The Art of Racing in the Rain — by Garth Stein

9

 

A couple of years after we moved into the new house, something very frightening happened.

Denny got a seat for a race at Watkins Glen. It was another enduro, but it was with a well-established team, and he didn’t have to find all the sponsorship money for his seat. Earlier that spring he had gone to France for a Formula Renault testing program. It was an expensive program he couldn’t afford; he told Mike his parents paid for it as a gift, but I had my doubts. His parents lived very far away in a small town, and they had never visited in all the time I had been there. Not for the wedding, Zoë’s birth, or anything. No matter. Wherever the funding came from, Denny had attended this program, and he had kicked ass because it was in France in the spring when it rains. When he told Eve about it, he said that one of the scouts who attend these things approached him in the paddock after a session and said, “Can you drive as fast in the dry as you can in the wet?” And Denny looked him straight in the eyes and replied, simply, “Try me.”

That which you manifest is before you.

The scout offered Denny a tryout, and Denny went away for two weeks. Testing and tuning and practicing. It was a big deal. He did so well, they offered him a seat in the enduro race at Watkins Glen.

When he first left for New York, we all grinned at each other because we couldn’t wait to watch the race on Speed Channel.

“It’s so exciting.” Eve would giggle. “Daddy’s a professional race car driver!”

And Zoë, whom I love very much and would not hesitate to sacrifice my own life to protect, would cheer and hop into her little race car they kept in the living room and drive around in circles until we were all dizzy and then throw her hands into the air and proclaim, “I am the champion!”

I got so caught up in the excitement, I was doing idiotic dog things like digging up the lawn. Balling myself up and then stretching out long and thin on the floor with my legs straight and my back arched and letting them scratch my belly. And chasing things. I chased!

It was the best of times. Really.

And then it was the worst of times.

Race day came, and Eve woke up with a darkness upon her. A pain so insufferable she stood in the kitchen in the early hours, before Zoë was awake, and vomited with great intensity into the sink. She vomited as if she were turning herself inside out.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Enzo,” she said. And she rarely spoke to me candidly like that. Like how Denny talks to me, as if I’m his true friend, his soul mate. The last time she had talked to me like that was when Zoë was born.

But this time she did talk to me like I was her soul mate. She asked, “What’s wrong with me?”

She knew I couldn’t answer. Her question was totally rhetorical. That’s what I found so frustrating about it: I had an answer.

I knew what was wrong, but I had no way to tell her, so I pushed at her thigh with my muzzle. I nosed in and buried my face between her legs. And I waited there, afraid.

“I feel like someone’s crushing my skull,” she said.

I couldn’t respond. I had no words. There was nothing I could do.

“Someone’s crushing my skull,” she repeated.

And quickly she gathered some things while I watched. She shoved Zoë’s clothes in a bag and some of her own and toothbrushes. All so fast. And she roused Zoë and stuffed her little kid-feet into her little-kid sneakers and—bang—the door slammed shut and—snick, snick—the deadbolt was thrown and they were gone.

And I wasn’t gone. I was there. I was still there.

 

10

 

Ideally, a driver is a master of all that is around him, Denny says. Ideally, a driver controls the car so completely that he corrects a spin before it happens, he anticipates all possibilities. But we don’t live in an ideal world. In our world, surprises sometimes happen, mistakes happen, incidents with other drivers happen, and a driver must react.

When a driver reacts, Denny says, it’s important to remember that a car is only as good as its tires. If the tires lose traction, nothing else matters. Horsepower, torque, braking. All is moot when a skid is initiated. Until speed is scrubbed by good, old-fashioned friction and the tires regain traction, the driver is at the mercy of momentum. And momentum is a powerful force of nature.

It is important for the driver to understand this idea and override his natural inclinations. When the rear of a car “steps out,” the driver may panic and lift his foot off the accelerator. If he does, he will throw the weight of the car toward the front wheels, the rear end will snap around, and the car will spin.

A good driver will try to catch the spin by turning wheels in the direction the car is moving; he may succeed. However, at a critical point, the skid has completed its mission, which was to scrub speed from a car going too fast. Suddenly the tires find grip, and the driver has traction—unfortunately for him, with his front wheels turned sharply in the wrong direction. This induces a counterspin, as there is no balance to the car whatsoever. Thus, the spin in one direction, when overcorrected, becomes a spin in the other direction, and the secondary spin is much faster and more dangerous.

If, however, at the very first moment his tires began to break free, our driver had been experienced enough to resist his instinctive reaction to lift, he might have been able to apply his knowledge of vehicle behavior and, instead, increase the pressure on the accelerator, and at the same time ease out on the steering wheel ever so slightly. The increase in acceleration would have pushed his rear tires onto the track and settled his car. Relaxing the steering would have lessened the lateral g-forces at work. The spin would therefore have been corrected, but our driver would then have to deal with the secondary problem his correction has created: by increasing the radius of the turn, he has put himself at risk of running off the track.

Alas! Our driver is not where he had hoped to be! Yet he is still in control of his car. He is still able to act in a positive manner. He still can create an ending to his story in which he completes the race without incident. And, perhaps, if his manifesting is good, he will win.

 

11

 

When I was locked in the house suddenly and firmly, I did not panic. I did not overcorrect or freeze. I quickly and carefully took stock of the situation and understood these things: Eve was ill, and the illness was possibly affecting her judgment, and she likely would not return for me; Denny would be home on the third day, after two nights.

I am a dog, and I know how to fast. It’s a part of the genetic background for which I have such contempt. When God gave men big brains, he took away the pads on their feet and made them susceptible to salmonella. When he denied dogs the use of thumbs, he gave them the ability to survive without food for extended periods. While a thumb—one thumb!—would have been very helpful at that time, allowing me to turn a stupid doorknob and escape, the second best tool, and the one at my disposal, was my ability to go without nourishment.

For three days I took care to ration the toilet water. I wandered around the house sniffing at the crack beneath the pantry door and fantasizing about a big bowl of my kibble, scooping up the occasional errant dust-covered Cheerio Zoë had dropped in a corner somewhere. And I urinated and defecated on the mat by the back door, next to the laundry machines. I did not panic.

During the second night, approximately forty hours into my solitude, I think I began to hallucinate. Licking at the legs of Zoë’s high chair where I had discovered some remnants of yogurt spilled long ago, I inadvertently sparked my stomach’s digestive juices to life with an unpleasant groan, and I heard a sound coming from her bedroom. When I investigated, I saw something terrible and frightening. One of her stuffed animal toys was moving about on its own.

It was the zebra. The stuffed zebra that had been sent to her by her paternal grandparents, who may have been stuffed animals themselves for all that we saw them in Seattle. I never cared for that zebra, as it was something of my rival for Zoë’s affection. Frankly, I was surprised to see it in the house, since it was one of Zoë’s favorites and she carted it around at length and even slept with it, wearing little grooves in its coat just below the animal’s velveteen head. I found it hard to believe Eve hadn’t grabbed it when she threw together their bag, but I guess she was so freaked out or in such pain that she overlooked the zebra.

The now-living zebra said nothing to me at all, but when it saw me it began a dance, a twisting, jerky ballet, which culminated with the zebra repeatedly thrusting its gelded groin into the face of an innocent Barbie doll. That made me quite angry, and I growled at the molester zebra, but it simply smiled and continued its assault, this time picking on a stuffed frog, which it mounted from behind and rode bareback, its hoof in the air like a bronco rider, yelling out, “Yee-haw! Yee-haw!”

I stalked the bastard as it abused and humiliated each of Zoë’s toys with great malice. Finally, I could take no more and I moved in, teeth bared for attack, to end the brutal burlesque once and for all. But before I could get the demented zebra in my fangs, it stopped dancing and stood on its hind legs before me. Then it reached down with its forelegs and tore at the seam that ran down its belly. Its own seam! It ripped the seam open until it was able to reach in and tear out its own stuffing. It continued dismantling itself, seam by seam, handful by handful, until it expelled whatever demon’s blood had brought it to life and was nothing more than a pile of fabric and stuffing that undulated on the floor, beating like a heart ripped from a chest, slowly, slower, and then nothing.

Traumatized, I left Zoë’s room, hoping that what I had seen was in my mind, a vision driven by the lack of glucose in my blood, but knowing, somehow, that it wasn’t a vision; it was true. Something terrible had happened.

The following afternoon, Denny returned. I heard the taxi pull up, and I watched him unload his bags and walk them up to the back door. I didn’t want to seem too excited to see him, and yet at the same time I was concerned about what I had done to the doormat, so I gave a couple of small barks to alert him. Through the window, I could see the look of surprise on his face. He took out his keys and opened the door, and I tried to block him, but he came in too quickly and the mat made a squishy sound. He looked down and gingerly hopped into the room.

“What the hell? What are you doing here?”

He glanced around the kitchen. Nothing was out of place, nothing was amiss, except me.

“Eve?” he called out.

But Eve wasn’t there. I didn’t know where she was, but she wasn’t with me.

“Are they home?” he asked me.

I didn’t answer. He picked up the phone and dialed.

“Are Eve and Zoë still at your house?” he asked without saying hello. “Can I speak to Eve?”

After a moment, he said, “Enzo is here.”

He said, “I’m trying to wrap my head around it myself. You left him here?”

He said, “This is insane. How could you not remember that your dog is in the house?”

He said, “He’s been here the whole time?”

He said very angrily, “Shit!”

And then he hung up the phone and shouted in frustration, a big long shout that was very loud. He looked at me after that and said, “I am so pissed off.”

He walked through the house quickly. I didn’t follow him; I waited by the back door. A minute later he returned.

“This is the only place you used?” he asked, pointing at the mat. “Good boy, Enzo. Good work.”

He got a garbage bag out of the pantry and scooped the sopping mat into it, tied it closed, and put it on the back porch. He mopped up the area near the door.

“You must be starving.”

He filled my water bowl and gave me some kibble, which I ate too quickly and didn’t enjoy, but at least it filled the empty space in my stomach. In silence, fuming, he watched me eat. And very soon, Eve and Zoë arrived on the back porch.

Denny threw open the door.

“Unbelievable,” he said bitterly. “You are unbelievable.”

“I was sick,” Eve said, stepping into the house with Zoë hiding behind her. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“He could have died.”

“He didn’t die.”

“He could have died,” Denny said. “I’ve never heard of anything so stupid. Careless. Totally unaware.”

“I was sick!” Eve snapped at him. “I wasn’t thinking!”

“You don’t think, people die. Dogs die.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” she cried, standing there shaking like a thin tree on a windy day. Zoë scurried around her and disappeared into the house. “You always go away, and I have to take care of Zoë and Enzo all by myself, and I can’t do it! It’s too much! I can barely take care of myself!”

“You should have called Mike or taken him to a kennel or something! Don’t try to kill him.”

“I didn’t try to kill him,” she whispered.

I heard weeping and looked over. Zoë stood in the door to the hallway, crying. Eve pushed past Denny and went to Zoë, kneeling before her.

“Oh, baby, we’re sorry we’re fighting. We’ll stop. Please don’t cry.”

“My animals,” Zoë whimpered.

“What happened to your animals?”

Eve led Zoë by the hand down the hall. Denny followed them. I stayed where I was. I wasn’t going near that room where the dancing sex-freak zebra had been. I didn’t want to see it.

Suddenly, I heard thundering footsteps. I cowered by the back door as Denny hurtled through the kitchen toward me. He was puffed up and angry and his eyes locked on me and his jaw clenched tight.

“You stupid dog,” he growled, and he grabbed the back of my neck, taking a huge fistful of my fur and jerking. I went limp, afraid. He’d never treated me like this before. He dragged me through the kitchen and down the hall, into Zoë’s room where she sat, stunned, on the floor in the middle of a huge mess. Her dolls, her animals, all torn to shreds, eviscerated, a complete disaster. Total carnage. I could only assume that the evil demon zebra had reassembled itself and destroyed the other animals after I had left. I should have eliminated the zebra when I had my chance. I should have eaten it, even if it had killed me.

Denny was so angry that his anger filled up the entire room, the entire house. Nothing was as large as Denny’s anger. He reared up and roared, and with his great hand, he struck me on the side of the head. I toppled over with a yelp, hunkering as close to the ground as possible. “Bad dog!” he bellowed and he raised his hand to hit me again.

“Denny, no!” Eve cried. She rushed to me and covered me with her own body. She protected me.

Denny stopped. He wouldn’t hit her. No matter what. Just as he wouldn’t hit me. He hadn’t hit me, I know, even though I could feel the pain of the blow. He had hit the demon, the evil zebra, the dark creature that came into the house and possessed the stuffed animal. Denny believed the evil demon was in me, but it wasn’t. I saw it. The demon had possessed the zebra and left me at the bloody scene with no voice to defend myself—I had been framed.

“We’ll get new animals, baby,” Eve said to Zoë. “We’ll go to the store tomorrow.”

As gently as I could, I slunk toward Zoë, the sad little girl on the floor, surrounded by the rubble of her fantasy world, her chin tucked into her chest, tears on her cheeks. I felt her pain because I knew her fantasy world intimately, as she allowed me to see the truth of it, and often included me in it. Through our role-playing—silly games with significant telltales—I saw what she thought about who she really was, her place in life. How she worshipped her father and always hoped to please her mother. How she trusted me but was afraid when I made faces at her that were too expressive and defied what she’d learned from the adult-driven World Order that denies animals the process of thought. I crawled to her on my elbows and placed my nose next to her thigh, tanned from the summer sun. And I raised my eyebrows slightly as if to ask if she could ever forgive me for not protecting her animals.

She waited a long time to give me her answer, but she finally gave it. She placed her hand on my head and let it rest there. She didn’t scratch me. It would be a while before she allowed herself to do that. But she did touch me, which meant she forgave me for what had happened, though the wound was still too raw and the pain was still too great for her to forget.

Later, after everyone had eaten and Zoë was put to bed in her room that had been cleaned of the carnage, I found Denny sitting on the porch steps with a drink of hard liquor, which I thought was strange because he hardly ever drank hard liquor. I approached cautiously, and he noticed.

“It’s okay, boy,” he said. He patted the step next to him and I went to him. I sniffed his wrist and took a tentative lick. He smiled and rubbed my neck.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I lost my mind.”

The patch of lawn behind our house was not big, but it was nice in the evening. It was rimmed by a dirt strip covered with sweet-smelling cedar chips where they planted flowers in the spring, and they had a bush in the corner that made flowers that attracted the bees and made me nervous whenever Zoë played near it, but she never got stung.

Denny finished his drink with a long swallow and shivered involuntarily. He produced a bottle from nowhere—I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it—and poured himself another. He stood up and took a couple of steps and stretched to the sky.

“We got first place, Enzo. Not ‘in class.’ We took first place overall. You know what that means?”

My heart jumped. I knew what it meant. It meant that he was the champion. It meant he was the best!

“It means a seat in a touring car next season, that’s what it means,” Denny said to me. “I got an offer from a real, live racing team. Do you know what an offer is?”

I loved it when he talked to me like that. Dragging out the drama. Ratcheting up the anticipation. I’ve always found great pleasure in the narrative tease. But then, I’m a dramatist. For me, a good story is all about setting up expectations and delivering on them in an exciting and surprising way.

“Getting an offer means I can drive if I come up with my share of sponsorship money for the season—which is reasonable and almost attainable—and if I’m willing to spend the better part of six months away from Eve and Zoë and you. Am I willing to do that?”

I didn’t say anything because I was torn. I knew I was Denny’s biggest fan and most steadfast supporter in his racing. But I also felt something like what Eve and Zoë must have felt whenever he went away: a hollow pit in my stomach at the idea of his absence. He must have been able to read my mind, because he gulped at his glass and said, “I don’t think so, either.” Which was what I was thinking.

“I can’t believe she left you like that,” he said. “I know she had a virus, but still.”

Did he really believe that, or was he lying to himself? Or maybe he just believed it because Eve wanted him to believe it. No matter. Had I been a person, I could have told him the truth about Eve’s condition.

“It was a bad virus,” he said more to himself than to me. “And she couldn’t think.”

And suddenly I was unsure: had I been a person, had I been able to tell him the truth, I’m not sure he would have wanted to hear it.

He groaned and sat back down and filled his glass again.

“I’m taking those stuffed animals out of your allowance,” he said with a chuckle. He looked at me then, took my chin with his hand.

“I love you, boy,” he said. “And I promise I’ll never do that again. No matter what. I’m really sorry.”

He was blathering, he was drunk. But it made me feel so much love for him, too.

“You’re tough,” he said. “You can do three days like that because you’re one tough dog.”

I felt proud.

“I know you’d never do anything deliberately to hurt Zoë,” he said.

I laid my head on his leg and looked up at him.

“Sometimes I think you actually understand me,” he said. “It’s like there’s a person inside there. Like you know everything.”

I do, I said to myself. I do.