Chapter Text
Libra: The New Balance
September/October, 1982
Green, unnatural, almost neon and receding into the distance until it was close to being a dot. From there it hit the first turn and Luke figured it was about time he stopped watching, started listening and paying attention to his job. Damn hard thing to do, to just watch Bo all but disappear like that, but then again, maybe that was one of those things he had to get used to: gazing down the endless stripe of gray at his cousin's wavering exhaust as he drove away.
At least, he consoled himself as he paced across the asphalt, it wasn't hot. Not the weighted, choking humidity that flattened Bo's hair and spirits all at once, made it hard to know whether that moisture on the boy's face represented hard work or homesickness. Blistering sun bubbling into to afternoon clouds that did nothing to alleviate the misery, and then there was thunder. Close and low, with lightning snaking all around, and they'd had to abandon the furniture right there in the truck (what of it they hadn't already dragged inside anyway) but then it was rented furniture in a rented truck, belonging to no one and everyone who had ever sat or slept on it before, and it seemed pretty likely that lying in its half-unpacked state was probably not the worst thing that had ever happened to it.
Hiding out from the storm in a low, level, row house like two city boys that had never been caught outside when the sky opened up, but these clouds were somehow lower, more menacing, bolts coming out of them faster and in more directions than an Appalachian storm. This, right here, was flat, hot Florida and no way to find shelter except to duck inside.
But that was only their base camp, a place they hadn't seen in the week that had passed since they dragged the last lamp in and stood it in the corner next to the couch. Just like home and nothing at all like home, because putting some light next to the most comfortable seat in a place didn't make it a farmhouse. It was still nothing more than a glorified apartment with concrete floors under ugly blue carpet, with two bedrooms and a corner that might be mistaken for a kitchen, what with how it had a stove and refrigerator in it. Unpacked, set up, Carnival of Thrills poster on Bo's wall like a memory so special the boy would never manage to let go of it, but it turned out they wouldn't reside there, not really. The road, the one thing both Duke boys had always loved, and that was where they were meant to live now. In an RV, up Interstate 95, past palms and through loblolly pine, over lakes and under hardwoods, crushed in by cities and drivers so desperate to get onto or off the road that they'd play a bizarre sort of chicken with a trailer. Past houses clumping together like a penned herd of sheep with hardly a breath of air between them, until finally there was no more room, and they had to be built on top of each other, concrete and glass, reaching for the sky. And at last, creeping up some turnpike or other where there were more exits than straightaway, Bo pointing out the window to what the map proclaimed to be New York City, Luke reckoned maybe he halfway understood Yankees for the first time in his life. If he'd grown up with nothing but gray concrete below and brown smog above, he'd be halfway crazy, too. Full of greed and invading the south for her trees and hills, for her sweet air and the freedom of running over her soft grasses only to dive into the clean waters of her ponds. Reckoned that if he hadn't been born a southerner, it would be his life's goal to become one.
"Lukas?" in his ear, because Bo had reached the backstretch now, and they had jobs, both of them. Paying jobs and that meant obligations every bit as much as it did income to send home to Jesse and just maybe provide them with a few comforts of their own.
"How's she feel?" seemed a better thing to say than admitting how his mind had been wandering over bitter little thoughts that were all about where they'd been and not where they were right now. Living their dream, his before it was even Bo's, nurtured and grown into a full-fledged fantasy before it got handed over to his kid cousin. Who took care of it even better than he had, loved it with all his heart, watered, fed and tended it until he found a way to make it real.
"Good," came Bo's answer, and maybe, just maybe that was the only answer the boy had ever known to the words how's she feel. Made Luke smirk with Duke pride at everything he'd taught the little blonde boy who was so eager to learn.
A few more pacing steps across oil-stained asphalt and here came Bo, around the fourth turn and heading up the front stretch. Just him for now, with Mikey and Jay taking their own test laps out of sync with the 'rookie.' Which was how they thought of Bo, and maybe he was new to smooth-paved and relatively safe roads to race on, but that boy – he'd show them eventually, just how new to racing he wasn't. Luke had no doubt about that.
"All right," he instructed as the drone of Bo's engine approached, passed, dropped in pitch as he headed for that first turn again. "Catch Mikey."
Who would do everything in his power to keep from being caught, but it would all be in fun, a sweating, grinning, giggling challenge between two boys climbing the ranks. Not as safe as bouncing over the old airstrip in an equal match with Luke, but about as close as things could get out here on the circuit. Mikey had that half a season's experience on the big tracks; this here was the Duke boy's first trip around the real thing. And Bo was about half a lap behind, so Luke figured the odds were pretty even.
At least it wasn't hot – cool breeze at the back of his neck mocking him for wishing for it, then shivering when it came – and at least it wasn't ugly. Not since that stretch that started somewhere in Virginia and didn't let up until halfway through Connecticut (which he'd only halfway been able to get a good look at, because somehow it figured that if Bo got to drive the car, Luke had to drive the rig over the most cramped and crowded stretch of road in the whole country), it hadn't been ugly. Just beyond the simple oval of the New Hampshire International Speedway, there were hills, round ones, with trees. Just starting with their first yellows and oranges and it was dang pretty. Never figured on the north having anything close to this.
Beautiful maybe, or it would be in a month or so, but they'd be – well he hadn't memorized the schedule yet, but it seemed to his memory like probably the west somewhere. Warmer than this and dryer, maybe a lot less like home. Because take away the briskness of the air and this could be Georgia or North Carolina. And of all the scouts to finally figure out that Bo was worth snapping up, it would have to be Doug from the LaMatt team, based down in Florida. Hell, he'd rather be based just about anywhere, even all the way up here in New Hampshire, than down there in Daytona.
"Watch it, Bo," he found himself muttering, watching that ugly lime-colored streak flash up the front stretch with a matching streak of yellow close behind. Drafting and not really; more like getting ready to get underneath Bo, and that was just—
It was a test, was what it was. From a senior driver, one with near as many years of racing experience as Bo had experience breathing, and it wasn't anything Luke wanted to watch. Except he did, needed to see Bo survive that first or second turn, wherever Jay decided to make that halfway dirty move, and he couldn't. No way to see it from down here, out here, not next to Bo in the passenger seat and shouting commands with his own hands ready to take the wheel if need be.
Had to settle for pacing, faster, more like a march, like those days on Parris Island when he'd been sentenced to hours on his feet and moving. Nothing he'd liked then, but it got burned into him, right through the soles in his boots and up the muscles in his legs; that military pace. Must look funny because it never failed to catch Jesse's eye or Daisy's when he paced the south forty, and there he was getting odd little looks from the rest of the guys. His crew, they were supposed to work for him, not eyeball him like that, but he couldn't spare more than a glare in their direction, because Bo was somewhere out of his sight. Moving at high speed in an unfamiliar car, way the hell up north where the track was cold and paved and nothing like the surfaces his cousin was used to racing on, with a threat on his tail – and Luke couldn't see him. No time to bark orders about the boys in the pit minding their own damned business, not when he had to call, "Bo? You with me?" into the headset clamped in front of his face.
A giggle, and that wasn't an answer. Or maybe it was, it meant Bo was still breathing, and then there was the fact that there hadn't been any bloodcurdling screeches, no crash and no flames. Yet, but he still couldn't see, had reached the end of their section of the pit and had to turn around now to the continued glances and smirks from the rest of them, and dang it all, he was going to have to give them something to do. Go and find me a left-handed crescent wrench boys, and I don't want to see your faces again until you've got one. But he couldn't, his lips had much more important things to be saying.
Like: "Bo!" Answer me, but he didn't have to go that far, what with how his cousin knew better than to keep his silence.
"I'm here," came the answer, and Luke could hear that breathless grin. The brat was having fun, fun while his cousin, his pit crew chief, his protector, was going halfway nuts with not knowing what he was up to.
Back into sight then, green behind yellow now, drafting on Jay, and that wasn't smart.
"I said catch Mikey, Bo." Because Jay was the LaMatt star, the king of this particular road, and the last thing the man wanted was a whippersnapper on his tail, proving his own skills to be just about equal.
"Yes, sir," Bo answered, that same chipper tone like he didn't know how he was tempting a bigger and badder dog to just go ahead and take a big old bite out of his hide. And the boy slipped out of the groove and off of Jay's tail like it was what he planned to do all along.
Maybe ten passes from one end of the pit to the other, and he called Bo in from where he was playing what amounted to nothing more than a game of tag with Mikey. Boy came without having to be told twice, careening into the pits like they were just that much extended track, never slowing until he screeched to a halt just inches from Luke. The rest of the crew stumbled back over hydraulic lines and into tires, and Luke reckoned that served them right for thinking they knew even one thing about working with Bo Duke. Hell, they'd only known the boy for a week, didn't have the first clue about how there was no standing still, no just waiting around calmly, not when his cousin was behind the wheel.
Grin through the faceplate of his helmet as Luke shoved at the netting covering his window. Out of his restraints already, helmet tossed onto the seat next to him, halfway up onto the doorframe and Luke reckoned he'd best brace himself to be climbed on. A Bo Duke hug and the guys around them wouldn't begin to know what make of it. Drivers didn't generally have a real inclination to go grabbing hold of their pit crew chiefs, at least not over a few practice laps. Winning the Winston Cup itself, now that would merit glee. Out of a driver that wasn't Bo, didn't have more forward energy than a freight train flying across barren plains.
"All right, Bo," he had to mutter, had to slap the boy on the back and all but shove him off, back into his own skin, because these boys out here, they wouldn't understand. "How'd she feel?"
"Fine, just fine," came the drooling grin of a response, and it wasn't what Luke wanted to hear.
"Balance okay? Any drag?"
"Nope," Bo informed him. "You want to drive her?"
But they weren't two country boys sharing the love of one car, not here. They were driver and pit crew chief, and Luke had no business climbing through the window of this here car. It would take awhile, maybe weeks, for Bo to figure out where they were and what it meant to be here. This wasn't exactly a place where it was all right to go crashing through a fence, so long as you rebuilt it before sunset.
"Nah," was all he said though, no need to go giving his cousin lectures about appropriate behavior, not when he was all teeth and glowing eyes and… sweat. "You go in and get yourself cooled off. Lots of liquids," because the boy would never realize how much water he was losing just sitting in a car, but Luke reckoned it was more than what he'd have lost if he was out in the fields harvesting. (But he wasn't, neither of them were, they'd left that little task to their city-boy cousins, and he reckoned he ought to call Jesse and apologize about that – tomorrow, maybe the next day.) "Me and the boys," Luke's real charges, because here he wasn't supposed to be responsible for Bo, not once he got out of the car, "are gonna go over this thing from bumper to bumper. Come back in a half hour and take her out again."
Because tomorrow morning things would get serious real fast, driving for qualification against a whole track worth of Jays, most of which would be even more motivated than LaMatt's star driver to see Bo go skidding off the track. And assuming his cousin survived that, there'd be a real race come afternoon.
Post race pit crew meetings, and he wasn't supposed to give a damn about them.
"It's just a place for them to take half the credit for doing a quarter of the work," Jay had informed him. Meant it, too, and that was just – cynical, maybe. Worthy of a head shake and no more, because Jay had a relatively decent chance to take the Winston Cup this year, and Bo reckoned he'd rather watch the man drive than listen to him talk.
"Come on," Mikey prompted from a lot closer. "They'll catch up." Because team LaMatt was headed out to the casino with every intention of losing more money than any of them actually had in their wallets.
Gambling's a vice, Jesse nagged in his head, but that didn't stop him. Any more than the fact that Mikey was clean, dressed, wet hair combed back out of his face – as a contrast to Bo's barely stripped out of his coveralls, t-shirt and shorts clinging tight to his skin and sweaty hair dripping into his eyes – stopped him. (Though he reckoned that if he anticipated having any fun tonight he really ought to get into the shower first, and then maybe into his tightest jeans, the ones the pretty little fillies couldn't peel their eyes away from.) It wasn't even the fact that Luke had at least an hour before he could get free, between the meeting and supervising the preparation of Bo's car for transport, that stopped him.
"I'll be along directly," Bo assured the other drivers with a smile. "Y'all just go ahead. If I don't give you a head start, there ain't no way y'all will manage to get any of the girls."
Jay wasn't terribly impressed (but then he never was, not until he'd had his first few drinks and then, then he managed to wonder aloud how it was that the Duke boys found themselves in the company of all the pretty girls), and Mikey offered a shrug; he'd tried. "I'll save you a seat," he promised, which only went to show he hadn't exactly been listening. Duke boys had better things to do than sit at the bar. "Don't take too long."
Too long, well, yeah. It might, and the boys might be a few sheets to the wind by then. Safe place to do it here at the Dover International Speedway where the RVs were clumped together on the infield by team, and the casino/bar/restaurant was a safe stroll across the track. Another half hour and most of the spectators would be gone, all except the biggest die-hards and the groupie girls. Only his second race on the circuit, and already Bo knew the habits of the pretty little things who came to watch, and just maybe to find out whether the guys were half as fast off the track as they were on it. Quick to lift their glasses, that was for sure, and after that time got funny, skipping then dragging as the girls got prettier, but they may or may not have gotten exactly what they wanted.
It wasn't that he was waiting for Luke, not really. When it came to the extracurricular activities, he was every bit the master of his own fate. But – there it was, happening again. Little jiggle of the clipboard on Luke's knee as he doled out an assignment to Earl, something about strut mounts and shock absorbers and the flatbed that the Monte Carlo would be loaded onto. And the roadie's head was nodding, right hand scribbling down some note or other about making sure the car was securely strapped, while Luke's body stayed perfectly still. Rigid, even, but then there was that clipboard. Wobbling around on his unmoving knee, because old Luke, he was far too cool to let his leg bounce up and down, even if he did have excess nervous energy to dispel.
Bo figured that knew well enough what it meant, how somewhere in his cousin's right boot, there was a toe tapping. Little muscles contracting where no one could see them, but Luke was sprung so tight, every muscle bigger than the last and all linked together with sinew, so even if his knee didn't move, the clipboard did.
Something was under Luke's skin, something more than the muscle there, and Bo had himself a pretty good idea what it was.
Went and caught himself a shower anyway, because when the talk was done (and that would still go on for a few minutes yet) Luke wouldn't be free until he watched whatever regimen he was prescribing for the car get properly performed. And, Bo reckoned, ordered the touch up paint.
Clean, finally, respectable in his jeans and unadorned t-shirt, nothing to announce him as a member of the LaMatt team. Reckoned those groupies out there didn't need to know exactly which car he'd been driving (horrid shade of green and just covered with Mountain Dew logos – soda so disgustingly sweet even he didn't much care for it, and he had an avowed love for sugar) only that he'd been on the track. Hair combed out and he was ready. Just about, anyway – had to find Luke first.
Which turned out to be easy – too easy really, just crossing paths in the cinderblock clubhouse, his cousin mentally somewhere else, fingers making clear parts in his hair as he passed from here to there.
"Luke," he had to say, that was if he wanted the man's attention, wanted to avoid getting accidentally walked into instead.
Blue eyes, spooked for a second. All these years later and it was still too easy to startle the Marine that still lurked in there somewhere. Or maybe by now that was just Luke, slipping inside of his own head sometimes, so in love with being smart that he spent plenty of time nurturing that brain of his, and surprised when someone reminded him that there was a bigger world out here.
"Hey, Bo. What're you doing still here?" Because it was a known and proven fact that Bo Duke had never been late for a beer or a chance to find a girl and a semi-private corner to get her into in his life.
"Waiting for you."
Luke started to smirk at him, at the foolishness of missing out on an hour of fun, or maybe it was at the urge not to be alone. But somewhere before that upper lip managed to tighten down into a full curl, it all softened.
"What's up, Bo?" Gentle, concerned, the kind of thing that always turned him into a little kid again. He didn't like it, didn't want his chin to dip like that, tried to resist the irresistible, but it was a fool's effort.
"I reckon I could have done better." Because the middle of the pack – well that was never been a place that he and Luke had been satisfied to finish. First or a close second, that's where they'd always ended up, unless, of course, they'd done a wild flip or two off the course altogether – but those were rare and generally related to the sudden and explosive loss of a tire. Mediocre endings to races, those just didn't happen to the Dukes.
Snort and smirk. "You done fine, Bo." Sure he did, and that's why that clipboard (that seemed to have gone missing somewhere along the line; Luke's hands were empty now) bobbed around so visibly on his cousin's knee. "You ain't in Choctaw, you know."
No, he was in Delaware, ought to be thrilled. Driving on tracks he'd only ever seen on Cooter's grainy television screen, rabbit ears stretching out as far as they could reach just to bring in that much of a fuzzy picture. Except in the familiar echoing corner of the garage, the town's boys crowded around that one small screen hollering and complaining and talking a good line about how much better they could do out there, the track seemed that much smaller. More manageable, and with that top view of cars doing laps he could always see the trouble before it happened. Totally different angle to be peering out the windshield at the back end of a Mustang driven by a pro that was jealously guarding his few inches of the track.
"That fourth turn," he didn't like the way it was banked. Made his stomach clench on every lap, made his body lean left like he could keep the car level that way.
"Wasn't nobody's friend, Bo. They was all taking that one like it was a grease slick." Hands on his shoulders now, Luke's eyes right there staring into his. So intense, so present; it was always hard to remember at times like these that the man could be distant, too.
"Didn't everybody have as much trouble with it as I did."
Smile then, the real thing. Like he hadn't seen from Luke since – well it had been a long time, anyway. Sometimes he reckoned that everything between him and Luke had changed on a dime that day a couple years back when he followed after Diane Benson, took to sleeping in her trailer instead of his room back at the farm. It was only a couple of days that he was enamored of her and the life she gave all appearances of offering, but it felt like more. Long enough, maybe, to forever change everything between him and his family.
And then, once in a great big while, he'd get a hopeful sign like this right here – Luke's smile – reminding him that he'd always been a dramatic moron. Nothing had changed and everything was fine. Even if he was standing in a mostly empty clubhouse, some five hundred miles from home, his cousin's hands wearing grooves in his muscles while he whispered sad little confessions of only having half the skills and talent that Luke gave him credit for.
"You ain't supposed to be winning, Bo. Not yet. You start winning now and you'd be jumping rank, making a mess of things." Yeah, he knew that. Sort of, he understood how there were senior members of his own team that were supposed to win first. Helping them do it, riding in on their coattails, that was his job. It had all been carefully laid out for him in that first meeting, down there in Daytona. The only time he'd ever met one of the owners; Bill Matthews up at the front of the room, reminding them all that they were a team. No fighting, no pushing or shoving, they all worked together to make sure that Jay had the best shot at every cup. And if Mikey and Bo wanted to come in second and third, that would be fine, just fine.
But he hadn't even ranked in the top ten. His face must have shown that line of thought, because his shoulders got tugged on then. Quick look both ways and then it was a hug, muscled arms up over his shoulders, pulling him down so Luke didn't have to be on his toes. Wide hand in his hair, rubbing at the back of his neck like his cousin only ever did when they were small, when he'd hit the dirt hard and cut some part of himself open, when he needed to be calmed down long enough for Luke to figure out how to fix whatever got broken.
"What's the damage?" Seemed a reasonable enough question to him, but it prompted a funny little sound out of Luke's throat, got him to rock back out of the hug so he could look at Bo with his head cocked to the side and his eyebrows meeting in the middle. "To the car," he clarified, though he didn't feel he needed to. That fourth turn – it took something out of him, but above and beyond that it took something out of his fender, too, when he made contact with one of the Bud Moore team's cars. It wasn't like his cousin could have missed that little miscalculation.
Silly smirk from Luke, who let him go then. Mostly, anyway, just a right hand gripping his bicep and turning him toward the section of hallway that would lead them out of here. "Just some body damage. Since when have you worried about a dent or two?"
Since I saw that clipboard, bobbing up and down like it had a mind of its own. Yeah, okay, it was a stupid thing to worry about. "Since the car ain't ours," sounded a heck of a lot more logical.
Snicker, then Luke's shoulder bumping against his as they strolled down the concrete hallway, past banners from past years' races, toward the late afternoon sunshine radiating through the glass doors. "It ain't our car, so we ain't got to pay for it, neither. Come on, I'll buy you a beer." Because for once the Duke boys had money and no place in particular that they had to spend it.
Another gust of wind. Dust kicking around the pit, little needles stinging against his skin. Caught in the hairs of his arms, and it gave every impression of being the desert. Except it wasn't; hell, they wouldn't see the real thing for another month and a half.
Funny to be worrying about wind in the pit, a place where the air was rarely still nor even breathable. Nasty little spot to be most times, reeking of fuel and burnt rubber, nothing at all like tinkering with the General under the shade of an oak, with birds over his shoulders chirping their approval of his decisions regarding the air filter and the fuel pump. Funny how his farm boy's daydreams about being in this very location left out all the realities. Of asphalt replacing grass, of choking fumes instead of sweet Georgia mountain air, of sand particles boring their way into his skin with every gust of hot wind.
"Come on, Bo," he hollered his encouragement, because that was part of the deal, too. No quiet afternoons spent passing one screwdriver between them – transferring grease and sweat in equal measure, but that never mattered because they were of the same blood to begin with – no, this here was blaring, glaring, hot and screaming, but there Bo went, toxic green car holding the lead against red.
Different track, longer by half than either New Hampshire or Dover had been. Tri-oval, sexy-looking thing that matched up with any layout they'd ever seen in any of his car magazines. Damn fast, too, and Bo was all but floating above it, insisting on his right to qualify for the upcoming race. Seemed like whatever that little crisis of confidence was back in Delaware, it gotten itself out of Bo's system.
Legs tired and the crew still thought it was awfully funny how he paced, but they left him to it. He laid down the law for them back in New Hampshire, about how they needed to worry a lot harder about being at the top of their refueling and tire-changing game than they did about whether their chief liked to take a stroll every now and then. They'd thought they were clever, reckoned on little puddles of oil conveniently dribbled around the pit would make him slip and slide, but not a one of them had ever spent time riding on the hood of a stock car while it bumped over dirt roads at high speed with a revenuer on their tails, and none of them had the first idea what it meant to keep their balance when the footing got slick. It was a lazy man's revenge, letting them skid around in the mess of their own making, certainly nothing his enterprising ancestors would approve of. But it worked, and he reckoned he had enough to do keeping Bo in line, so if it kept the rest of the brats in his command from testing him, he could be content to let them punish themselves.
"Luke," came back into his ear, Bo simultaneously too close and too far away. "I ain't liking the way she's handling." No, on second thought, just plain too far away. The pit crew chief had nothing on the spotter in moments like this. Made Luke wish for that top view that would let him see that Bo was all right, even when he was on the backstretch. "Picked up a shimmy on the last few laps."
Oh. Nice of Bo to tell him so soon. There went that green flash around the fourth turn then angling across the stretch in front of the pits, and it turned out that seeing made no difference. Couldn't tell just how serious the trouble might be from that quick of a pass.
"Can you hold it together?" No, he wouldn't want to be the spotter, stuck up there at the top of the stands, calling out positions and conditions, but not having any control whatsoever over the way events unfolded. If he couldn't be at Bo's side, slamming the car into gear and hollering warnings, if he couldn't feel the nature of the shimmy under his own backside, then at least he could be here, calling the shots.
"I can try."
Nope, not good enough.
"Bring her in to me," he commanded, or maybe it was more like sighed. Somewhere between the two, probably, an order mixed with regret. Followed by, "D'Onfrio, Gillis, get ready to check them rear tires. Heller, you get after that spoiler." All the easiest options to deal with, at least mid-race.
"Luke," Bo tested, but—
"Bo." Steady voice, brooking no argument. There were more important concerns than momentary sorrows.
"Yes, sir." Because Bo had been raised right; Luke was his elder, and even if he didn't like it, he'd be forced to obey.
He understood, knew exactly what all of Bo's reservations were. Too late in the heat to pit, too close to the last flag, but at the speed his cousin was driving a shimmy could turn into a car flipping trunk over bumper faster than any of them could say flying flameball. And if Bo could only promise to try to hold her together – no way. "It's one race, Bo," he consoled as the Monte Carlo slowed out of the pack and made its way up the pit road.
But he knew that part, too. How Bo was young, untested. At least as far as NASCAR was concerned; all those years of making mincemeat out of dirt track drivers meant nothing here.
"Yeah," came the resigned answer, halfway to heartbroken. Because there was always that underlying threat of being kicked down to the Nationwide Series, being demoted to an up-and-comer instead of running in the big time. Not driving on 'real' circuit, more like NASCAR's equivalent to the peewee league. The kind of thing Jay kept needling the younger guys about, but Luke didn't figure it was anything more than a little bit of hazing, initiation and welcome to the circuit from a half bitter driver in his final years. Bill Matthews sure as hell hadn't ever mentioned any such thing; not when he met with Luke after the scouting report that made the team want Bo in the first place, not when the time came to sign the contracts, not when the rules got laid out in the initial team meeting down in Daytona.
And then Bo was there in front of him, head down, refusing a drink, just raring to get back out on the track when all that was holding him back was the jack and the air gun – well that and the fact that for a few seconds there, he had no back tires. Luke pulled out the mirror himself, checking underneath to see whether the car needed a wedge adjustment, and—uh oh. "Bring that spoiler up, boys." The tires, well, they wouldn't help, but they wouldn't hurt and they were just about changed anyway. "Bo." Fingers tugging against the netting in the window, and his cousin got the hint. Unsnapped the fasteners from the inside, leaving Luke with a free hand to cover the microphone on his headset. Wasn't anyone but the two Duke boys and the spotter supposed to be able to hear each other over those airwaves, but he'd spent a lifetime in Hazzard, where operators eavesdropped on phone calls, and CB transmissions were fodder for lawmen of all sorts. And he reckoned that no one else but him and his cousin needed to know the kind of disadvantage Bo would be at for the rest of the heat. "Your sway bar," he counseled. "Must've got knocked out of whack somewhere." Too much torsion, and of course the driver would wind up feeling that as shimmy. "You just go out and finish," because not finishing at all would look very bad, would look like copping out, and Bo didn't need that particular monkey on his back. It was enough that Jay was constantly riding him; he didn't need the rest of the senior circuit drivers snickering about a boy too scared of his car to at least try to see a qualifier through. "But you take it easy out there. Don't even try to corner tight. You hear me?"
"Yeah." Defeated. Luke couldn't see his eyes through the face shield, and he didn't need to. A smack to the back of the boy's helmet was about as close as he could come to sympathy at the moment. Back out of the window, the netting snapped into place and as soon as the last lug nut got tightened, he waved Bo back out onto the track.
So they'd have to sit tomorrow's race out. Hell, they'd come onto the circuit too late in the season to be amass enough points to much matter anyway. One race at a time, and any win would do. Just, they weren't going to get one this time.
Which gave them the next day off, or at least most of it. Oh, they'd have to make an appearance at the race itself, cheer on the rest of their team. But the morning practice runs would belong to the boys who'd actually qualified, as would the pre-race inspections and photos. Hell, they didn't have to be back here until at least four tomorrow, and Luke figured out how they ought to take full advantage of that.
Because the races, they'd take care of themselves. There'd be another one in a week, and the car would be all but rebuilt by that time. Whatever the failure had been today, it would be rectified beyond even being a consideration by the next time his cousin got into the car.
What was at risk was this whole other thing that had been mounting silently in Bo for the last three weeks. The annoyance at having to duck his head to get through the low doors of the RV, the cot that was too short and too hard in all the wrong places, the pillow-punching frustration with which he found himself easily awakened by the noise of neighbors. Homesickness, pure and simple, and if the boy gave in to it, if he decided that roosters (and older cousins, really) were the only thing he wanted waking him up, and let that thought chase him all the way back to Hazzard, there would be a lifetime of regrets. (And the fact that Luke's cot was too narrow, that he had a knot on his thigh from where the kitchen table kept catching him, not to mention an occasionally racing heart from the crack-of-dawn garbage trucks emptying the dumpsters filled with soda cans and potato chip bags, well, that didn't much matter. Luke knew homesickness and he knew how to survive it.) Years and decades of wondering what if, thinking about the trophies he hadn't stayed long enough to win.
So he formed a stupid plan, hardly worthy of the name Luke Duke, made hastily in the post-qualifying heat moments as his cousin washed away the stench of not quite making the cut, then changed into street clothes. A few minutes with the vendor that sold soft drinks to the pit teams, a simple question or two. And by the next morning when the lack of space between the Duke boys and the next nearest RV (or maybe it was the one beyond that) woke them up farm early, it didn't seem like a bad idea.
Creaking and rocking, he pulled the RV that he and Bo shared out from the middle of all but identical ones to the left and the right, zig-zagging through the narrow gaps and alleyways between them and the access road. Out of the limits of the Speedway, quick hop along the interstate before getting off onto a dusty road to nowhere. Or at least that was the impression it gave, but it didn't take long to find the river, and soon enough, the bank Curtis had mentioned, rope swing and all. Not quite skinny-dipping, because it was the Little Turkey River, not Hazzard Pond, and there was no telling who might show up. But swimming all the same, or what passed for it, even if it was closer to water fights, wearing old cutoff jeans to protect their virtue. It wasn't much, wasn't even close to the kind of trouble they could get up to at home. But on this day, because here came Bo's giggle and silly smile, it was enough.
"Get up, Bo." There was, of course, only one answer to that, and that was to roll over and take his pillow with him. Except the light was in the wrong place and the bed was too wide. "Bo," Luke's voice was too far away, and there wasn't even the slightest smell of sausage cooking. Or eggs. Or even coffee, and there really ought to have been coffee.
"Why?" he asked his pillow, not entirely sure what sort of answer he expected it to give him. About the sun coming in from the wrong angle or Luke striding closer, getting ready to nudge or shove at him and he didn't want to get up. Or maybe the question was for Daisy, about why there was no breakfast being made, even if he had figured out by now that she had to be a good two thousand miles away from here. From this hotel, since it was a west coast race and for those the LaMatt team had to fly instead of driving, their RVs heading back east under the fingers of the roadies, Earl, Wyatt and Bryan. Because before they knew it they'd have to turn around and fly right back to North Carolina. They needed the time on each track to get to know the ins and outs, couldn't waste three or four days driving from one side of the country to the other.
"Church," Luke answered, and it was just about funny. Well nigh onto funny, anyway, would have been all the way funny if he didn't seem so dang serious about it. Half into the too-bright room, but not all the way, because when Mollie-Sue booked the hotel for the team, she reckoned that drivers and pit crew chiefs all got their own spaces. Lower ranking crew members shared, but apparently it would be too strange for the Duke boys, who'd never much had the luxury of privacy or space, to bunk in the same room. Because ranks couldn't be crossed and the big boys shouldn't be crowded. Or something – maybe Luke just forgot to ask (maybe Bo would ask next time). At least they wound up adjacent, and two keys were issued to each of them, so they'd each taken a copy of the other's. On some kind of honor system, he'd figured, like the kind they had about the General, where the first one to get a girl in there was entitled to privacy. Even if the other one had designs on getting their girl in there, even if the other one had no chance at getting a girl in there and just plain wanted to go home. If he'd known Luke was going to come barging in at the crack of dawn, he never would have given him the means. "Come on, you already got three more hours of sleep than usual."
Not true, not even partly true, and Luke ought to know that. Last night was – weird. It stayed hot long after the sun went down; like a fire dancing over the dry mountains that surrounded them, it was entrancing. Felt like midday, almost impossible to believe how many hours passed while the whole bunch of them – drivers, crew, heck, even some guys from the Bud Moore team were there – wasted the night together. It was supposed to be dinner and a beer, but then there was the patio, with its amber lights and its crazy colorful mosaics, and there were the guys. Jay, for once being halfway decent, smiling from time to time and even managing to say a few good things about him and Mikey. Of course, that was probably because he reckoned on spooking old Carl Green, the Bud Moore team driver who took the race in Kansas, and who was favored on the California Speedway long track, with its low banks and wide turns. A fool's errand, Green was too cool to let another tale-telling driver make him nervous. Or too generous, maybe, both him and Petey Willis, the other Bud Moore driver at the table. The two of them were friendly, warm, even encouraging when it came to the younger guys kicking back amongst them.
Listening to the experience amassed around them, stories of races he and Luke had considered themselves lucky to catch on the radio or television, made the time fly by. Sun-baked land holding them in its warm embrace and it seemed strange that Enos could have spent two years out here. And on top of that a shame that he'd left only a month ago, moving back east just as the Duke boys came west. Strange night filled with nostalgic thoughts, and they hadn't gotten back here to the hotel until three. It couldn't be more than – well the sun was up, he'd figured that much out – eight now. Nine at the latest. Too many beers in the immediate past and not a single coffee on the horizon.
"You found a Methodist church out here?" Came out as more of a whine than disbelief, but that wasn't his fault. Not when there was a bass drum banging around in his head.
Snicker, and undoubtedly a superior smirk was settling itself across Luke's face. That was fine – Bo would just go on looking at the pillow slung over his head. "I figure there's a Methodist church in every town, Bo."
Yeah, probably true. His question wasn't so much about that, but whether Luke spent the night looking through the phone book until he figured out where the nearest one was.
Sigh then, and anything close to amusement was gone from Luke's face. He didn't have to look to know, but he pushed the pillowcase up enough to see anyway. "You ain't got to go if you don't want to, Bo. But I am." And Jesse would want you to, too.
"I didn't say I wouldn't." But he supposed Luke had a pretty good reason to assume he had. "Just," settle down, he wanted to say, and hardly knew why. Heck, his cousin was just being his surly self, somewhere between delivering orders and offering leniency. But there was something antsy to the feel of his words and stance this morning. Or maybe that was just the weariness of Bo's own eyes, playing tricks on him. "Give me a minute."
Luke nodded, didn't move. Waiting. Arms not yet folded across his chest, but they would be in a minute.
"Dang, you're dressed," came to him as an awkward realization. Luke in dress pants, light blue cotton shirt, hair wet and slicked down. Brown as a berry from mid-days spent in the pit, while Bo faded whiter each afternoon in his coveralls, and outside of those, a protective pod of steel. Chasing other steel pods around in tight circles, and it was all he'd ever really wanted to do with his life. Just seemed a shame that he couldn't work on his tan while he was at it.
And there stood Luke, toe-tappingly patient, every bit the little boy he hadn't looked like since Aunt Lavinia passed and Jesse gave up on making his oldest into the angel she'd always wanted him to be. Sort of lost, maybe a little bit lonely. Empty, more like, hollow. The orphan boy making do with the relatives the good Lord had seen fit to leave alive.
"I don't reckon they wear jeans to church out here, Bo. Look," and there the arms went, across his chest and he was all but pouting. "Are you gonna get up or what?"
So he pushed against the bed until he was closer to upright than not. Mostly sitting, just leaning most of his weight on the one arm braced behind him. "I'm up," he pointed out, just in case Luke couldn't tell. His cousin didn't exactly look impressed, probably needed a better demonstration. "Ah, Luke," was just a distraction while he figured out disentangling his feet from the sheet. "You got any idea how long it's been since we had that much to drink?"
No change in the man's posture, just a raised eyebrow that explained quite tidily how Luke wasn't hung over at all, and there was no we that had imbibed a few to many. Or maybe just pointed out how Luke could hold all that liquor and more, and if Bo didn't know his own limits by now, maybe he shouldn't be drinking at all. Or – well it made clear that Bo ought to be glad it was Luke looking at him that way, not their uncle. Because Jesse would have thrown cold water on him by now just to make him move a little faster.
"All right," he agreed to what hadn't been said. Feet found the floor, legs found their muscles, body managing to rise to a full stand.
And that changed everything. Made Luke, now gazing up at him, appear less frustrated and more harassed, made him small and sad and—
Bo hugged him. Couldn't explain it if he wanted to, so he ignored all the questions Luke's rigid body asked him. About whether he'd had more to drink than his cousin knew about, if he was still drunk, and even if he was, what exactly he thought he was doing. Waited until it was just stupid for the man to be fighting it, waited even a few seconds more than that until finally, Luke gave in and hugged him back.
"Morning, cuz," he muttered, no real clarity about why he did it. He and Luke woke up side by side most days, they both knew what time of day it was, and they didn't have to go saying it to each other. But even stranger than the words was the way he whispered, close to Luke's ear, the same as if he was telling a secret, like the sun wasn't blaring through the window, like they could keep the dawning of a new day just between the two of them.
"Yeah, Bo," wasn't anything like agreeing to keep the secret, maybe more like acknowledging the impossibility of such a notion. "If you hurry up," Luke added, pushing away from him and swatting him across the gut. Gentle, though, because a hung over man couldn't be trusted not to take such a gesture badly, very badly, the kind of find-a-mop, start-scrubbing-now badly that neither of them wanted to deal with. "We can get breakfast."
Yes, Bo could have taken that badly, too. But he didn't, smiled instead. Coffee, and if he was really lucky, maybe those greasy sausages his stomach was secretly hankering for.
It was a fine, fine day. The kind that could make a man resent all the good things that had happened to him, all the ways that the world had conspired to try to make him happy. Good fortune, determination and talent had landed him and his cousin exactly where they'd always figured on wanting to be. Which, right about now, was no more than four hours from home; three if they'd had the General. But they didn't, and it wouldn't matter anyway, because what they did have was their jobs to do.
Jesse and Daisy had them, too. Jobs, that was, work, and nothing easy, either. Harvest, and it had been another stroke of luck for the Duke boys that Jesse's cousins' boys were doing a whole lot of nothing with their lives, and their fathers reckoned it wouldn't hurt them any to help out the family that stayed behind in Hazzard. Providence, just looking after two farm boys dreaming after the NASCAR circuit and removing anything that resembled obstacles from their way.
Except harvest wasn't an obstacle, it was an important part of the cycle of life and death. It was a means of respecting the land and the Lord above, really, of understanding nature in all of her kindness and cruelty. It was what days like today were made for, with overcast skies and a cool breeze giving a man respite even as he worked his fingers to the bone.
And all of it – the work, the connection to the earth and sun, even the fine day – belonged to Coy and Vance now. As to Luke, he had to contend with machine and manmade surfaces, and also a niggling wish that the clouds would spawn a storm, closing the track and delaying the race for a day or two so that maybe he and Bo could slip home. Just for a day, to stand in the cornfields and let the rainwater wash over them as the stalks left little nicks on their fingers.
"How's she feel, Bo?" Funny how fast they'd become old hands at this. Seemed like forever ago that he'd said those same words, halfway amused at the double entendre behind them. Now it was just routine to ask.
"All right," came the less-than-enthused answer. "I mean, she's steady, holding to the ground just fine. She's just sluggish." And Bo never had liked a girl that couldn't keep up with the staggering pace he set. (Yeah, even inside his own head that one wasn't particularly funny.)
"Bring her in." Because Luke hadn't tinkered too hard with her since the California Speedway, with its low-banked turns. This here was a totally different track, in a cooler and much more humid atmosphere. And as much as Bo always reckoned practice laps were all about him getting used to the track, well, the car had a little something to do with the success or failure of the driver. (He might be a little bit bitter.) Sure, it was his cousin's name up there on the giant, glowing leaderboard, but there were plenty of people who had to keep their feet solidly on the ground in order to make sure that the boy had half a chance of winning the race. (Bitter, and he didn't know why. Except it was a fine day and just maybe he didn't want to be here.)
Lime green car pulling to a stop in front of him, sweaty cousin yanking himself out the window. Luke braced himself for a tantrum, reckoned he could feel it coming on same as he could always smell a thunderstorm even before the anvil clouds made their way over the mountains to the west. Long body dropping out of the car, helmet off, hair hastily shaken out of his eyes, and it should have taken only a few seconds for those legs to cross over the asphalt between them, for that finger to come to a point, for those gums to start flapping about how he needed more time on the track and less in the pit if he was ever going to—
Curl at the corner of Bo's lip wasn't anything like anger. More like frustration, maybe a touch of dejection. "I can't explain it, Luke. She's just – dragging out there."
"All right." And he'd already had his chin jutted in anticipation of a standoff, too. Had to change his body language and tone of voice all in a split second, but if Bo noticed, he didn't say. Didn't complain about how Luke always expected the worst out of him, and this time it would have been a perfectly legitimate gripe, too. "We'll go after the tires first. And check that wedge, Gillis. We got time, Bo." Lots of time, really. The whole morning would go this way, tinkering with this and that to find speed wherever it was hiding, in the car's frame, tires, and even in the driver. Then the afternoon would disappear to qualifiers, the evening to a few beers with the guys and then early bed so they could start all over again tomorrow morning with the race. Another week in another town, a fine day and nothing to do but spend it on the track. He ought to have been happier about all that – but more importantly Bo ought to have been happier. "We'll figure it out."
"Yeah," should have been agreement, but it wasn't. More like defeat, and they hadn't even fully tested the car yet, much less lost the race.
"Bo." What's the matter? But he didn't have to ask, he already knew. Just exactly how close to home they were, and how they might just as well still be in California for all the good it was going to do them. The border between North Carolina and Georgia was impenetrable by Dukes on either side, and for once it had nothing to do with probation or Boss Hogg (who might even be a sight for sore eyes at this point). It was all about growing up, having jobs and being responsible in carrying them out. "Come on, let's take a look at the engine." Distraction, it was about all he had to offer his cousin. "Check them cylinder heads."
Took a little nudge on his cousin's coverall clad shoulder, took staring down crew members who figured that it was just crazy to ever let a NASCAR driver anywhere near the inner workings of his own car, took handing Bo a crescent wrench and then strongly suggesting that he use it, but it worked. Well enough anyway. Kept his crew and cousin both occupied for awhile, gave him time to think.
About rules (NASCAR had plenty of those) and ingenuity (Luke had plenty of that). About the cooler, heavier air of an eastern mid-October afternoon, and aerodynamics. And about how to walk the fine line between what was allowed and what he could dream up, and how to give Bo a totally fair advantage.
"D'Onofrio, lower that spoiler about six inches." That would decrease the drag, anyway, even if it did put Bo at a little more risk for loose turns. All left turns, really, it was a simple oval track. With high banks, but he didn't want the car to need more than the bottom third of any curve. So he left Bo to the engine and went after the fender himself. Nothing in the books about flaring it just a little, a tiny bit of asymmetry to make the tires like the left hand curvature of the track. Didn't take hardly any time at all, really. "You find anything up there, Bo?" he hollered as he edged up toward the hood again, still squatting down so his eye would be even with the fender, checking out curvature that his adjustment made. There was still room to flare that fender a bit more if he needed to, but he'd only do it if Bo didn't like the way the car cornered.
"Nope," was his cousin's abrupt answer. Still testy, but Luke figured that might get better real soon. "Just cleaning out the intake valves."
"All right, well," Luke said as he stood, then took the two strides to stand shoulder to shoulder with the pouting man. "As soon as you're done with that, you take her out again."
"I'm done now," Bo informed him, handing the crescent wrench back to him and sticking out a hand for a rag. Boy never had figured out how he ought to make sure he knew where the nearest rag was even before he got his hands dirty, was always looking to Luke to have one at the ready for him. And today it seemed best not to nag him about thinking ahead, just to hand over what he needed before those greasy fingers got themselves wiped across the backside of those coveralls. Ugly, just as toxic a shade of green as the car, and that surely wasn't Bo's color, but it didn't matter. They were owned by Team LaMatt, not Bo Duke, and it wouldn't be wise to go making a mess of them. Luke reckoned he could convince the crew out of blabbing to the boss about how Bo wasn't exactly a union mechanic and there he was under the hood of a team car. The launderer – well heck, Luke didn't even know who cleaned their coveralls, so there'd be no talking that person into not ratting out a couple of rule-bending Duke boys.
"All right, get out there then. And Bo," he warned. "She's going to want to lean left. Feel her out real good before you go getting her up to speed."
That fine line, the same one he'd spent years of his lifetime walking, between legal and right, morality and intelligence. What he'd done to the car was perfectly within the bounds of the NASCAR rulebook, and yet deviously clever all the same. It let Bo get around the track faster, pushed the field that much harder. Qualifiers were nothing more than a formality, the race went that much faster for how Bo was able to inject the other drivers with his speed. He didn't win, but Jay did, and if the rookie Duke in the Mountain Dew car was a half a length behind and managed to get his name listed second on the board, that was more than anyone expected of him.
Everything moved faster then. The post race interview (and it really was a shame that Jesse never did allow a television in his house, wouldn't get a chance to see Bo's grinning face up close and personal as he answered one or two questions that got directed at him), clean up and preparation of the car to be trucked to the next race, the party afterward, the flow of beer. The girls were faster, too, as was the sick feeling from too much celebrating. The hangover came along pretty quick, and then there was the next morning, packing and getting ready to move on.
All of it sped up to double time, and that was what a lowered spoiler and flared fender could do for a man. But what did it matter, what was it all worth, when at the end of the day, he and Bo couldn't go home? No matter how fast they drove, they'd still be out on one track that was indistinguishable from the next, doing laps that felt awfully familiar. Luke knew of no tricks he could pull or lines he could walk that would lead to someplace better, happier, more like Hazzard.