First Heat
First Heat
A scratchy record, a voice, heat, fury, a grasshopper and a tumbling grin...
LARRY SHAWHAN
HE WORKED QUIETLY, squatting in the dust beside the bike. He dropped a screw, cursed silently, picked it up and wiped the grit from the threads with a rag that he had thrown over the seat. His T-shirt with its faded emblem was plastered in wet slashes down his back. He turned to glance at his wife and two friends leaning on the back of the old pickup. His face had deep lines that were filled with dirt and sweat that had run down the slopes of his cheeks during the practice laps.
Now his grease-stained hands came away from the carburetor, and he lifted the back of his arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead, leaving a greasy smudge to mar the glistening skin. "Bill," he called. Bill finished what he was saying to the woman and turned to her husband who was squatting beside the motorcycle. "Whatcha need, partner?" "Throw me that other spark plug in the kit there, will you?" "Sure," said Bill. "Hey, I thought you changed that just before you went on the track for the warmups." "I did," the man said. "Not taking any chances today, are you," smiled Bill. "Nope, not today." Bill brought the plug around and handed it to him, looked intently at the bike leaning against the running board, and then returned to where the man's wife and the other friend were standing, looking down the hill toward the track.
* * *
The announcer looked at the crowd. Then he looked at the dirt road winding its way around the track. He followed it with his eyes to the cattle guard, on to the gravel road, and around a hill until it was lost to view. The dust was settling. The motorcycles and cars weren't coming as fast now. He flipped a switch on the gray amplifier sitting on the wooden shelf running across the side of the pine booth. He blew into the microphone and heard the sound coming from the speaker on the side of the booth. "Testing," he said. His voice came back to him. He put his hand over the mike and cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to...."
The announcer spoke for several minutes, and as he was finishing, his hands fumbled with a record, trying to remove it from a tattered brown jacket. His voice paused as he awkwardly slipped the record onto the spinning turntable, "...and now, ladies and gentlemen, the National Anthem."
* * *
His wife watched him as he put on the faded leather jacket. It hung loosely about his shoulders, the arms scuffed and dusty. As the music started she watched him put his blue helmet underneath his left arm and look down the hill toward the track. She saw his eyes move around the course, pause at the turns, and sweep swiftly down the straightaway . She saw him gaze at a group of young men milling around a show bike. She looked at them. One of the boys she noticed had on a gray cowboy hat which made him stand out conspicuously from his bare-headed friends.
The needle on the record hit a scratch and skipped a groove-the man's attention shifted back to the top of the announcer's booth. He looked at the flag as it hung unstirred at the top of the pole. His wife watched as his head
rose slightly and he drew a deep breath.
* * *
The voice of the announcer broke the silence. His words were suddenly alive. The people walking around looking at the bikes, sensed the change in his voice and started to move down the hill toward the rope barrier that surrounded the track.
The man pulled the blue helmet onto his head and fastened the chin strap. He zipped up the soft leather jacket and lifted his bike away from the side of the truck. As he opened the fuel petcock, he raised his head and called, "Bill!"
But Bill had started moving toward the rear of the bike even before his name was spoken. They started pushing the bike, stepping on their shadows as they moved. Silently the bike picked up speed. The sweating man in the leathers jumped deftly sideways onto the seat. As he did, he released his left hand and the engine caught, misfired, and died. They began laboriously pushing again. This time the engine caught and the bike lurched away. His friend stopped and watched the bike and rider run to the other end of the pit area, turn, and come back.
The rider pulled up before the lowered tailgate of the pickup where his wife stood watching him. The engine of his machine revved high; he kept it there, cracked the throttle, slacked off to get the oil flowing, cracked the throttle again, and slacked off-keeping the revs up high so the engine wouldn't falter. His left hand moved from the hard rubber grip. He pulled down his goggles and adjusted them to fit the masked outline that the dust and sweat had made on his face during the practice laps. He looked at his wife, moved his eyes over to the right side of the bike, touched his goggles again, and started the bike down the hill toward the
entrance to the track.
* * *
The starter stood at the side of the track holding a flag in his hand and watched the bikes come down from the shaded pit area, one by one. Each rider hesitated as he checked the track before accelerating down the straightaway. The starter looked at the first turn and saw two men battling it out already. One pulled ahead, hitting the jump; the other hit it right behind him, pulling ahead, braking for the turn again.
The flagman looked back up the hill toward the pit area. One rider seemed to be having trouble. He watched him push and jump, the bike bucked and then stopped. Nothing. Run again, jump, buck, lurch. Finally it caught and left the helper in a dust cloud. The bike circled back to stop momentarily in back of a pickup and then came sweeping down to the track. There it paused, then roared past the starter down the straightaway and slid wide to take the first turn.
The starter shifted his eyes to the other side of the track to the third turn. He saw three riders racing side by side, but one of them—wearing an orange helmet— came into the turn too fast. The rider played it safe, however, and ran over the Hp of the track into the infield. He turned around and came back on the track into the dust of the other two bikes that had surged ahead of him.
The starter looked up at the green, pine booth and saw the announcer signal to him. He replaced the flag in the rack, and picked up a tin of lime that had been sitting in the
dry grass beside the rack of flags.
* * *
The girl leaned over the side of the stand to try to hear what the little boy was saying. The loudspeaker on top of the stand drowned the sound, but she nodded and called to the girl behind her. "Two cokes."
Her eyes traveled to the starting line. She looked at the six riders. Two white helmets, an orange one, two more white helmets, and a blue one on the inside of the track. She saw the starter move back to the rack, replace the can of lime he had been pouring on the starting line, and pick up a flag. The rider with the orange helmet spurted suddenly from the Une, rode down the track, turned, came back around behind the line, and took his place again.
The pressure of cold cups against her arm broke the spell, and the girl turned to take the
cokes and hand them to the little boy.
* * *
The man leaned forward. A drop of sweat rolled from his chin and ran in a crooked rivulet down the side of the dusty alloy tank. Suddenly he saw the flag shooting skyward, a boot spraying dirt, flashing spokes, and the blurred form of the starter jumping out of the way. He tasted dirt, choked on exhaust fumes, and shuddered at the roaring din of six wide-open engines. The turn came with those spinning, killing wheels; clouds of dust filled his throat. He sensed a bike falling at his right, and felt a handlebar dig into his boot. There was quick acceleration, then the jump. His back wheel hit solidly, and then he was braking-the second turna white helmet was a bike-length in front now. He pulled up and closed the gap in the straightaway, braking for the turn...
* * *
The two men went down to the rope as the excitement rose. The woman was left standing alone in front of the pickup's lowered tailgate. In her hand was a paper cup, torn and twisted into a waxy ball. She saw a rider go down in the first turn; her mouth opened slightly, and sudden wrinkles came to her forehead. Through the dust she saw a blue-helmeted figure go over the jump, and the wrinkles disappeared from her face.
The woman walked around to the left side of the pickup where a young boy was crouched tensely, his attention on a small, brown grasshopper. The woman waited until the boy had caught the grasshopper and deposited the crippled insect on the sticky sidewall of an empty paper cup, carefully folding the edges down to keep the captive insect inside.
"Don't you want to watch Daddy?" the woman asked.
The boy looked at the brown stain on the palm of his hand. "Yep," he said, and ran around to the back of the pickup, where he jumped in the truck bed.
The woman came back around to the rear of the truck and leaned against the lowered tailgate. The boy opened the cup, and the grasshopper made an off-balanced hop into
the corner of the bed.
* * *
The young man jumped away from the rope and stomped his boot furiously. "Damn! Did you see that?"
His friend's eyes were intently focused on the bikes as the machines' back wheels slid spinning around the last turn, coming up in front of the announcer's booth. "Look at what?" he finally asked.
"Did you see that guy in the white helmet?"
"Which one?" the friend asked.
"The one running first; the one right in front of the guy with the blue helmet."
"Yeah." The friend shook his head and took out a cigarette. "He sure can ride!"
"No, I mean did you see him come out of that turn down there right after the back straightaway. Every damned time his wheel comes up about a foot off the ground!"
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"Yeah, he sure does great wheelies," nodded the friend.
"I guess!" exclaimed the other boy. He watched the fourth turn intently and pushed
his gray cowboy hat back on his head.
* * *
Coming out of the turn, the man saw the starter slashing the yellow flag through the air in front of his bike. The machine beside his, with its white-helmeted rider, sprayed an identical rooster-tail of dirt in the air as they swept through the turn at the end of the straightaway. Side by side the two bikes were angry, hateful beasts, roaring their distress, trying with every steel and leather fiber to break from one another.
Both machines, whining in Siamesed despair, took the third turn and raced headlong for the switchback-men and engines redlined, blasting, straining. The switchback was rounded side by side, merciless unity; the engines were yoked in their wide-open cry. The rider on the right, the one in the white helmet, yanked up on his handlebars. It was almost an imperceptible movement. The front wheel of his machine lifted and then bumped down, shimmying slightly. It was no more than an inch, perhaps even half an inch; that the wheel missed the perfect track it needed to maintain the dead heat to the end. But the unity was broken; no longer were the two screaming machines linked in an unbreakable bond.
The rider in the blue headgear moved ahead and twisted the throttle until his vibrating hand ached from the strain of the ungiving steel. Now he was inches in front! Around the long, climbing slope of the last turn he gained another grudging few inches! As the two riders plowed through the dusty haze for the finish line, the crowd screamed, and a gray hat flew soaring into the air. The black and white checks flashed in front of the blue helmet, and the rider's triumphant hands eased forward in welcome relief.
He took the victory lap slowly. When he passed the first, he leaned back on his bike and unzipped his jacket. The air that just minutes before had seemed to be a blast from a molten inferno now flowed coolly around
his sweating, tingling body.
* * *
As the bike crossed the finish line and the flag struck like a whip in front of the blue helmet, the woman swept the little boy into her arms and did a laughing, whirling dance in the dust. "He won, baby! Your daddy won!"
The child caught the enthusiasm of his mother's joy, and when she set him down he ran jumping happily down the hill toward his father's bike which was coming off the track.
The two friends who were walking up the hill toward the pickup caught the child in mid-leap, and turned him running back up the hill toward his mother.
The two men, the little boy, and the man on the bike all reached the pickup at the same time. The wife and the two friends stood beaming their joy as the roar of the bike drowned out their words. The rider silenced the engine and leaned the bike against the running board. He turned and took off his helmet and goggles, and ran his hand through his wild and sweaty hair. He looked at his friends and wife. A tumbling grin obliterated the dirt, sweat, and wrinkles on his face and left only happiness. ■
