“Well, he’s not driving today,” he said. “And Richard Childress, who owns the number 3, isn’t about to put anybody else out there in it.” They nodded in agreement that this would be blasphemy.
Jesse Franklin spoke up. “Well, actually, Happy Have-wreck, er-Kevin Harvick that is-” He gave them a twinkling smile to show that the slip had been deliberate. “He took Earnhardt’s spot on the Childress team and, for the rest of the 2001 season, he was driving cars that were made for Dale. Of course, they gave him a different paint job, and his number is 29.”
“I know,” said Harley. “My heart goes out to him. Chance of a lifetime, maybe, but a hard act to follow.” A black Monte Carlo with “Goodwrench” written on the side-he’d seen people cry at the sight of it.
With no number 3 car entered in the Sharpie 500, the numbers jumped from 2 to 4. However, just after number 2 (hello, Rusty Wallace), the wall curved at a pillar where the number 3 ought to have gone, so that there was a section perpendicular to the rest of the wall that was left blank. But since the blank wall was positioned between “2” and “4,” the fans were quick to notice this opportunity (a little miracle, really, a blank space just where a thousand people desperately wanted one), and to appropriate that side wall for an impromptu memorial. Earlier in the day, some still-grieving Earnhardt supporter had drawn a big “3” at the top of the wall with a black Sharpie, and now the side of the pillar unofficially dedicated to the late Dale Earnhardt had more messages than the sections for drivers actually running in the day’s race.
What was the purpose of those messages, Harley wondered. You couldn’t wish him luck in a race he wouldn’t run, or wish him well in general. He supposed people’s messages to the Intimidator meant simply that they missed him, and that they still needed to express their undying devotion. It didn’t matter if Dale was somewhere reading them in spirit or not; it was enough to his supporters that they could make the gesture. Would the Speedway officials who set up the graffiti wall continue to leave a place for the missing man? And would the messages someday evolve into secular prayers, requests for help with health problems, or money troubles, or for lost loves? Harley tried to picture Dale Earnhardt in some celestial cubicle next to St. Anthony (lost objects) and St. Martin (reformed drunks), listening to prayers of the faithful through earphones attached to his halo. Naw. That dog wouldn’t hunt. Harley had known Earnhardt. The man didn’t belong on top of a Christmas tree, whatever these Hallmark-happy mourners might think. Take it to ol’ Dale in prayer, and he’d probably just give you that possum grin of his and tell you to “suck it up.” Dale had come up the hard way, same as Harley had, and he probably felt the same way about being beholden to anybody.
Given the Speedway’s relaxed attitude toward the impromptu wailing wall, Harley didn’t suppose that the management would object to the tour group’s presentation of a heartfelt floral tribute to Earnhardt, as long as the ceremony didn’t disrupt the race day festivities. He was more worried about stray journalists capturing the scene on film, especially if any photogenic kneeling, or weeping, or hymn-singing accompanied the wreath-laying. That wasn’t the kind of publicity that would put him back on pit road.
Cayle held the wreath above her head for a moment, as if she were showing it to the heavens, before she bent over and placed the floral tribute against the side wall. No one spoke or moved while she positioned it and smoothed the ribbon so that its letters were readable.
After an awkward silence Cayle turned to Harley. “Er-are you going to say anything?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” He faced the group, careful to keep his back turned to the wall, half afraid that if he turned around he would see a sneering grin spread across the features of a transparent Intimidator. Flowers for Earnhardt-how the man in black would have laughed. Why, Earnhardt hadn’t even gone to Neil Bonnett’s funeral-practically his best friend in the world, and yet he had stayed away. Drivers didn’t like to be reminded of death. They were too close to it, most of the time. What would Earnhardt make of this little gathering of adoring strangers, and the thousand or so ceremonies like it that had taken place all over America when he died?
Bill Knight raised his hand. “I guess I could say a few words,” he said. “I mean, I’ve had a lot of practice at memorial services.” He gave them a nervous smile. “I come to praise Caesar, not bury him.”
“No.” The voice of quiet authority belonged to Sarah Nash. She stepped up to the wreath. “You’re new to all this, Mr. Knight. I’ve always thought that eulogies ought to be delivered by people who knew the deceased.”
The others gave a little gasp. “Did you know him?” asked Ray Reeve, with a scowl that dared her to lie about it.
She sighed. “Well, I met him just once-at one of those wine-and-cheese parties in Charlotte that corporate types like to host. He wore a dark suit, and he shook hands and spoke courteously to everybody who wanted to meet him, and if he was as bored as I was, he didn’t show it, either. But I wouldn’t claim acquaintance on the strength of that. When I said someone who knew him, I didn’t mean that. I meant that all of us who watched him in the races knew him. Even if you never got within a hundred yards of him, you were his friend if you cheered for him. And that’s who ought to speak up for him now. My friend Tom Palmer was supposed to come on this trip, and if partisanship counts, he’d have been a friend of Dale. So, I guess on behalf of Tom Palmer, I’ll start.” She took a deep breath and spoke toward the graffiti-covered wall.
“Well, good-bye, Dale. I’ll miss you out there on the track, because it was never a dull race while you were in it. You and I both started out poor and countrified in the North Carolina piedmont, and we both came into prosperity after we grew up, ending up at parties with people who had more money than sense, so I always felt a sneaking sense of pride in the fact that you handled your wealth and fame with such grace. You didn’t kowtow to rich folks, but you didn’t run from them, either. You always knew you were as good as anybody-and I think your fans needed somebody to assure them that this was so. This wreath is just a reminder that we haven’t forgotten you, and maybe it’s a thank-you from all the people who watched you win races and watched you climb to the top of society, and who never felt like you left them behind in either place. If they end up making a spun-sugar angel out of your memory, I reckon you’ll have the grace not to laugh too much about it, wherever you are.
“You knew the power of believing in something, and it took you a long way. So now the believing is on the other foot. People want to think you’re still there for them-somewhere. Still the people’s champion. I hope you’re happy with the way things turned out. A lot of people wish you hadn’t left, but they wouldn’t begrudge you a state of grace and eternal peace. So…” She looked up at Bill Knight and smiled. “Ave atque vale, Mr. Earnhardt.”
Somebody in the back of the crowd said “Amen,” and a handkerchief was surreptitiously passed to the big man in leather who had tagged along to pay his respects. Justine fumbled in her purse for Kleenex.
Bill Knight shook Mrs. Nash’s hand and whispered, “Well done!” in tones of professional admiration.
When Sarah Nash stepped away from the wreath, Terence Palmer stepped up close enough to murmur in her ear, “Thanks for doing that. It would have meant a lot to my father, I’m sure. But I thought you said you weren’t a fan of Earnhardt.”
She shrugged. “Never knew the worth of him until he died.”
Chapter VIII
Racing With the Angels
Terence Palmer had never seen a decal on a coffin before. There it was, though, pasted to the gunmetal lid of his father’s casket: a black number 3 encircled by a halo and buttressed on either side by cartoon angel’s wings.
Odd to see that symbol on the top of a casket. He had seen it often enough on the back windows of cars, though. He was glad to see something at this funeral that made sense to him. That one little symbol told him as much about his father as he had ever known. He smi
led at the image, wondering if the funeral home people had known its significance. Would they have thought it some sort of religious emblem (which perhaps it was, in a way)? He saw the Winged Three as a badge of allegiance, a reference to the Trinity, and even a kind of Honk-If-You-Love-Jesus bumper sticker for the trip to the Hereafter.
Throughout the graveside service he stared at it, wondering if his father had requested it and who had put it there, but he knew there was no one he could ask. Everyone here was a stranger-or, more precisely, it was he who was the stranger in the little burying ground above the farm. The rest of the mourners all knew each other, but he knew no one-not even the man they were burying.
“I saw you staring at that decal, son. Tom meant that as a joke.” The rangy older man in the Air Force bomber jacket had come up beside him. He had been one of the pallbearers. Terence finally remembered his name: Vance Howard. But that was all he knew about him.
Now Howard was nodding toward the Winged Three, and smiling. “Well, it was mostly a joke. Although if there’s anybody old Tom would have wanted to be there to open the pearly gates for him, that’s who it would have been.”
Terence hesitated, wondering what to say to such a remark. He was the only blood relative present, so perhaps he should remain solemn despite this man’s invitation to share the joke. How would his father have wanted him to behave, this man who had them put racing decals on his coffin? Truly, Terence felt he was among strangers. Not just people he didn’t know. Strangers.
In Terence’s experience, funerals were sedate occasions that marked the passing of his parents’ friends: the lawyers, bankers, and diplomats who would be buried in leafy memorial gardens outside Washington, or-rarely-back on some family estate in New England or Virginia. These services were usually held in a local Episcopal or Catholic church, sometimes in a synagogue, with all the mourners suitably attired in black, and everything from flowers to eulogy quietly understated, as if the deceased had made reservations with some celestial maître d’ and could now be whisked into heaven without attracting undue attention. Individuality was not stressed at these upscale funerals, perhaps because belonging had been the whole point of the deceased’s life, and for the mourners as well. Not that anybody did mourn, at least publicly.
Terence could not remember hearing or seeing any displays of emotion at the funerals he had attended before this one. Even here, the reaction of the mostly male attendees was subdued. They all looked over fifty, members of the generation who did not show their feelings lightly, but they were certainly not conformists. The outfits of the mourners around the casket ranged from black dress suits to western attire that he had heretofore thought restricted to working cowboys and country singers. All right, he had expected people at this funeral to be dressed less formally than the people he knew, but even among his mother’s social set, the dress codes were relaxing these days.
He supposed it was the displays of flowers that marked the main departure from the funerals he was accustomed to. Rows of wreaths were lined up on either side of the coffin, each one bearing a satin sash across it, like the chest of a beauty pageant contestant, and the sentiments spelled out in gold press-on letters were in keeping with the artwork on the coffin: Tell Dale and Neil and Alan Hello…Tom’s Victory Lap…Racing With the Angels…
Terence had expected more conventional slogans: “In Memoriam,” perhaps, or simply “Rest in Peace.” He wondered what other peculiar customs might be in store for him at the reception that would surely follow the service. A slender woman in her sixties, silvery blonde, with a Hermès scarf at the neck of her camel-hair coat, had introduced herself as “Mrs. Richard Nash, one of Tom’s neighbors.” When she shook his hand, the rings on her knobby fingers bit into his palm and he winced, finding no consolation in the fact that her weapon of choice was a three-carat diamond.
Terence remembered seeing stone pillars flanking a long driveway just up the road and he thought this must be where she lived. If his mother had come to the funeral with him, Mrs. Nash would have been the person she would talk to. His mother’s radar could spot one of us in half a second. After a lifetime with her, so could he, but he tried to ignore the signals, uncomfortable with the taint of elitism.
After Mrs. Nash offered her condolences, she had made a point of telling him that the neighbors had brought food to the house so that he could receive visitors afterward. The custom was common enough at home, but in these unfamiliar circumstances he found the idea disturbing. He hoped that he wasn’t in for a marathon of soggy reminiscences or a drunken party, and then he scolded himself for that unworthy thought-his mother’s DNA again, swamping his every impulse toward humanity…
Well, he would accept the occasion with grace, whatever it was. Before he left New York Terence had resolved that no matter what happened at this funeral or its aftermath, he would not tell his mother about any of it.
“He asked that a checkered flag be draped over the coffin,” Vance Howard, the elderly pallbearer was saying, “but we couldn’t find one big enough on short notice. I did find a casket advertised on the Internet that had a painting of a stock car on the side and blue sky and clouds on the lid. I bet Tom would have loved that. He wanted to treat the whole thing as a joke. Dying, I mean. To show he wasn’t afraid.”
“I see,” said Terence, who didn’t see at all. He was wondering: To show whom? It seemed to him that death always had the last laugh, anyway.
“We spent many an hour coming up with outlandish funeral arrangements. Before he found out that the cancer had returned, of course. For the longest time, Tom didn’t tell me how ill he was. He just kept on making a running joke out of the idea of dying, that’s how brave he was. Or stubborn. I thought he’d be around for another twenty years.”
Terence nodded. So had he. He had always meant to look up his father, to see if they had anything in common. One of these days. It was always going to be one of these days. But he never got around to it. He supposed he had put it off partly out of embarrassment, or fear of being rebuffed, and partly from a desire to be successful beyond reproach when he did seek out his father. Now that he had seen the cozy hill farm his father called home, Terence wondered if such distinctions would have mattered to the old man, and if he would ever get over the uneasy feeling that he had missed something.
“He joked about it right to the end,” Vance Howard was saying. “Tom once said he wanted the hearse to do a donut as it pulled into the pasture, and you know I actually tried to talk them into it, but Elton Grier-the fellow that runs the funeral home-he said that Lincoln was a brand-new vehicle, and he wouldn’t hear of it.”
Terence tried to picture a low-slung, gray Lincoln hearse skidding around a rolling cow pasture making ruts in the grass. It would have been something to see, all right, but he supposed it was just as well that the funeral director had erred on the side of caution. After all, his father wasn’t here to watch anyhow.
“You a racing fan yourself, then?”
Terence smiled, hearing his mother’s voice in his head. Racing, she would have said in a voice like maple syrup. Do you mean the Preakness? Any races involving automobiles were considered by her to be a sport of philistines, right down there with bowling and pro wrestling. It’s just driving around in circles, she would say. When he was an adolescent, it had been fun to argue with her, to say that if race car drivers weren’t athletes then what about jockeys, but now he avoided the subject with her altogether, in order to escape the inevitable comments on his obviously defective paternal DNA. It was odd, though, because he had known nothing about his father’s interests.
“Your daddy would have been pleased that you came,” said Vance Howard. “You are his only family, you know, and I can see the resemblance. I know you never got to meet one another, but he never forgot you. Used to talk about you every now and again. I remember when you got accepted into Yale a few years back. He was real proud of that. He’d want you to know that. Your name’s Terry, isn’t it? I think he said he named you af
ter Terry Sanford. That was always Tom’s favorite governor.”
“I’m Terence,” he said, offering his hand. Nobody had ever called him Terry. Ever since he could remember, his mother had treated him as a little adult and insisted on formality; and since prep school boys devise rude nicknames for their associates, his was not one he would ever want to share with anyone outside his own generation.
“I was your dad’s best friend, I guess. We were in Vietnam together, and we kept in touch over the years. We’ve been neighbors since I retired and moved out here. How’s your mother?”
“Oh, you know her?” Terence could not keep the surprise out of his voice.
“I remember her well,” Howard said. Neither his expression nor his tone of voice gave any indication as to how he felt about the former Mrs. Palmer.
“I’ll go with you if you like,” his mother had said when she phoned with the news, and he’d announced his intention of attending the funeral.
If I like, thought Terence. You were married to him, weren’t you? But that question would have used up a year’s worth of plainspokenness in his family, so he let it pass. He could picture his mother sitting at her desk in the morning room in her at-home uniform of cashmere twinset and pearls. There would be a vase of fresh-cut tulips in front of her, and perhaps her cup of morning tea. Right now she was probably leafing through her monster address book to see if they knew anybody who mattered near Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Her view of life seemed quite feudal to him sometimes, especially her conviction that if you went to an unfamiliar place, you must always present yourself to the most influential family you could connect with in the area. He used to joke about it. Mother in heaven: “Is Saint John the Divine anywhere about? I attend a church named after him.”
St. Dale Page 9
