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Chapter 2
Smoky Kern’s visit had raised one issue. I’d said a number of times that, when I left the MMSA, I was just going to have to turn my back on racing or get swept up in it again. I’d even told Arlene that on more than one occasion. Now, I was beginning to wonder just how much I meant it, or what I actually did mean. When I meant turning my back on racing, I guess I’d meant turning my back on the MMSA. If I didn’t, I knew that sooner or later spring would come along and my fingers and foot would be itching to be back out on the road with the gang. I knew darn well that right at that minute they were most likely out on one of those big, wide fairgrounds tracks that I loved so much, where the speed was high, a third-gear run for the midgets, exciting in every way you could put it. I sure would have liked to have been out there with them rather than lying on my back in a hospital room.
If next spring rolled around and I wasn’t doing anything in particular, pumping gas or something, I could probably be talked into heading out with the gang again pretty easily. Two words were all it would take – "Hey, Mel!" If I was doing something a little more permanent, though, something with a future, I knew I would just have to resist the urge. By then I knew all too well that racing was addictive and I was a serious addict, so maybe it would be better if I just turned my back on it, and I meant all of it. It was something that I was going to have to talk over with Arlene sooner or later, but the way we’d talked about it so far left me thinking she’d feel pretty much the same way.
I guess maybe I did fall asleep there, because once again I dreamed I was in the 66 car – not heading towards T-boning and leaping the 69 car like I’d dreamed so many times before over the last few days. This time I was leading the pack on one of those fairgrounds tracks, the grandstands full of people under a clear blue Midwestern sky, the roar of the V8-60 in my ears, the dust flying as I took a long, easy slide around one of those broad curves. I’d done it often enough that it was no trick to dream about; moments like those had been among my best the last few years. It was where I was meant to be, and I knew it in my heart.
That dream was with me after I woke up again. It just made clear to me that walking away from racing was going to be just as hard as I thought. When you got right down to it, I wasn’t all that sure it was what I wanted to do – but it was something that I was pretty sure I was going to have to do. I’d never heard of a "Raceaholics Anonymous," but I’m sure I could have qualified to be a charter member.
By that time, the dazed feeling and my headache had pretty well cleared up, and I wasn’t sleeping anywhere near as much. With the cast and the general injuries, though, I was still mostly restricted to lying on my back in that hospital bed. In those days, they liked to see you staying in the hospital on bed rest until they were real sure you were ready, not like today where the insurance companies are hustling you out the door before the doctor gets done stitching up the incision. When Dr. Bronson came by the next morning, he told me that in the next day or two they were going to have to see about getting me out of bed and getting me moving a little more. That sounded awful good to me.
For the moment, though, I was still lying on my back in the bed, and by now I really was getting bored. Arlene had been as good as her word. She’d gone down to the lounge, and even to the doctor’s office across the street and gathered up all the Trues and Argosys and Field and Streams and Popular Sciences and the like that were lying around, no matter how old they were. After all, a lot of them were new to me since I didn’t always get to see every issue every month. That perked things up for me a little; it felt good to be able to read. Back in those days Popular Science used to have a story every month about the Model Garage. It was fiction, about a mechanic named Gus Wilson and how he solved all sorts of weird car problems. I hadn’t seen Popular Science as much as I had True or Argosy, but I always liked those Model Garage stories and when I came across a Popular Science it was always just about the first thing I turned to. Gus was an old time mechanic who tended to avoid fancy test equipment, and I was wrapped up in the story trying to outthink the writer when I realized I had another visitor.
"Excuse me," he said. "Are you Mel Austin?"
I glanced up from the magazine to see a moderately heavy-set man with a butch cut, wearing a shirt and tie. I wondered if it was a local minister, although there was something that didn’t quite seem ministerial about him. "Yes," I said. "Can I help you?"
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Austin," he said. "I’m Mike Corrigan. I’m told that you’re the race car driver who got wrecked over at the track a couple weeks ago."
"I’m told it was a couple weeks ago," I replied. "I’ve been unconscious most of the time since."
"Well, it’s good to see you’re getting better," he smiled. "That’s got to be pretty dangerous."
"It is a little," I told him. "The way we had things set up we were pretty careful. The only time I’ve been hurt in a race car before this was cutting my hand on a sharp piece of metal. In fact, I don’t think I was in the car at the time, but working on it."
"You’re a mechanic, then, I take it?"
"I never had much formal training at it, other than what I picked up in the Army," I told him. "It’s all been hands-on experience over the last ten years, but I know how to do most everything that needs to be done to a car. Well, maybe except for automatic transmissions. I’ve never had to work on them, but I know the principles."
"I suppose that you pick up things like that better on the job than you would in a classroom, anyway," he commented.
"Well, yes and no," I told him. "There’s nothing that beats hands on experience when it comes to working on cars, but you about to have to have someone to point the way for you or you don’t learn very efficiently. There has to be somebody you can ask, ‘Hey, how do you do this?’ You remember it better when you’re doing it than you do looking at a chalk board. I taught auto shop for most of a semester up in Livonia, just as a substitute teacher, and I think I learned more from it than the kids did. Chalk board talks are fine but working on something is better."
"Have you done a lot of teaching?" he asked with a smile.
"Not a whole lot," I told him. "I’m an honors graduate of Milwaukee State, and I have Michigan and Wisconsin certifications, but all the teaching I’ve done has been substitute teaching while we were wintering over in Livonia for the last three years. We were only there usually from the middle of November through the first part of April before we went racing again. I was getting set to give up the racing and go looking for a regular teaching job when this happened. I wasn’t sure how much luck I was going to have finding one, though."
"So," he smiled, "If you had a teaching job you weren’t planning on running off to go racing in the spring again, I take it?"
"Not if I could help it," I said. "I’ve been thinking for a year or more that it’s time to grow up. I’ve got a girl here with me who, well, we haven’t talked about getting married, but I think we’re not far from it. I guess it’s gotten to the point where having things like a wife and family and a real job are more important to me. I’m frankly looking forward to getting out of this bed so I can do the next thing."
"Have you had any thoughts about any place you would like to teach?" he asked.
"Not really," I told him. "The only thing is that I’ve pretty well made up my mind that it might not be the brightest thing to be teaching somewhere around Livonia where my racer friends are wintering over. It might get a little too tempting, if you know what I mean."
"Yes, we have to avoid temptation where we can," he grinned. "How about other subjects? Could you teach anything but auto shop?
"My major was actually history and secondary education, so I suppose I could teach about anything involved with social studies," I told him. "I could probably make do as an English teacher. I pity any kid in any algebra class I ever subbed in who ever asked me a question about algebra. I understand it a little but not well enough to teach it. You have to understand that a substitute teacher sometimes can do a good job, but other times about all he can do is keep a class quiet."
"That’s always a problem," he smiled. "Mr. Austin, I think I’d better come clean with you. I’m the superintendent of the Bradford Consolidated School District. I’m going to tell you that you shouldn’t have much problem getting hired. Teachers are in short supply right now. Competent auto shop teachers who can fill in a session or two of other subjects are in even tighter supply."
"I’m glad to hear you say that," I told him. "It takes a load off my mind."
"Very good," he smiled. "Now you can take one off of mine. This morning, I was sitting over at Kay’s Restaurant downtown having a cup of coffee when a mutual acquaintance by the name of Smoky Kern came up to me and said, ‘Are you still looking for an auto shop teacher? You can find one in Room 202 at the hospital.’ Now, I’ve known Smoky for years and have always tried to remember to count my fingers after I’ve shaken hands with him. But the fact of the matter is that I have been looking since last winter for a competent auto shop teacher who’s certified, has some classroom experience, and can fill in with other subjects. You might as well know that this is the first place I came as soon as I set down my coffee cup. A math teacher would be ideal, but right at the moment I’m not picky. We can shuffle things around to make do. Otherwise, you seem to be just about everything I could ask for. Would you be interested in taking the job?"
I sure wasn’t expecting that! I had figured I would have to go looking for the job, not have the job come looking for me! "What kind of pay are we talking about?" I asked.
"The standard right now for a new teacher with no experience is $3500 per year, but since you have a year and a half’s worth of experience I think we can go $3800," he smiled. "I know you haven’t seen the facility. Our high school is old, but the auto shop is in a separate building, and I’m told it’s fairly well equipped."
I didn’t have to think about it at all. $3800 a year was considerably more than I had been making with the MMSA, although since a lot of my expenses were paid while racing I was in a practical sense making more than my paycheck. But $3800 a year was more yet. "I’m very interested," I told him. "I don’t want to give you a flat yes on it until I’ve talked to my girlfriend, and maybe had her take a look at the school, but if she’s willing, I’m willing."
"That sounds fair," he said. "You said your girlfriend is here in town with you?"
"She’s somewhere around the building," I replied. "She’s an RN working here temporarily as a nurse."
"Convenient, isn’t it?" he laughed. "Would you like me to hunt her down?"
"Not quite yet," I told him. "There’s a couple things that you and I probably ought to talk about. The first of them is that I’m here in a hospital bed. School starts in what? Three weeks? Four weeks? I’m going to be up and getting around by then, but I’ll probably still have casts on and using crutches."
"If you’re willing to start school like that I’m willing to let you," he replied.
"By then I’m going to be so tired of doing nothing that I’ll want to be doing something," I told him. "But I’m not bringing any lesson plans with me, for auto shop or anything else."
"I’m sure we can find something to get you going," he replied. "But you’ve got four weeks to get ready, and that should give you something to pass the time. Anything else?"
"The only thing I can think of is to look for my girlfriend. Like I said, she’s a nurse, her name is Arlene. She ought to be around here somewhere."
"Right here, Mel," she said, walking into the room. "I’ve been listening. Mel, take it. I’ve told you this isn’t a bad town, and we’ve been in a lot worse. I haven’t looked at the school other than drive past it, but it looks all right from the outside. They want me to stay here at the hospital, and I like it a lot better than the last place I worked. I think we could go to a lot of trouble to find a lot worse place to settle."
I turned my head toward the superintendent. "Like I said, Mr. Corrigan, if she’s willing, I’m willing. Does that sound willing to you?"
"Sounds pretty willing to me," he agreed.
"Then I guess you’ve got yourself an auto shop teacher."
* * *
"Well," I told Arlene after Mr. Corrigan left, after we’d talked a few more details, "I guess that pretty well settles that."
"Yes," she said, swinging around to sit on the side of the bed like a nurse isn’t supposed to do. Another thing a nurse isn’t supposed to do is to give their patient a big kiss, but she did that, anyway. Finally she pulled back and said, "I guess that changes things a little."
"It changes things a lot," I nodded. "Among other things, I think I just officially turned my back on the Midwest Midget Sportsman Association."
"I know you’ve been wanting to do that for a long time," she smiled. "I guess I just did, too. You get to doing something and it’s hard to give it up."
"Does that mean you’re going to stay here with me?"
"Of course it does, Mel. I told you I was going to stay with you, it’s just where, whether it was here or somewhere else that was up in the air. Here is just fine with me."
"I know you’ve more or less said that," I looked at her. "But I wanted to ask you directly. I hope I’m going to like it here. I haven’t seen anything of this town except the bit between the tourist court and the race track, and what I can see out the window, mostly sky, so I hope it’s as good as you’ve been saying."
"I think it is," she smiled. "Of course, I haven’t seen a lot of it yet, but I guess it’s pretty much like a lot of small towns. It’s a little, well, more rural than Schererville. That’s right there in the edge of the Chicago metro area, so there’s a big city close by, and I suppose that makes it a little more urban."
"I guess I know what you mean," I told her. "Without knowing a bit about it, I would guess that it’s a little more like Hartford than it is like Schererville."
"Not ever having seen Hartford, I’d probably guess you’re right," she said quietly. "But if Hartford is like other little towns I’ve seen in Nebraska, I’d say that Bradford’s probably a little less isolated."
I let out a sigh while I was trying to figure out how I wanted to say what I wanted to say. "From what little I know of small towns in this neck of the woods, you’re probably right. Look, I know this isn’t the accepted way to do this, but I think my nurse would raise hell with me if I tried to get out of bed right now. Arlene, will you marry me?"
I guess I shocked her pretty good with that. "What?" she said, her eyes snapping open in surprise.
"I know I’m supposed to be down on one knee, but it’s not going to happen today. Look, Arlene, I don’t know how it would have been in Schererville, but in Hartford if a teacher had tried to live with his girlfriend without being married to her they’d both be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. Even if they’re a little more progressive here, I doubt they’re all that much more progressive. Arlene, I’ve loved you for a year or more, but there just hasn’t been a way to say it, or a good time to say it since we were trying to stay apart for the sake of peace on the crew. You are without a doubt the finest woman I’ve met who’s really taken an interest in me. I think we’d both rather be a little more conventional about it, but under the circumstances I don’t think we can be. Come live with me and be my wife, Arlene. Let’s get married."
"Well, yes," she stammered. "I just wasn’t expecting it to be quite so, well . . . "
"Sudden?"
"Yes, sudden," she agreed. "Honestly, Mel, I hadn’t thought it out quite that far, but you’re right. There’s no point in getting off on the wrong foot in this town, especially the way we came into it like gypsies."
"The sooner, the better," I told her. "You probably have a better idea of how long I’m going to be in the hospital than I do, but we probably should do it just about as soon as I get out of here, just so nobody can think bad of us when we move into a place."
"Well, I’d still be your nurse, after all," she shrugged. "But I suppose you’re right. Under the circumstances, I doubt if anybody would split hairs over a couple of days, in any case."
"No point in looking for trouble," I told her. "So, what’s your guess about how much longer I’m going to be in here?"
"Oh, I’d say a week," she said. "We’re going to start to get you mobile, and that’ll make a big difference. You’re still going to be in the casts for six weeks to two months, but the leg cast can probably be changed to a walking cast before then. That’ll make it easier for you to get around."
"Just so you know, it’s going to mean that our love life is probably going to be a little limited until I’m rid of the damn things."
She got a huge grin on her face. "It’s not going to be as limited as you think," she laughed. "I’ve been waiting for a long time, and I’m not going to let a little plaster get in my way. I don’t think you’re going to have any reason to complain."
"I won’t complain," I told her. "I just won’t be able to do everything I’d like to do."
"Well, if we’re married, there’ll be plenty of time later for that," she laughed.
"We’ll just have to catch up," I grinned. "Now, while I’d love to lay here and tease you about that, we need to do some planning. With me laid up in bed, and then not being able to get around very well for a while, a lot is going to fall in your lap that normally I’d be doing, or at least have a part in. I mean, things like finding a place to stay."
"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "I hadn’t even considered that. What’s more, I don’t know how bad it’s going to be to find a furnished apartment. From what I know, the furniture in most of them usually isn’t very good anyway."
"Right," I agreed, "And I hadn’t even thought about that part of it. If Frank brought down the stuff that Vivian was keeping for me, well, that and what’s in the Ford are everything I own. I suppose you’re pretty close to the same thing."
"A little better," she replied. "I have some things back in Schererville. Of course, some of my clothes go back as far as high school, so there’s not much useful. You’re right, we’re a long way from being able to set up an apartment or a house. We don’t have any dishes or any cookware, for example."
"There’s a couple pans and a coffee pot in the camping gear in the Ford," I told her. "I used to heat up a can of beans or something once in a while, but I haven’t done it recently. It’s always been too easy to just go to the nearest greasy spoon for breakfast or whatever. I sure hope you’re a better cook than me."
"I’m a lousy cook," she said. "I never had any practice. When I was living in the dorm at Milwaukee State we had a hot plate, and I occasionally heated a can of soup or something like you, but that’s about the extent of my cooking."
"I’m not going to retract my offer to marry you over something like that," I told her with a grin. "I’ve opened a few cans here and there when I’ve been batching it with the guys over the winter. I guess you can say I run a mean can opener."
"Oh, we’ll make do," she sighed. "Since neither of us is much better than that then there aren’t many pots and pans we’ll need right away."
"See, you find the bright side to everything," I told her. "But as to what I was saying, you’re going to have to be the one to do all this stuff, like finding an apartment or a small house, finding furniture, finding all the other stuff we need. Hell, right now I can’t take you to bed when we get home because we don’t have a bed. I had a few things like that up through last winter, but Dewey and Pepper and I gave them to Rocky and Ariel when they got married, mostly to get it all out of our hair. Nothing was worth much of anything, anyway."
"All right," she agreed. "I’ll see what I can do. You’re just going to have to rely on my judgment on some of this."
"Whatever you decide will be pretty much all right with me, under the circumstances," I told her. "You can spend what you need to out of my money, but I’d say to not spend it all. Something may go to worms and we may need something to fall back on."
"It’s not going to be that expensive," she shrugged, "unless we decide to buy a house."
"Let’s not right now, unless we absolutely have to," I told her. "I know that takes a little time to work out the details, and we don’t have that much time if I’m getting out of here in a week or so. You and I both qualify for VA loans, so being able to buy a house when the time comes isn’t going to be a big problem. I’d guess we’d better not do that just yet. After all, something could go wrong with this job, you never know. They may decide they don’t want me after all, and then where would we be?"
"You’ve probably got a point," she agreed. "But I can’t help thinking that if we had a house then it would be that much harder for us to get up and go when next spring comes around and we both want to go racing."
"There is that," I agreed. "But we’re about going to have to find something soon. We’ve got quite a while before next spring rolls around; we might want to do something different by then."
"All right," she said. "We’ll have to talk about it if it turns out that our only choice is to buy a place. I guess I’ll start looking around after I go off shift tonight. Maybe I’ll ask around a little, Beverly or somebody may know of something. You realize I’m not going to be around as much as I’d like to be after work, don’t you?"
"That’s part of the price I’m going to have to pay," I smiled. "It’ll be worth it in the long run. Oh, and Arlene?"
"Yes?"
"Is there a jeweler in this town?"
"I think I noticed one, I haven’t been in there."
"Why don’t you stop off and pick yourself out an engagement ring? I can’t do it very well, and you’ll know more about what you want than I do."
"You’ve got it soft, you know?" she laughed. "You get to lie in that bed and read magazines while I do all the work, but there are limits. We can hold off on a ring until you can come with me. I realize that we haven’t had exactly the most romantic of romances, but I at least want that little bit."
"All right," I sighed. "Have it your way. You will, anyway."
"You read your magazines," she laughed. "I do have other patients I have to care for, although I don’t have any that I care about as much."
She headed back out of the room, and I turned back to Gus and the Model Garage. I had completely lost the thread of the story. An awful lot had happened in my life between two paragraphs.