Sharyn McCrumb - Once Around the Track

2007

Have you found him yet? The voice on the cell phone wasshrill and insistent, but then it always was, even for the most trivial of messages. Clients were notoriously impatient people, and she billed them accordingly.

Suzie Terrell looked out her windshield at the kudzu-covered hillside overlooking a ramshackle collection of buildings that could hardly be called a town. Next to the narrow concrete bridge spanning what was surely nothing more than a creek was a battered tin sign, emblazoned with checkered flags and bearing the bullet-riddled legend: MARENGO, GEORGIA: HOME OF BADGER JENKINS, WINNER OF THE SOUTHERN 500.

I think Im on the last lap, she said wearily, and clicked off the phone.

As an Atlanta lawyer, Suzie Terrell had had her share of bizarre commissions-suing the dogs plastic surgeon came to mind-and this latest directive from a group of women investors would probably make the short list of stories to tell at dinner parties after four drinks. It promised to be quite an adventure.

Find Badger Jenkins.

Who the hell-? When she received the assignment, she had dutifully looked him up on the Internet, and an instant later the name appeared on her computer screen, accompanied by an image of a glowering but handsome man in opaque black sunglasses and a red and black firesuit, positively robotic in his well-chiseled perfection, possessing all the soulless beauty of a state-of-the-art espresso machine.

Suzie stared at the scowling face for a few moments; then she sank back in her office chair and muttered to herself, Oh, great! Now I have to go and make small talk with the Angel of Death!

Further searches on the Internet turned up only vague hints as to the current whereabouts of this alien being. Badger Jenkins, it turned out, was a race car driver, currently unemployed, and a little older than NASCARs current crop of drivers (that is, he was old enough to shave). He was a native Georgian; he had won a few races, raised his share of hell both on and off the track, and was thought to be back home in some one-horse town called Marengo, wherever that was. What Mr. Jenkins was doing these days was anybodys guess.

Suzie had tried calling his business office in Marengo, but there didnt seem to be one. The phone number, garnered from an out-of-date Web site, turned out to be located in the Blue Tick Caf, and was answered by a drawling waitress named Laraine, who claimed to be Badger Jenkinss second cousin once removed.

Once removed? said Suzie.

Yeah, hon. Once removed out from under him in the backseat of his car by my daddy and a loaded shotgun. I got grounded for three months, but, boy, it was worth it. He wasnt but seventeen himself that time. She sighed, savoring the moment. Ol Badger was hotter than a two-dollar pistol back then. Tearing up dirt tracks, leaving a trail of broken hearts and dented fenders. Face like an angel, and hell on wheels. You ever seen one of them early sports cards of him?

Er-no.

Woo-hoo! Itd give you hot flashes just to look at him. Theres one of them cards I kept to this day that shows him with his firesuit unzipped to where you can see his curly little chest hair peeping out, and those white pants so tight you could practically read the Trojan wrapper in his pocket. Course that firesuit didnt have pockets, as I recall, but you get my drift. And him settin there grinning and facing the camera with his legs spread-eagled wide apart, same as he sits in every picture I have ever seen of him right to this day. Like show-and-tell. I swear, try as you might, you cant help but look! Honey, if that boy was a mindreader, he could not walk past a crowd of women without limping.

Howevocative. Suzie shuddered. Perhaps you can help me. I am trying to locate Mr. Jenkins. I was hoping that you could tell me how to reach him?

Laraine was silent for a few moments. Then she said, Wellyour best bet is the post office box. I think the rent on it is paid up anyhow. Course even if it isnt, Miz Todhunter the postmistress will give him the letters, anyhow. Shes seventy if shes a minute, but she looks at him like a stray dog eying a drumstick.

Perhaps there is a phone number where he could be reached?

Oh, he dont like us to give out phone numbers. Especially to bill collectors or ladies of a certain age, if you know what Im saying. Badger says hes a race car driver, not a damn turkey baster.

I have a business proposition to discuss with Mr. Jenkins, said Suzie, adding ice to her most lawyerly tone.

Oh. Well, I reckon you can talk to his daddy then. That might get a message to him. Mr. Jenkins says he dont care if I give out his number to the older ladies. Reckon hes hoping hell get some of the overflow.

But that hadnt gone well, either.

The old man who answered the phone had barely let her say her name before he launched into his spiel. If youre calling about Clover Hoof, our prize Angus bull, why, his stud fee is five hundred dollars, payable in advance. Hes a champion, he is. Won-

No, sir. Its not about the bull.

Well, now, Keeper, our coon hound, aint won no prizes, but hes the best tracker in three counties, no argument there, and his stud fee is fifty dollars cash money and the pick of the litter.

Mr. Jenkins, Im calling about your son Badger.

Oh. Well, I reckon youd better talk to him directly then, said the old man. I dont know what he charges.

In the end, Suzie consulted a road atlas, left her office in Atlanta, and drove nearly three hours north into the red clay hills of Georgia, in search of Marengo, which, Laraine had assured her, was so small it was only on the map two days a week.

Now she had found it. Parking wasnt a problem, she told herself, as she surveyed the block of gently decaying storefronts subsiding into the hill of kudzu behind it. She seemed to be the only person in town. The two-lane blacktop was devoid of traffic, and the towns one stoplight was permanently set on a yellow caution light. In the minute business district, consisting of mostly empty buildings, the Blue Tick Caf was easy enough to spot: a whitewashed cinderblock building with a big plate glass window, framed by two white flower boxes of red geraniums. Suzie surveyed the scene, looking for stray dogs. In case she had to order something in the diner, she could always eat the pickle, ask for the rest of the order to go, and then give it to some starving pooch with a cast-iron stomach.

Assuming her brightest Junior League smile (the one that said my teeth and my pearls are both real), Suzie Terrell stepped inside the caf and beamed at the dishwater blonde behind the counter. Are you Laraine? We spoke on the phone.

Narrowed eyes took in her pastel blue silk suit from Neiman Marcus and her Dolce & Gabbana purse. Yeah, I remember. Is this about Badger?

Yes, it is. I represent a group of women-

The waitress rolled her eyes and heaved a theatrical sigh. His DNAs on file at the courthouse.

No, that isnt it. My clients want to offer him a job. Driving a Cup car.

A Cup car. Three weeks ago that term would have mystified her, ignorant as she was of all things NASCAR. Just because you were born and bred in Atlanta didnt mean you acquired knowledge of stock car racing by osmosis. After all, what they called the Atlanta Motor Speedway was, in fact, in Hampton, Georgia, some thirty miles south of the big city. Suzie Terrell had never been there. In fact, where stock car racing was concerned, she had cherished her ignorance. Now here she was in an even more remote and savage place-Marengo, Georgia, teetering on the edge of the world-awaiting the arrival of the towns one celebrity: Badger Jenkins, race car driver and local satyr.