The Driver by Alexander Roy

near-Japanese sense of socialist loyalty and honor to those who’d helped him. In the forty-six years my father ran the company, only a handful of people had ever been fired (and then only for theft), and there had never been a mass layoff.
    Alfred’s poker face was nowhere near as good as The Weis’s. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
    I already knew. I had not only a moral imperative to do the right thing, but also a selfish one—I needed not only Alfred’s respect and trust, but the staff ’s as well.
    â€œWe’re going to do exactly what my dad would do. No layoffs. I have no idea what’s going to happen, so we’re going to hedge our bets for a month or two. Everyone keeps their jobs and takes a 20 percent pay cut and one day off a week. We’ll cut my salary to zero. You take a cut which we’ll figure out when we get back to the office next week. We sit tight for a month and see what happens. If we go under, I give you my word that we’ll start over and I’ll take you with me.”
    The blood rushed back into Alfred’s cheeks. “I think that’s what your father would have wanted.”
    â€œI’m just glad he didn’t live to see this.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    Thirteen months later, Alfred and I were proven right.
    It was time to rewrite my will. I didn’t tell them what I intended to do.
    Â 
    There was only one way to find The Driver.
    I had to find the events where he might recruit drivers of sufficient experience and preparation for an utterly illegal, secret, nonstop race cross-country. Twenty-two years after the end of Cannonball, the pool of interested, qualified entrants had to be minuscule. These few, eager for more than weekend track days, would gravitate toward the next closest thing.
    There was only one logical place to look, an event named after a fictitious race depicted only in film, its true origins having long swirled and disappeared into the fog of Cannonball mythology.
    The Gumball 3000.
    Officially, the Gumball was a rally without time, speed, or distance-related trophies, but if it was merely a rally, then why was hard information so scarce? Why did virtually every fan and aspiring entrant refer to it as a race? Why was it so hard to identify past winners of the cryptically named Gumball Spirit Trophy? Why didn’t Gumball stop entrants from claiming “victory” on their personal websites? Why did fans worship oddly named legends such as Lonman and Kimble? Why—even among car aficionados—was Gumball discussed in hushed, reverential tones as if it were the Cannonball incarnate?
    It was obvious. Gumball was either a surreptitious race disguised as a rally, or tacitly allowing entrants to race under its legal umbrella.
    The next Gumball would leave New York for L.A.—a virtual tribute to the real Cannonball—in late April 2002, a mere six months away. I needed a year to research and prepare. Rumors suggested Gumball would return stateside in 2003.
    I’d be ready.
    NOVEMBER 2002
    â€œGumball. That’s where I’m gonna find him. I know it.”
    â€œSo,” said The Weis, “we’re back to this Driver business.”
    We sat in the library of his family’s country house in Long Island. We had to discuss this out of earshot of his parents—my surrogate family since my parents divorced when I was nineteen. The Weis was the only Weismann who would entertain my most reckless ideas without reaching for the TV remote, often waiting weeks for the opportunity to deliver a memorized backlog of insults to his best friend.
    â€œI thought you gave this up.”
    I frowned with false indignation. “That’s how you talk to me?”
    â€œIdiot. What makes you think he’ll be there?”
    â€œThis Gumball thing is as underground as you can get. It’s expensive, it’s impossible to get in…if he’s not there, then I’m sure