huh?”
“Okay,” I continued. “What women want, by the way, is a question that will never be answered, and of course that story has another prologue, too. That’s more than three! That’s like, six,” I hollered.
“Oh, well done with the math portion, even if they are all part of the same tale.” Stephen said. “Face it—you just don’t understand the complexities of classic literature, and sadly… you probably never will.” He shook his head.
“Yeah, like I care,” I fired back.
At this moment, a boy walked up to our table. I was quite happy for the distraction. There was no one in the diner except us.
“Hey,” he said, as plain as you please, with a big grin on his face.
All of us looked up and said “hey” back.
“What’s up?” Runaway asked him nonchalantly. We all stopped what we were doing.
“I’m a new transfer to Glendora High School from Claremont, and my name is Brian,” he began with a big grin on his face. “When I was at Claremont, there was a lot of talk about your car club.” He looked at us all individually—he didn’t act sneaky or suspicious, so I was confident he was not associated with Bret in any way.
“I was going to join our car club, The Kings, after I finished my car, but we unfortunately moved.” He didn’t look disappointed. “Now I go to Glendora, and I thought if I was finally going to get involved, I’d go straight to the top and ask The Shakers if they need another member.”
He looked tentatively around at us. He wasn’t intimidated, just honest. He just sort of stood there with his hands stuffed in his pockets, waiting for a response. Looking down suddenly, he noticed our homework lying all over the table.
“Chaucer, huh?” he said raising his eyebrows. “What’s with that guy—twenty-eight pilgrims, and he has to describe everyone first? Just tell the story, already.”
I felt Stephen shift next to me in the booth. To him, all literature was a perfectly created piece of art… if I knew nothing else about this guy, I at least liked him because we were on the same page regarding Chaucer.
“See…” I hissed to Stephen, but he refused to acknowledge me.
This Brian guy looked perfect—clean shaven, perfect teeth, perfect dark hair in a bowl cut around his ears, a pale complexion with dark-brown eyes. Standing there with his hands in his pockets, he was eager, you could tell—he had a way about him that just said “perfect kid.” I could imagine that he had straight A’s and was on the fast track to some Ivy League school.
“How about it?” He continued to smile. He wasn’t pushy, he was just curious.
Then, turning to Runaway, he said, “I’ve heard that you’re sort of the leader, so I thought I’d ask you—and your club, of course.”
Add respectful to the list.
Runaway scrutinized him and asked, “What kind of car do you have?”
“A topless ’32 Roadster—it’s a fast little car, but believe me you don’t want to be in it when it rains,” he said with a smile. “It’s out in front here, if you’d like to see it,” he added, with a bit of hopefulness.
“Yeah.” She hopped out of the booth. “I could use a break.” She threw a look at me.
Exiting the booth, we all walked outside and into the parking lot.
“Wow!” Grant yelled as he caught sight of his car. “Did you say that you finished this yourself?”
“Yeah, I sure did,” he said proudly. “My dad had one like it, back in the ’50s—he used to tell me about it all the time. So I thought I’d like one, too. He helped me build it. I wanted it as authentic as I could get it. It’s not fancy, as far as the paint goes, but apparently this is what they looked like back then.”
The entire car was basic black, except the interior, which was a light brown. Even the tire rims were black, as was the exterior, except for a small chrome inner rim. The engine was also hoodless, and for the most part, chrome. The block was painted, but the side exhaust pipes were chrome and mammoth sized.
“Can you drive?” Runaway finally asked, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Heck, yeah,” was his reply. “A week before I left Claremont, I asked the Kings if I could just jump in and race a couple of guys… you know, to see if my car would hold up to them. They said ‘sure’, and I’ll be dammed if I didn’t beat them all.” He said it with pride and a smile on his face. He was so clean cut, I couldn’t imagine him getting remotely dirty, let alone wanting to build a car.
He spoke with precision and articulation—I wasn’t the only one to notice. I glanced at Stephen and raised my eyebrows, grinning. “You have competition,” I murmured to him.
He leaned into me. “Doubtful,” he replied.
“Hmm,” Runaway said. She paused to think, and after a brief moment she looked over at Brandon. “Brandon, why don’t you race him?”
“I guess.” He didn’t look at her, nor did he look excited.
“I’ll race him,” I said. This guy was cool, and I thought it would be fun.
“No,” Runaway answered. “Let’s let Brandon—after his last miss-shift, he could use the practice.”
That didn’t sit well.
“Fine,” Brandon said, and was gone before we knew it.
Brandon and Brian walked back out to the parking lot and got in their cars. As we filed out of the diner, they drove over to the starting line. The plan was to race to the finish line, make a quick turn and race back to where we all were standing at the starting line.
As we were walking out to the starting line, Grant was the first one to speak up. “Why didn’t you want Topher to race him?” he asked. “He’s a much better driver than Brandon is.”
“Yeah, I know,” she assented as she squatted down and clasped her hands. She looked straight ahead and said, “I’ve got a feeling, and I didn’t want Brandon around while we decided what to do about this guy.”
She looked back up at Grant. “Brandon just seems to be moodier than ever, ya know?”
“I completely agree,” Stephen said. “I loathe him and he knows it—however, this new fellow is a man after my own heart.”
“How do you figure?” She looked up, clearly interested.
“Please, Runaway,” I added. If she didn’t see what Stephen and I did, then she must be blind. Of course, with her, all she ever saw was cars.
“I’ll bet if you asked him, he has straight A’s and is on his way to some big-time college. He’s every parent’s dream, and if anyone ever took him home, most parents would fall over from sheer bliss.”
“What?” Stephen interrupted. “Am I not the type of individual to make parents swoon?”
“Stephen,” I said with exasperation “They’d need a dictionary just to understand you.”
Then I began to mock him. “Hello… my name is Stephen, with a ‘ph’
.
Let me introduce you to my repertoire of verbs, adjectives, and nouns.”
Runaway and Grant were instantly in hysterics. Stephen, however, was stoic. “First, I momentarily abhor you,” he said, looking at me through half-closed eyes. “Second, I am impressed with the fact that you know the word ‘repertoire
.
’
And where, pray tell, did you hear it?”
I looked at him sheepishly—he had me.
“You,” I said quietly.
“Perfect,” he replied. “You need me to educate you on all matters verbal.”
“Add literature to that list,” Grant chuckled, while he offhandedly scratched his head.
I threw Grant a dirty look, but there really was no point in arguing. It would have just been easier if I walked over and started the race, so that’s what I did.
Both Brandon and Brian took off, but the race was over before it even began. The first thing we had learned about Brian was that he was clean-cut, the second was that he had a nice car, and the third was that he didn’t lie—he was an excellent driver.
Brian immediately got a lead on Brandon that he could never redeem. The Roadster was quick, but Brian beat Brandon by just sheer good driving—forget about speed.