“Like Princess Diana being buried on that island at Althorp,” said Sarah Nash in that expressionless drawl that made it hard to tell when she was being sarcastic. Karen thought she probably was.
A new thought struck her. “Where is Dale Earnhardt buried? He’s not here, is he?” She looked down the long, dimly lit nave as if she expected to see a marble sepulchre at the end of it, past the glass cases that housed rows of Winston Cup trophies and the guitars presented to Dale by Brooks and Dunn and Alabama.
Terence Palmer shook his head. “I checked that out online before I came. They’re careful never to say. I suppose it’s not inconceivable that some distraught racing fan would try to practice suttee on the grave site.”
The three of them paused to watch Shane McKee wandering alone down the hall, barely glancing at the exhibits. After a moment of silence, Karen said, “I guess you can tell that Shane’s mad at me. I said this place reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial, and that Richard Petty’s was homier, and now Shane’s furious. Was Dale Earnhardt really that much more famous than Richard Petty?”
Sarah Nash smiled. “Part of being a legend is knowing how and when to die,” she said. “That’s the difference. If Richard Petty had been killed in the last lap of the Daytona 500 instead of retiring into a peaceful and revered old age, I expect his face would be the back of the North Carolina state quarter.”
“I wish I could tell Shane that, but it wouldn’t improve his mood any,” said Karen. “He was complaining that we went to Mr. Petty’s place at all. Said it was disrespectful of Earnhardt. I’m trying not to upset him any further.”
“You’ve been married, what? Three days? I’d say the sooner he learns to handle a disagreement without making a federal case out of it, the better off you’re both going to be.”
Terence Palmer, who was beginning to look uneasy at the prospect of being trapped in a “relationship” conversation between two women, strolled away, willing himself not to hurry, in search of a less embarrassing discussion. He saw Harley Claymore heading toward the gift shop, and he walked faster to catch up with him.
“Surely you’re not buying souvenirs?” he said.
“No. Just looking at this pot of gold,” said Harley. “You going to get another badge while we’re here?”
Terence grinned and touched the Bristol and Martinsville pins on his hat. “Can’t stop now. When I get back to Manhattan, this is how I’m going to find out who the cool people are. The ones who recognize the logos. Screen my dates.”
The DEI gift shop was an Aladdin’s cave of NASCAR related merchandise, devoted not only to Dale Earnhardt, but also to the current drivers for DEI, Inc., including Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Mike Waltrip, but the majority of the items offered were mementos of the Intimidator. Racks of Dale Earnhardt shirts and jackets lined the wall, and his face glared out at passersby from calendars, posters, playing cards, coffee mugs, mouse pads, and keychains. The image of the black Monte Carlo frozen in acceleration zoomed across a hundred different items within the shop. Visitors, who had toured the memorial hallway in respectful silence, regained their voices in the gift area. In small groups they stopped at each display, examining the exhibits and checking price tags against whatever their budget allowed for the acquisition of souvenirs.
Terence examined a metal coffee mug emblazoned with a replica of Earnhardt’s signature and the number 3. “I wonder if I should get my mother something from here,” he mused.
“You think she’d like that?” asked Harley.
“No. It would drive her up the wall. But it would be worth-how much is this thing?-twenty bucks to see her face on Christmas morning.”
“So NASCAR doesn’t run in the family?”
“Well, not on that side of my family,” said Terence. “My dad was an Earnhardt man, though. Funny, that’s almost all I know about him.”
“Well, it might tell you more than you think. Different drivers attract different types of fans. The Earnhardt anthem would be ‘I did it my way.’ Mark Martin is big with older, serious guys who don’t like flashiness. The Labontes are family-friendly. The characters on Friends would root for Jeff Gordon, if NASCAR was on their radar screen at all. Find out which driver a person supports, and you learn a lot about him.”
“Who do you root for, Harley?”
“Back in the day, I was a Darrell Waltrip fan.”
“And what does that say about you?”
“Damned if I know,” said Harley.
Bill Knight wondered if anyone ever forgot and genuflected in this dimly lit shrine. He had never seen anything like it. Well, he had-shrines were his hobby-but nothing that wasn’t consecrated by some theological authority. A strange and powerful place.
“What do you think of it?” asked Cayle, who had appeared at his elbow.
“Why, I feel right at home,” he said. “Opus DEI.”
“Oh-church, you mean. Yes, I guess it is rather somber. People still miss him so much. They come every year, you know, on his birthday. Justine and I drove over this past April. It was amazing. There were tough-looking guys out there in the parking lot-looked like they ought to shave with a hacksaw-and they were crying. Just bawling. I’ll bet Dale is embarrassed-well, I almost said embarrassed to death-seeing his old supporters still carrying on like that.”
Bill Knight gave her a puzzled look. “Embarrassed? So, you think Earnhardt is up in heaven looking out for his old supporters?”
Cayle shook her head. “No, I guess I don’t,” she said.
“Ah. Well, I suppose that most of the people who do think-”
“I mean, I don’t think he’s away in heaven, because I met him on that road out there. The one that runs right by this place.”
“Really? You knew him?”
“Not exactly.” Cayle looked around to make sure that no one else was close enough to overhear them. “Listen-I met him this past spring-the year after he died. I was driving alone one night coming back from Virginia, and I took a wrong turn trying to find Justine’s shortcut. My car broke down on a country road, and I was stranded with a dead cell phone. Then suddenly out of nowhere this black Monte Carlo pulls up behind me, and he gets out, and he fixes my car. Good thing I drive a bow-tie.”
“A what?”
“Chevy. They call them bow-ties because of the Chevrolet emblem.”
He stared at her, waiting for the punch line to her story, but she still looked perfectly serious. “Dale Earnhardt? A ghost, you mean?”
Cayle shrugged. “He wasn’t transparent or anything. He was just acting…well, ordinary. Fixed my car, told me how to get back to the Interstate, and left.”
“You said it was late at night and you’d had a long drive.”
“I didn’t dream it, Bill. He fixed my car.”
“Have you told any of the other passengers about this? Or Harley?” He almost smiled, picturing Harley’s reaction to the further sanctification of his racing colleague. Harley Claymore would be horrified.
“No, I don’t talk about it much,” said Cayle. “Justine and Bekasu know, of course, but I don’t talk about it. I don’t want to end up in a tabloid.”
“Yes, I expect a supermarket newspaper would salivate over a story like that. I’m surprised they didn’t invent it themselves.”
“Well, I didn’t invent it,” said Cayle. “But I can see how people might think I had, which is why I don’t talk about it. I certainly don’t want any publicity. I just wondered what you’d think about it, being a minister and all. Give me the benefit of the doubt. Trust me that it happened. So-what do you make of it?”
Bill Knight hesitated, searching for a diplomatic answer, partly as a kindness to Cayle, and partly because he felt it would be rude to ridicule her story while standing in the shrine of the man himself. A breach of hospitality-like making atheistic remarks on a tour of Notre Dame-bad taste. “Well,” he said at last, “if I had been alive in the fifteenth century, and Joan of Arc had told me that some angels had ordered her to go and save France, I might well have thought her mad. The English certainly did. So it’s a bit hard for me to respond. If amazing things were easy to believe, they wouldn’t require faith.”