He didn’t think it was going to hurt. Hospitals nowadays had all sorts of medicines to keep you from feeling anything, so the only thing to worry about was what came after. He thought that if dying just meant going to sleep and never waking up, then there was nothing to worry about. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with it.
If there was an afterlife, though, he didn’t want to walk into it by himself. He’d barely known his grandmother, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he could count on his dad even making it to heaven. His mom was sleeping on life support back in a white room in New Hampshire. But Dale Earnhardt was in heaven. Everybody said so. Just after the wreck, Mike Waltrip himself had said that in the twinkling of an eye Dale went into the presence of the Lord.
Matthew thought that if he stayed faithful to Dale as a fan, then Dale would stick up for him in heaven. One of his fantasies was of stepping out onto a cloud in front of the pearly gates, where the bearded old angel sat at a desk with a roll book. And there in front of the gates stood Dale Earnhardt in his dark shades and his white Goodwrench firesuit, holding up a cardboard sign that said “Matthew Hinshaw.” Then he’d be safe.
At the Concord restaurant the evening wore on, but no one left. Harley’s sense of self-preservation kicked in and he switched from bourbon to beer.
Bill Knight looked thoughtfully at his shotglass full of Jack Daniels. “I’m a scotch drinker, myself,” he remarked to no one in particular. “Still, I suppose that except for the change of grain from corn to barley, the recipe is basically the same as Glenfiddich. Hmm…I wonder if they make bourbon in Scotland? Surely they have corn over there. I wonder what you would call a Scottish bourbon?”
“Glen Campbell,” said Bekasu.
“What’s your room number, Cayle?” asked Justine. “I need to get my nail polish remover back from you tonight.”
Cayle looked nervously around the bar, and then she leaned forward and said in conspiratorial tones, “Rusty Wallace and Mike Waltrip.”
“Must be crowded in there,” said the waitress, who was removing the empty glasses. She smiled to show that she was teasing, and then she pointed to the full-length Dale Earnhardt poster on the far wall.
“It’s a code,” Justine said, mouthing the words so that no one could overhear.
The waitress nodded, unsurprised. “Yeah, I figured,” she said. “Room two-fifteen. Y’all might want to come up with a more obscure code to use around these parts. Driver numbers are no secret here. Darrell Waltrip swears he used to open his prayers by saying, ‘Hello, God, this is number 17.’”
“She’s right,” said Karen. “That’s how I taught the numbers to the little boy I babysat: with die-cast race cars. One, Rusty, Dale, Robby Gordon, T. Labonte, Mark Martin, Rusty’s Little Brother, Little E, Awesome Bill, Ten.”
“If you want to change codes, you might try using Bible verses,” said Bill Knight. “Oh, wait, they’d probably catch on to that here in Concord, too.”
“Bible verses?” said Harley.
He laughed. “Yes. I used to use that code to leave messages for people back in college. We had hall phones in those days, and you couldn’t be sure that whoever answered the communal phone would pass along a message, so the trick was to make it a memorable one.”
“Like what?”
“Well, the one I used most often was Job 13, verse 22.” He waited with an expectant smile for someone to shout out the verse, but after a few moments of respectful silence, he gave it to them. “‘Call thou, and I will answer.’ It worked every time.”
Justine giggled. “I think Terence would enjoy hearing about the NASCAR number code,” she said. “Bet you anything that nobody in Manhattan would get it.”
“Some of them would,” said Harley. “There used to be a NASCAR speedway in Trenton, and I hear they’re looking to build another one somewhere closer to New York City.”
“The Hoboken 500,” said Bekasu with inebriated solemnity.
Bill Knight said, “I wonder if they use that code up where I live.”
“Don’t you know?” asked Justine.
“It would have gone right over my head,” said Bill.
“Gotta trivia question for you,” said Harley, downing the last of his most recent beer. “In 1986, when Geoff Bodine won the Daytona 500, what driver sold souvenirs in the nearby K-Mart parking lot that afternoon after the race?”
“Umm…” Justine considered it. “Must have been one of the young drivers who was a kid back then…not Jeff Gordon, surely. He was probably in Indiana by then. Maybe Jimmie Johnson? Kurt Busch?”
“Or maybe one of the second generation drivers, who was there in Daytona because his dad or his older brother was racing that year?” said Karen. “How old is Dale Jarrett? Or the younger Wallaces?”
“How about Sterling Marlin?” said Shane.
“Not Dale Junior?” said Cayle.
The other drinkers nodded, exuding beer fumes and solidarity. “Could be him.”
Harley shook his head sadly. “Naw,” he said, blowing his nose on a cocktail napkin. “None of them. The answer is…Geoff Bodine. ”
Everybody froze as the name sank in. Then Bill Knight said, “Harley, that can’t be right. You just said he won the race that day.”
“S’true, though,” said Harley. “He did win. That was the year Earnhardt ran out of gas nearing the finish line and Bodine won it. But in the eighties the 500 wasn’t the big old hype monster it is these days. No flying off in your private jet to the Letterman show. Back then you just did your victory lap, talked to a few sports writers, and went on home. So Geoff Bodine’s parents…s’parents…were selling souvenirs from a little old stand in the Kmart parking lot down the street and he went over…” his voice broke. “And he helped them.” He dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve.
There was a shocked silence in the bar, and then Cayle began to sniffle too. “Pore old Bodine,” she said.
There were rumbles of agreement.
“Well, that’s not fair,” said Shane. “Everybody these days gets a gazillion dollars and their picture on magazine covers, and on the day of his greatest victory Geoff Bodine has to sell keychains! That’s not right.”
“And now he can’t even keep a sponsor,” said Jesse Franklin, thumping the table. “Even that old Indian casino in Florida has dumped him…”
“Poor old Bodine,” whispered Harley, wiping away a tear. “Sometimes I think I must have been a Bodine brother that got stolen away by the gypsies or something, because I sure do have the family curse-you work hard enough for two people, and you’ve got the talent to make it big, but you never, never get a break. And now no ride.”
But nobody was listening to Harley’s lament.
Bill Knight shook his head sadly. “The race is not always to the swift…”
“What number is that?” asked Bekasu.
“I forget. Ecclesiastes somewhere.”
“Well, what are we gonna do about it?” Justine demanded. She opened her purse and fished out a twenty. “Let’s pass the hat! Gimme that cap, Jesse!” She snatched off his Winged Three hat and waved it over her head. “Let’s see some greenbacks, y’all. Come on. Toss ’em in there. You can spare it. Anybody got an address for Geoff Bodine?”