Chapter 2

Smoky Kern's visit had raised one issue. I'd said a number of times that, when I left the MMSA, I was just going to have to turn my back on racing or get swept up in it again. I'd even told Arlene that on more than one occasion. Now, I was beginning to wonder just how much I meant it, or what I actually did mean. When I meant turning my back on racing, I guess I'd meant turning my back on the MMSA. If I didn't, I knew that sooner or later spring would come along and my fingers and foot would be itching to be back out on the road with the gang. I knew darn well that right at that minute they were most likely out on one of those big, wide fairgrounds tracks that I loved so much, where the speed was high, a third-gear run for the midgets, exciting in every way you could put it. I sure would have liked to have been out there with them rather than lying on my back in a hospital room.

If next spring rolled around and I wasn't doing anything in particular, pumping gas or something, I could probably be talked into heading out with the gang again pretty easily. Two words were all it would take – "Hey, Mel!" If I was doing something a little more permanent, though, something with a future, I knew I would just have to resist the urge. By then I knew all too well that racing was addictive and I was a serious addict, so maybe it would be better if I just turned my back on it, and I meant all of it. It was something that I was going to have to talk over with Arlene sooner or later, but the way we'd talked about it so far left me thinking she'd feel pretty much the same way.

I guess maybe I did fall asleep there, because once again I dreamed I was in the 66 car – not heading towards T-boning and leaping the 69 car like I'd dreamed so many times before over the last few days. This time I was leading the pack on one of those fairgrounds tracks, the grandstands full of people under a clear blue Midwestern sky, the roar of the V8-60 in my ears, the dust flying as I took a long, easy slide around one of those broad curves. I'd done it often enough that it was no trick to dream about; moments like those had been among my best the last few years. It was where I was meant to be, and I knew it in my heart.

That dream was with me after I woke up again. It just made clear to me that walking away from racing was going to be just as hard as I thought. When you got right down to it, I wasn't all that sure it was what I wanted to do – but it was something that I was pretty sure I was going to have to do. I'd never heard of a "Raceaholics Anonymous," but I'm sure I could have qualified to be a charter member.

By that time, the dazed feeling and my headache had pretty well cleared up, and I wasn't sleeping anywhere near as much. With the cast and the general injuries, though, I was still mostly restricted to lying on my back in that hospital bed. In those days, they liked to see you staying in the hospital on bed rest until they were real sure you were ready, not like today where the insurance companies are hustling you out the door before the doctor gets done stitching up the incision. When Dr. Bronson came by the next morning, he told me that in the next day or two they were going to have to see about getting me out of bed and getting me moving a little more. That sounded awful good to me.

For the moment, though, I was still lying on my back in the bed, and by now I really was getting bored. Arlene had been as good as her word. She'd gone down to the lounge, and even to the doctor's office across the street and gathered up all the Trues and Argosys and Field and Streams and Popular Sciences and the like that were lying around, no matter how old they were. After all, a lot of them were new to me since I didn't always get to see every issue every month. That perked things up for me a little; it felt good to be able to read. Back in those days Popular Science used to have a story every month about the Model Garage. It was fiction, about a mechanic named Gus Wilson and how he solved all sorts of weird car problems. I hadn't seen Popular Science as much as I had True or Argosy, but I always liked those Model Garage stories and when I came across a Popular Science it was always just about the first thing I turned to. Gus was an old time mechanic who tended to avoid fancy test equipment, and I was wrapped up in the story trying to outthink the writer when I realized I had another visitor.

"Excuse me," he said. "Are you Mel Austin?"

I glanced up from the magazine to see a moderately heavy-set man with a butch cut, wearing a shirt and tie. I wondered if it was a local minister, although there was something that didn't quite seem ministerial about him. "Yes," I said. "Can I help you?"

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Austin," he said. "I'm Mike Corrigan. I'm told that you're the race car driver who got wrecked over at the track a couple weeks ago."

"I'm told it was a couple weeks ago," I replied. "I've been unconscious most of the time since."

"Well, it's good to see you're getting better," he smiled. "That's got to be pretty dangerous."

"It is a little," I told him. "The way we had things set up we were pretty careful. The only time I've been hurt in a race car before this was cutting my hand on a sharp piece of metal. In fact, I don't think I was in the car at the time, but working on it."

"You're a mechanic, then, I take it?"

"I never had much formal training at it, other than what I picked up in the Army," I told him. "It's all been hands-on experience over the last ten years, but I know how to do most everything that needs to be done to a car. Well, maybe except for automatic transmissions. I've never had to work on them, but I know the principles."

"I suppose that you pick up things like that better on the job than you would in a classroom, anyway," he commented.

"Well, yes and no," I told him. "There's nothing that beats hands on experience when it comes to working on cars, but you about to have to have someone to point the way for you or you don't learn very efficiently. There has to be somebody you can ask, 'Hey, how do you do this?' You remember it better when you're doing it than you do looking at a chalk board. I taught auto shop for most of a semester up in Livonia, just as a substitute teacher, and I think I learned more from it than the kids did. Chalk board talks are fine but working on something is better."

"Have you done a lot of teaching?" he asked with a smile.

"Not a whole lot," I told him. "I'm an honors graduate of Milwaukee State, and I have Michigan and Wisconsin certifications, but all the teaching I've done has been substitute teaching while we were wintering over in Livonia for the last three years. We were only there usually from the middle of November through the first part of April before we went racing again. I was getting set to give up the racing and go looking for a regular teaching job when this happened. I wasn't sure how much luck I was going to have finding one, though."

"So," he smiled, "If you had a teaching job you weren't planning on running off to go racing in the spring again, I take it?"

"Not if I could help it," I said. "I've been thinking for a year or more that it's time to grow up. I've got a girl here with me who, well, we haven't talked about getting married, but I think we're not far from it. I guess it's gotten to the point where having things like a wife and family and a real job are more important to me. I'm frankly looking forward to getting out of this bed so I can do the next thing."

"Have you had any thoughts about any place you would like to teach?" he asked.

"Not really," I told him. "The only thing is that I've pretty well made up my mind that it might not be the brightest thing to be teaching somewhere around Livonia where my racer friends are wintering over. It might get a little too tempting, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, we have to avoid temptation where we can," he grinned. "How about other subjects? Could you teach anything but auto shop?

"My major was actually history and secondary education, so I suppose I could teach about anything involved with social studies," I told him. "I could probably make do as an English teacher. I pity any kid in any algebra class I ever subbed in who ever asked me a question about algebra. I understand it a little but not well enough to teach it. You have to understand that a substitute teacher sometimes can do a good job, but other times about all he can do is keep a class quiet."

"That's always a problem," he smiled. "Mr. Austin, I think I'd better come clean with you. I'm the superintendent of the Bradford Consolidated School District. I'm going to tell you that you shouldn't have much problem getting hired. Teachers are in short supply right now. Competent auto shop teachers who can fill in a session or two of other subjects are in even tighter supply."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," I told him. "It takes a load off my mind."

"Very good," he smiled. "Now you can take one off of mine. This morning, I was sitting over at Kay's Restaurant downtown having a cup of coffee when a mutual acquaintance by the name of Smoky Kern came up to me and said, 'Are you still looking for an auto shop teacher? You can find one in Room 202 at the hospital.' Now, I've known Smoky for years and have always tried to remember to count my fingers after I've shaken hands with him. But the fact of the matter is that I have been looking since last winter for a competent auto shop teacher who's certified, has some classroom experience, and can fill in with other subjects. You might as well know that this is the first place I came as soon as I set down my coffee cup. A math teacher would be ideal, but right at the moment I'm not picky. We can shuffle things around to make do. Otherwise, you seem to be just about everything I could ask for. Would you be interested in taking the job?"

I sure wasn't expecting that! I had figured I would have to go looking for the job, not have the job come looking for me! "What kind of pay are we talking about?" I asked.

"The standard right now for a new teacher with no experience is $3500 per year, but since you have a year and a half's worth of experience I think we can go $3800," he smiled. "I know you haven't seen the facility. Our high school is old, but the auto shop is in a separate building, and I'm told it's fairly well equipped."

I didn't have to think about it at all. $3800 a year was considerably more than I had been making with the MMSA, although since a lot of my expenses were paid while racing I was in a practical sense making more than my paycheck. But $3800 a year was more yet. "I'm very interested," I told him. "I don't want to give you a flat yes on it until I've talked to my girlfriend, and maybe had her take a look at the school, but if she's willing, I'm willing."

"That sounds fair," he said. "You said your girlfriend is here in town with you?"

"She's somewhere around the building," I replied. "She's an RN working here temporarily as a nurse."

"Convenient, isn't it?" he laughed. "Would you like me to hunt her down?"

"Not quite yet," I told him. "There's a couple things that you and I probably ought to talk about. The first of them is that I'm here in a hospital bed. School starts in what? Three weeks? Four weeks? I'm going to be up and getting around by then, but I'll probably still have casts on and using crutches."

"If you're willing to start school like that I'm willing to let you," he replied.

"By then I'm going to be so tired of doing nothing that I'll want to be doing something," I told him. "But I'm not bringing any lesson plans with me, for auto shop or anything else."