Dead Man's Hill -2

February 23, 2010

We painted our car top to bottom all black of course. We also painted a big white X on every side including the hood and top of the cab just in case airplanes traveling in low altitude overhead were to notice our every intention to be found.

The overall paint job copied our favourite local bad guy stock car driver. He had big X’s painted on his car which was disqualified more times than not. This was due to just a little extra weight of a few sand bags he laid in the back trunk for traction. Unfortunately this was discovered most times, especially after a win, which wasn’t that often. But we loved him just the same. He was our pack leader

Mr. X and his X painted coupe was certainly our hero with no number unlike the rest of the pack of mostly mechanics who raced every Saturday night in the summer. Weissglass Stadium was just down the street from where we lived.

The ‘Stadium’ was almost a quarter mile oval track that with a little tweaking could have actually been considered a circle; it was that small. Other times we’d see little league baseball or high school football games in the same place; an every year small time circus also planted itself there for a few weeks as well as wrestling and boxing matches. It was our little ‘hoods’ outdoor everything spot.

Anytime anything we wanted to see but couldn’t pay for like the every Saturday evening car races in the summer, our little group would try to sneak in the front gates. Most times we’d ask to tag along with an adult or we’d walk fast during a thick crowd entry hopefully not to be seen by the ticket taker on either side of the rather wide entryway. To slip in unnoticed we asked to hold strange adult hands. Sometimes we surprised them by just grabbing theirs. Most didn’t agree.

These turn downs were largely due to our vaguely planned begging to escape to inside. One by one we kept on trying our luck anyway. It was a numbers thing. The gathering spot was predetermined mostly because X needed our crowd of cheers. We cheered even louder when he turned our way to be recognised by us.

So of course our car had to be dedicatedly constructed in X’s honour. Instead of a real car’s round contours ours had to be flat and straight on all sides due to the difficulty we decided was too much for the cheap plywood we had to work with.

Finally the construction was complete. One thing we decided was not a very good idea to forget was to put hinges on the front hood. We thought this important just in case we had to work on the engine like X must have done.

Of course we had no engine but that didn’t matter; it was the thought of having one that did matter. Besides, we still needed to work on the steering and brake system after the body was constructed so we pulled all of those nails out and asked Santa Claus to buy us three hinges for our redesigned hood/engine cover.

Gary’s dad suggested we search in the older garage for more jars that may hold the exact hinges we needed. Gary’s grandfather saved everything he’s ever owned so luckily we found two that matched and one that didn’t but it worked anyway. We decided to paint them all the same colour as they’d show in public and we wouldn’t want to be embarrassed as seeming to be unprofessional.

We labored more summer days on the actual workings of everything we needed to steer and stop this monstrosity. Needless to say, X wasn’t a very small car; and because it was all plywood it had rattle sounds that metal would never make. We thought shock absorbers could have been added but we didn’t know where to find any used ones for free let alone any that would work with our special car.

When we looked under and behind the huge tires, specifically at the shocks of Gary’s parent’s big black Packard limo, we just couldn’t see how something like that would work anyway. Without much discussion we decided to go shock less. Besides we were all impatient to start our new and daring driving experience. The thing rolled so we were excited and more than ready to begin our joy rides.

As planned Gary got in while Sal and I yelled out ‘Shotgun!’ Whoever said this first was automatically considered the front seat passenger for the simple fact of calling it out first. To Sal and I, it didn’t sound like the other was first so Gary was the deciding vote. He said we had both said it in unison. Gary’s solution was that Sal and I would ‘shoot for it’ with the game known as Odds or Evens.

One person called Odds and the other had Evens which meant that whoever won three times first, they were the winner. For those not familiar with the hand game of decision makers; someone would call, ‘Shoot!’ Then both parties would shoot out one hand with either one finger or two fingers protruding from a fist.

To further explain, if one person had one finger out and the other had two, that was an odd combination and Odds would win. If both had one finger out, or both had two fingers out then Evens would win. A win three times determined who won overall. I called Evens and so did Sal.

We probably did this more times than necessary when Gary said, “I’ll say GO.” Just to decide who the Odd or Even guy was took a little while longer but in the end, I was eventually Even, Sal was the Odd guy. (That doesn’t look right, today)
Finally, Sal won so I was to be the first starter-pusher for what we had predetermined to be about three city blocks for each turn; rotating from the passenger to the driver and so on until we got to a hill of any consequence. At that point all of us would be pushers. The person steering from the outside also would take turns. Inside the car they entered and push, I began… or tried to.

Like the wolf in the three pigs, this nine year old short and very thin guy huffed and puffed just to get the monster X and its two passengers to the driveway exit of Gary’s property. That thing was more than a heavy, struggling push for the first thirty something feet. I was tired by the time we reached the driveway exit. Most of the push was on grass but we were convinced the street would be easier.

Luckily for mme the driveway was a short, four foot, steep slope. I pushed hard enough to watch the big monster X drift for about ten feet into the street while Gary turned right to head the car further on. I ran to catch up to continue the momentum but the thing just crawled to a halt. I pushed again while struggling to gain a continued rolling motion. The car was too heavy for mme to make much headway with the kind of speed we all expected to feel while inside or out.

At this time we all noticed we forgot to install a speedometer but we were also sure that at this rate we’d not threaten any land speed record any time soon. Like a stalled car with ignition problems or anything that kept any kind of real car moving slower than a slug as the stuck and lonely driver tried to push car’s beast to the curb; and as much as I tried, the monster X was even slower than a slug.

I was breathing heavy. The boys riding inside weren’t too sympathetic until the exhausted crawl set in about thirty feet later. It was at that point that we all wondered what would happen when reaching any kind of a slight grade in the up direction. Going downhill we discussed was not going to be a problem.

Like our hero X, the human cargo carried like his sand would take us to any finish line with flying colours. But that wasn’t our immediate problem. Momentum was. It was a hard decision we must have talked about for ten minutes or so. I came up with the idea of two guys being the starter pushers thereby making the car lighter while adding another person was like a bigger engine that much more speed would surely be the result. X needed two guys.

Both Gary and Sal didn’t seem to like that idea at this point. They were very comfortable even at the slow speed. I suggested either one of them to at least try the starter pusher part for about five feet to experience a little ahead of time as to what their turn would be like in a different position. I promised that if they did this then they might change their mind when it came time for their turn.

An extra incentive stressed was that the monster X would go even faster with two people being the starter-pushers as opposed to the slow crawl of just one in that position and the fact that the other two would probably get pretty bored going so slow. It would even be slower when considering the time it took the starter pusher to rest in between the huffs, puffs, aches, pains and the mandatory water breaks; especially since we had only one very small bottle to go around.

Then of course we had to be back by dark; not to mention the fact that Dead Man’s Hill steep downward grade was waiting to be challenged that same day. Look how many joy rides we’d miss if we took so long to get there; was the best scenario and one that finally convinced the two riders to change their minds.

So Sal being the passenger was the designated starter-pusher helper seeing as Gary was already holding the steering wheel tighter than a cowboy grabs the rope on a bull. The fact that there was two more blocks to go before the switch didn’t help Sal to get out ungrudgingly of course but we all decided it wasn’t really any fun going so slow after all.

Besides, we also conceived that our Dead Man’s Hill arrival would be that much quicker just because we had just made a level headed decision and the best for all concerned. Of course Gary said that after Sal and I had yelled in unison, “Only two more blocks before we switch, right?!” Why we yelled that with a question ending was that we as starter pushers didn’t think it fair to begin again from the new decision spot. After all, it wasn’t as if the rider-steerer had just begun either.

… So much like this little story began; again it will continue on the morro