Chapter 12

I didn't actually make it into Herb Kralick Ford on that first swing through Livonia, since we were pretty busy, but both Herb and Vivian came to several of the races within range, and I finally got to meet the people that I'd been hearing about for so long. Herb was a fairly big guy with a few pounds on him, and he was always happy and laughing and full of shit. Of course, he was an auto dealer and you wanted to be sure to count your fingers when you got done shaking hands with him, but he was a racing nut and could be talked into quite a bit if it involved racing cars.

Vivian, on the other hand, didn't strike me as a car dealer person. First off, she was beautiful. I mean, she was downright gorgeous, in a classy sense. She sort of put me in mind of a young Katharine Hepburn without the accent and with dark hair, if you know what I mean. But while she was very good looking she didn't exactly strike me as a sex bomb. If anything, she was a harder-nosed business person than her dad, and that was clear right from the beginning. I was a little surprised to strike it off pretty good with her right from the start. I think it was mostly because out of the whole damn show I was the only college graduate. I think I may have been the only person with the show except Sonny Ochsenlaager who had ever been on a college campus when it didn't involve a wrong turn some place. I never took a survey, but I would imagine at the time even high school graduates were a minority on the crew.

Still, I never thought for a minute that I stood any sort of a chance with Vivian. She was a class act of a businesswoman with her eye on the ball; let's face it, I was just a farm boy and never would have gone to college myself if Mr. Vogt hadn't gotten to me at just the right time back there in Hartford. I pretty well understood that I wasn't headed for the big bucks in business and would be happy to have a decent job as a teacher at a decent high school, so Vivian was way the hell out of my league.

Now, I don't want to imply that Vivian was snooty or condescending. She understood that she was the daughter of a car dealer, and she knew where the money came from. She had a common touch that everyone appreciated, and everyone on the crew who knew her liked her. I know that Frank especially liked her, and she seemed to especially like Frank, even though he was a good ten years older than her, at least. I don't even think they were what you would call dating at that point, although I wasn't around them enough to really know on that first visit to Livonia. I do know that for a few days there if you went looking for Frank you were likely to find the both of them. I also know that Frank had a lot of business details to go over with Vivian over that short visit, and he spent a fair amount of time in her office at the Ford agency.

We didn't take any time off at that first stop in Livonia, mostly because we were even busier than we'd been before. We stocked up a lot of parts, worked on the cars some, fixed some things up on the trucks, and generally got ready to do the last part of the season, all while running races somewhere around the area every day.

One important thing did happen in Livonia that time, though. Since we were racing fairly locally, we stayed at the same tourist court for several days, and we'd always head back there after we were done racing, before we headed out for a beer or two after the race. One night the second or third day there Frank came up to me as I was getting set to head out with the guys and said, "Mel, would you go have a beer with just me and Vivian?"

Of course, I didn't turn him down, and we drove to a neighborhood bar not far away, just a different one from where the rest of the gang was going. It was a quiet little place, and we sat around shooting the bull for a while, just talking about the race earlier that evening. We were on our second round before Frank got down to business. "Mel," he said. "I know when you came aboard that the plan was that you were going to leave around the end of August and go teach school someplace in Chicago. Is that still what's happening?"

"Jeez, Frank," I replied, a little surprised by the question. "I don't know. I really haven't thought about it very much since I joined the show back in Wisconsin, if you know what I mean."

"I kind of had that impression," he said. "I mean, I haven't heard you talk about it that much since you came aboard. But you know, most of the more or less permanent guys are guys that I know from around here, and if I have to pick up a replacement for you I'd like to do it before we head back out again."

"Well, to tell you the truth," I told him, "I never was very anxious to go teach school down at that place. The place has a reputation as a dump with a lot of tough kids, and I'd hoped I could come up with something better before fall came. But I sent out a lot of letters back before I joined the show last spring, and I've got a lot of nothing back in the mail. I mean, I've got a few letters back that say thanks but no thanks, but that's about it."

"As far as I know there are still some teaching positions available," Vivian said. "But I suspect you're going to have to go find them, rather than wait for them to come to you. That's not something you're going to be able to do very well when you get back on the road."

"I think you're right," I told her. "It's a bird in the hand, two in the bush situation, except that the bird in the hand is no eagle, but a nasty little starling. I frankly enjoy the traveling with the show and don't really want to quit now. But the problem is that along about November we'll shut down for the winter. I've been able to stick a few bucks back but not enough to hold me till spring."

"If you want to stay with the show we may be able to find something to tide you over the winter," Vivian said, which sort of let me understand who was really running the show in the first place. "I'm not sure what. The schools often need subs. It doesn't pay all that well, but at least the schools around here are pretty decent. I know Frank said you're a mechanic, so Dad may be able to find you something in the shop, at least part time."

"On top of that," Frank added. "We need to tear down all the cars and go through them thoroughly over the winter. The 47 is the last of the old cars we had to buy to fill out the field two years ago, and I'd like to retire it. That means building at least one new car, maybe two if we decide the 72 won't do as a spare. I'm probably going to have some of the guys working with Spud and Peewee on that. It's not going to be a lot of money, but it could keep you going if you're careful."

It didn't take me a lot of thinking. "If you think you can find some cheap place for me to stay over the winter, a boarding house or something, I guess I'll stick it out." I said. "Maybe I'll go part of next summer then quit and look for a teaching job or something. I'll have to wait till we get that far and see."

"Hard to say," Frank said. "Other than Spud, you're the first guy I've asked to stay the winter. But several of the guys I'm thinking about asking have family around here, you might be able to stay with them. We'll just have to see."