The Outside Groove by Erik E. Esckilsen Page A

for maniacal tow-truck drivers, I spotted my uncle and the longhaired guy standing next to the wrecker that’d almost wrecked me about a week earlier. On the truck’s driver’s-side door, in obviously hand-painted black letters against the rust-colored truck body, were the words J.B.’s Towing. In the right bay of the shop sat a car that made my stomach clench. If it could’ve even been called a car. It was more like a mistake of geometry. The front and rear ends were perfectly rectangular, with the boxlike roof sitting directly in the center like the pilothouse on a tugboat. That’s what the car reminded me of—a tugboat. A tugboat that had been painted with what looked like vast amounts of pea soup.
    As I pulled up to the shop, Uncle Harvey gave me a wave with one hand while holding a crowbar with the other. When I got out of the car, he handed the crowbar to the longhaired guy and they both started circling the car.
    â€œWhat do you think?” Uncle Harvey said as I stepped into the shop.
    â€œIt has a certain retro appeal.”
    The longhaired guy smirked.
    â€œThis is Jim Biggins,” Uncle Harvey said.
    â€œHow you doing, Jim?”
    â€œNo complaints,” he said with a nod, then set his jaw as if contemplating something.
    Standing next to him, I noted that Jim was stockier than he’d seemed cranking across my uncle’s yard in his truck, and he looked older than Wade by a couple of years at least. Sandy blond hair hung to about his shoulders, and when he turned, brown whiskers caught sunlight. I thought his eyes were blue, but I didn’t want to stare, and, anyway, what I noticed first about his eyes were the dark circles underneath them.
    â€œJim here’s your pit crew,” Uncle Harvey added. “And your car’s an old Chevy, mostly. Chevy, a little Ford, and four other cars. Six in all. Blodgett likes his drivers to run the same equipment, and his preference is for Fords—Mustangs in particular. You’ll see some Tempos too, and some cars, like this one, that are harder to classify. But I read his manual cover to cover, and I’m pretty sure this ride’ll do.” He chuckled. “Chassis comes from an old cop car, if you can believe it.”
    â€œI’ve always wanted to ride in a cop car,” I said.
    Jim tapped the driver’s-side door with the crowbar. “It’s not as much fun as it looks.”
    Uncle Harvey smiled at Jim, the corners of his eyes drawn down.
    â€™â€™You know a lot about racecars, Jim?” I said.
    He shook his head. “Not much. But I’ve got a tow truck, so you can at least get this thing to the track. ”
    I turned to Uncle Harvey. “What about you?”
    â€œWhat about me?”
    â€œYou’re in my pit crew, right?”
    Uncle Harvey laughed, but as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, I caught an anxious flash in his eyes. “Ah, I’m afraid not, Casey,” he said. “Got more than I can handle just staying on top of my work here.”
    â€œYou found time to build me a racecar.”
    Uncle Harvey clenched his jaw. “That I did. And that’s going to be the extent of my involvement in all this.”
    I shot Jim a curious look.
    His gaze revealed nothing.
    â€œYou don’t even want to come and watch?” I said.
    Uncle Harvey looked at the ground. “Wish I could. Really, I do.”
    â€œWhy can’t you?”
    â€œLook, time’s a wasting.” Uncle Harvey whirled around, pulled his hands from his pockets, and clapped them together. “You’ve got eight days to learn how to drive. Helmet’s on the seat there. We can get you another if it doesn’t fit. Now get in and fire it up. See how she feels.”
    I didn’t say this to Uncle Harvey, but I’d already decided that the car was a
he
—Theo, after a tugboat character named Theodore in a video that Blaine and Maddy Egan used to watch,