“I ain’t at no liberty to discuss certain business arrangements with a rogue like you, Brother Richard. Don’t think I didn’t notice your head went unbowed during my words with the Master before we left. That is a ticket to damnation, sir.”
“I am already thrice damned,” said Richard. “Which ain’t nothing to you, old man, you are probably thirty-eight times damned or some such, for all your sinning. Here’s what intrigues me. Do you actually believe the Baptist bullshit you sling, or is it just a performance sustained so long it’s become second nature? Are you a con man who’s come to believe in his own con?”
“Hellfire,” said the old preacher man. “Damnation Road. Streaks of fiery lightning. Endtimes. That’s your fate and you will rue it when Satan opens the door with his big smile and welcomes you to the flames of eternal torture.”
“Hoochie mama,” said Richard. “I like it. The sea be aboilin’, the moon be ableedin’, and the Sinnerman don’t got no place to run. I embrace it. That’s why I like myself so much more than I like you, Reverend. I am what I am and I know it. I am not a hypocrite. I took the cards I was dealt, made my decision, played the hand hard to this moment. You hide behind some kind of self-delusionary veil, claiming the Lord’s interest while you’re just a common murderer and thief, and you lead a tribe of neo-pagans to loot the earth, rape, burn, pillage, and move on without a glance back. You’re actually pre-Christian. A PhD could make a career studying the Grumley way and its roots in the Germanic swamps. What was the original, Grummelechtenstein?”
“We be Scots-Irish border-reiver heritage. This talk does us no good.”
“Did he remind you he had video of you and-”
“Shut your mouth,” snapped the Reverend.
“Them boys back there, cousin or brother or both at once, are sleeping the sleep of the purely innocent. Nothing weighs on the conscience-free mind.”
“Nevertheless, shut your mouth.”
“Touchy, touchy. But I did learn something interesting today. Yes, I did. I see now the nature of your relationship with the fellow who runs you.”
“You know nothing.”
“Tell me if I’m wrong. He’s somebody you knew before. He’s somebody close to you. He may even be family. First off, I hear something troubled in your voice, and I hear you let him cut you off, when no one other than me ever cuts you off. So he is familiar to you. An old sponsor? Someone who saved your life? A cellmate? Someone who’s profited off you as you’ve profited off him over long standing? I hear intimacy. Damn, who’d a thought? But that ain’t all.”
“Do tell, Brother. You are so full of yourself. Pride goeth before the fall.”
“Sir, I done already fallen, which is why I consort with your likes. The second reason is, when this is done, there’s got to be a transfer, almost like a dope deal. You will deliver him the swag, he will take his lion’s share, you and the boys will squabble over what’s left. This is a tricky transaction, I know, I’ve driven kingpins to and from enough buys. Usually there are a lot of guns involved for security, paranoia is running hot and feverish, and at any moment for any reason it can all go broken-cuckoo-clocks, the guns come out, and you got yourself a goddamned major firefight. All that cash, just there for the taking. Yet that does not frighten you, does it, Dr. Grumley?”
“When a Grumley give his word, his word is ironclad.”
“Except when it’s not. Oh, there’s the leverage, the pix of the Rev and his boy toy-”
“Richard, I warned you.”
“-but somehow no one is concerned about the exchange. That means it isn’t a problem, everybody, way up front, is okay with it. Damned interesting. Would it be another Grumley? So the leverage ain’t mean-spirited, more like a suggestion than a threat. Everybody’s all cozy with it, especially the gun-crazy, giant gonads sleeping in the van.”
“Richard, I ain’t speaking to you no more. When this is done, I hope never to see you no more never again. You been paid upfront, so my advice is to do your job and disappear.”
“I always do.”
“Pappy,” said Caleb from the back seat, “what’s ‘paranoia’?”
By six, the caravan had decamped and unloaded. The boys worked swiftly, for here was labor hard and simple. With strong arms and backs, they sank the tent pegs and drove the poles deep into the ground. With stout hearts, they unpacked and unfolded the tables. With dead earnestness, they stowed certain boxes containing certain pieces of equipment underneath the tables, arranging and stapling the table cloths so that their skirts covered the items beneath. Then they got the coolers out, packed each with ice, and began to load the bottles into them, each one holding about fifty, so the liquid would be readily cold for pilgrims as the sun rose and pulled the temperature with it. They stacked the remaining cases behind the tables, almost forming a revetment which would keep anyone from noting what they were up to in its dark shadow.
As they worked, of course, they were not alone. All along the Volunteer Parkway this close to the venue, merchants of various stripes were setting up their wares. For this road to and from the speedway would carry, by ten in the morning, a slow-motion parade, as cars crept along its jammed lanes and pedestrians coming from vehicles already parked streamed in the thousands toward the mighty coliseum. Next to the Grumley installation, for example, was PHIL’S FINE NORTH CAROLINA BAR-B-Q, where Phil and his sons had already lit the coals under the broad-bottomed grills that would hold the meat put atop them, allowing the juices of Phil’s secret mix of sauces and herbs to permeate it, so that by noontime, damn, the whole place would smell of hot pig and sweet bubbly brown sugar. On the other side, a tall Mr. Stevens had an elaborate tent that offered a line of extremely fine woven mats, some showing drivers standing before their sleek vehicles, some showing the flag or Elvis or the Iwo Jima memorial or the Twin Towers (NEVER FORGET!) or the flag of the departed Confederacy or F-15s blazing across a sky or horses rearing proudly against a western mesa or Osama in the crosshairs of a sniper’s scope, all made, of course, in China. And on and on it went, down the parkway that linked the speedway and the city of Bristol twelve miles away. The parkway that on Race Day would be a near-frozen river of automobiles moving an inch at a time.
But the Grumleys had gotten the best spot of all, and it took some doing, as the permit for this space had been held for a number of years by another Baptist church, which used to sell souvenirs as well but had been persuaded to turn over its permit in receipt of a large donation. So the Grumleys had set up almost at ground zero of the NASCAR explosion: directly across from NASCAR Village, on the other side of parkway, just a bit down from the driveway that led to the parkway from the speedway headquarters, an admin building in art moderne aluminum. As they labored and the sun rose, they could see across the way the hugeness of the speedway itself, dwarfed only by the mountain beyond NASCAR Village that topped the wall of the racing structure.
They were all done by eight: bottles, hats, T’s, and so forth, all displayed under a large banner that read, PINEY RIDGE BAPTIST PRAYER CAMP WATER $1 HATS $10 T’S $15 and in smaller letters, SEND A STUDENT TO PRAYER CAMP TO LEARN THE WAY OF THE GOSPEL AND THE TRUE MEANING OF WORSHIP.
It was, at long last, Race Day.
PART II. RACE DAY
TWENTY-SIX
Vern knocked on the door. He heard awkward, reluctant shuffling, sensed doubt, perhaps even fear, but finally the door popped open about two inches, held secure by a chain lock, and he and his partner faced a pair of ancient Asian eyes in an ancient Asian face. Mama-san looked to be in her seventies, without much English, and quite insecure.
Vern, with his gift of gab, his easy ways of persuasion, his cheap good looks, was on the case from the start.