Worthwhile Morons

I don’t exactly remember when I became a Ford racing car, sometime in my youth, maybe eight, nine years old. Denny, my best friend and three hundred fifty eight days older than me, was a Chevy with a deep rumbling sound signifying raw power. Must have been because he had his tonsils out. My engine sounded kind of high and whiny; mine were still in.

We didn’t come by these auto designations by happenstance; my father drove a Fairlane, Denny’s an Impala. Because only one Ford and one Chevy were allowed in any race, my younger brother and lesser friends were relegated to Dodges, Buicks, Pontiacs, Mercurys and something called a Studebaker; the kid was weird.

We all lived in an abandoned military base plopped into the county’s lap after the government decided it no longer had need for it. The complex consisted of thirty putrid-green barracks converted to apartments. Each family was charged rent according to its means, and the population was a surprisingly congenial mix of varied ethnicities; probably because nobody had anything valuable enough to lord over anybody else.

Denny and I were pre-teen gods. Without us the neighborhood brats were aimless. I guess we could have been labeled benevolent dictators. But make no mistake; Denny was boss, I was underboss. I don’t remember who died and made him king; he just was. Come to think of it, his size might have been a determining factor. He was the brawn and I was the brain, although I must admit he came up with the Saturday races idea.

A race consisted of laps around Denny’s apartment building. Most races were ten laps long. Special ones were fifteen laps around the seventy-five foot long structure. Mrs. Brakken, Denny’s old and crabby neighbor, hated us kids. Especially when we raced around her building. She had always been cranky, but when her husband Horace ran off with the meter reader she turned absolutely psycho. But to be honest, which I am at least eighty percent of the time, we did sound like a horde of testosterone-laden bumblebees.

Our last race fell into the special category, named The Boogaloo Memorial after Denny’s dead dog. Ol’ Boog ran in front of Woodrow’s garbage truck. It was a sad day when he died, but I must admit it was the most efficient tragedy that I’ve ever seen. The garbage man simply jumped out of his truck, shovel in hand, scooped up Boog, guts and all, threw him in the back of the truck, then continued on like nothing happened.

I know, because I saw him. I happened to be standing on a trashcan checking on my neighbor, Tiffany Farrar. Eighteen and fresh out of high school, Tiffany undressed with little regard to the status of the window blinds. I’d climbed on the can because I thought I’d heard my name… well, anyway, I heard screeching tires and turned just in time to see Denny’s dog, flat as a pancake, lying under the giant truck’s front wheel.

The only time gimpy-legged Woodrow ever moved faster was when Tiffany’s sixty-five-year-old father, Cicero Hilliard Farrar, left a color TV by the curb, which went into the garbage truck’s cab faster than the human eye could follow.

The Boogaloo race began with smaller cars and those with heavy-duty chassis in the lead. Denny and I, always fair to a fault, allotted them a three-lap handicap. We were on the fifth lap, me in fourth place drafting behind Carlos with Denny on my tail, when Mrs. Brakken stuck her head out her bathroom window.

"Get out of my yard!" she screamed.

Denny pulled up beside me. "Keep going," he said. "She’s probably sitting on the pot."

"Yeah, we gave her the runs," I said.

"No, probably constipated more like it."

We made two more laps and I had just eased into the lead, rounding the corner of the building proud of myself, when I ran smack-dab into Mrs. Brakken. Her being as big as she was, I bounced back, landing on my rear bumper. She towered over me with arms crossed under her ample bosom, her shadow swallowing me whole. At that precise moment the wind ballooned her dress, and I glimpsed a sight that haunts me to this day.

"I told you to get out of my yard," she barked.

"Uh… it’s just a race, Mrs. Brakken," I muttered.

With big droopy eyes and avalanching jowls, she bore a striking resemblance to my grandfather’s English bulldog.

"A race? Morons are what you are. Mindless delinquents who’ll never amount to nothin’. You all should be doing something worthwhile. Now get out of my yard."

"Ma’am," Denny interjected, "you’re the only one who complains. Your neighbors don’t--"

"I don’t care what the neighbors think. Just go!"

Denny decided we should take an extended pit stop to discuss our dilemma, and fifteen cars gathered around us in front of his apartment. "Let’s just go home," one of them said.

"No, we have to finish," said another. "We owe it to Boogaloo. Nobody snatched a Frisbee like Boog."

"Elroy, Boogaloo is a Frisbee now," I said. "He won’t know if we race or not."

"I know," said Denny. "Let’s go to the park and race around the lake."

Weller Park, named after a dead mayor and full of pines and large grassy areas, was situated about a quarter mile north. I wouldn’t call the water there a lake, more like a lily pad infested pond maybe sixty, seventy feet long.

Deciding three warm-up laps were enough, we lined up behind the pace car, Denny’s five-year-old brother. I came out of the third turn abreast of the Chevy and noticed the neighborhood bully, Darren Bolen, messing with three small kids standing a few feet from the water going into the fourth turn. As we passed, I yelled at Darren to leave the kids alone. I was mouthy with Denny around to back me up.

He yelled back, "Shut up, moron."

We made another half lap, me in second place drafting behind Denny. Coming out of the third turn again, I heard a mix of screams and laughter. As I got closer I could see it was Darren laughing, cackling at a white-haired little girl thrashing around in the water. He had tossed her into the pond and the other kids were screaming for help.

I can’t explain why I veered toward the girl in the water running as fast as my legs could carry me. I just did. Kind of like going to the bathroom; when the urge hits you just gotta go. No thinking to it.

Darren ran off toward the complex. Half the cars took after him, and half followed me. I splashed into the water running toward the girl in slow motion, my feet sinking into the pond bottom muck, lily pads grabbing at my arms.

Six feet in I remembered I couldn’t swim, and realized the girl and I were in the same boat, so to speak. Suddenly the sloping bottom left me and I began thrashing, legs kicking, arms flailing in an attempt to keep my head above water. The girl, sporting roller coaster eyes, reached out with what seemed like eight-foot arms, grabbed my shirt and yanked herself to me, tattooing her body against mine. Then we began to sink, green water invading every hole in my body. I remember a random thought that this must be what it looks like from inside a giant vat of lime Jello.

Everything was fading when my feet unexpectedly found solid ground. I pushed off the bottom and sprang through the surface, gasping and spitting.

Denny, the end link of a human chain, had grabbed my collar and pulled us into shallow water. We made it to shore with me still in the petrified girl’s death grip. I peeled her off, and she slumped to the grass. She seemed okay, the blue in her lips fading. Un-hero-like tears began flowing down my cheeks, and I quickly wiped them away before Denny could see them.

I don’t know who called the ambulance, but there it came bouncing across the grassy picnic area like a neighborhood ice cream truck on drugs. The siren merged with the noise from an audience of heckling ducks to produce quite a racket. The red and blue box-on-wheels careened to a stop and the attendants jumped out, brushing Denny and me aside.

We began walking home in silence, drenched, exhausted, and relieved.

"Denny?"

"Yeah, Rick?"

"I’ve been called a moron before, but never two times in one day, have you?"

He chuckled. "No, you’ve got the record, bud."

"Do I look dumb or something?"

Denny stopped, inspected me for a long moment, and then started walking again. "I don’t really know what dumb looks like, Rick."

"I do."

"Oh, yeah? Tell me what dumb looks like."

"My brother’s purple fire hydrant Halloween costume looked dumb."

Denny giggled. "You gotta point, but we’re talking about people. Put five nekkid people against a wall, then pick out the dumb ones."

Denny surprised me. He was smarter than I’d thought. But then again, I was probably stronger than he gave me credit for.
"You think Mrs. Brakken called us morons because of our clothes?"

"Who knows why adults say what they say? Not me, that’s for sure."

"Me, either."

We were almost to Denny’s house. Good thing, too. Purple cotton candy clouds had barged in front of the sun, turning the world windy and cold, and my teeth were about to vibrate out of my head with my wet clothes and all.

"Denny?"

"Yeah?"

"Mrs. Brakken said we should be doing something worthwhile. Any idea what she meant by that?"

"Nope."