Testosterone and muscle cars...
~~~
My cousin Rick pulled sharp into the driveway and stomped on the brake. His blue Dodge Charger growled and cut off, throwing a cloud of exhaust like a pack of unfiltered Camels. Rick popped the door, got out of the car, and stood looking blankly around. I watched him from the porch where I had been reading a comic book.
As he came up the steps, I said “Hey Rick,” but he walked by like I wasn’t there and slammed the screen door behind him.
Whatever was going on with Rick was a lot more interesting than my Archie comic. I followed him into the kitchen. Aunt Liddy was sitting at the table smoking. Aunt Liddy was thin as a whippet. She liked to hold her cigarette pincered between forefinger and thumb like a dart. Her eyes were hazel. Her left eye tended to veer a little as if it were tracking something you couldn’t see. She had a way of looking at people like she was keeping an amusing secret.
I was staying at Aunt Liddy’s that summer because dad’s heart problems had started by then and I could be a lot to manage. So, mom arranged for me to stay with her sister. Aunt Liddy’s only son, Rick had finished high school in June and now worked a job at the Post Office. They lived in Baylorsville, right on Main Street, and close enough to home so that I could bike over to see my folks whenever I wanted.
The pride of Rick’s life was his ’68 Dodge Charger. He would brag about its monster V-8 motor capable of churning out nearly four hundred horsepower. On summer evenings, Rick chased bliss by cranking up the radio and tearing over country roads. Then he would spend hours each weekend lovingly washing the splattered bugs off its body and windshield.
Standing in the kitchen now, though, he looked sullen.
“What’s wrong, honey?” asked Aunt Liddy.
“Nothing,” Rick said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” Rick said.
Aunt Liddy watched him slowly trudge up the stairs to his room, then shrugged at me and started supper.
The next day, I went fishing with my friends Russ and Chris at the stream by the bean plant. Russ said his older brother told him that yesterday Squeak Henderson had challenged Rick to a chicken contest to take place that very night. Squeak was an on-and-off buddy of Rick’s but they bickered a lot—especially about cars.
Some years later, I heard from eyewitnesses the full story of the challenge. Rick and Squeak were hanging out after work with friends at Masterson’s Garage and teasing each other as usual about whose car was fastest. Squeak mockingly called Rick’s Charger “the Barger.” This pissed Rick off, so he challenged Squeak to a drag race. Squeak knew that Rick’s car had way more horsepower. In a move of crazed inspiration, he evened the odds by upping the challenge from a race to a game of chicken.
Rick was silent but gave him a startled, look that said “Are you nuts? We’ll get killed!”
Squeak asked cooingly, was Rick a pussy, pussy, pussy? Their friends joined in.
Rick looked at them stonily then finally said, “OK. Chicken. Tomorrow night…Reservoir Road” and drove off.
By now, the news had raced all over town. A chicken match…a true remnant of the code duello! Two cars would face off a mile apart on a dirt road in darkest night. On a signal, they would each hit the gas. If courage held, the cars would fly toward each other, drawing closer and closer, until their headlights merged in a stupendous fireball. But a driver sane enough to veer away at the last minute would be forever branded a coward.
I felt a little sick when I thought of the danger to Rick, who was easy-going and the closest thing to an older brother I had. But I was also secretly proud to have a cousin now wreathed with the chivalric glory of a doomed knight.
The evening was still early and bright when we ate supper. Aunt Liddy had cooked meatloaf. Though the sun shone directly on us through the kitchen window, the meal felt like a requiem. Rick moved food around his plate in a clumsy pantomime of eating while Aunt Liddy watched him.
“I was at the library today,” she said. “Heard about your chicken match with Squeak.”
“That’s my business,” said Rick.
“It’s my business too,” said Aunt Liddy. “I don’t want to see you or Squeak get killed over something stupid.”
“That’s my business,” Rick said again, tonelessly.
“Rick, the risk of losing you isn’t worth the game.” Aunt Liddy looked at him intently, her left eye drifting like it was gazing off at eternity. “Look, if you and Squeak had an argument, just apologize! You know what they say, honey…a little sugar goes a long way—”
“Mom, I’m a grownup. I can handle this,” Rick snapped. He pushed his chair back and stood. “I got to go.”
He kissed Aunt Liddy on the cheek and walked outside. We heard the car start, back out of the driveway, and growl down the street in the direction of the reservoir.
Of course I was going to the chicken match. I put my plate in the sink and slipped out of the house, leaving Aunt Liddy at the table. As I walked the bike out of the driveway, I saw her framed in the kitchen window, still sitting. She did not look up. When I came out onto the main street, I jumped on my bike, turned right, and sped as fast as I could west toward the drooping sun. Twenty minutes of hard pedaling brought me to Reservoir Road.
As I turned onto it, I could already see cars lined up. I glided down a gravel path to the reservoir shoreline, propped my bike against a tree, and looked around. People were throwing frisbees and dogs ran free, barking joyously. Picnic tables displayed bottles of Boones Farm apple wine and six-packs of Utica Club beer. Car radios and 8-tracks boomed a jarring mix of music.
A small, excited crowd milled around on the green of the freshly mowed picnic area. One cluster surrounded Rick’s Charger, shining like gun-metal in the mellow evening sunlight. About twenty yards away, another gabbling knot of spectators bunched around Squeak’s gleaming yellow Camaro.
I learned later in life that when two people are headed toward a high-stakes confrontation, one is almost always desperately searching for an honorable exit. Today that was Rick. He stood stiffly, looking somber and nervous as his friends razzed him about whether he was scared, did he think he had what it takes, did he have an up-to-date will, nonsense like that. A couple of young women in the circle looked at him almost teary-eyed, though, and I could see Rick liked their attention.
Meanwhile, across the lawn, Squeak beamed at his audience. “You’ll see,” he said in his raspy voice. “I won’t blink. Just straight on til…” He made the sound of an explosion as he shaped an imaginary fireball with his hands. Squeak was a little guy and impulsive, famous around town for having a quicksilver temper. He was always ready to escalate a small beef into a fistfight—almost as if he were seeking relief. Now he smiled at the crowd’s attention. It was clear that Squeak would see the chicken match to the end, even if that ending was a smashup that left him barbecuing in the wreckage.
The rules for this contest required that it be run in full darkness. But as it was early July, the sun would not even set until nearly nine o’clock, so the party went on for hours. Squeak put down a couple of beers, but Rick drank only Coke. Periodically, people from Rick’s or Squeak’s group would walk over and peer down Reservoir Road, evaluating visibility in the gathering darkness. Each time they would say, “Need a few more minutes.” By now, the crowd was jubilant, caught up in the giddy happiness of knowing that they were soon likely to witness a terrible event that would happen to someone else.
At last, the fading twilight signaled that it was time. Rick and Squeak stayed by their cars while their close friends came together in a huddle, debated, and nodded. They were just ready to shout for the cars to take up their start positions when there was a tremendous explosion. It came from just down the road, where the spectators’ cars were parked along the shoulder.
Fireworks were a big deal in our town. Everyone instantly knew that they had heard the detonation of an M-80, the legendary largest firecracker you could buy, even illegally!
In rapid succession, three more impressive booms ricocheted across the lake and back. The crowd surged in panic toward the road, hurrying to see if cars were damaged. At first, Rick and Squeak held back, but curiosity finally overcame even them, and they trotted up behind.
Alongside the line of cars, the air was filled with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder. People stumbled and fumbled in the night, waving lit cigarette lighters like candles to survey whether any vehicles were harmed. Several people pulled flashlights from their cars and tracked down the explosion source, a scattering of singed paper wadding radiating from the middle of the road. The cars were untouched.
There was then a debate in the dark about the purpose of the detonations. Some of the more inebriated hinted at conspiracy theories, but most laughed and declared it a great prank. Gradually, the crowd recollected its awesome charge to witness the chicken match. People started to drift back to the picnic area.
Rick was walking with a few friends toward his car when one of them shone a flashlight over the Charger. Rick gave a horrified shout and ran over to the vehicle. In the unsteady light, you could see that the gas tank cap was unscrewed and lay on the ground. Next to the back tire was an empty paper bag. When he picked it up, Rick could see that it was a sugar sack from the local Grand Union supermarket. A few grains of sugar clung to the lip of the gas tank and more dribbled down the side of the car.
Rick was silent for a split second. Then he hollered, “Goddamn it! Goddamn it, goddamn it!”
Right then, Squeak rushed over from his Camaro, clutching another empty sugar bag. He was spluttering with rage.
“You son of a bitch!”, Squeak roared. “You put sugar in my gas tank! You fucking yellow bastard!” He rushed toward Rick with fists waving. Rick stepped forward, put an arm out, palm up, and stiff-armed Squeak hard in the chest. Squeak staggered back three feet.
“Call me a coward again and I’ll smash your teeth in,” Rick said in a steely voice. “They sugared my tank too.”
Squeak stared at Rick, who towered over him in smoldering anger. Then he looked at the Charger’s open gas tank. He had the expression of a guy waking up.
“Fuck!”, he yelled in grief and ran back to his car.
The night limped to a close in a sorry anti-climax. A buddy of Rick’s drove him to Masterson’s Garage and a half-hour later Mr. Masterson pulled up to the reservoir with his tow-truck. The Charger and Camaro were both hauled off to the garage.
The next day, Squeak and Rick would meet at the garage to help each other drop and clean their gas tanks. But when they drained the gas from the two cars, they would not find a grain of sugar in either tank. And there was no chicken rematch. Everyone agreed that Rick and Squeak had acquitted themselves with honor.
Back at the reservoir, the crowd looked on as the cars were towed off, then cleared out as soon as the alcohol was gone. I rode my bike back to town in the dark. I sat waiting on the porch until I saw Rick walking down the street on his way home from the garage. As he turned into the driveway, I was surprised to see that he was smiling. When Rick saw me, he quickly put on a serious face, but his walk was still happy. He bounced up the porch steps, and I followed him into the kitchen.
Aunt Liddy sat at the table in a bathrobe, smoking a Lucky Strike. She looked up at him.
“You alright, honey?”
Rick gazed at her almost meekly. “Yeah, I’m OK, mom” he said. He told her about the detonation of the M-80s and the sabotage to the cars. She listened, nodding slowly.
When he had finished, Aunt Liddy said, “This never should’ve happened, Rick… next time you have words with Squeak, work it out. Like friends.”
She patted his hand. “Remember, honey. Sometimes it pays to use a little sugar...”
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