Page 186 of Shade
From a distance, I watch as a news reporter from ESPN interviews Shade after the qualifying runs. “Do you have a chance at impressing these judges here tonight?”
“I think I have a chance.” His nods, keeping his sunglasses on. “My Honda is running great and I’ve never felt better,” he says, leaning against the side of the ESPN hauler.
His weight shifts to one side appearing relaxed, only if his sunglasses weren’t on, his eyes would tell another story, which is why he hides behind them.
For a long time I wondered why Shade hid behind his sunglasses all the time. It didn't come from arrogance, which was my first thought. And then I asked Tiller about it.
He said, “He hides behind the black sunglasses because he doesn’t want the world to see his blue.”
Do you understand what Tiller means?
I didn’t at first. I do now. If he didn’t have them, I’d see a vulnerability he masks at the track.
When he’s finished with the interview, I see a little boy, a shell of who he really is, lost behind a helmet and mirrored goggles.
He hugs me with one arm, pressed to the side of his body. He looks over my head toward the roll-in ramp, expressionless, like he’s turned everything off to concentrate. The way the moment takes me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. He smells so fucking good, like gas, oil, and man, and the combination hits me right between the legs.
As Yung Joc said in “It’s Goin’ Down,” it’s going down later. In a car, on the floor, in the bed, I don’t really care.
It will happen.
