Page 76 of Trading Paint
After getting lost for a good hour we almost turned around when we spotted a track on the side of the mountain. It wasliterallyon the side of the mountain. There were no signs for the track at all. You came around the bend in the road and there it was.
It appeared they just decided while logging trees: “Hey, let’s build a track.”
And so they did.
I’d never seen something like this before. It was crazy.
There were no bleachers, just rusty metal pieced together. The flag stand was about eight pieces of plywood strung together in odd directions and the track; well, it looked as though they just mowed through the brush to create something resembling a track and then added clay.
Did I mention there were no guardrails, just trees?
I wasn’t positive that would end well.
After getting registered, Tommy and I walked the track with Ryder, Justin, and Cody. The dirt was dry, nearly sand, combined with rocks, maybe even boulders and there was a fucking ditch about two feet wide on the backstretch.
I was not impressed.
Dallas, an official I assumed by his black shirt that read, “Official” across the chest, walked up to us. He was an old worn out man with teeth just as worn.
We made small talk for a moment before he commented on my previous wins.
I’d never met anyone quite like Dallas and that was apparent when he said. “I hearyousgood,” in my direction, his toothless smile caused Spencer to take a step back and Sway to lean into my shoulder.
I didn’t answer right away and then he was off the other direction.
“Where’d he go to school? Sway whispered when he strolled away. “West Virginia?”
“Nah, I don’t think they have schools where he came from.” I replied.
Somewhere between the hillbilly announcer singing the national anthem and the eighty-year old trophy girl making ogle eyes at me I was began to understand why it was invitational only.
Emma refused to get out of the truck and spent the remainder of the night in there with the window up and doors locked.
They had no setup for the night and it just seemed like they were flying by the seat of their pants when Alley stepped in and asked if she could help them.
This got the night moving along because I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of here.
“Nice trailer,” Tommy snorted the direction of a homemade trailer pulling into what they called the pits. This was just another field of ditches and boulders.
Walking up to me with a basket of fries, Tommy laughed. I glanced over my shoulder after stealing a few. It looked like something out of Sanford and Son’s out here.
Not knowing what else to do, we made our way over to the pit bleachers.
Sway dropped down beside us to watch the modified heat races.
After glaring in Tommy’s direction, she kicked her feet up on the wooden step in front of her. Sighing, she took a long look behind us at the pits.
“This is just insane,” she finally said turning back around to look over at me. “Did you see that ditch on the back stretch? You could bury a body out there.” She glared at Tommy again.
They still weren’t seeing eye-to-eye after the staple incident.
I followed her gaze across the pits. Between the homemade haulers, roughed up drivers, and junky cars, it was apparent we were smack dab in the middle ofDeliverance.
“No shit,” I muttered scrapping my hand across the make shift bleachers. A rusty nail snagged my index finger, tearing the skin open. “You had a tetanus shot lately?”
Sway nodded and looked down at my finger pricked with blood. “Have you?”
We sat up there for another twenty minutes as Dallas attempted to water the track with buckets.
