The Legend

by Shey Stahl

  Kyle stayed away for about ten minutes when he came inside. “The guys need to get to work on the back-up car bud.”

  That was his way of breaking the silence. Jameson nodded with his head for the guys to come in. Scooting closer to me his arm wrapped around my shoulder drawing me into him.

  “Don’t do this Jameson. Talk to us.” Kyle was still worked up, his tone evident of that. “Tell us what we can do to help you in the car.”

  Once again, Jameson said nothing but a blank stare that reminded me of his time in the hospital.

  “If you hear me Jameson, say something!” Kyle yelled showing more anger than he intended to. “I need you to…” his voice faded when Jameson straightened his stance and removed himself from being wrapped around me.

  And I knew why. He had hit a nerve.

  Kyle wanted Jameson to talk to him and he was about to.

  “I fucking hear you.” He growled with a bitter laugh forcing amusement into his tone. His gaze swept to Kyle with anger. “I hear everyone. Just stop already.” Jameson then hurled the pile of merchandise setting on the counter next to him. The crew guys that had made their way in stopped and gaped at him. “I can’t do it! I’m not feeling the car, I have no idea what’s happening to it or changes that should be made. Something feels off to me and I can’t place it. Imagine how that makes me feel right now! All my life I’ve raced and known exactly what’s happening in any car I’ve been inside. There’s never been a time when I didn’t know. Now what do I do? I can barely read the fucking gauges let alone feel how the car is handling. So yeah Kyle, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  The words were spoken with a vulnerability that was harsh and cutting, reminding us of our deepest fears. Jameson was scared inside the car.

  Nothing more was said by anyone.

  Later that night, I made Jameson his favorite meal before a race and we sat outside the motor coach talking with Bobby and Paul as Casten provided the entertainment. Crazy kid always knew how to lighten the mood.

  Standing near the side, I laughed at Casten dancing around to some hip hop song as he impersonated Brody at driver introductions from the All Star race two weeks ago.

  Tate came by again and sat next to Jameson.

  “It sure is nice to see your brooding ass back here.” Tate said with a genuine smile at Jameson.

  “It’s good to be back.” Jameson returned the smile. “Thanks again for helping Sway and Kyle so much.”

  “Hey, no problem,” He shifted his weight in the chair appearing comfortable. “How are you feeling these days?”

  “Good.” Jameson nodded. “A little sore but it’s good. Have you seen Easton?”

  “Yeah, I saw him this morning. He’s fine, really he is.” Tate assured Jameson.

  Jameson felt bad but Easton Levi went back to racing in the Nationwide series upon his return. Easton knew it wasn’t a full time ride going into it. But he still felt bad that the kid got a taste of the big time only to be back in Nationwide.

  “Don’t worry about it man,” Tate said. “Easton has a bright future ahead of him and he knows that.”

  Rusty, a driver known for having an attraction to me that Jameson despised, gave me a head nod and bumped my shoulder when we walked past me. I smiled but offered no outward greeting but could see my husband scowling from his place slouched in a chair beside Bobby.

  He appeared as if he wanted to say something but remained quiet and looked the other way avoiding Rusty as he tried to make small talk.

  When everyone had left that night, I found myself wrapped in Jameson’s arms as he stared at the ceiling.

  “I don’t know what to say to you sometimes. I want to help you but I don’t think you need help. Do you?”

  “I don’t need anyone’s help.” His voice was cold but held the love I always knew. He wasn’t angry with me. “All that I’m asking for is for people to give me time.”

  I said nothing more and he nodded as though he appreciated that I wasn’t pushing him to talk.

  “Thank you,” he finally said his voice softer as his lips found my forehead in the darkness. “It helps knowing someone understands me. I feel like I’m alone in this until I look at you.”

  “I know you’re scared but I’m not giving up on you. I won’t let you give up either. We won’t let you.”

  He looked at me knowing what I meant when I said we. Our eyes locked.

  “I feel like now that I’m back that it’s everything that it was before, always twisting the truth to make it what they want but no one sees it for what it is. It doesn’t matter what I say to them to defend myself. My actions have been, and always will be, irrelevant and twisted. I’ll never understand why they try to paint a picture to a scene they’ll never understand. Just like with Brody today. He had no idea the frustrations I was feeling inside that car. It didn’t matter to him anymore than it matter to the media.”

  “I know baby.” Twisting in his arms, my chin rested on his chest watching his tired eyes. There’s times when no words need to be spoken. It’s a time when you just remember. You remember that life has a way of rearranging and uplifting everything you had ever known. You don’t know why or even how but it happened. I knew that Jameson would eventually find his groove again. He may be hanging out on the apron right now but he’d venture up to the high side again, with time, and in his own way.

  When my fingers traced the band of his boxers, he smiled halfheartedly and turned on his side, his hands roaming my body.

  “I absolutely hate it when I see another man touch you.” His fingers dug into my skin, his stare penetrating. “Instantly it’s like a sharp knife to my chest that he touched something that belongs to me.”

  “Wow,” I laughed when his body came in full contact with mine, his weight settling on me. “I see you haven’t lost your possessive side.”

  “Honey,” his lips found mine. “I’ll always be possessive of something that means the world to me.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He pulled back to look at me. “Please don’t ask me to hit you again.”

  “I won’t.” I returned the smile that he offered. “What made you write that letter to me?”

  His brow pulled together, an emotion I hadn’t seen in a while settled over him. “You needed to know and I wasn’t sure I could get it out…through spoken words.”

  The hand that was cupping my cheek traveled down my arm, over my hip and then moved behind my knee hitching it up higher on his hip. Groaning at the contact, I knew what he wanted when I felt the camshaft lifting.

  In the shadows of the night, in his arms, I let him know that though he was scared, I was here to give him a little air pressure adjustment if needed.

  The morning of the race, the crew diligently prepared the back-up car for inspection. They said little and kept focused until the car was pushed through inspection and on the grid waiting.

  Though Jameson said nothing at first, he appreciated everything they had done for him over the last six months, and this weekend. The real display came when for the first time in the six months, Jameson walked inside the hauler the day of a race for the team meeting.

  They understood him, in an idolizing solidarity, his team, respected that here was a man, on the floor, calling out to them for support and here they were offering what they could. Respect for what he’d overcome. Respect for him running the apron.

  Jameson let out an emotional chuckle when the team huddled around him, patting his back and shaking his hand. I could see the emotion in his eyes that told me exactly what he was feeling. The guilt, the heavy burden was lifted a little that afternoon.

  There was something that most never considered, and something I knew when Jameson walked to the grid that afternoon, and that was that Jameson wouldn’t back down. Scrapping for every position, he drove smart and maintained that instinctive hunger inside a championship driver. That hadn’t changed.

  Apron – Jameson

  I was tense and on
edge when I got inside the car. I had to blink the perspiration out of my eyes just to see the gauges that I couldn’t see even if I needed to. I kept moving in the car, feeling uncomfortable and sore. My body was burning from the exertion and sweating from the heat of the afternoon.

  “Come back in.” Kyle said twenty laps into the Coca-Cola 600. “We’re draggin’ a bumper bar through three and four.”

  Just like practice, it was hard to feel the car.

  If you counted the duels, the Budweiser Shootout and the All-Star race, I had been gone for fifteen races. That’s not easy on a driver, or the crew who had been dealing with one personality all year and now had a completely different one to deal with now.

  I knew eventually we’d get it but it was frustrating for many when we weren’t communicating like we had in the past.

  When it was time, getting back into the racing groove wasn’t hard. Having lived this lifestyle for the last forty some years, it was like coming home.

  After the headaches, blurred vision, sensitivity to lights, nausea, confusion, irritability and intensive physical therapy on my shoulder and core that I had endured over the last four months...racing was easy compared to that.

  When the doctors told me, “You’ll be out for the season.” I laughed at them.

  No injury would keep me away that long. But it did knock me out of contention for another championship and six months of the season.

  Distracted by the rush of everything, I also knew there was a part of me, deep down, that wasn’t sure this was what I wanted anymore. The morning of the race I watched the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, the tools, all looking for an answer I didn’t have but one. I wanted to retire.

  Part of me, and I wasn’t sure how much, knew that I would feel this way eventually. I saw the change in my dad the last few years he raced. It happens. You see it more often in the kids that start racing at a very young age. At some point in their life, they wonder if they would have interest in anything else. I knew my interest was in racing but for me, things had changed.

  You still live for the sport but there comes a time when it’s not all that matters any longer.

  Though I saw the fear in her eyes and touch, Sway would never ask me to retire because she knew damn well if she did, I would. We experienced that back in 2003 when I nearly walked away from everything because of Darrin.

  But my wife knew me better than anyone. She knew this wasn’t an easy decision for me. Look how many years it took me to discover my feelings for her. I should have known the decision to retire wouldn’t be any easier on me. But I think it’s been coming for a while.

  My dad used to say to me pointing to his chest. “Son, if you don’t feel it here, you don’t feel it there.”

  Memories can be a bitch sometimes. Every time I thought it couldn’t hurt anymore, it did and it reminded me that his memory was still very real. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I didn’t want to forget.

  Apron – Sway

  The race had fallen into a comfortable grove with the occasional shuffle. Teams pit windows had come up and the talk became strategy.

  If you were on the outside when pit lane came up, it could easily end in disaster. Jameson sometimes had a habit of running high which meant he ran into the problem of getting across traffic down on the apron to pit lane.

  My fingernails disappeared quickly as did the pretzel in my hand, the nervous energy was pliable all around us and it seemed it was radiating from me in waves.

  The race started up again after pit stops, building with intensity that all night races had. Brody got a nose under Jameson and took seventh from him. Jameson brushed the wall but kept control and managed to get back seventh when Brody rubbed against Paul and drew the caution.

  Every race is different. Different patterns, different rhythms but they all have their own feel. This one in particular had its own feel. The cameras remained in Jameson’s car through the weekend and every chance they got the reporting broadcasting station was analyzing every shift in the car Jameson made and every outburst he had too. This seemed to be every twenty laps when something wouldn’t go his way.

  “Good jump out of two. Nice move bud.”

  “I’m starving. Please tell me this race is almost over?” Jameson asked surprising us. It was the first hint of laughter we heard all race rang through the radio.

  Nancy, who was beside me on the pit box, clutched my hand as a smiled graced her. If felt good seeing her smile. She was just as nervous as I was but that laughter from her son seemed to calm her slightly.

  “Fifty to go bud,” Kyle said. “It’s not easy coming back and NASCAR’s longest night is your first race back.”

  “Fuck yeah, fifty to go. I can deal with that.” He was quiet for a minute and then asked. “Do you think they would deliver pizza?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Kyle teased smiling at me when I nodded to him. “Sway said she’d order it for you.”

  “That’s my girl.” Jameson laughed.

  I did order pizza and when my husband pulled onto the grid with a fourth place finish for his first race back, I set a pizza and myself, on the hood of his car.

  Jameson said little to the media other than, “I’m hungry so yeah, good race, thanks to my sponsors and everyone who supported me these last few months. I appreciated everything you guys have done. I may not show it all the time but if you know me, you understand what I’m feeling right now.”

  As with any race these days, they interview Kyle to who shoved a slice of pizza in his mouth as we all sat around the pit eating pizza.

  “Kyle, do you feel Jameson gave everything he could to the team today or do you feel like it’s going to take some time for him to get in the groove again?”

  Kyle looked at Jameson who smirked shaking his head at the imposing suggestion that Jameson wouldn’t give a race everything he had.

  Kyle summed it up better than anyone could.

  “I’ll tell you guys and everyone else who thinks that they know anything about Jameson Riley as a person. You know him as a driver. You see the side that is represented to you. But you’ll never understand that no one will ever fight for him, and this team, harder than this group of guys’ right here.” Kyle said to the media motioning to all of us gathered around the car eating pizza. “There will never be a time when he has ever given up on us or this team. We offer him that very same respect.”

  Running the apron is needed sometimes. It’s the portion of the track that allows drivers to get up to speed before moving up to the rush. Sometimes you’re not ready for the rush. And sometimes, there are others there to guide you into and help take the pressure off.

  27. Uniformity – Jameson

  Uniformity – Tire to tire variation in size and properties. It’s a harder control size of a flexible tire made from rubber and fabric than it is something more solid such as wood, plastic or metal.

  I leaned my forehead against the tiles in the shower letting the scalding water sluice down my back over muscles that have been strained for days. Everything hurts. It’s a deep hurt, something that couldn’t be relieved. Blindly, I reach behind me to the faucet, and when I find it, I crank the hot a little more, sighing at the sensation.

  Sway was asleep by the time I came to bed, her face relaxed.

  We were in Dover now, the night before my second race back and decided to stay at a hotel this weekend. Usually we stayed in my motor coach but I we needed some place a little more private this weekend. A place we could escape.

  The air-conditioning came on and cycled through the room twice before I fell asleep beside my wife only to wake up an hour later.

  “Anybody in there?”

  “Yeah,” my voice was muffled from sleep. I propped myself up to look at the clock that read three am. Rolling over, shadows danced across the floor.

  “Just checking for occupancy, sir,” a voice sounded and everything went quiet again.

  “Clearly the sign indicated that.” I yelled back. Maybe it was
rude of me, or maybe it was exactly what I should say. It wasn’t the first time a woman had knocked on my door in the middle of the night. There was a sign that said do not disturb.

  A few seconds later, I heard the same noise a few doors down and gathered this was her way of looking for an opportunity knowing a handful of drivers were in the hotel.

  Turning over, I tried to sleep but quickly gave up. Fumbling with my shorts beside the bed, I slipped them on and swung my legs over the bed resting my elbows on my knees, my head hung.

  Beside me Sway stirred and then quickly found sleep again.

  Looking around the hotel room, everything seemed the same but different now. A feeling that started in my gut rose daily until now. I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

  I didn’t want the uneasiness anymore. I didn’t want the sleepless nights, the time spent away from my family, the pressure to perform. I didn’t want any of it anymore. I wanted to race, yes, but I wanted to race for myself.

  In the morning, after I showered and was heading back to the track, the feeling was almost gone but still there in the pit of my stomach.

  My conclusion was that this wasn’t for me anymore. My contract with Simplex was through the end of the season and I would honor that. After that I was done.

  This lifestyle of seeing my family a few times a week and not knowing where my own kids were at or when I would have time with my wife wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted more time with them. I wanted memories of life with them rather than seeing my life through photographs.

  And like I said, if I was being honest with you I was scared. I was scared of losing them before I had a chance to show them just how much they meant to me and how much a part of my success they were.

  Uniformity – Axel

  “Are you coming with us?” I asked Justin and Tommy Saturday morning at breakfast before I headed to Dover, Delaware to the Monster Mile. It was the same track that holds the Monster Million each year.