EXCERPTS

...Racing Around West Palm Beach



Unlike racing in Shelby, racing in West Palm Beach was solitary…

I raced mostly in the vicinity of the Air Force base near where we lived (and where two planes crashed, a B-25 and C-130 as I recall – although that is another story). The roads were especially good in the rain because the impermeable pavement of asphalt and seashells promoted hydroplaning. Going around the curve at the end of the runway where I once saw the Blue Angels roar low overheard then abruptly lift toward heaven it didn’t require much throttle to make the rear end of the old Ford creep out toward the jungle on the side of the road.

I raced in whatever vehicle was handy.

When my step-mother came to live with us, I raced her pretty blue 53 Chevrolet coupe. It was sold to her and maintained by Crawley, her brother-in-law, who was the Chevrolet dealer in Shelby. He had bulldog jowls like J. Edgar Hoover and when drinking encouraged his Chihuahua to sing. I took her Chevrolet out on back roads behind the base, pushed the gas pedal to the floor then let the clutch pop. The knobby snow tires that Crawley had installed did not squeal but just gnawed at the odd aggregate until the car gained traction and lurched off.

When my father traded the old Ford for a fancy white 1957 Chevrolet Bel Aire hard top, I raced that too. I drove it on the same back roads and when the car was going as fast as it could go, floating lightly over the wavy pavement at 110 MPH, I slammed on the brakes. The tires squealed and the car nosed down like a horse whose reins had been jerked. I did this repeatedly until the brakes got hot and failed. I called it high-speed braking practice.

Although my solitary racing usually had no affect on other people, there were a few exceptions.

I once wrecked the Chevrolet - although it wasn’t strictly racing. At a traffic light between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, I ran into the back of a Willys Jeepster. I had shifted my eyes to the car lot on the side of the road to admire a swooping old convertible which I knew from Road and Track magazines was a Delahaye. The hitch protruding from the back of the Jeepster punctured the Chevrolet’s grill. My father didn’t get mad, never got really mad at me and I made no connection between that man and the man who reportedly had bashed a would-be bandit in the head with a tire iron one night in 1928 on the way back from Tijuana and who had been asked by Jack Legs Diamond in 1931 to join his organization as a collector.

There was the incident with Rose. I had been invited to a party at a private home in Palm Beach. I suppose it was again my James Dean resemblance. I drove up in the old, rust-pitted Ford in the early evening, when shadows of palms fluttered against the white stucco of the rambling, single-story structure. Inside, it was all muted lighting and soft pastels. The hosts were well-dressed, generous and kind. Rose was exquisite. I got the impression she did not quite belong there either, although she belonged more than me. She sat across from me in a big overstuffed chair, her perfectly tanned legs tucked up under yellow shorts. We talked. I don’t remember what we said, but the tone, on my side anyway, seemed unstoppably grandiose. Later, somebody suggested that I drive her home. She sat curled across from me on the front seat, her smooth knees pointing at my face. I suppose I did it to impress her. Going back North on A1A there was a tight curve that I had learned to slide around. So, that is what I did. She didn’t have time to prepare. One moment we were driving along and the next moment we were roaring around this curve, maybe about to die. She recovered quickly enough and turned away but I had seen the fear of me make her ugly.

There was also the thing at Graham Eckes private school. It was on the other end of Palm Beach island, not far, I think, from the Kennedy house and not far from a driveway with a large mirror turned to reveal oncoming traffic. I was driving the old Ford. The students, like large birds in their blue uniforms, were crossing the road. I don’t think I came close to hitting anybody. But there was a dithering flutter of activity and I did slam on the brakes. Since this was the only way out, I waited behind the abutment at the end of the island for an hour or so before venturing back down A1A toward the bridge that went to West Palm Beach.

This was perhaps the day that I imagined the Ford and I were stationary and Palm Beach was actually moving past us.The idea came from a book about relativity. I had played with the notion before, but on that day, I might have actually altered my perception enough to scare myself.

...Almost Shot in Ass

A pidawee cowboy...

It happened in a field on Coleman’s father’s farm, across the railroad track from Washburn Switch Road. The incident became part of my personal mythology, resulting in an oft-told story combining elements of self-aggrandizement and self-abnegation. The place became the setting for my “on the farm with vaguely disapproving adults” dreams.

I know that Frank and Coleman were there – maybe Doane and Johnny, but not Larry because he was in Miami with his Hitler scrapbook driving a Renault Dauphine flat out all over town, yelling, paradoxically, at Volkswagens and Fiats. Joe wasn’t there either. He was in West Palm Beach starting his career as a rocket scientist.

It was in the summer of 1961. We were 21 and 22, in the last year of college or, like Joe, in the first year of our first jobs. Next year most of us would be married; in two years about half would be in the Army, and in 10 years one of us would be dead.

We were visiting Coleman because that summer we still lived with our parents and still dropped in on each other without warning, asking, “What do you wanna do?”. We went to the field because Coleman had business with men who were working there and we always followed the one with a purpose.

On this day, I was armed with a Ruger single-action .22 revolver. It looked like a cowboy Colt, which was the idea. I wore it in a holster on my side and perhaps sauntered.

Although the others probably did think I was silly, they didn’t think I was too silly because they were all capable of the same thing. Coleman had a room full of weapons including antique muskets and a WWI German mortar. Several years earlier, Coleman, Larry, Joe, and I floated down Broad River in Bill’s homemade boat, some of us carrying Coleman’s muzzle-loading pistols with which we planned to shoot left-over winter ducks. And before that, after I moved to Florida but before Larry moved, they used the same pistols to shoot some sparrows and robins in what became known as the Great Sparrow Bird Hunt. To honor these song bird spirits, my friends spitted the small carcasses over a camp fire that night and ate what was not consumed by the flames.

By 1961 I had pretty much lost any interest in killing animals. The reason I had the pistol was to practice fast draws and impress my friends. Fast-drawing was the craze that year, maybe due to the popularity of TV westerns like Maverick, Paladin and Gunsmoke.

The first draw seemed slow. The bullet kicked up the red clay about 30 feet in front of me. Other than to make sure I didn’t hit any of my friends, who as I recall, weren’t paying much attention, I didn’t aim, just pulled the pistol out of the holster, cocked the hammer and jerked the trigger.

The second draw seemed faster, producing a satisfactory puff of dirt about 20 feet ahead.

The third draw seemed even faster, kicking up soil about 10 feet from my feet. Possibly by this time, the others were paying attention.

The fourth time, I cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger before the pistol cleared the holster. I felt no pain, just sort of a smack. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been drawing faster, just pulling the trigger sooner. I didn’t look down.

I said to Frank, “Frank, am I shot?”

He made his tee-hee laugh and announced to everybody. “Tom’s shot himself in the ass.”

Then I looked down. There was no blood, no injury. We speculated that the bullet hit a brad in the holster then ricocheted out the end and away from my foot. I since learned that other, less-lucky fast-draw artists had shot themselves this way.

My friends probably were impressed - after a fashion. I don’t know about the adults working in the next field.


...Molly and Eva



Imagining little stories that Molly might have told to Eva...

One winter night in the big house in Asheville, sitting before the fireplace, her voice mixing with the whisper of the wind and rain, Molly told Eva about the Tweeds.

“They lived in a castle in Scotland.” The curtain rustled and Molly glanced at the window. Her watery reflection stared back. “It was cold and rainy there too.”

“They were our relatives?”

“Umhm.”

“But they are dead now?”

“Yes. That was a long time ago.”

“What did they do in Scotland?”

Molly pretended to concentrate. “Well, the lords fought a lot.”

“Who did they fight?”

“They fought everybody - each another, the English, before that the Romans, who built a wall to keep them out.”

Eva frowned. “I think the lords were bad men.”

Molly nodded, “I suppose.”, then she smiled, her face flickering red in the firelight. “But do you know what?”

“What?”

“They wore dresses.”

Eva giggled. “Like girls wear?”

“Yes, but different. They called them kilts.”

“Did they wear bloomers?”

“I don’t think so.”

Eva made a face. “They must have gotten cold. Why did they fight so much?”

Molly laughed. Her voice was a sweet contralto. “Because their pidawees were freezing off.”

Eva snickered. “What did the ladies do?”

“They had the babies.”

“What did they do after that?”

The fire popped. Eva jumped a little.

Molly idly stroked her daughter’s hair. “I don’t know sweetie. I suppose they just died.”

* * * * *

One summer evening, after eating homemade peach ice cream that Molly had mixed and B.K. had churned, and everybody was sitting on blankets in the front yard and looking up at the stars, Eva leaned back against her mother’s bosom, and said, “Tell me a story.”

Molly said, “No, baby, I’m tired. Lie still.”

“Please.”

Molly sighed and adjusted her position. “All right. It seems that there was once a Parris who got himself hung.”

Eva wiggled. “With a rope around his neck?”

“Yes mam.”

“Why?”

“He was a pirate. They hung him on Parris Island, where they hung all the pirates back then.”

“Was it named after us, this island?”

Her father’s voice answered from the dark, “Maybe.”

Eva leaned back and looked up at her mother’s pale face. “Was he a bad man?”

Molly buried her nose in the tart smell of her daughter’s hair and laughed. “Why no, sweetie, not according to the story your grandmother told. He was what they called a privateer. That means he was like a soldier fighting in a war. He was just unlucky.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yes, isn’t it.”

* * * * *

One spring day, Molly and Eva were weeding the little garden behind the house. Molly used a hoe, methodically chopping up and down. Eva walked behind, tugging at the plants her mother had loosened. It was already hot and both mother and daughter were sweating. Molly, who was usually pregnant, was pregnant again.

She stopped, leaned against the hoe and said, “Damn. If I was a Parris man, I think I’d switch sides about now.”

Eva looked up at her mother’s swollen body.

“That’s what they did back in the Civil War. When things got tough the men switched sides. For instance like right now, during planting time, the men that didn’t want to work might join one side or the other. Then when they were ready to work they’d just leave and come home.”

Eva wiped her hands on her dress, leaving red clay streaks, like dried blood. “When it was time to pick what was planted?”

“Sure, then.”

“What did the women do?”

“They just did.”