“I ’member you!”
Harley turned, hoping to see a crew chief or an owner, but the stout fellow with the scraggly gray ponytail, the turquoise track suit, and the matching squash blossom necklaces was not part of anybody’s race team. He was a fixture at the Speedway, though. Harley summoned a smile and stuck out his hand. “Hello, Hector,” he said. “Long time no see. How’s it going?-And, by the way, that was just a standard greeting. I don’t really want to know.”
Hector Sanders, NASCAR fan and self-proclaimed Indian shaman, had appointed himself the prophet of the Bristol Motor Speedway. The consensus was that Hector was (a) harmless, and (b) probably not a powerful wizard, despite the fact that, during a Winston Cup race, it was his custom to stand in the infield or some other prominent spot and hex the drivers of his choice. He would strike a theatrical pose, make a series of hand signals, and chant as he spun round (although, this may have been an attempt to follow the progress of the race at a track in which a lap took fifteen seconds). Everybody in racing knew him and they put up with his antics because, in a profession in which you risked your life on a regular basis, it was nice to find somebody who made you look sane by comparison. (Besides, what if he really could put a curse on your tires?)
“You’re not back driving tonight, are you, Harley?” Hector shut his eyes for a moment, as if he had the day’s roster inscribed on a chalkboard in his head.
Harley stared. Hector was wearing a red cap sporting a white number 9 and a Dodge emblem. Bill Elliott. He wondered if this was a good sign for Bill or an impending curse. Aloud he said, “No, Hector. I’m not driving in the race. I’m just here as a spectator, same as you are.”
Hector struck a pose. “I am not a spectator. I channel the luck. I decide who gets blessed this evening.”
Harley nodded. Hector played favorites. Some of the drivers humored him-gave him caps and signed photos. He repaid these favors with spells of protection or, perhaps, by hexing the competition. Nobody was sure what the rigmarole of chants and hand signals represented, but they looked impressive, and in a sport where dying was always an option, it didn’t hurt to play it safe with purveyors of good fortune.
Hector fingered one of his turquoise necklaces and peered at Harley from beneath caterpillar eyebrows. “You’re out here a-trying to get you another ride ain’tcha, boy?”
“Guess I wouldn’t say no to one,” Harley admitted. “Why? Have you heard anything?”
“I don’t gossip,” said Hector. “I know things.”
“Anything about me?”
Hector closed his eyes again, reading his internal message board. A moment later he opened them wide. “Dale Earnhardt’s going to help you out, Harley.”
“Junior?”
“Did I say Junior?”
“Uh-huh. Well, it’s great to see you again, Hector. Who are you zapping tonight?”
“Rusty Wallace. I’m partial to old Rusty.”
Harley nodded. “Rusty’s going to win, huh?”
Hector shrugged. “No. I can’t let him win, but I’m going to protect him. He’ll come through this race without a scratch on him.”
“Well, I expect he’ll appreciate that.”
Hector nodded majestically, accepting his due as a maker of miracles. “And would you like me to speak to somebody about getting you hired on?”
Harley shook his head. That was all he needed, the local space cadet to champion his cause. With help like that, he’d be lucky to get the night shift in a car wash. “I think I’ll just do it the hard way,” he said, walking away.
Hector Sanders called after him, “Okay, suit yourself. I’ll give your good luck spell to Jeff Gordon, then.”
Harley nodded. “Yeah, good idea,” he said to himself. “Give Jeff Gordon a little more luck. He can’t walk on water yet.”
The rest of the hot and noisy afternoon went by in a succession of shouted conversations and sweaty handshakes. People promised to keep Harley in mind, but nobody came out with a firm offer. He scribbled his post office box address and a cell phone number on a succession of napkins and autograph cards, but nobody had made him any promises to get in touch. By five o’clock, Harley figured he had done all the networking his constitution could stand, so he left pit road in search of a cold drink and wet washcloth before it was time to meet the tour group for the race.
Half an hour before race time, he settled the tour members into their assigned seats, did a head count, and handed out the earplugs that would enable them to watch the race without suffering through the deafening roar of forty-three engines without mufflers reverberating in a giant concrete bowl.
“Oh, thanks, but I won’t need those,” said Justine, handing back the purple plastic capsule that contained the earplugs. “I’m going up there.” She pointed to a glassed-in enclosure at the top of the grandstand.
“To a skybox?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, rummaging in her purse for her pass. “A friend of mine owns a company that has one here at Bristol, and when I told her I was going to be here, she invited me to come up there and watch the race.”
“Lucky you,” said Harley, squinting up at the glass windows far above the Richard Petty seating section.
“Well, it’ll be comfortable, and there’s a bathroom and all, but for Bonnie the race is as much a business occasion as a sports event, so she’s always letting VIPs into the suite to mix networking with pleasure. I’ll probably have to make small talk with the governor or somebody, when I’d really rather be watching the track.” She gave him a bright smile. “It’ll be fun, though. I’ll see you back here after the race. Don’t y’all leave me!”
Harley promised to wait and, with a wave and a wink, she hurried up the steps to the skyboxes. Skyboxes were for the patrician spectators of the sport. Usually leased by corporations for their executives and business clients, the apartment-size rooms were furnished with kitchenettes and bathrooms, and offered a buffet spread to fortify the well-heeled guests. The media had its own skybox where the Sports Illustrated guy, the stringers for various newspaper syndicates, and other journalists from all over the world watched the race in air-conditioned comfort. Afterward, the winning driver was escorted up to that skybox so that he could be interviewed by the press corps without their even having to get up. Harley had been the driver of the moment in the press skybox one autumn Sunday in Martinsville, but he couldn’t remember a single question that any reporter had asked him. That fifteen minutes of fame had been a blur of sore muscles, thirst, and an attempt to downshift his brain from 100 miles per hour.
He could remember only two things from the experience. The first was looking out the press box window at the panoramic view of the Martinsville Speedway and seeing a grandstand that wasn’t there. There it was on the right side of the press box, an enormous upper tier, filled with cheering crowds, against a backdrop of dark hills similar to the ones that encircled the speedway at Bristol. But in Martinsville those distant mountains were cloud banks and the right upper tier of seats was equally ephemeral. By moving his head a little to alter the angle of reflection, Harley had satisfied himself that what he had actually seen was a mirror image of the grandstand on the left of the press box projected onto the skybox glass to create the mirage of a grandstand on the right where there was just sky and clouds. He never forgot that phantom grandstand at Martinsville and he sometimes wondered who might be sitting there to watch the race. Tim? Neil? Davey? Dale himself, now? The other thing he never forgot was the remark he had overheard as he walked to the podium in front of the press box picture window for his winner’s interview: “Aw, I was hoping Earnhardt would win. Who wants to talk to this guy?”