The Highway Kind(39)

My own journey has not been predictable, but then, whose is? I worked as a mechanic in my twenties, got married and divorced, struggled with substance abuse, and kicked it. Met a woman in rehab who has been my wife for almost thirty years. Had a son. Somewhere in there I noticed that the guys who were selling water pumps and mufflers to me were driving Cadillacs and Lincolns, so I opened up an auto-parts store, then three more, and within a decade I was bought out by a chain that came to town. By most standards, I’m a wealthy man.

These days, I can afford to buy any car I want, but nothing floats my boat. The rice burners all look alike, and the modern American muscle cars are weak imitations of the more striking originals. I drive a Dodge pickup truck. My father, a Mopar man, would approve.

Jane and I had always wanted to see New Orleans, and about six months ago we went down to check it out. We were staying at the Hampton Inn on the edge of the warehouse district. One afternoon I wandered by the convention center while my wife was shopping up on Magazine Street. There’s a huge warehouse nearby where they store the Mardi Gras floats, and there they were having one of those classic-car auctions you see on TV. I walked in.

They were bringing the cars out one by one, with fanfare, before the bidding started. The way they played it up, with music and showgirls and all that, it was like the lions and Christians were coming out into the Colosseum in ancient Rome. I watched it for a while standing next to a guy about my age, said his name was Dan. He was still beside me when they rolled out a ’70 ’Cuda: black body, black interior, black vinyl roof. Triple black. The announcer said it was a 383.

“The four-forty can go for close to a mill,” said Dan. “This one here might fetch a couple hundred grand, at least, if it’s straight.”

“It’s a beauty,” I said.

“I always thought the Barracuda from that era had four headlights. This one’s got only two.”

“This is a ’70,” I said. “Plymouth only put the four headlights on the ’71s.”

“You know your cars.”

“I used to,” I said.

I thought about getting closer to see if the car was Ted’s. Surely there was a chain of title. For a hot second, I considered bidding on it and, if I got it, giving the ’Cuda to my son. But that moment passed.

My son doesn’t own a car. No interest. He didn’t even get his license until he was in his early twenties. He rides a bicycle and uses Uber. I don’t understand a young man who doesn’t want the freedom and thrill of having his own vehicle, but there are many things about him that I don’t understand.

You get to an age, you feel like you don’t belong here anymore. But I’m not here. The young man I’ve described to you is gone. I’m not the same person I was so many years ago. Not even close.

Take Walter Mahoney. It scares me now to think that I came so very close to murdering him. If I could talk to Walter again, I’d tell him that it’s okay. He was a confused kid, just like me. He was reckless, just like me. He got in a wrestling match with Ted, and he hurt him, but he didn’t make Ted sick. I’d tell him that, with the death of his brother Jason, we had something in common now. If I were to spend some time with Walter again, we might even become friends. But that will never happen. Walter ended up homeless and alcoholic. He’s been gone many years. His body was found one January morning, frozen on the street.

My mom and Ted both died of cancer. It runs in my family, so odds are I’m next. When it happens, I’ll join Pop, and my mother, and Ted. Walter too. Not in heaven or anything like that. I don’t believe in fairy tales.

I’m saying, when I go, we’ll all be in the same place: buried in the Catholic cemetery by our church in the neighborhood where I came up, a long time ago. When cars were loud, fast, and beautiful, and we raced them in the night.





FOGMEISTER


by Diana Gabaldon

HE WAS MY friend. It was my car.

I had to know.

January 28, 1938, was a cold day. Cold, clear, and dry. Ironic, really—two drivers famous for their skill in bad weather, and that day the Autobahn was dry as a bone, the air clear as a bell. The German Nazi Motorsports Guild arranged to close part of the Autobahn for the speed-record trials; the officials from Mercedes-Benz and the Auto Union each chose a straight kilometer—the ground for their duel—and marked them off. If you stood at the Auto Union starting line, you could see the bridge in the distance.

Rudolf Caracciola was driving for Mercedes. They called him Der Regenmeister, the Rain Master. Great on wet pavement, complete control.

Bernd Rosemeyer could drive in any weather conditions, but to see him come hurtling alone out of a bank of fog, the distant whine of the invisible pack behind him, was a sight to lift the hairs on your neck.

The day before, it had been raining and hazy, but not on the twenty-eighth. A perfect day for this clash of German titans. The Auto Union—and the 1937 Rekordwagen based on my Type C Grand Prix car—had come out of the Recordwoche in October covered in glory and bursting with pride. Bernie set fifteen world and international records that week. Mercedes wanted some of them back.

The Stromlinienwagen, we called it—the Streamliner. I designed it, a new, beautiful, flowing shape for the Grand Prix. It passed out of my hands when my contract with Auto Union expired at the end of 1937, but I created it. It was my car.