The Coach And Eddie Sachs

                                                                THE COACH AND EDDIE SACHS           

                                                                            By Jeffrey B Smith              

            The colored flags hung motionless against the hazy Indiana sky. Below them, in the immense grandstands that tower over the main straight of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, hundreds of thousands of race fans were equally motionless. Each was poised with an ear cocked towards the loudspeakers, and every face was turned northward where in an instant the combatants would roar into view around turn four. As the 1961 Indy 500 neared its climax not a single fan in that entire gargantuan venue was seated, because out there on the track two men were battling fatigue, fraying tires and each other .                                                                                                                                     

            A.J. Foyt Jr. and Eddie Sachs thundered down the main straight side by side in their snarling open wheeled roadsters. Neither had ever won at Indy and neither felt they would be denied today. Each lap, as they reached the yard wide stripe of bricks that was the finish line, Foyt would inch by Sachs. About half of the crowd would roar their approval and then, suddenly, hush as the loudspeaker would announce that Sachs had again passed Foyt in the short chute between turns one and two. Then the other half of the crowd would exult and again, just as suddenly quiet, as ears strained to hear the announcer follow the duo's progress down thebackstretch.

            Many in that assembled crowd had seen some of the real legends circle this huge two and one half mile oval: Louis Meyer, Billy Vukovich, and the great Wilbur Shaw - to name a few.  But nobody had ever witnessed a contest like the one going on before them now.

            Eddie Sachs was nearly exhausted. As he exited turn four he allowed himself to relax a bit, trying to rest his overwrought neck muscles now that the cornering G's had lifted. He scanned the pit wall for his message board but realized he wouldn't be able to spot it. The wall was now cluttered with all the other crews who had abandoned their own pits to watch this battle. Easing up a fraction, he could sense A.J. coming up on his right flank and for now that is what he wanted. He dearly wished A.J. would take this bite and choke on it. But somehow, to Eddie's dismay, his rival would survive turn one, his car twitching and nervous. Worse yet, Eddie now was beginning to have difficulty reeling him in on the chute. Eddie began to have sickening doubts about who was actually baiting whom. His own car, which had been pushing slightly, had danced sideways after lifting in turn three. Worse, he was sure Foyt had seen it. He had been praying his better grip would allow him to come off turn four hot on the lap that really mattered, and beat Foyt to the finish. But now his tires were as threadbare as Foyt's.

Off turn three and again the nauseating feel as his car 's rear end did a deadly fandango. Struggling through four he now sensed Foyt had gained and this time would make his attempt early in the straight. Now Eddie could not afford to lift that fraction. They both were driving beyond the limits of their machinery and nearly beyond the limits of human endurance. 

            Even though he managed to hold off Foyt for the length of the entire main straight and through turn four, and in spite of the delight this generated in his fans, Eddie knew his race that day was lost. And it wasn't because of the cords he could now plainly see on his right rear tire, or his dwindling fuel supply, or even because his car was becoming dangerously high strung. Rather, Eddie had made one mistake that, more than anything, would cost him the race. When A.J had edged alongside Eddie on that final pass attempt, for some reason Eddie had stolen a glance at his opponent. There, on the face of A. J. Foyt was a look that dissolved any diminishing hopes of victory Eddie had still possessed. He had never seen anything like it before, it was a look of such totality, such finality. It was a look of grim determination.

           "Grim determination," Joe spoke with reverence as he downshifted and braked without sliding the dirt bike. He tried to practice the look. Eddie Sachs was hot on his tail as he made the transition from the gravel road to the blacktop. He pulled a wheelie and ran the little Yamaha through its gears. By the time he screamed across the river bridge, the imagined finish line, Eddie Sachs was fading. A.J. Foyt Jr. had just scored the first of his unprecedented four victories at the Indianapolis Speedway. Joe waved to the fans and then, quickly, dropped his hand to the handlebars. He downshifted, hit the brakes and missed the field road he wanted to take. He accelerated through the ditch and with a graceful airborne flourish lit on the field road and gave the throttle a twist. Irritated at himself for missing the turn, he muttered the line coined by Eddie Sachs, "If you can't win...be spectacular."                    

             Eddie would live up to that saying. He never won the Indy 500.  And certainly the photograph of Eddie's finish, the picture Joe had so closely studied in one of the school library’s racing books, was spectacular. The caption said it was something called a "conflagration." Eddie and the rookie Dave Macdonald burned up in that wall of fire on the opening lap of The 500 in 1964. Joe wondered if the flaming tire soaring high above the fireball was thrown from Eddie's car. A.J. Foyt would go on to win that race too.

            Joe wound the cycle up and speed shifted to high. He was flying along the fence line now, his long blonde hair swept straight back. Steve McQueen was now occupying his mind. The great McQueen, a real-life motorcycle racer, ripping along a fence on the big cycle, looking for a place to jump out and escape. Joe had never actually seen The Great Escape but had seen that motorcycle part many times when they advertised the film on TV. He had flown over many a fence reenacting that jump, reliving that escape.

             Joe's father heard the approaching whine and looked up. He lifted his hat and scratched his head. Leaning against the fence post, he followed Joe's progress by the blue plume of the dirtbike's exhaust. His son sure could ride that thing. He could drive anything.  Seemed that ever since he could walk he was able to operate machinery. The kid was good with tools too, but he worried about Joe. Even though he was capable in school, Joe was by no means a scholar. He didn't want Joe to end up with the kind of life where every day was a new struggle to make ends meet, the kind of a job where you had to make the kids pull the family's weight too.

            As Joe pulled up his father noticed the cycle was getting kind of small under Joe. He'd need a new one. If things went well this summer maybe they could afford a new one for him next fall. Of course it would have to be a secondhand motorcycle.

            Joe slewed the motorcycle in a graceful arc, slicing sideways with his boot on the ground. The rear wheel kicked up a divot of grass that landed neatly just short of his father's feet.

            "Hi Dad," he said as he reached down to switch off the bike.

            Joe's dad always marveled at his son's placid exterior. He wondered what was going on inside the boy. He could never recall him complaining about anything. Lord knows, he thought, I've given him plenty to complain about. It hurt, having to ask your kid to work around the place every day of his young life. Somewhere at this moment other kids were playing ball, shooting baskets, or just watching cartoons for heaven's sake. His kid had never been on a team, never even been on a real vacation.

            "How'd school go today?" He asked it even though he knew Joe rarely said anything about school. The question was an icebreaker, to stall for just a moment before he asked his boy to go pick the rocks on the forty.     

            "Okay." Joe said flatly. But really it had been another day of torture. He had never felt at home in school. As he got older he just felt more awkward. And nowhere was that awkwardness more apparent than in Phy Ed class. All of it struck him as being too ridiculous. Why make a kid like him, who never had any interest in ball games endure that silliness? He could not envision a time in his life where he would want to hit a little ball with a stick, or bounce a ball and run at the same time, or tackle someone.  Why couldn't he just spend that wasted hour in the library where he could read and dream?

            But the futility of it all was not the worst part. The worst part for Joe was the humiliation, being the last one chosen for the team and then the embarrassment when he would go on to fulfill his teammate’s suspicions of his ineptitude. Last winter there was a time when the other team served the volleyball to Joe…every time… for an entire game. No other player, save for the server and himself, touched the ball - unless they were hit by the errant returns Joe attempted. Each time he would muff it, or miss it, or ricochet it off to the side. At first there was laughter, then there was just silence as the opponent, an athlete, kept dropping the ball right down on Joe. Joe only got one satisfying return. That was when he imagined the ball to be the fat head of Coach Bartz. He punched it mightily and it soared over the opposing team and crashed off the backboard behind them.

            “Whoa,” coach Bartz had exclaimed, “You do got something in ya after all. Big farm kids like you oughta be more aggressive.”

              The coach had laced his fingertips behind his back and paced the gym reflectively. “Men,” he intoned in a voice of quiet authority, “The reason I permitted this sorry display to continue was for the important lesson it teaches.”  He turned his profile now to the kids in their baggy gym shorts. (People had often complimented the coach on his ruggedly cleft chin. He frequently jutted it out dramatically for emphasis. Or, on the sidelines, the prominence served equally well to epitomize stoic resignation in defeat and humble magnanimity in times of victory. Unbeknownst to Coach Bartz, though, was the fact that the chin was now being overshadowed by his ponderous gut.) He continued, “And that important lesson is that in athletic competition, as in life, you must find your adversary’s weakness and exploit it to your every advantage.”

            It seemed to Joe that he was always a too handy example for just such homilies by Coach Bartz. Joe squeezed on the clutch lever and thought back to earlier in the day. The coach had them playing football, even though it was May. He liked to “Tune up” his players after the long winter and he could scout any new prospects that a few months growth and hormones might’ve made viable candidates for his team in the next fall’s campaign.

            Today the bigger lesson was timing. Coach Bartz had Joe run, full tilt, for twenty yards down the sidelines at which time the varsity quarterback would deliver the ball over Joe’s shoulder where Joe was to catch it. Joe had dutifully enough ran the twenty yards and, concentrating on not breaking stride as he was earlier admonished, turned slightly to catch the ball. The football drilled him squarely in the face and sent him sprawling.

            “Whoa” the coach quipped, “Son, you gotta catch that with your hands, not your face.”  

            The rest of the guys were rolling on the grass, breaking up in laughter as Joe returned to the group.

            The coach had blown his ever-present whistle for attention. He spread his feet apart and cocked his head a bit, staring off into the distance as he apparently pondered one of life’s great truths. (Actually, he was letting the nitro tablet, which he had slipped into his mouth after he blew the whistle, dissolve under his tongue.)

            “Men,” he tugged at his collar and stretched his neck, jutting out his chin, “what we just witnessed was how trust is necessary for all relationships to be successful, whether they are on the field or in life in general. When one party drops the ball, and doesn’t live up to the other’s expectations, we see failure.”

           

Joe realized his father was now staring at him. He had been rubbing his sore cheek as he thought back on his school day.  His father seemed to be detecting his son’s troubled thoughts and Joe didn’t really want to confess his shame.

            “So, what do you need me to do?”  Joe asked quickly. He dropped his hand from his tender cheek and twisted the throttle.

            His father paused, curious about the fleeting blush that had passed over his son’s face. He lamented the fact that fathers and sons could be strangers in some ways.

            “Well Joe,” he hated to ask it, but had to, “Would you and your sister finish picking the rocks on the forty?”

            “Sure thing.” Joe began to twist the key and flipped out the kick starter on his bike.

            “Why don’t you use the Allis?” his father asked.  “It could stand a little limbering up; we’re going to be using it hard in a couple of weeks.”

            This seemed to perk up the boy a bit. The Allis was the farm’s most important possession. It was a turbo diesel and Joe loved it. He had actually learned to speed shift it, after a fashion, when his dad was not in sight or earshot. Joe’s father didn’t have the heart to ask the boy to perform this thankless duty on the primitive old John Deere.

            He watched his son speed off along the edge of the pasture and join up with the distant fence line. Soon he was just a glint, a whine and an occasional puff of blue smoke. Joe’s father rubbed his low back and then turned to the pick-up. Withdrawing a fence post, he thought to himself how he would dearly love to put electric fence around this pasture. Maybe in the fall, if everything goes well this summer.

             Joe retraced his route back to the farm. As he sped along he dreamed about a better world. He wished there could be a class where a guy could learn to race instead of hit a ball with a stick. After all being a race car driver or a motorcycle racer, or even a movie stuntman, was a career too and just how likely was it that any of these jocks would become pros anyhow? Why couldn’t there be a school with a real race track, not that stupid flat oval that encircled the football field? The cornering apexes were all wrong, you couldn’t drift a tricycle around the thing. He snorted. He could not believe someone would build a track and the only races held there were on foot.

            He backed up the tractor to the hay wagon. Joe dropped the pin through the tongue and hollered for his sister. He climbed up onto the seat of the big orange machine. He wondered why there couldn’t  be even one subject where he could show his skills and interests. He longed for the day when he would give old blubber Bartz a lesson or two, maybe exploit a weakness Joe had observed in his oppressor. Maybe this was one dream he could make come true.

             Joe notched the tractor into gear and in an instant he was Tommy Ivo, squinting through his goggles at the Christmas Tree. The yellow lights were descending the mast to the green that would hopefully send him the quarter mile to a championship in Top Fuel Dragsters.  From the corner of his eye he could see the flashes of flame jetting from the headers of the huge mill shuddering before his opponent. Don Garlits, the Big Daddy himself, was also focusing on the lights but was not aware of Ivo. He was only aware of the Christmas tree and his own determination.

            Green! The stack on the Allis Chalmers belched black smoke and the big tires pawed the farmyard. From the corner of HIS eye Joe spied his sister tumble backwards on the hayrack. Her feet flew upwards, straight up in the air, and the cat she was holding went clawing its way across her tummy, its ears flat.

 

            About the time Joe was toppling his sister in his flaming barnyard burnout, Coach Johnny Bartz was hanging out the window of a brand new 1972 Ford LTD. He was screaming for his life.

            “Help” he bellowed, “Get me out of here! Please, help me, please!”        

             In front of the bank, Martin O’Neil the banker and Waldo Karbo the newspaper editor looked up from their conversation.  They laughed and shook their heads as the LTD slowly rolled by on Mainstreet.  Johnny was sure a joker.

            Johnny Bartz was a bonafide hometown hero. He had returned after putting Graniteville on the map when he played in the Big Ten.  A linebacker for the U of M Gophers, he played in the glory days of the early '40’s championship years.. He came back to a career of coaching in his boyhood hometown. Johnny could’ve made it in the pros too, everyone agreed, but there wasn’t much of a future there in those days. That was before football’s marriage to TV brought unimaginable salaries to all professional athletes.

            He had no regrets about that. Frankly, he wanted to come home. He had a hometown girl who became his wife and his only ambition was to coach football. Had some success at it too, conference titles three times in the sixties.   

            He pulled himself back into the car. His student, Debbie, was giggling at his theatrics. He stole a glance at those long legs, just a peek though.  Making a policy of keeping his hands to himself, he didn’t want to end up selling seed corn like Coach Bobby Gadaski down there in Foley. But my, these girls were wearing their skirts short these days. Sometimes, he reflected, the good old days weren’t as good as you would like to believe.

This Driver’s Education was a nice sideline. Especially when you had a cute girl like Debbie here chauffeuring you about. Her daddy was the Ford Dealer in town, Roger Kent, and she needed more time behind the wheel about as much as she needed another 3 inches on her heels.  And those heels seemed to be her biggest challenge today, learning to drive without getting them stuck under the pedals. Well, Johnny couldn’t help her with that problem.          

Johnny was having a good time. A beautiful day, the girl seemed to think he was funny, and he was riding in a brand-new car. This was his last student of the afternoon and his new golf spikes were in at Heenan’s Sporting Goods in St. Cloud.

He looked over at Debbie. “How many lessons do you have left?” he asked.

She snapped her gum. “Only one, next Saturday morning.” She made it sound sad and seemed to bat those long eyelashes a bit.

“Well,” he allowed, “I think you could use a little cloverleaf experience. Let’s go to St. Cloud.”

He leaned back in the seat and tugged at his collar. Man, he could use a smoke. He never lit up with a student in the car though. Not only was it against the rules, it didn’t look good. Except when he was with one of his athletes. Then he could use it as a pulpit from which he could admonish the young man on some of the negative aspects of smoking: the cost, the burned holes in clothing and furniture, how some people seemed to think it smelled bad and how it could rob others of their wind. Naturally Johnny had never witnessed a decline in his wind but he could see how it could affect others, especially those who were not “athletically inclined.” 

Maybe he could grab a quick puff in Heenan’s while she waited in the car. He popped a nitro instead. Johnny looked at the bottle. He thought maybe old Hennig, the pharmacist, had sold him a stale batch. It was funny with these things, some of them just didn’t have the same pop. 

He did seem to be using more of them lately. Maybe he should go back to that doctor in Minneapolis, that Cardiopedist or whatever he was. Kind of a smarty pants. “John,” he had said, (And it bugged Johnny whenever someone called him “John”. It made him feel like he was a kid.) “You got to cut back on the smoking and lose some of that weight. Exercise regularly and take the medicine and you can better your odds for a long and happy life.’

 Well, Johnny thought, I take my medicine and I’m smoking these new, safer cigarettes. (Even though you have to suck mightily on them, at least they are 100 millimeters long. Finally found a use for that stupid metric system.) And I’ll be getting plenty of exercise now that golf’s starting up again. He made a mental note to use the golfcart less this season.

As they drove past the golf course they saw Lenny Jaye raking a trap. Johnny hung out the window and waved, blowing his whistle. Lenny paused, leaning on his rake he laughed and shook his head.

 

Joe knelt behind the car in the dark. He shivered. Even though it was May it was still cold in the dark of the night. He tried to calm his breathing down as he listened. He was winded, he had ditched his dirtbike about a mile down the road and ran the rest of the way. Little did he know that at that moment nearly every cop in the county was very actively engaged in quelling a brawl at a bar in Bowlus. He had walked his bike a mile or more from the farm before he started it, he’d have to repeat that when he returned home, not to mention the fact that he had just ran the mile or so from where his dirtbike was lying in the weeds. He sighed; he was going to have to cover this same ground tomorrow on his bicycle. In about 5 hours from now. He didn’t think he’d get much sleep tonight.

He poked his head up over the trunk. Nobody in sight, just an empty parking lot in the pools of light from the blue security lamps. He stood up and there was nothing to be heard save for the faraway wail of a train’s horn somewhere, maybe rumbling through distant Royalton. He was thankful the powers that be had decided to build the new school out in the country. Sneaking through town would’ve been too disorienting for someone accustomed to the nighttime sounds of the country.

 He moved around to the front of the car and again looked in every direction.  Popping the hood he looked inside, he peered into the dark and then lit his flashlight.

            He gasped. What a lovely sight it was. A 390 cubic inch Ford V-8. He was relieved to see the big four-barrel carburetor sitting like a fat jewel on top of that gorgeous motor. This was basically the same car as the Troopers were using now. It did have dual exhaust but Joe doubted the suspension was as stiff as what the State Patrol piloted. He would have to remember that, and he’d also have to remember that the brakes would probably be prone to fading if pushed very hard. Thank goodness, he thought, these dealers like to get a decent car back after the school used them for 2 years. Not some worthless 6-cylinder Granada or something. The resale would be better on a car like this. Well, maybe not this particular car.

            He paused a few moments savoring the machinery. Once more he turned, looked, and listened. Then he reached for his tools.

 

            Johnny Bartz groaned, rolled over and slapped the clattering alarm. He squinted at the window and it looked to be a beautiful Saturday morning. He despised these Saturday morning driving lessons but the pay was needed. Coaching in a small town was not a path to wealth.

            His wife had fried some eggs for him and when he got downstairs he gobbled them down between gulps of black coffee. Slipping his whistle over his head, he grabbed his clipboard and dashed for his car.  These early Saturday lessons began at 7 and were designed for those kids who had after school jobs or had to work on the farm.

            Being a labor man, he was dubious about all the free labor provided by these kids to the family farms. Seemed to Johnny like they were keeping a lot of guys who could use the jobs out of work. To Johnny, a lot of these farms were forced labor where children were harnessed to do a man’s work. Besides, he saw some promising athletes become muscle-bound and clumsy, strong as horses but developed in a way that left them worthless on the football field.

            He got in his car feeling vaguely like he was forgetting something.

            “Ramjets!” he said, pounding the steering wheel. Ramjets were his nitro pills. He named them after the cartoon hero his kids used to watch on TV. The cartoon guy would take these Atomic Energy Pills whenever he got into trouble. Johnny didn’t like that show. He was happy when they took it off TV. It seemed to him the show sort of poked fun of the real super heroes like Captain America and Superman.

            He hesitated, he hated to go through all the trouble of getting out of the car again and walking to the house. But then again, he was teeing off at one and he might need the little pills if the competition heated up. He sighed, slipped his big gut past the steering wheel and plodded back to the house.

           

            Joe pedaled his bicycle doggedly. He needed to get there before the coach showed up. He didn’t want the coach to blunder upon some of his modifications. As he rounded the corner of the school he was relieved to see the LTD exactly as he left it four hours before. And there was no sign of Coach Bartz either. He slid his bicycle to a stop and laid it on the grass along the sidewalk. He leaned against the car and waited.

            Coach Bartz wheeled into the school parking lot grousing to himself about the dumb idea of building a school out in the country. As he approached the kid, he stole a glance at his clipboard. The kid’s name was Joe, he’d try to remember that. He looked up at the kid again as he parked. The kid did look familiar, must’ve had him in Phy Ed at one time or another.

            The kid seemed kind of aloof, leaning there with his long blond hair he reminded Johnny of that movie actor, Steve McQueen.  Especially now that the actor had grown his hair long like all the other goofballs running around. The world was getting crazy.

            He got out of the car and lumbered towards Joe. He took one final long drag on his cigarette. It would have to last awhile, Joe here probably wouldn’t grasp his antismoking lecture if he did light up and neither would his 7:30, 8, or 8:30 students. Maybe little Debbie Kent, his 9:30, could use a little more cloverleaf experience and then he could stop by Heenan’s for his golf shoes…and a couple of smokes. The jerks at the warehouse had sent brown ones, he had ordered white.

            He crushed out his cigarette and finally exhaled.  He unlocked the LTD’s passenger side door and tossed the keys across to Joe and said, a split second later, “Here.”

            Johnny was not surprised to see the kid drop the keys onto the pavement. As he lowered his rear into the car he thought: I betcha he wouldn’t drop it if it was a bale of hay. By the time he had his feet swung into the car, the kid had the engine fired up.

            “Whoa,” Johnny said. These farm kids were all alike. Just because they bomb around in dusty pickups all day, they think they can drive like Mario Granitelli or something. Time to clip this barn swallow’s wings a bit.

            “Before you even start the car, you have to do your homework. You got to adjust the seat, adjust the mirrors, and put on your seat belt.” At this he looked down and the kid did have his seatbelt on already. Well, there’s a first, he thought.

            He continued, “And before you even start this car you put your foot on the…” He stopped. Joe was revving the engine and grinning at him. The picture didn’t fit. The kid should be cooling his jets now, not racing his motor.      

            The kid said, “I did my homework last night. Johnny.” He tromped the gas pedal. The big car shot forward. It left a patch of black amid the jumble of black marks which bore mute testimony to the fact that teenagers sometimes borrow dad’s car for transportation to school.

            Johnny was hurled back onto his seat and his head snapped against the headrest angering him immensely. Glaring at Joe, (This kid was in serious trouble.) he stomped on his “Idiot Anchor” - the brake for the instructor’s use that extended over to the passenger footwell. The pedal slammed freely against the floor without any resistance. The car continued to accelerate, unabated.

            Dumbfounded, Johnny looked down at his foot and the pedal in complete disbelief. He lifted his foot and the pedal sprang back up to its normal position. Johnny stomped on it again, with both feet now, and the pedal still offered no resistance. He began to mash the pedal repeatedly, pumping it so furiously that to Joe he looked like the world’s largest toddler having a tantrum. 

            By the time the coach had convinced himself the brake would not work the car had made a wide curve through the parking lot. Like a two-ton pendulum, Joe swung the big car in an arc, drifting it sideways from the school’s approach onto the county road. Fishtailing slightly, he again had the throttle to the floor and the big four barrel was gulping lustily.   

            The coach righted himself after the turn and grabbed for the dashboard. The car was literally shrieking down the road. He lunged for the wheel. Joe lifted momentarily and the car’s tail began to slide to the left. Joe stabbed the accelerator again as the car began to swing right. The next swing would bring the back end around and somehow the coach sensed this and released.

            “See that?” Joe asked, “Trailing throttle oversteer! You could really wrack us up there Johnny, don’t drop the ball there on me now, will ya?” He looked down, “Whoa, you better put on that seat belt, there’s all kinds of maniacs out here on the public roads.”

            Joe detected the coaches frenzied glance at the ignition key. “Don’t think about it Johnny, you’ll lock the wheel and then we’ll be cooked here. C’mon man, if we don’t have trust, we’ll have failure.”

            Johnny was snarling. “You’re dead kid, stop this car right now because your joyride is…” The car slowed a bit, Johnny looked forward just as the car hit the railroad crossing. Suddenly the windshield was filled with a view of a bright, blue, springtime morning sky. Then the car came heavily to earth. It bounced again, sending a shower of sparks into its slipstream and then settled. Johnny was lofted into the headliner roughly, crunching his teeth together with a loud, audible crack. The car began swinging side to side again and the kid was jousting with the wheel. Joe was feathering the gas and the brake, and Johnny was dimly aware of the kid’s footwork, he noticed the kid’s right heel was on the brake and his right toes were on the gas pedal.  Who ever heard of driving like that?

            “Shoulda had on that seat belt Johnny.” The kid was panting a bit. Again the car was picking up speed, hurtling past the landscape and gathering in road at a crazy pace. Johnny looked down, he was sitting on the seatbelt, he tilted his ample rear end and freed it. He was fumbling with it as he felt that weightless feeling of nearly going airborne again. They had just crested a long hill and Joe was slowing a bit now.

            Joe, looking far ahead, noted another vehicle pulling into a driveway. Beyond that driveway the road dropped into a series of curves along the river. Joe knew this stretch well and he was setting up those turns in his mind. The last thing he needed now was another car pulling out in front of them. Joe dropped back to seventy or so, he didn’t want to arouse suspicion. There was someone getting out of the car, it was the approach to the golf course.            

            Johnny saw this too and began clawing at the crank for the window. He leaned out the window and blew his whistle with all his might, causing a large snake of a vein to pop out on his forehead.

            Lenny Jaye was struggling with the padlock on the gate. He had vowed to replace it for several years now but it seemed to always open just when he was about to fetch a hammer, saw, or his 357 magnum. The whistling startled him and he jumped, he whirled around as the car cruised by. There was Johnny hanging out the window and flapping his arms. Lenny waved and shook his head. This time he didn’t smile. That Johnny could be annoying, seemed to like being the center of attention.

            Once beyond the golf course, Joe hammered the gas pedal again. Descending towards the river and picking up speed, the coach turned towards Joe and said: “Look, kid, I don’t know what you’re doing here but if you don’t…”

            At that moment Joe screamed and put a hand in front of his face. The coach again spun forward and saw the car was approaching the first of the curves along the river. The river could be seen, calm and glistening through the bright green embryonic leaves of May. Johnny again tromped on his passenger brake as Joe slowed the car without locking the brakes. For an instant the left flank seemed to drift over the opposite shoulder of the road, it felt as if the car was going to go over, and the coach clutched at the dash and convulsed the word “No.”

But Joe again punched the gas and shot the car towards the next curve. The curves would become tighter now as the road drained down to the bridge. The coach turned to the kid and said, “All right, all right kid, what do you want, huh? Look, I give...” and suddenly it felt as if Haystack Calhoun was standing on Johnny’s throat.

He tugged at his collar. Gasping and clutching he reached in his pocket for the nitros. His pants were tight, he fumbled with the seatbelt and forced it open. He tried to jam a hand down his pocket.

Joe was now sweeping the car through the turns, collecting a bit of oversteer with a flick of the wheel, and then again accelerating to the next turn. Johnny, fumbling, unscrewed the tiny brown bottle as the car pitched and the tires shrieked. Grasping and trembling. Johnny tilted the bottle.

“Look out!” screamed Joe, again amazing himself at how convincing it sounded, and he jabbed at the brakes. Johnny leapt, tossing the bottle in the air. Again Joe was mashing the gas and the car was arcing towards the upcoming curve. 

Johnny pinched at a few of the remaining tablets that he still clutched in his hand and poked them into his mouth. The tablets were already melting. His palms, in fact his entire body, was now clad in a sheen of cold perspiration. In lunatic terror he thought: melts in your hands not in your mouth. He didn’t have enough spit to work the tablets under his tongue.

            It was too late anyhow. That last cigarette had begun a little spasm in one of the arteries of his heart. The fear had further clenched that vessel and now the rough edges on gobs of sediment in that narrow channel were forming blood clots on their downstream surfaces. Just when his heart muscle needed more fuel the pipeline was being choked by heredity, nicotine, lifestyle and fear. Without the fuel that area of his heart was dying.     

            This one wouldn’t be like his last heart attack. The one he had tromping back from the duckblind one fine fall Sunday morning. Although part of his heart died that time, it was more like losing a keyboard player from a band. The loss was noted for a refrain or two but the music kept playing and Johnny’s heart kept on dancing. But today the drummer would die. Not only would his heart lose Charlie Watts, the zone of starving muscle would give birth to a thousand Keith Moons with a couple of dozen Ginger Bakers thrown in. And all of them would be playing different songs.

            Johnny’s heart did a chugging Charleston, flew into a frantic Funky Chicken, then broke down into a bad Boogaloo before finally writhing into The Worm. Johnny slumped to the side and caught a last fading glimpse of the kid. The kid had a strange look on his face. The coach thought, in a distracted way, it was a look of grim determination. 

 

            Joe roared across the bridge. The girders of the old overhead trestle fanned the sky into blurry frames of blue. Climbing out of the valley, still winging through the turns, he now started to contend with traffic. He blew past a pickup and then a bulk milk truck and met a tractor. Nearing Little Falls he met a just off-duty sheriff’s deputy, beat and beleaguered from a bad night at a Bowlus barfight. The deputy thought twice about giving chase, but duty overtook fatigue and he spun around and hit the siren.

             

            In the end Joe was right, the brakes did fade. He struck the hospital with much more force than he had intended. It was about 19 miles from Graniteville to the hospital in Little Falls and the clock in the Emergency Room read 7:12 AM when it clattered to the floor following the impact. (A record for the Graniteville to Little Falls run.) In the darkened Central Supply Room a row of I.V. flasks were flung off a shelf and smashed against the opposite wall, mingling Normal Saline, D5W and Ringer’s Lactate into a splintery sticky pool. The concussion caused weary nurses, huddled in report on the other side of the building, to leap up and shout, “Oh dear!”

            The collision broke several of Joe’s ribs, a wrist, an elbow and dislocated a shoulder. Johnny, who had removed his seatbelt to get his pills, was vaulted into the headliner just above the windshield. His head struck with such force that the impact left a large bowl-shaped dent in the roof, popping out the windshield on that side of the car. (Witnesses later claimed they could detect a vague suggestion of his facial features in the impression. Especially his jaw.). This fractured his skull and his cervical spine in multiple areas and would’ve killed him, if he hadn’t been dead already.

            Johnny’s body slammed back into the seat.  Joe looked over at him and said, “Whoa, buddy, you shoulda caught that one with your hands, not your face.”

 

            Joe was returning to Graniteville and the bleachers were full at the Johnny Bartz Memorial Field. The governor and the other various officials and dignitaries, who gather whenever a TV crew was present, were seated on the stage; leaning into each other, smiling and nodding and being conspicuous. A brand new 1995 Ford Mustang convertible was burbling slowly onto the field under the bright late May sky.  Seated on the boot that covered the retracted top was Joe, waving, smiling and pointing to familiar faces in the crowd. The red Mustang was an Official Pace Car and was part of Joe’s purse for winning that year’s Indianapolis 500. (In a dead heat with Emerson Fitipaldi and Nigel Mansell, no less.) The car prowled below a banner which read: “The City of Graniteville Proudly Welcomes Home the Winningest Race Driver in History: Joe Mills”.  Other banners stirred in the gentle breeze, checkered flags welcoming race fans.

            The big banner was not an idle claim either. Their small-town boy had made good. The first driver in history to win championships in Formula One, NASCAR Winston Cup, and Indy Cars. And had won at Le Mans.  He had successfully campaigned in motocross and Superbikes. Secretly he was testing a top fuel dragster and was about to announce an attempt at the NHRA top fuel title.

            Joe had been the local hero since the last parade given here in his honor. That had been 23 years ago and that last celebration was a forlorn affair. Banners that day had proclaimed: “The City of Graniteville Proudly Welcomes Home the Boy Who Tried to Save His Coach.” The town was a kind town and its people tried to salve the loss of a beloved coach through a humble recognition of the kid’s heroic efforts at saving their icon. The tragedy had again put Graniteville on the map for a week or so, correspondents called to interview Joe, and an AP photograph of a somber kid in traction ran in papers across the nation.

            Since then the town had followed Joe’s exploits and cherished his success. They forgave him for his divorce of Debbie Kent, they realized she found her happiness in a real home and children back here in Graniteville. (In fact, she had married the son of Coach Bartz, now the mayor, the same guy driving Joe’s Mustang right now. Joe had to smile at that irony.)  And the town understood when Joe married the Dutch high fashion model he had met in Monaco during his Formula One days.  It was the kind of marriage that could survive the career strains felt by Joe, and the model, too, for that matter.        

            Today, though, Joe was giving back to Graniteville. He would be dedicating the Joe Mills School of the Motor Arts.  Behind these very grandstands Joe’s lifelong dream was taking shape. Joe’s commitment, connections, and vision, not to mention the involvement of his sponsors, had wrought a complex here that was unique in all the world. Students of design were already at work in some of the studios here, sculpting not only what might be the next generation of minivan but also what might become the next airfoil shape on an Indy Car. Chauffeurs, police forces and body guards were learning defensive driving techniques and antiterrorist tactics.  Artists from Italy were in residence for the summer, revealing the beauty found in an automotive line. This fall Japanese electronic experts, along with American audio engineers would be conducting research and seminars on car sound. Emerging Eastern Bloc and Pacific Rim nations were investing in the design and manufacturing complexes and reaping the benefits of the international cross pollination while inventing their own fledgling automobile related industries. American firms were realizing tax benefits from moving some of their own research and testing to this new facility, and also getting the chance to observe and indoctrinate young engineers for their own needs later. As a magnet for high schools across the country, students of auto related disciplines were able to experience intense involvement in their chosen fields, ranging from body work to engine modification, while meeting their other high school requirement next door in good old Graniteville High.           

            Towering over the expanding complex, and even the gigantic wind tunnel, was the frame of the enormous grandstand which was now under construction. (Being built with the help of students of race course design.) A multiple use facility, with off road courses, drag strip, road course and super oval, it would soon host major sanctioned race events while training students in pit teamwork, track safety, and crowd management. An infield medical facility was planned, to instruct teams from racecourses around the world in the latest in trauma management and to also study the human physiology under race conditions as well as examining the psychology of competition in general. A Racers in Residence would bring some of the sport’s brightest stars here for intense professional level workshops on race technique and strategy.

            The town of Graniteville was experiencing an economic boom with housing and lodging and the other service industries required by an international campus of this scope.

             Joe looked out across Memorial Field. Under the blue sky, with the tender spring grass now underfoot and the gentle breeze of home caressing him, it was his proudest moment. A tear formed in the corner of his eye.

 

The Superintendent of Schools, Stanley Blackburn, turned to Joe and spoke, “Well Joe, I guess you’ll have to fix it. Better wait until after Wally drops by to take a few pictures for the paper. He’s on his way.”

The superintendent sighed and shook his head sadly, “I just can’t understand it. Every year we go through this. What kind of a misfit could do such a thing? I’d think that sooner or later whoever is responsible for this, this, this defacement would tire of it… or just grow up.”

Joe looked up, following the superintendent’s gaze. Above them the sign that proudly announced this place as being Johnny Bartz Memorial Field had been vandalized. The “t” had been repainted in a very professional way. It had been replaced with an “f”. Last year the “tz’ had been replaced with an “ffy”. Joe shrugged in an indifferent way.

The superintendent turned and looked at the man standing there beside him. He laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder and said, “You of all people, having to fix this every year, it must be terribly difficult for you.”

“Yeah, it is.” Joe looked down.

“I promise you Joe, next year we’ll catch this culprit and that’ll put an end to it.” But that vow had been made before and the criminal had always evaded capture.

Joe watched as Mr. Blackburn walked back to his Park Avenue. He got in and drove off. Joe looked back up at the violated sign. He admired his handiwork. Sometimes he would change the “B” to an “F”. He admitted that there was a deep vein to be mined when it came to Johnny Bartz. Lately he had restricted himself to just painting though. One year he had cut off the supports for the sign, using the school’s own torch on a foggy May night, and had not fully appreciated the tension building in the steel as it twisted. It released with a deafening “twang” and one of the legs missed his head by less than a foot. He had burnt up the sign once too, but these more radical efforts always resulted in more work for himself, patching it up or welding it up or whatever. He never did mind the repainting. Next year he might use electric lights, Christmas lights or something.

Soon Old Karbo pulled up in his rusty Cavalier. He got to his feet and began fiddling with the adjustments on his camera. “Cops find any clues?” he asked Joe.

“Guess not.” Joe replied, taking off his cap and scratching his head.

“Well,” Karbo said, squinting up at the sign, “This year I can print a picture at least. Some years this clown gets too racy.”

“I guess I’ll go and get the paint and stuff.” Joe muttered as he shuffled towards the school’s tractor. He was thinking: I know just where it’s at too.

He climbed onto the seat of the Cub Cadet. It was a hydrostatic drive, much to the chagrin of Joe. He longed for the straight stick on the school’s old Simplicity garden tractor. (As he had loathed the switch to an automatic on the school bus he drove.)  Joe was convinced that on the old Simplicity he could cover the same ground faster than he could with the new hydrostatic. To Joe an automatic just had no soul. But Leo Von Raschke was on the schoolboard and he had insisted the district be up to date on the latest technology and the best place to get that new technology was on the Cub Cadet available at Von Raschke’s Implement.

Joe waved to Wally and fired up the tractor. He headed back towards the district shop to get the ladder and paints from where he had left them on Friday night. He pushed on the lever and slid the throttle open wide.

 The tractor pawed at the turf and sprang forward. Joe grasped the wheel and steeled himself for battle. It was 1970 and the legendary Parnelli Jones was thundering back onto the track after his last pit stop. His Boss Mustang was ragged, its body rendered and stove in from the intense jousting it had endured that day. But its heart was still pure and strong. A Championship was at stake and somewhere on that roadcourse Mark Donahue was waiting in a battered Javelin.

                                                                        The End

 

                                                                                        THE END