Old Wounds Ch. 02

"I cut ties with everyone Katie."

"Yea. But why? She wasn't worth it."

"I know that now. Back then I didn't. I was stupid."

"Yes you fucking were Matt. You cut ties with everyone and left. What if you died? What if the last thing I ever said to you was 'I told you she would do that.'"

"That was the last thing you said to me before I left?"

"Yep. It haunted me every day while you were gone. I snapped at you when you were moping over her and yelled that, got in my car and left. You left two days after that."

"How the hell do you remember all that?" I joked, trying to lighten the situation.

"Because, like I said, I care about you. I actually cried when you left. I locked myself in my room for two weeks. I wouldn't talk to anyone. I completely shut down."

So there it was. All out in the open. That had to be how I hurt her. There really isn't anything else. What Allison was saying made so much more sense. I hurt her because she was worried that I would have died and the last thing she had said to me wasn't the nicest thing. At least I hope that's why she was hurt. If not, then I was all out of ideas.

"Is that why you were so hurt when I left? Because you didn't say the nicest thing?"

"One of the reasons." She said, turning to look at me for the first time since I sat down.

Well fuck. Guess there's more. Why could I never understand women?

Without saying anything else, I stood and held out my hand for her to take it. She did, and I helped her to her feet. She stumbled a little, and by the time I steadied her we were standing awkwardly close. I didn't want to upset her anymore than she was, so I took a step back.

"Let's head back to the fire."

As we turned to head back down the rock, I couldn't help but notice a look in her eyes. One that I couldn't read. It was like sadness and anger rolled into one. What I wouldn't give for mind reading powers...

**

It was later on in the night, and everyone had made their way back to my house. We were all out in the barn just shooting the shit, throwing darts, drinking beers, and every once in a while one of the guys would pick up a part and put it back on the truck. No real work was getting done on it, but I assumed by the end of the night a whole fifteen or twenty minutes would have been shaved off of what I had left to do.

Surprisingly Danny was the first to fall. Well, not fall, but the first to head home. Usually he's a party all night kinda guy, so it was definitely strange seeing his truck fire up first. Then Kyle went to bed, I assumed from being too drunk, though nobody actually saw him drinking. Sneaky bastard.

Not before too long it was just me, Todd, Katie, and Allison. We were sitting at the table with a game of Euchre going. Another one of my childhood favorites. If you grew up in Michigan and don't know how to play Euchre, you may or may not be excommunicated.

"Why the hell would you play the left?" Todd asked Allison angrily.

"Because you called and led ace. If you called you've gotta have the right. So the left is second best, and you should have one to lay off." Allison shot back at him.

"Well obviously I didn't. I called on ace king and counted on you for one."

"Well ya fucked up. I had right, Queen, and a ten. I was just waiting for one of all y'all dumb fucks to call so we could euch ya." I said, giving Katie a high five over the table.

Katie and I had been partners since we all learned how to play as kids. We were the dream team. Our parents taught us young, and since we each learned from our own parents, we each had different playing styles, but luckily they meshed together. I played the old school 'call next for your partner' style and she played the 'if you have three call it, it didn't matter what next was." When my style backfired, hers would usually save me and vice versa. We definitely won over half the games we played, or so it seemed.

The games went on like that for the rest of the night. We all had lost track of how long we'd been playing. When Katie got a lay down loner for the win of that game, Todd looked at his watch and nearly choked on his beer as he did.

"Holy shit! It's five thirty?!" He all but shit himself.

"Fuck boys. I think we oughtta call it a night hey?"

"I'd say. See y'all later."

With that Todd got up and headed out of the barn towards his truck. A minute or two later all you could hear was him tearing down the road after turning out of my driveway. Allison soon followed suit and then it was just Katie and I in the barn. Katie said she was going to crash here since she was going with me to the mud drags in the morning to set up. The rest of the crew was coming later on.

Danny and I were the only two of our group that actually raced in the drags, but everyone loved coming. The mud drags were a huge thing in our town, and I was ecstatic that I was back home for it this year. I hadn't raced since high school, so I was definitely more than a little nervous.

The best part of the mud drags wasn't necessarily the racing, but the party and seeing what crazy stuff everyone could come up with. I remembered back in high school Ferg had a cargo van that he lifted and threw a good motor in and would race with that. The old man was up in his late eighties and was still racing, well he was racing, until last year when he finally passed the torch over to his grandson, but you knew damn well he'd still be there.

My dad used to race, and when he wrecked his mud car when I was a kid, he put it off for a while until I turned fourteen and we started building up the car I had now. It was a seventies Mustang, lifted eighteen inches with a LS swap and four wheel drive. If you don't know what mud drags are, you should definitely look them up.

The drags started at ten in the morning, and since it was already five-thirty, I went into the house with Katie, and sent her up to my room to get some sleep while I went into Kyle's room and woke him up.

"Runt!" I called out as I flipped on the lights.

"The fuck you want now Matt?"

"Mud drags in like five hours, and we gotta leave in three. We got shit to do."

"Fuck..." he groaned as he rolled out of bed. "I'm coming hold up."

There he was again. Always the trooper. Never wondering why when I woke him up and said we had shit to do.

He quickly threw on his jeans and a t-shirt and headed downstairs to grab a cup of the coffee I had made. Pulling on our boots we walked out to the barn to do some last minute work on the car. There shouldn't have been much to do, since it was running perfectly fine last time I raced it a few years ago, but I wasn't sure if they'd ran it at all since I left so better safe than sorry.

We got out to the barn and rolled the car into the work area and popped the hood. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. We grabbed a battery off the shelf and checked it to make sure it was still good then put it in and fired up the Mustang. Ran just as good as I remembered. No misses, no noises that shouldn't be there. Perfect.

We let it warm up for a bit then shut it down to change the oil and check the cases to make sure their fluid was still full and clean. All was good there. Next Kyle climbed under it to check the suspension while I bounced on the bumper. It didn't need much work there, just needed to be tightened up a little after sitting for so long.

As he rolled out from under the car I saw the door open and Katie walked in looking refreshed. She was wearing one of my shirts and I couldn't help but notice how good she looked in it. Way better than I did. I quickly checked my watch to make sure we were still on track for being on time, and turned to ask her what she was doing up.

"I couldn't fall asleep, so I took a shower and freshened up. My shirt smelled like smoke and beer so I stole one of yours. Hope you don't mind." She said with a laugh.

"You look amazing, so I can't say I mind." I said with a nervous chuckle.

"I'd say it fits." She giggled.

Turning to my brother, I asked what was left on the checklist.

"Just make sure the tires have and will hold air. Other than that we just gotta load it up and get after it."

Katie grabbed the jack and jacked up the front of the car while me and Kyle went over to the wall to roll over the mud tires that would be going on it. We never stored the car on its racing tires, but instead we put the stock wheels back on it. Less chance of dry-rot that way.

Katie already had the driver front wheel off and was ready for us to lift the heavy mud tire onto it. We repeated the process on all four, Katie moving the jack and taking off the old wheels while Kyle and I fought with the heavy thirty-five inch mud tires. The whole process took all but ten minutes. Hooray for teamwork.

"I'll go hook the trailer up to your truck and back it up to the door?" Katie asked with a grin. I knew she loved backing up trailers. Said it made her feel like she was helping, and if I was being honest, she was pretty good at it. She learned from the best I mused.

"Sounds good to us. You did learn from the best. I'd say I'm a pretty good teacher too," I winked. "You know which trailer we use so go ahead. My keys are still in the truck."

"Be back in five. Be ready to load up. We got some mud drags to win!" She exclaimed happily.

I didn't always win, hell it seemed I rarely did, but I won enough times to be considered a contender, so I was starting to get nervous, wondering if I still had it in me. I was hoping it was like riding a bike.

A few moments later Kyle and I had the ratchet straps all laid out, and had the Mustang running once more just to double check everything was still good. It was just about then I heard my truck approaching so I went to slide open the big door so she could back right up to it.

After a few unnecessary hand signals she had the trailer exactly where I needed it, so she shut off the truck, popped it into gear so it wouldn't roll, and jumped out to lend us a hand if we needed it. It didn't really take much to back the Mustang onto the trailer and strap it down, so before long we had her all loaded up and ready to roll.

Checking my watch I did some quick math and decided we still had time to go get some breakfast before heading out to the drags. When we stopped by the house to quick pack and load a cooler, we saw my mom and dad up and about.

"Don't worry about the cooler hun, we'll bring it up to you when we come up."

"You're coming up?"

"You really think your dad or I would miss a drag? You've been away too long Matt Richardson. Now go get some breakfast and we'll meet you up there with the cooler."

"Don't forget to put the beer in the cooler Ma!" I called as we turned to leave.

"Oh hush. I know what I'm doing. Now git!" She called back.

It didn't take us long to head across town to the farm where the mud drags took place. They were ran by a local farmer who had a back field that always seemed to hold more water than he could get rid of, making it nearly unusable for farming, so he tried to make some money by starting a mud drag. As it turned out, he wound up making almost more money from that than he did from farming since he now hosted four drags a year, a practice one in the spring, the qualifier in mid summer, the semi finals in late summer, and the finals in early fall.

I missed the practice one, but I was here for the qualifier. I didn't know if I'd still be in town to finish off the season, but I figured I'd at least try to qualify the car and have either my dad or Kyle run the rest of the races if I wasn't in town. It had been a while and I know the "Muddy Mustang" as we called her wanted another chance at the title.

The title was a piston from one of the cars from back when he started it. The guy blew it out of the motor, so they started engraving names on it real small and passing it around to the year's winner. It was a silly little thing but for some reason it meant a lot to everyone involved, even the guy who had to hand it over to the next guy.

As we pulled into the back field off the little farm road I saw that many people already had their cars unloaded and tents set up for the day's events. The first race would kick off at ten, and it would go until well past dark, when everyone would line up along the track and leave their lights on. That's when it got really fun and everyone got really loud and the party really went off.

Pulling up and backing in next to Danny, we unloaded the Mustang and set up our tent so it was connected to his. It was just after nine, so the racers that were already there were making their test drags and making any last minute adjustments. Since we had already gone through the car that morning, I elected to not make a practice pass and just sat on my lawn chair under the tent and shot the shit with the guys.

It was just around ten when my parents pulled up in my dad's truck and got themselves situated and started handing out beers to all of us. Katie by far seemed the most excited out of all of us, since she used to live for these drags back in high school. I tried to get her to race in a couple, but she was just content with watching and making a pass or two at the end of the night when everyone kicked back and enjoyed the party. She definitely was a good driver.

"Alright Matt, you ready?" She asked, all but bouncing with excitement.

"Hell yea!" I replied with equal excitement, "it's been a while but I think I still got it."

"You better! You're up first!"

"What?" I didn't even know they put out the lineup yet.

"Yep. You're up against Tommy Shingleton. Go get em!" She encouraged and leaned in to give me a peck on the cheek before I headed over to my car.

Before I could even say anything Todd and Jason were ushering me towards the Mustang to get it fired up and move it out to the starting line. I was definitely a little nervous, but mainly I was just excited. The lanes had already been torn up from the test passes, so there was some good mud. I figured Tommy's car would have a bit of an issue with it, since it wasn't as lifted or didn't have as meaty of tires on it. Guess I was going to find out.

When the starter shot off the gun both of us dumped the clutch and headed into the mud. I started burning through the gears, shifting late to keep the RPMs up. By the time I hit thirty-five I couldn't even see the lane from all the mud that was caking up on my windshield. Didn't matter, since with the ruts of the lanes you'd know if you went off track since you'd either bounce real hard or hit the side and snap back into it.

My wipers didn't work, so when I hit fifth gear and got up to fifty the end of the rut it about scared the crap out of me. The way the lanes were, at the start you'd drop down into the track, and when you hit the finish line you'd pop back up onto somewhat flat ground, letting you know you were at the end and to hit the brakes.

I didn't know if I won or lost, all I know is I made it through in what seemed a decent time. As I finally came to a stop I rolled my window down and stuck my head out so I could see, and also so I could look around and try to see where tommy was. As it turned out he got stuck about halfway through and didn't even make it, so the first round was a win for me.

I may not have had the fastest mud car, but damn if I was ever going to get stuck. I'd rather lose just because I wasn't fast enough than to lose because I didn't even make it through, that's why I had it lifted so high and such big tires on her. As I grabbed my squeegee that I stole from a gas station out of the passenger seat to wipe off enough of my window to see so I could get back to the truck, I saw Katie running up to the Mustang cheering and bouncing with joy.

Instead of driving back, I hopped out and told her to drive it back, since I knew how much she loved driving the car. Since it was so tall I had to help her up into the driver seat and walk next to her, guiding her back so she didn't hit anything since there was only a small patch of window that wasn't covered in mud.

Once we got back, we settled in for the long haul, since I was the first race and I won, it was going to be at least a few hours before I saw more seat time.

"Danny!" I called out a while later when he got called for his pass.

"Yo."

"If you get left lane, about halfway down there's a pretty good bump in the rut. Don't think you hit the bank or hit the end. Hammer down through it and try not to lose traction. It's a mean one."

"Roger that. I'll give er a go."

And with that he fired up his S10 and headed over. He was up against Fergs grandson in that same damn cargo van he used to race. I definitely wasn't expecting that twist.

"When did Fergs grandson start racing?"

I guess nobody told me Ferg quit racing and handed it over. Now I didn't know what to think

"Last year I suppose, cuz he wasn't here two years ago." Said my dad.

"Hmmm. This oughta be interesting then."

"I'd say."

When the gun shot off both draggers hammered down and hit the mud. By this time the tracks were real torn up, so there was no telling how much that bump was going to fuck with Danny or if it was even still there.

Danny got off to a great start, hitting all his shifts perfectly. He was definitely going faster than anyone had gone all day. It was definitely looking good for him. Fergs grandson hit a good shift right around a quarter of the way in and made up some time. It was getting closer but Danny still had a pretty good sized lead.

A second or two after that Danny's truck hit that bump. It was a bump when I hit it, but when he went through it was more of a mountain. He hit it pretty hard and it sent his front driver wheel up out of the rut onto the flat next to it. When his back tire hit it the truck shot about a foot into the air and started to turn sideways. When it came down both the passenger front and rear wheels dug in sideways since the car shifted in the air and sent him rolling side over side since he had so much speed going into it.

He rolled three or four times and wound up upside down. Before the truck was even settled everyone from our group was off on a run to where he was. The paramedics were also booking it over. Before we could even reach the truck I saw a size twelve cowboy boot kick out the passenger side window and Danny come sliding out behind it.

I stopped running then, as did everyone else, since he clearly wasn't dead and was ok enough to kick out a window. When he got to his feet and held his hat over his head to let everyone know he was ok, we all burst out laughing. Damn kid.

"Someone get the fuckin tractor to tip this thing over before the fluids go shit side up!" He called out.

"The farmers already on it. Grab yer strap out the bed."

"Good shit. Let's get this bitch right side up."

It didn't take long at all and we had the truck on its wheels and pulled out of the mud. The farmer towed it over to where we all were and the guys all gathered around to go over the damages.

After letting all the fluids sink back to where they were supposed to be, we started the truck up and moved it forward and backwards a bit to see if anything was messed up. It appeared to be all cosmetic damages. The roof was crushed a little so there was a little less headroom, and all the windows were busted.

"Well fuck boys she's good for another race!" Danny called out.

"Let's get these windows and this glass outta here." Todd suggested.

Danny didn't need any more encouragement. He climbed up and started bashing in the windows and tearing out the sheets that stuck together. Todd climbed in and started to rip out the interior paneling that busted, and Katie and Allison started to sweep out the glass from the interior and get it all into a pile. He still had one more race left, since it was set as a double elimination, so he planned on being ready for it.