by Shey Stahl
We may be aging but we still dealt with the same shit of being interrupted all the time and my siblings annoying me.
Bailey smiled my way when she walked in.
“Jameson.” She greeted with a giggle. “At least your pants are on this time.”
“Nice to see you Bailey,” I grunted in a snipped response as I looked back over my shoulder at Sway. “You better be home later, Sway.”
“I will.” She agreed with a nod. “Don’t forget that Spencer and Alley are coming over for dinner tonight.”
“How could I forget?” I rolled my eyes and nearly stumbled down the stairs.
I wasn’t pleased about being interrupted nor was I comfortable for obvious reasons. This just meant I was holding her to a night in our room.
Since Axel was born, we’d lived in the same house on Lake Norman and it was time for a new one now that the kids were growing up. We’d been looking at land for a while and decided to build on a piece of property about ten miles from the sprint car shop in Mooresville that we purchased a few years back after I won the Monster Million.
The Monster Million was an All-Star race held at the Monster Mile in Dover Delaware the last few years, which consisted of twenty-five drivers randomly chosen by fans. I really enjoyed that race because it was held on a Saturday night and involved no points. It was probably the most destructive race but entertaining.
I won last year which helped my salary quite a bit.
The property we purchased was a 230-acre plot with sweeping hills, trees and a lake that got the name ‘Shark Lake’ after Tommy thought it’d be funny to put a small shark in there. The shark died naturally from unsalted waters but not before Spencer had a close encounter.
With the help of family, friends, and a handful of construction workers who I paid entirely too much, we had the house completed by the end of the year and Emma decorating it for us the very next week. Sway never got into decorating that much. My annoyingly helpful sister Emma was all about decorating so that’s what she did.
With that much land, we pieced off sections and gave them to Emma and Aiden, Alley and Spencer, and my parents who were now all in the process of building their own homes. It was my way of showing them my appreciation for them all these years. I even gave Tommy, my partner in my sprint car team, a piece to build on. He in turn decided to put a doublewide mobile home on it. Not judging here, but really? A mobile home when you can build any home you want. Again, I’m not judging.
Okay, well it may have had something to do with my wife and her basically saying it was the right thing to do to keep the family close.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want them close. I loved all my family but I didn’t like any of them. Those that were around my siblings and me together understand that we clashed on most occasions.
Having a tractor now, I busied myself for close to three hours around the property and the new dirt track we’d built before Sway called and summoned me back to the house where Spencer and Alley were pulling in the driveway.
Did I mention I had a tractor?
All my life I had wanted a John Deer tractor. Not sure why, but I did. Now I had one and made use of it by playing jokes on Spencer and Aiden, mostly Aiden.
Aiden was obsessed with his lawn. Most of the property we had was still being developed but Aiden’s lawn looked like a fucking golf course you’d see in the Hamptons. Crazy bastard had these set schedules of watering it, fertilization, and if I was honest with you, I think he talked to it too.
Me being the instigating shit I could be, fucked with him and his lawn. Weekly, I dumped a scoop full of fresh North Carolina dirt in the middle of his lawn. He wondered for weeks where it came from. When he caught onto that, I had to think of better ways to ruin it for him. When you live your life in the fast lane, it’s nice to relax every now and then and just fuck with people.
My family took the brunt of that. Spencer soon got in on it too when he figured out what I was doing and each week after our team meeting at the shop on Tuesday morning, we had a secret meeting and decided on what we’d do to Aiden’s lawn that week.
Before Spencer showed up, I dumped a gallon of bleach around Aiden’s lawn and then snuck back over to our house just in time to see Spencer getting out of his truck.
“Where’d you get that truck?” I asked Spencer looking over his newly polished set of wheels. Once a year he bought himself a car. This year it seemed to be a new truck that looked as though he was trying to prove his manhood. “What happened to the F350 I gave you?”
For the eighteen years I’d been racing in the NASCAR Cup series, I’ve raced Fords. Because of this Ford offered me a new vehicle of my choice every year. Because I never needed them, I gave them away as presents to family and friends.
“Oh, well,” he looked over his shoulder, his black wavy hair swept into his eyes when the wind picked up. “I gave that to Lane to use for a few weeks. This is actually Alley’s.”
“Nice. Where’s Lane?”
“He had practice and then didn’t feel like going anywhere.” Lane, my oldest nephew was racing dirt bikes these days. Unlike the rest of our family, he chose two wheels instead of four.
Spencer chuckled looking at my jeans. “Where’d the spots come from?”
Looking down I noticed my mistake. Some of the bleach had gotten on my jeans. “Uh, nowhere,”
He shoved my shoulder. “Dude, wait for me next time. I had this great idea that we could hide his lawn care tools. He would go ballistic.”
“Yeah,” I nodded with a chuckle thinking of the time we took his wash bucket he used to wash his 1954 GMC. Then, when he walked inside the house to look for it, Spencer and I replaced it in the garage and hid in the bushes to see him find it an hour later right where he always put it. From then on, he was convinced he was losing his memory. Even went to the doctor a couple times to rule out the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Spencer and I used this to our advantage and would tell him things that never happened followed up with the statement of, “Oh, you must have forgotten.”
He hated that.
Spencer and I looked over the truck for a few minutes when Casten, the youngest of my three kids, appeared at the end of the driveway in a pair of board shorts.
“Does he ever wear clothing?” Alley laughed reaching inside the back of the truck for what appeared to be a salad that she had made.
Cole jumped down from the overly large truck and smiled at me before saying. “He never wears clothes. Why start now?”
Cole and Casten took off to the backyard where the pool was being finished. For now, it was a skateboard park for the boys and a very large hospital bill waiting to happen.
“Jameson,” Sway watched them dig out their skateboards from the garage. “That doesn’t look safe.”
“Logan’s not here. It’s safe.”
“Good point.” She pushed a pile of steaks into my chest. “Get to cooking, champ.”
Having just come off my fifteenth NASCAR Cup Championship, my wife and family frequently called me champ. If I was being honest, I liked it.
I caught her by the wrist balancing the plate of steaks in my left hand. “You have so much to make up for tonight.”
She grinned and purposefully licked her lips backing away across the slate patio, her hand lingered on my forearm. “Oh I plan to.” She caught notice of my jeans after that. “I’d change before Aiden comes over. He’ll notice.”
She had a very good point. Hide the evidence.
Sway disappeared to the kitchen with Alley when the rest of the family showed up. I thought it was just Spencer and Alley coming over tonight but it turned out, as with any given night we were all in town together, my sister Emma showed up as did my parents. Before Aiden came outside, I changed out of my bleach stained jeans so he wouldn’t notice.
It was both nice and horrible having a large family since Sway’s parents were both gone. Her biggest fear was growing old without a family. A family is what we had.
Co
ngregating around our dining room, I listened to the boys arguing. Axel, our eldest son, wasn’t here tonight because he was at Volusia Speedway doing promotional appearances for the upcoming season. This past winter came with not only the announcement of my dad retiring from racing, but with the news that my son would be taking over his legendary ride in the World of Outlaws. I had mixed emotions over that as did Sway.
Most of the time was spent listening to Casten and Cole making the night eventful. Thankfully, Emma and Aiden’s twin boys were at a friend’s house and not instigating these two.
My daughter Arie, our middle child, and Spencer and Alley’s daughter, Alexis, were somewhere on these two hundred acres but who knew where they were. They usually found entertainment where grown-ups weren’t. Being sixteen-year-old girls, you can imagine their love for their parents.
They, at least, showed up for dinner and then I knew they’d be out again. Sway and I tried to get her to be friendly but she thought we were the least cool people and rolled her eyes every chance she could.
“I tried calling to see what I should bring but you didn’t answer.” Emma said to Sway as she shuffled a few dishes from the kitchen onto the table. “And by the way, change that street name. It’s inappropriate.”
“I think I lost my phone again,” Sway shrugged, “and you have to talk to Jameson about the street names. He had the signs made, not me.”
“We are not changing anything!” I yelled into the kitchen smiling at Spencer.
Tommy, Spencer and I got together one night, albeit drunk, and made street signs on a website Sway had found. When they arrived, everyone excluding us boys thought they were vulgar, rude and apparently now, inappropriate. I didn’t think they were that bad. Who wouldn’t want to live on a street named Poontown? I didn’t but Tommy did. We lived on Victory Lane naturally. Spencer lived on Chasing Tail and Aiden and Emma lived on Vag Hill. I knew eventually they’d take those down but it was funny to me.
“What’d your dad say about it?” Cole whispered to Casten as they took a seat around the table.
Casten shot Cole a frantic look.
“He didn’t say anything.” Casten whispered back and smiled up at me avoiding his cousin. “How’s the shop coming along, dad? Did you get the lifts installed?”
“What did you do now?” I asked sitting down beside Sway. She gave me a wink when my hand brushed her thigh under the table.
“Why do you automatically assume I did anything wrong?” Casten smiled as though he’d just won the lottery. “Maybe I did something right?”
Let me tell you something about my youngest son. He was here on earth for a good time and nothing would stop him. And everything, I mean everything, was funny to him.
Spencer, who was sitting on the other side of me, looked at Cole. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut for one evening?” His voice took on a fatherly tone but still lacked authority and I knew what’d happened. He’d put the boys up to something and it backfired.
Casten raised his hand.
“Why are you raising your hand?” Sway asked just about the time my parents entered the dining room with a few dishes of what looked to be pasta salad and pie. The girls followed close behind them holding their phones a few inches from the faces.
Casten shrugged and smiled at Sway. “It seemed appropriate given the circumstances. I wanted to plead my side of the case before it went to trial.”
“Weirdo,” Sway mumbled scooping salad onto her plate. “Stop watching those court shows. You don’t even know what you’re talking about and no, at fourteen you cannot be Tommy’s attorney.”
“I didn’t ask to be his attorney.” Casten laughed and leaned back in his chair preparing for an argument. He lived for this shit. “But if he needed me to support him through his legal battles, I would help. A good friend would.”
My eyes drifted to Sway’s ass as she leaned over the table to pull the steaks closer.
Damn I wished we wouldn’t have been interrupted earlier. Maybe no one would notice if I took her inside the bathroom. Who was I kidding? Everyone would notice. They always noticed which was precisely why we were always being interrupted.
“You two never listen to all the directions I give you. If you would, you wouldn’t get caught so often.” Spencer pointed to the boys as though he was giving a lecture. “You need to get good at coming up with lies to protect yourself.”
“Don’t tell them that!” My mom scolded him, “they are good nice boys. Don’t teach them to lie.”
“Clearly you’re not talking about these two,” my dad, Jimi snorted pouring sauce over his steak. “They lie worse than politicians.”
“Back to the point,” gaining focus, I spoke up before I drug my wife upstairs. “What did you guys do that backfired?”
Casten raised his hand again and then broke out into giggles. With his flushed cheeks, bright green eyes and contagious smile, it was hard not to find him funny.
“Stop raising your hand and answer me.”
“In my defense, I didn’t know it was illegal.”
Cole coughed appearing to choke on his Pepsi he’d taken a drink from, “That’s bullshit.”
My mom gasped covering her mouth at their language.
“All right,” Casten threw his arms in the air, “I spray painted the mascot at school today.”
“How is that illegal?” Sway asked knowing we’d done that a time or two back in school.
“Well,” Casten took on a formal upright posture folding his hands on the table. “This dumbass beside me,” he tipped his head to Spence, “...also known as my uncle Spencer,” Spencer’s eyes widened, his fork falling to his plate, “...told me that if I managed to paint the horse too, he’d give me fifty bucks. I needed some extra cash.”
Spencer grabbed a handful of grapes from the middle of the table and tossed them at Casten’s face. “I’m not helping you anymore.”
“Spencer!” My mom balked, “what were you thinking?”
“Wait,” I waved my hands around trying to grasp what happened. “How is that illegal?”
“Uh, well, apparently that horse at school is a police horse.”
“Jesus, were you arrested?” Sway asked.
“No, I’m a minor but I do have detention until the end of school.” He looked up at Sway using his pouty face that he had perfected for her. “Can I be home schooled? I’m clearly not suitable for public schools.”
Casten constantly argued that he needed to be home schooled. We weren’t buying it nor did either of us have time to home school him.
“No, you can’t be home schooled. How come the school didn’t call me today?”
“I’m pretty sure they did.” Casten’s eyebrows rose in amusement. “You can’t find your phone again, remember?”
He was ballsy, I’ll give him that, but I wasn’t convinced and he wasn’t getting off the hook that easy.
“Listen,” I pointed to Casten taking on my own fatherly tone to which Spencer chuckled, “you’re thirteen...or fourteen...whatever...you’re still a child and shouldn’t be doing shit like this.”
“Jameson,” Spencer interrupted. “Take it easy on him. It was a crap shot to begin with and that little shit Devin told on him. If it wasn’t for him he would have never got caught painting the horse. Which I might add wasn’t in uniform. How were we to know it was a police horse?”
“You were there too?” I gasped.
Casten clapped slowly with a smirk. “Well played jackass,” he said throwing the grapes back at him, “you nearly had him convinced.”
Sitting beside Casten, Arie, who’d remained glued to her phone, glared at him. “Stop throwing shit around the table.”
Arie didn’t eat meat. She wasn’t a vegetarian but didn’t actively eat meat. So Casten knowing how to fluster his older sister took a steak from the plate and threw it onto her plate over her salad.
She eyed the offensive meat carefully and then looked at Casten, “and you wonder why, when you were younger, I
dressed you like a girl.”
“Real mature Casten,” Spencer added attempting to cause a war between my kids. He knew how to play the game with them. Problem was that I could start a war with his too. He just didn’t realize that I was behind the majority of their fights.
“Hey, I’m thirteen...or fourteen...or whatever. I’m immature and too young to know the difference,” Casten replied cutting into his steak and then purposefully chewing as loudly as he could to annoy Arie. “I don’t think maturity has kicked in yet. More than likely it’ll come in sometime after commonsense, which I seem to be lacking too. After all,” he paused and smiled, “I did paint a police horse.”
“Or it may never,” Emma added speaking for the first time in this argument. Up until now, she and Aiden has remained quiet watching with smiles on their faces. They probably had the worst kids out of all of us so I could only assume this was a nightly occurrence for them. Emma continued to chew her food slowly gesturing to Spencer and me with her fork. “It never kicked in for Jameson and Spencer. So, it might not for you either.”
Though I wasn’t entertained by Emma’s remarks, I had to laugh at how much our family was changing. It’s strange to me how when something in your life begins, you think about what it will be like twenty years later, at least I did. Now here I was, almost twenty years since Sway and I got together. It was similar to what I imagined but paled in comparison to what it really was.
“I know what I want to be when I grow up,” Casten announced out of nowhere carrying plates into the kitchen for Sway.
I wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question or not, but decided to reply when he stood next to me, “That’s great buddy. You’re only thirteen, way to have your life figured out.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m fourteen. How do you always forget my age?”
“Whatever, what do you want to be?”
“A lawyer, with the amount of times you’ve been arrested; my sister and her poor choices in men and my uncles, I think it’d be beneficial to our family.”
