Ray Vs the Meaning of Life

by Michael F Stewart

  “You timing?” Obelix’s big lips are stretched wide and up like a crazy Cheshire Cat. I swear and start my watch. “It’s all right, I got it.”

  The next truck rattles as it nears. This one’s battered and rusted where not coated in slick mud. I wipe blood from where the gun barrel nicked me. Then I glance around to see where the helicopter is, or any passing ducks. And fire the pistol into the air.

  I don’t know what goes wrong with the truck, but pistons slam into its hood and it rolls, smoking to the side of the course. Even as I scream in surprise, the crowd cheers. The first competitor makes the fourth and final turn, running hot toward the finish line, which is a bit too close to the start line for comfort.

  I motion the next truck forward, the woman first to arrive—Golden Nugget. I lift the gun and shoot, getting the hang of the buck of the kickback. The incoming truck nearly clips Golden Nugget. Obelix stops his watch before recording the time. If I had Dalen to talk to, I’d tell him my new goal for the day: that no one gets hurt.

  Over the course of the next couple hours, fifty trucks throw most of the mud to the sides of the course. Nothing escapes the muck. In places, the road’s down to the bedrock beneath, but with one exception, a large hump in the middle. Some of the smaller trucks with lower clearance can’t manage the hump and require a tow off.

  After the last truck races, I go to check on Tina. Well after eight o’clock, Pulled Beef should be packed. Luckily the combination of exhaust and mud are pushing away the bugs. But Tina’s gone, having left Penny to sell a few dozen premade burgers. Penny won’t tell me where Tina went. I hope Salminder’s all right.

  Aside from Dalen’s bruised ego, it appears as though we might make it through unscathed, but next are the ATVs. The townies and Deneze’s crew have stewed in the mud bath, awaiting their turn under my mom’s watchful glare. I note that a few on each side are so covered in mud they could only have been wrestling in it.

  “They’s been wrestling in it,” my mom says.

  I have to start their race. “ATVs to the starting line,” I announce through the megaphone.

  My mom split the groups into the two cohorts, and these run without incident. But that still means three of each in a hotly contested final. I watch my mother, a foot shorter than some of the drivers; she’s in her element, born to order and to organize. When I took over the camp from her, I didn’t just take her inheritance, I realize—I took what made her happy. Once I catch her looking at me, too. Not with the usual open hostility, but rather with pride. That makes me uncomfortable.

  Why are the racers here? The spectators? My mom was right; they would have spent money to be here. Is it just because it’s something to do? Is it to forget the lack of meaning in their lives, or does this all somehow offer meaning? The truck drivers congratulate the winner, the woman in Golden Nugget, now covered in mud. Obelix came in fortieth, but smiles as though he won.

  If death is the outcome of life’s race, then who really wins? As the six ATV finalists idle to the starting line in their quads, they’re evenly divided between rez members and townies.

  I nod to Deneze in his distinctive green helmet, but he doesn’t nod back. His visor is fixed on the course.

  The extra competitors have pushed the races into the late evening. A good crowd should remain for the fireworks. I catch the splash of someone in the pool. And then the engine noise overwhelms all else.

  I pull the trigger.

  The ATVs leap into the troughs. Deneze rips up the side of the hump and claims the peak, accelerating even as one of the townies slides halfway up and, on a forty-five-degree angle, speeds after him, slipping past the other riders. After that, townies and rez members mix. One spins out. I glance back at my mom’s trailer. Crystal’s ATV is gone from the side. I peer again at the racers. I have no idea who is who with the other four, but I do know that the ATV chasing Deneze is my sister’s. Where’d she come from? I lose sight as they disappear around the bend.

  The crowd’s cheers follow the leaders. I rush to the edge of the road where they’ll race to the finish. Around the second turn, Deneze skids and moves behind Crystal’s ATV before surging after it. At the final bend Deneze, back in the lead, takes the turn tight, but whoever’s driving Crystal’s ATV was trying to cut him off and veers sharply behind him. Too sharply.

  The ATV fires over the hump and launches, soars over the heads of ducking spectators, and hits the ground grill first. The driver tumbles into the heavy grasses. Deneze tears over to the side and sprints to check on the racer, while the other ATVs, unaware of what has happened, shoot past to the finish line.

  I ignore the race and head for the accident. Deneze shakes out his long dark hair and grins down at the figure in the grass. Someone reaches up with a gloved hand, clasps his forearm and stands. Relief washes over me, and then I freeze. The rider leans heavily on Deneze, who speaks before the rider nods back.

  The rider pulls off her helmet.

  “Tina?” I whisper.

  Her hair’s wild with sweat, face stunned, red, and deliriously happy. She comes to focus on me, shrugs, and gives me the thumbs-up. Deneze claps her on the back before steadying her again. I want to go to her but the race is over, and I’m the guy with the megaphone standing in the biggest ruts this trailer park has ever seen.

  Nothing has escaped the mud, but everyone smiles. Even the townies and rez members clasp hands and laugh.

  I put the megaphone to my lips. “The mud portion of Mud and Fire is over. Fire begins in half an hour.” Weary from the day, many people begin to leave, but Obelix blocks them and I remember how this all began. “One last task. Many hands make light work, folks. Grab a shovel and let’s smooth these ruts!”

  Obelix distributes as many rakes and shovels as he has found. Those without an implement use their boots. Soon hundreds of spectators are kicking and shoveling away at the road, doing their best to repair it. My mom watches with a grin on her face. Community. That’s what this is about. The pack. I search for Tina, but she’s gone. Instead I find Uncle Jamie, pale and quaking, holding what looks more like cannons than fireworks.

  It’s time for fire.

  Chapter 37

  “What’s the matter, Uncle Jamie?” I ask.

  He gives his head a fractional shake. “Wish there wasn’t quite so many people. Maybe we should start with a smaller group? Wait until more people leave?”

  “Don’t be afraid of failure, Uncle Jamie. It’s not about how many times the fireworks blow up in your face, it’s about trying until they don’t, right?”

  I’d meant it as a joke really, but Uncle Jamie nods, and I realize I just Dalen’ed him. Come to think of it, the little girl—Penny—had said something that had sounded Dalenish to me, too. I correct myself. They aren’t Dalenisms. They’re cobbled together from other people—if they’re secrets, then they were someone else’s secrets long before and are secrets anyone can read or hear.

  “Each one,” Uncle Jamie says, nodding to the firework tubes, “has one shot. I don’t know if any of them will work. There’s no testing them without using them. Understand?”

  And I do. Each one is a little life. One shot each, and there’s no testing to see which recipe will result in the best bang. “It’ll be awesome,” I add, and with the rockets stacked in his arms like firewood, he heads toward the gate and launch zone.

  Music draws me to Pulled Beef. Tina sings and flips and makes each burger, spinning once as she offers the burger to the customer with an unfettered smile I haven’t seen for a while. Another camper helps at the grill. I think it’s the one who does the shadow puppets. Penny makes change. I grin at them. “Fireworks in a few minutes,” I tell the people in line. “You won’t want to miss it.”

  My eyeballs itch from lack of sleep. I long for sustenance. I’m stretched. As I leave, Penny tugs at my T-shirt and hands me a burger. “One double Swami,” she says. “I see a full tummy in your future.”

  “Thanks, Penny, why don’t you watch the firewor
ks from here, okay? Just to be safe.”

  She nods.

  Ahead there’s a crackle, and lightning zigzags through the air, leaving a cloud of white smoke. The sun’s low. Not quite low enough for darkness, but low enough that if the fireworks shoot high enough, they’ll be framed in midnight blue.

  Uncle Jamie skitters from tube to tube, digging with a small trowel to set the fireworks into the ground, angling them to shoot out over the swamp and not the campground. The crowd keeps pressing him. “Get back!” He waves, but as soon as he turns to the tubes, the audience shifts forward again. “You don’t understand, danger . . . danger . . . ,” he says.

  There’s no need to announce the start. Uncle Jamie sees me, clicks a barbecue starter and lights a fuse. He sprints from it, well beyond the crowd, dives and covers his head.

  Smoke spits from the tube’s mouth. The audience watches, eyes wide. Someone snickers. Another mockingly ohs and ahs at the odd sparks that spit out. But I watch in horror as I follow the sparks. Sparks that land near three nearby rockets. Their fuses flare one after the other.

  “No, no,” Jamie cries and scrambles even farther back. The first blast actually manages to lift far enough from the ground that it waggles into the swamp before snuffing out.

  The second flies far into the night, where it simply disappears. But the fuse of the final firework sizzles as it burns into the red painted tube and then . . . nothing.

  The crowd leans forward in total silence. Even I, who have seen my uncle’s shed explode a dozen times, edge into the circle.

  “Back!” Jamie shouts. “They always wait until you’re close. They suck you in.”

  He’s pulling at nonexistent hair.

  But he’s right because as I take another step toward it, the firework explodes like it should have high, high in the sky. Stars bloom at eye level, and flaming shrapnel lands on me and anyone in the first couple of rows. They stamp it out and brush it away, but it’s too late. The real damage is done.

  Every fuse has lit. Thirty more.

  “Run!” Jamie screams and chaos ensues as fireworks go off in a variety of failures. It’s a mound of fizzling, banging, light, and smoke.

  Fastest, and running the farthest of all, is Uncle Jamie.

  My ears ring and spots flash. A wall of hot air shoves me onto my back. Sparks spew first up into the night and then shower over me. I roll and protect my head. With another explosion, I commando crawl away, near burying myself in mud. I haul another frightened man along as I pass. Long after the final blast, an afterglow burns in my vision.

  Slowly, I stand, not daring to approach the still smoking tubes. “Everyone all right?” I ask.

  No one answers. People cough in the sulfurous, swirling fog.

  I help a man up and spot the megaphone half-buried in the mud.

  It squeals as I press the trigger to talk.

  “Mud and Fire is officially over,” I say. “Thank you for coming to Mud and Fire.”

  The first and, I suspect, the last.

  Chapter 38

  Despite the fireworks dud, which campers are already talking about as if it were a nuclear blast, a post-party warmth infuses the campfire tonight. The crowds from the races are gone, but more campers show than normal. We’re packed in. My mother’s even here, sipping her whiskey and giggling with Tina.

  Four hundred and twelve. That’s the number of burgers Tina sold today, nearly double Pulled Beef’s record for a single day of sales. Uncle Jamie doesn’t respond to mentions of the botched fireworks. He leans in close enough to the flames that no one can approach him due to the heat. He feeds the fire with his sachets, each bursting into another color with a tiny popping sound. Penny watches the colors, mesmerized. Only briefly do I wonder where Dalen is.

  After my mom heads to bed, Tina joins me on my log, her hip pressing against mine as she wriggles in, fighting for a seat.

  “That was awesome!” she tells me, and I realize it’s the first time we’ve spoken since the morning.

  “I can’t believe you entered the race,” I say.

  “I know.” Her eyes take on a faraway stare, a certain glassiness in them like she’s had a few beers. “I don’t know why I did it. Just wanted to jump off a cliff. Do something different. Know what I mean?”

  There’s such life in her face that it reminds me of Dalen saying to live with a little bit of vomit in the mouth. I can’t think of the last time I’ve done something on purpose to make my stomach lurch. Except for singing to Tina.

  “Dalen says that people are afraid of cliffs, not because they think they’ll fall, but because they’re afraid they’ll jump. What you did was cool.”

  Penny squeals as a sachet bursts into purple fire. Uncle Jamie sighs and hands her his entire bag, brushes the dirt from his knees and turns to leave. The girl throws in another; this one flares silver. Uncle Jamie has somehow come up with new colors.

  “It’s magic, Mommy,” Penny says.

  Outside the ring of light cast by the flames, Uncle Jamie stops and stares at her.

  “Penny, no,” her mother says, seeing what she’s playing with. “We don’t play with fire.”

  “Please, Mommy!”

  “When Mr. Saintbury comes up with a firework that doesn’t need flames, you can play with them as much as you like.”

  A small smile touches Uncle Jamie’s lips. His back straightens as he walks away.

  “Tonight has a touch of magic to it, don’t you think?” Tina says to me. She’s close and smells of onion, wood smoke, and lemon soap. Her eyes are bright and wide, the pupils blown in the darkness. “Not even a scratch,” she says, holding out her arms.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say.

  As if she can’t help herself, Penny’s mother begins flipping sachets into the fire. Everyone watches as they burst all the shades of the rainbow. Tina presses ever closer, her bare thigh against mine soon slippery with sweat. I don’t care. I don’t want to move. And I don’t want to ask about her dad, as I worry it’ll kill that magic. Whatever magic has drawn her to me tonight.

  Her teeth are so white and straight. She leans in and whispers, “Would you, would you walk me back to my trailer?”

  I have to cross my legs as my heart thunders. “Now?” I ask.

  Her teeth tug at her bottom lip. Fingers find my hand and draw me from the log. I could be flushed from the heat, but I don’t think so. No one seems to notice; they’re so intent on the next sachet. As we walk hand in hand, we don’t talk. I don’t know Tina’s excuse, but mine is that I can’t.

  I’ve kissed three girls in my life. Monica, when I was fourteen, on a dare. Lisa, when I was fifteen, at the movies—I chipped enamel from my teeth as ours clashed. Her tongue was like a light saber. And at sixteen with Steph, whom I dated for two weeks before breaking up with for the summer. Every time before a kiss, there had been this quiet, not a calm, more like the tension before an electrical storm. I know it’s going to happen again when Tina stops at the muddied door of her trailer and grabs my other hand as well, pulling them to her sides, and me tight to her chest. Her eyes smile, and again I wonder if she’s been drinking. Every single muscle in my body is flexed.

  My fingers are sliding across her back, and hers are in my hair, gripping curls and pulling me down to her lips. It’s gentle, not sloppy. Delicious without a hint of onion. I hear Penny squeal in the distance.

  “Stay with me,” she says. “I don’t want to be here alone. Not tonight.”

  Again, I don’t want to say anything, I don’t want to break whatever spell she’s under because I’ve never spent the night with a girl.

  I kiss her harder. She giggles, and I worry that I’ve gone and ruined it. But instead she fumbles for the trailer key as I rub her back, not wanting to break contact. I don’t remember the step, but we’re on the stairs and the door is shut. I’m alone with a girl. A real one. Tina.

  The RV smells of fragrant spice and a touch of incense. What did Dalen say about fragrance? A little bit of it alwa
ys clings to the hand that gives flowers. Why am I thinking about Dalen?

  Tina doesn’t turn on the lights; the only illumination is from the tiny Christmas lights that encircle their screened-in porch, but still I spot the beer bottles on the table. Through the kitchen to her bedroom she leads me, bypassing the couch entirely. I can barely breathe. It’s then that my mind starts to wrestle with itself. Something in all of this doesn’t make sense. I like Tina. I really like her, and I want to see what it’s like to be with her, and that desire is using a lot of my blood flow, but there’s something in the back of my mind, telling me to slow down.

  She kisses me at her bedroom door. I can’t even remember what I’d been worried about as her fingernails scratch up my chest. I trace from the small of her back right up her spine to her bra strap. With a twist of my fingers the clasp comes undone and it’s so fast, it must seem like I do this all the time.

  “No cavorting!” Grandma yells in my brain.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble between kisses. Tina places a finger to my lips, reaching under her shirt and pulling the bra free so that her breasts press out at her T-shirt. Then my hands are on them, and her hands are at my belt buckle. It’s so impossibly amazing and exciting that I want to burst, and I know why they call it “getting lucky” because that’s how I feel, like this wouldn’t normally be happening. That’s the thing I think I’m worried about.

  Luck is the marriage of preparation and opportunity. I can’t believe I just Dalen’ed myself. I try to clear my mind.

  “You want to do this?” I ask. And I don’t really care if it spoils the moment, or breaks the spell, because luck shouldn’t have anything to do with sex.

  “Do you have a condom?” she asks. I swallow and nod. Always be prepared. I don’t say it’s two years old. “Then, yes,” she says.

  Having her say it, and not leaving me to wonder, it makes it so much sweeter. Rather than guessing what I’m getting away with, I can just be.