by Shey Stahl
His arms circled around me as his warm laughter brought me back to the moment and I couldn’t wait to resort back to my pit lizard days. Seeing him like this, in the thrill of a victory was like watching his soul come alive.
I knew what this salacious behavior meant. He looked at me.
It was a look that made you feel like even in a crowd, you were the only one that mattered.
The heat of the night made his hair stand on end, his cheeks flush. Jameson, as most would agree, had intensity in his eyes. And looking at him now, my boy was back.
Pressed to the side of his hauler in the secure shadows, he kissed me and swept his hands down my sides over my ass and then pulled to wrap my legs around his waist.
Deepening an already passionate kiss, his hips shifted into mine. “Fuck honey, I want you right now against the side of this hauler.”
Jameson’s had always had a secret weapon that could unlock Fort Knox if needed. He knew that too. It was his smile. And he was giving it to me. And I was unlocking the gates.
Since our kids were here, I made him take me inside the hauler behind closed doors.
We didn’t have long and I’m not sure how but I managed to tie him up with tie downs, straddled him, and took care of business like the Mama Wizard could. I thought of changing my Mama Wizard name when I became a grandma but decided against it. I didn’t need to feel any older than I already was.
Back to the point. My dirty heathen writhing in please beneath me with his hands tied over his head, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open, crying out in pleasure.
Hot fucking damn was an understatement.
“My god.” He breathed trying to catch his breath when finished.
“That’s right.” I nodded with a smug grin. “I’m good.”
“That you are honey...but untie me.”
“Oh right...” it took me all of two seconds to realize that I had gotten a little worked up and the knot I tied was for Fort Knox and the shit wasn’t coming undone without assistance.
Jameson looked at me, “Don’t joke. Please tell me you have something to get these off with.”
“In my defense, I didn’t think they’d get stuck.”
“Oh my god,” he groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’ll go get Spencer.”
His eyes went frantic. “The fuck you will! Get back here!”
“Well what am I supposed to do?” We were both naked in his hauler and he was tied to the wall with shocks and springs. It was laughable when you think about it.
“Cut them.” He said looking around for anything sharp.
“With what?” I couldn’t understand how this wasn’t making any sense to him.
“I don’t know. Go find something but don’t you dare bring Spencer back in here. I swear to god Sway. I will never talk to you again if you do that.”
“Okay!”
“I’m serious.” He reminded me. “I’ll kick your ass if he comes in here.”
“It’s a little hard to kick my ass when you’re still tied up, isn’t it?”
“Sway?”
“Yeah?”
“Go.”
I couldn’t find anything and had to ask Spencer. It was either him or Axel, the only two left out there and I wasn’t asking my son to untie his naked dad. That wouldn’t be right at all.
Needless to say, Jameson wouldn’t talk to me the entire way back to the hotel because Spencer saw him naked.
So dramatic.
To get Spencer back for seeing him naked, the next morning when Spencer was in the bathroom at the hotel, Jameson duck tapped the door shut and left Spencer at the hotel for seven hours inside that bathroom. When we opened the door he was sitting on the floor with braids in his hair, lipstick on and painting his toenails. He claims he was bored out of his mind and moments away from eating his own arm so he pleaded mental insanity.
Spencer got Jameson back though when we were leaving back to Mooresville the next morning.
We had stopped for gas and were just about to get inside the truck when Spencer came flying around the side of the hauler and screamed for us all to get inside. We did but then I noticed Jameson wasn’t in the truck with us.
“Where’s Jameson?”
“In the hauler,” Spencer goaded pulling onto the freeway.
“He’s going to kill you.”
Spencer wasn’t that great of a driver and managed to take every turn as sharp as he could, hit every bump he could and slammed on the breaks like there was a cat crossing every few miles.
When we opened the door an hour later, Jameson was inside of his sprint car wearing his helmet.
“Oh man, we thought we lost you.” Aiden chuckled holding his stomach. “Were you in there this whole time?”
“That fucker told me to check for a drum and then closed the door!” Jameson shouted slamming his helmet into the ground.
He looked as though he had been cage fighting.
“Where’s my fucking brother?” He asked running my knuckles over his bloody lip. He sniffed sensing blood coming from his nose. Sure enough, there was.
Spencer hid behind Alley who was laughing just as hard. “Act your age Jameson.” He scolded me. “You’re being ridiculous.”
The pranks were starting to get out of hand but you know what, it was the spark our family needed.
To celebrate Jameson’s win that he got at Sunset, we threw a party. It’d been a while since we had one and after that party, we kind of swore we would never do it again.
I was in the kitchen getting food together when the real shit started to hit the fan. It’d been close to an hour since I saw Jameson disappear with the boys to the lake where we had our house boat and thought it was time to check on them. Most everyone was down at the lake as that’s where the party seemed to be. Packing up the cooler with snacks, I started to drag it to the truck when I saw Willie stumbling up the driveway with his cup. “Do you have matches? I was told to come get matches?”
“Yes, they’re in my pocket.” He went to reach for my ass but I slapped his hand away. “No, I will give them to Jameson. The last time I gave you matches you set my living room curtains on fire.”
Willie shrugged. “I was trying to light a candle for you because you were crying. Have some compassion. Do you want some jungle juice?” he slurped through his princess straw.
“That has grape cool-aid, 151 and absinthe in it. It’s a fucking miracle that you’re still alive.”
“It’s good shit.” Willie slurped again. “And it’s strawberry cool-aid.”
“Oh sorry, my bad,” I pushed the cooler at him, “take this down there.”
We no sooner turned down the boat ramp and I saw a disaster forming. Nothing new for our family though.
I wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing but all the boys were surrounding the house boat that had fireworks on the roof. I wasn’t exactly sure what the plan was either but it smelled like disaster.
Ami, Justin’s wife found me and the concern on her face explained a lot. “You might want to get Casten down from there.”
“Yeah,” Eyeing the boat house, I was sure of the outcome, “it appears that way.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what they were trying to accomplish, and my attempts at asking went unanswered, but from what I gathered they were trying to light fireworks from the roof of the boat house.
Jameson, Spencer, Aiden and Tommy were on the side of the boat, on the dock, when we heard Cole yell at the top of his lungs. “It’s gonna blow!”
Everyone scrambled from the boat house, including me, when it blew into pieces.
Aside from scrapes, a few cuts, and bruises, everyone was fine but that’s the night my son blew up a house boat. You can guess which one.
Casten.
“What the fuck was that?” Jameson yelled at Casten. “Why didn’t you move the fireworks from the top and put them on the dock?”
Casten, clearly shaken by his near death experience looked to me like he was
going to cry. “I’m really sorry. I forgot and then you said get ready to blow it and I thought maybe we changed plans.”
“Not the boat, the fireworks.”
“Well...now that I think about it that makes a lot more sense.”
“Such amateurs,” Jameson mumbled walking away. “And you’re buying me a new house boat kid.”
“Damn it.” Casten hung his head. “I just finished paying for his GTO I sunk.”
Offering some motherly comfort, I rubbed his back. “Well the next time you decide to jump the GTO over the pool, be sure to actually put gas in the car. And when you decide to blow up a house boat, don’t.”
Casten scratched the back of his head. “Great advice mama,”
Watching the fire on the lake, we had a spark all right. Too much spark at times.
33. Exhaust Stroke - Jameson
Exhaust stroke – The exhaust stroke is the final stage in a four-stroke internal combustion engine cycle. The gas that remains in the cylinder from the ignited fuel during the compression stroke is removed from the cylinder through the exhaust valve. The gases are forced up to the top of the cylinder as the piston rises and pushed through the opening which then closes to allow fresh air/fuel mixture into the cylinder for the four-stroke process to repeat itself.
After my win at Sunset, we spent some time at Grays Harbor and did the memorial for Charlie. Being back around all the responsibilities of owning a track was stressful. Van and Andrea were doing a great job but there were still decisions that Sway and I needed to make as owners and things to take care of. It was around that time we were thankful for the shared ownership in the Cup team.
Even though we had only two cars running in the Cup series, it was still a lot of money being torn up each week. When a car was destroyed, guess who gets to pay for that?
It was certainly not the driver.
He doesn’t care. The owner, he cares because he’s the one paying the bill. I understood that when I was racing but paying those bills now, I had more respect for Jimi and how he operated Riley-Simplex Racing all those years.
That’s when the stress got to me and I asked myself why I was doing it.
I didn’t like owning a Cup team. It wasn’t me.
I know my dad would have wanted us to be happy.
So, I decided owning a NASCAR team wasn’t our thing anymore, so we sold partial ownership and merged with Tate’s team. We were still involved to a point but not nearly as heavily as before.
Easton was one of the best guys to have racing for you but I still didn’t want the responsibility of it all.
I had too much responsibility for so long. Now I was enjoying myself. Aside from my son blowing up a house boat and being questioned by the police weekly for all the stupid shit we did on that 230 acre plot, we didn’t have stress.
That lifestyle I was living when I was racing the Cup series wasn’t me. This was me. Being an owner of a dirt track, that was me. Racing sprint cars when I felt like it, that was me.
You see, living that lifestyle racing in NASCAR had brought battles I never wanted to fight but I didn’t know that until I wasn’t fighting them anymore.
Here’s the thing, unlike some athletes, I didn’t retire from the injury. I retired for me. I was done with that lifestyle.
I still raced, that would never change for me. Even the death of my father doing that very same thing couldn’t keep me away from sprint car racing.
Why?
If I would have walked away completely, all that I worked for wouldn’t have mattered and more importantly, I would have felt as though I had let myself and him down.
Once again, I found myself walking a dirt track surrounded by memories, I thought of how I got here, standing at a track, that some forty years ago I raced for the first time.
Until now, my life has been one long continuum, and racing has been its link. From age four to forty-three, I have shared one passion, one preoccupation, having the same pattern over those years.
For a while, you’re always older than you seem and then suddenly one day, you’re younger than you feel. You feel old or maybe it’s the illusion about yourself fueled by the public life sent soaring then crashing. But you never lose what that passion was for.
The track was quiet but you could hear the rumbling in the pits as cars heated their engines and prepared for a night of racing in honor of a man that made this track what it is now. Dirt track racing, the smells, the tracks, throwing the car sideways, that’s what I loved. It may have nearly taken my life, some friends and my dad, but it was still home to me.
I loved this place. I fell in love here. I found my family here. It was my home for years, a place my heart knew.
My heart beats a little different these days. It beats for the rhythm of the speed, the rumbling of an engine and the grooves that move the line to the victory I taste. It beats for the methanol, the adrenaline and the speed. It beats for the passion that defined my greatness. It beats for the place I called home, where two hearts were secured within a cushion and a rail. It beats for a dirt track.
It beats for a home cooked meal, a cold beer after a win, and a place I called home.
Walking around the track, I made my way to the flag stand.
I must have stared at that flag stand for close to twenty minutes when Spencer found me.
“Do you remember when we crawled under here and watched the race from right here?”
“How could I forget? You broke my nose that night.”
“Oh, yeah”
Spencer laughed looking over his shoulder when he saw Sway coming toward us.
His hand clasped my shoulder as he smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for this lifestyle you’ve created for all of us but...” emotion crept over him, his eyes shined. “Thank you.”
“No man, thank you.” I said pulling him in for a hug. “I couldn’t have done it without you guys.”
Sway found me sitting on the back stretch wall, her hands wrapped around my shoulders. Twisting around, I moved her onto my lap.
Looking at her now, there was something about this woman that controlled me.
Sway had a power that no one else could ever have. She healed the scars over time.
I stared at the ring on her finger lighted by the burst of lights high above the clay. Here she was our entire lives behind the wheel with me supporting me no matter what. Even when she left me for lying to her, or the months following my injury when the guilt and depression pushed a void between us, she had never truly left me. No matter what I put her through, she stood by me. So many times she had been put second in this life but not now, not anymore.
Wrapped in thought, her hands mapped the lines of my face as I stared at her.
Sway was my prayer. She was my untold answer in all of this. She held the key to everything without even knowing.
My edges may have been rough, she knew that, but her touch created a surface stronger than any metal.
After years of never thinking I was good enough for her, she never let me forget that I was. The expression I saw on her face took my breath away. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I just stared, transfixed into her eyes. Mesmerized by the depth of the passion and caring at the love I saw there. The same I was sure that was reflected in mine.
The thing is, you can be the greatest driver of your time, be a champion, a legend. You can walk through the fire or you could be the difference between seeing it rise and making it rise. You could be a kid that no one thought would make it and then, twenty years later, you’re standing in the hall of fame looking at your name etched in the wall of the greatest racers of all time. You could be that because although you may not have believed it would happen, you made it happen. Whether it was my relationship with my wife or the things I’ve accomplished, I made it happen.
To me, the greatest feeling I knew was that I didn’t do it for revenge. I didn’t do it for someone else, although at times it may have seemed that way, I did it for me. I did i
t because it was a dream I believed in and refused to let go of. It was an unwritten legend that I scripted to fit me.
We were still that same couple we were back when we threw ourselves into whatever it was that drew us together. That connection, that unbelievably magical connection between us was stronger than ever and always would be. My wife may have never been the type of wife that had time to go to PTA meetings or host Pampered Chef parties but she was a racers wife. She planned schedules, drove our kids to various tracks and made sure the night before a race I had my favorite meal, her fried spaghetti. She wasn’t comfortable in heels but she was in flip flops. She hated Los Angeles but loved to the local dirt track. She was my counterweight and balanced every imperfection my life had.
There was a time, a place, or maybe just a passing memory of this life when I once thought, would I ever say when? Eventually, maybe without warning, your life, your body or maybe your mind has a way of saying it for you. I guess right now I was simply…saying when.
I took comfort in knowing that a reflection, a memory, if only just a glimpse, could last forever.
Overlooking the track, I cuddled up with her, relieved to know that what we had was worth everything we had been through.
We hadn’t said anything, nothing needed to be said, a comfortable silence just holding each other.
For close to an hour, nothing was said before she let out a chuckle leaning her head back to look up at me.
“Do you remember that night after the race in Charlotte when this all began?” Her arms wrapped over mine that were around her as though she was cuddling into a warm blanket, or a sweater that was soft to the touch.
“I do honey,” I smiled remembering the anxiety that overpowered me about what I wanted that night, a night I would remember forever. “I remember the exact look in your eyes when I asked you to stay.”
“Me too,” She whispered pulling my hand to her lips kissing the promise I made to her.
