In the middle of a dewy field, two folding chairs are set up in front of a yellow sports car. A portly man sits slumped in one, the smoke from his cigarette billowing up into the evening sky. To his left, the second chair is only occupied by a red bomber jacket. The jacket’s owner is a slim man crouched under the hood of the car, checking the hardware of the machine intently.
“So,” Rick says through a cloud of smoke, craning his neck behind him to look back at Mateo. He squints through the assaulting brightness of the headlights. “What time do you have to get up tomorrow? Five, right?”
Mateo nods, half of his body submerged under his car’s hood. A cut of black hair falls between his eyes, and he uses a clean part of his forearm to push it back. “Yes. The race begins at noon, so I will need the time to drive there and prepare.”
“Rutiler to Kanrock. That’s a pretty good distance.”
He nods again, engrossed with whatever mechanics he’s currently fiddling with.
“It’s the Tourney. That’s a big deal, Mat. You excited? You gonna miss me?”
Mateo hums an ambivalent note.
Rick chuckles to himself and brings the cigarette back up to his lips. One of the biggest days of his life is on the horizon and he doesn’t seem to have an opinion on it one way or another. He should expect nothing less from him.
Rick remembers the pictures of Mateo in the paper after winning the GasPed Semifinals two years ago; the very image of humility, his red jacket zipped all the way up, the high neck barely– barely– concealing his smile. A single hand was raised in a subtle “thank you” to the crowd, and the other held the trophy at his hip, as if it were an afterthought. As if the podium he was on top of were no different than the ground itself. A clipping of the article is on Rick’s fridge.
It was a classic underdog story– an up-and-coming racer, unknown and unconnected to any big names on the scene. Even-tempered but prone to coming across as cold and blunt, stubborn enough to not back down from a challenge but smart enough to not enter a competition he could not win. It was no secret that he fought tooth and nail to reach where he was today, a ruthless one-man team in the early years; the driver, the manager, the pit crew, all in one body. Rick watched his progression from the very beginning, from a modest novice to a bonafide pro.
“Shame you won’t be in the stands to see it. I would have liked to see you there.” Mateo sniffs and stands straight up, an elbow resting on the edge of the popped hood. “School wouldn’t accept your request for time off?”
Rick leans back in his chair with a slight groan. “Gym teacher’s gotta teach gym. No rest for the athletes. You know how it is.”
Mateo’s thin eyebrow ticks upwards slightly. Rick knows that look intimately. Simultaneously amused and exasperated.
“Yes, athletes. Sure.” A thick Italian accent drags out the last word.
“That’s us.” Rick pats his beer belly to punctuate the sentence, a satisfied smile on his face. “Since I can’t make it, you’d better keep me posted. Y’know, from the inside. Can’t get all my updates from TV– you know they’re fucking gonna try to make you look bad.”
Mateo rolls his eyes as he dries off his oily hands with a rag. “They are just doing their jobs. I’m not the only victim of the dramatization of sporting events.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t give ‘em anything to talk about. You’d better win by a fucking country mile.”
“I always do.” The stained towel he swings over his shoulder matches his white tank top, spotted with splashes of oil.
“Hey, speaking of the news, you’ll have to prepare your answers to all the questions reporters are gonna swarm you with once you cross that finish line.” He clutches his cigarette in a fist and holds it in Mateo’s direction, twisting around in his folding chair. “Mr. Accardi, Mr. Accardi! To what do you owe your success?”
Mateo waves his hand through the smoke bubbling from the end of Rick’s cigarette and scrunches his nose in disgust. He puffs out his chest and puts his hands behind his back.
“If you are asking about my training regimen, that is classified information.” The voice he puts on is one fit for television, even and practiced. “But if you are asking for platitudes the audience will enjoy, then I will say that confidence is key, you should never give up, et cetera.”
“What, so you became a bigshot superstar winner by acting like a bigshot superstar winner?”
“Hm. If you want to boil down my years of training and hard work as me ‘acting like a bigshot superstar winner’…” he leans down, plucks the cigarette out of Rick’s outstretched hand, and takes a deep drag through the pause. Twin plumes of smoke billow from his nostrils. “More or less.”
“Hey, come on.” Rick tuts his tongue before reaching into the inner pocket of his blue coat and pulling out a half-finished pack of Acedes. A new roll is lit as quickly as the old one is lost.
“This is my one,” Mateo says, before sizing up the cigarette in his hand. “Well, my one-half. Even better. I am weaning myself off.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, conviction of steel.” He speaks through his teeth, clenching the cig between them. “A superstar and a saint– ladies and gents, what can’t this man do?”
“Is that all it takes to become a saint nowadays? It’s been awhile since I’ve been to church.”
“Ah, but he does not deny the superstar claim.”
“‘Superstar’,” he grunts softly as he takes a seat. “Is not the word I would use, but fine. Sure. If it makes you happy, I am a superstar.”
“Yeah, you are. Livin’ the dream.”
“The dream, huh? Would you rather be a ‘bigshot superstar winner’ instead of a gym teacher?”
He wouldn’t. When it comes to his career, he is satisfied. Rick likes his job at the middle school; the kids are fun, and he gets along with them. That isn’t a surprise. He is a childish man, all about aversion to the somber points of the world and more willing to embrace the frivolous. The job he has is the job he loves. His life, on the other hand…
Rick does not see himself as a superstar. He sees himself as the thing that looks back at him in the mirror; somehow too young to know any better but too old to be the way he is, still in his awkward years when he should be exiting his prime. A man that saw many nights of partying, indulgence, sin, and is still paying for it, his face ruddy red and and his body lumpy. Though he is in a better condition than he was back in his college years, 15 years ago– when the brunt of the abuse began, when every night was a bacchanal of alcohol and strangers in his bed– the scars on his psyche and physical body remain. The superstar lifestyle with none of the glamour or fame. Just notoriety of a less savory brand.
He is a loser, an immutable fact of life. It is a mystery why someone like Mateo would give him the time of day.
“I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to be both.” He admits with a shrug.
“Superstar gym teacher,” Mateo mulls over the idea, pursing his lips at the thought. “The Rutiler District’s own physical-education-teacher-slash-rockstar.”
“Ooh. Hell yeah. I like the sound of that.” He mimics strumming a guitar solo and makes high, whining noises with his mouth. “Work it out, kids! Rock on!”
“You already have the hairstyle for it. And the mustache.” Mateo slides his hand across his own cheeks, indicating Rick's thick hair– curly but not too long, pronounced mutton chops that blend into his shoulder-length auburn hair.
“The facial hair works for it, huh?”
“Yes. You look like at least three different Caged Faraday band members. Old-school rocker.”
“You calling me old? We’re the same age. Sorry, your lips are moving, but all I can hear is ‘jealous, jealous, jealous’.” His thick hand opens and closes like a mouth with each declaration of Mateo’s envy.
Mateo attempted many times in his career to progress past the whisper of hair above his lip, a ghost of a mustache that barely dusted dark brown over tan skin. It could be mistaken for a shadow rather than hair, and never grew thicker than a pubescent boy’s first sprouts of facial hair.
“Ah, sei un rompicoglioni.” Rick could translate that one– You are a pain in the ass. After a certain point, anyone could decipher phrases Mateo used over and over. Gently, his knuckles press against Rick’s upper arm in a teasing punch, four small dots of residual oil imprinted into his coat.
“And a ‘bucca di beppo’ to you too.” He smiles and pinches the fingers of his hand together, flicking it at the wrist in a stereotypical Italian hand gesture. “Y’know what, it’s actually great that you can’t grow this kind of scruff. You’d be too cool if you had it.”
Mateo hums another ambivalent note and crosses his lithe legs. “Hm. Well, I am glad you think I am ‘cool,’ Rick.” His eyes slip away from Rick, shielding his lower half of his face with a cigarette pinched between his fingers. The expression behind it is a mystery.
“You are cool. The picture of cool. We’re cigarette-smoking badasses.”
“...It is not ‘bad-ass’ to give yourself lung cancer.” His head is angled upward, just enough to watch the smoke from his mouth dissipate into the sky above.
“Yeah, well.” The bigger man shrugs, his gaze sliding away from him and out towards the dark sky. “It’s a bad habit, but it’s the only thing I’m good at.” A hint of defensiveness he didn’t intend to convey leeches its way into his voice. “Brings me pleasure, I’m afraid.”
Everything else, Rick could kick– for the most part. Drinking became a thing of the past, the place in his heart reserved for booze now occupied by his three-year sobriety chip (two relapses kept it from being five). Sleeping around became more of a challenge at this point in his life–for his own benefit– and the cycle of heartbreak had ceased to repeat. His reputation still followed him, unfortunately, people who used to be friends remaining in a close enough vicinity to never let his personal history truly die, who reminded him he would always be destined to nothing worthwhile. But it was overshadowed by the Rick of today, the Rick who played kickball with teens and never took things too seriously. The smoking was what stuck. A guilty taste that hid behind his teeth and nicotine burrowed deep under his fingernails. A leftover memento from when feeling good was something he had to get away with.
The two used to bond over smoking. Stepping outside and sharing cigarettes from a pack, going through twice as many as they individually would in a day, spurred on by one another, until Mateo simply quit. Now he only smokes, as far as Rick can tell, with him. It makes him feel like some kind of enabler. A loser who’s also a bad influence.
Ash falls from the end of his cigarette. He tamps it into the dirt with the tip of his dirty secondhand sneaker. The night sky feels lower on his shoulders.
“You know,” Mateo breaks the silence. His eyes are still fixed on the sky. “As a child, I used to think that shooting stars were from angels flicking away their cigarette butts before God could catch them.”
Rick snickers, allowing the brevity to overtake this new conversation. “Really? Why is this the first I’m hearing of that?”
He hums an ‘I-don’t-know’ tone, nursing the slowly dying cigarette against his mouth. “I could never quite see them without someone else telling me to look.”
The bigger man pauses, craning his neck to look up at the stars. Dim flickers power through the haze of light pollution, struggling to be known against the blaring incessance of the Earth’s glow. No matter how hard he squints, he can’t find any shooting stars. Instead, he holds his hand above his head, imagining the slightly shaky ember at the end of his smoke is a comet. “D’ya think you could light a cigarette using a halo?”
“That sounds blasphemous to me.”
“Most fun things are, my friend!” Rick chuckles, leaning back in his chair and crossing his outstretched legs at the ankles.
“If my understanding of Catholicism is true, I am not going to heaven anyway.”
“Oh, me neither. I learned that a long time ago.”
Mateo takes a deep drag, then flips the bird to the stars. “Fottiti, angeli.” Fuck you, angels.
“Yeah, fuck you guys! Space isn’t your ashtray!” Rick shakes his fist at the sky.
Mateo rests his chin in his right hand, elbow on the armrest of the chair. The filter of the cigarette barely brushes against his lips. Rick watches him out of the corner of his eye. Like looking at him is a thing that he has to sneak. A part of him that is still laden with Catholic guilt feels embarrassed when he imagines that a legion of angels are watching him hide the glances he takes, the butts of their cigarettes twinkling from heaven.
Rick claps his hands on his knees loudly. “Feel like hitting the track off-hours? I’d love to see what it’s like to be a bigshot superstar winner.”
“I don’t know. I don’t really race with other people in my car.”
“Aw, come on! For me?”
He leans back and considers it. After a sigh, he shrugs. “I should warm up the engine.” He extinguishes his cig under the heel of his boot and groans slightly as he stands. The red bomber returns to his shoulders and he pops the collar sightly.
Rick pumps his fist and whoops. He folds up the chairs and hoists them under his arm. “I’ll make sure not to get any prints on the bodywork.” Chairs clutched tightly under his armpit, he makes a show out of delicately popping the trunk with his fingertips.
Rick had made numerous suggestions towards other modifications in the past. Mateo scrunched up his nose at the ostentatious additions– dropping the ride, adding a massive aero-kit, and supercharging the camber to some frosty minuses– Mateo had referred to it as “porno” tuning. That was closer to Rick’s sense of style than his own, fashion over function. The racer preferred elegant, sleek, smooth. Everything, down to the pedals, is all custom. The love for the vehicle is evident in every crevice and compartment; subtle embellishments, from the smooth leather of the seats to the gray nylon of the upholstery scream “Mateo Accardi.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Mateo’s serious countenance settles back onto his face when he sees Rick still has half a cigarette left. “No smoking in my car. I’m serious.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know that thing is like your baby.” Rick takes a deep drag and bites down on the filter as he tosses the chairs in the back. “Just give me a second–”
Mateo’s fingers reach to his lips and pluck the cigarette from it. It is the same hand that he held his other stolen cigarette in, nails brushing lightly against his mouth and the tips of Rick’s tawny facial hair. The smell of oil overpowers the smell of smoke for a single surprised inhale. He stubs it out on the heel of his boot and flicks away the dying embers, then pulls his key ring from his jacket pocket. “There. Now you can get in.”
The car honks twice, echoing in the open air. He gets in the front seat.
Any words Rick could have said die on his tongue. What would he even say? It was so swift and benign that it should have been meaningless; just another stolen cigarette in a long line of stolen cigarettes. But this one felt different. It rendered him frozen. He is not quick enough on the draw to fire a quip, nor ready enough to look deeper into the reason behind his reaction. Instead he keeps his mouth shut and gets in the car, composing himself as much as he can.
Mateo opens the glove box and pulls out a pair of red leather driving gloves, the clasps on the back snapping quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, Rick watches him, busying himself with his seatbelt longer than he should.
The key twists in the ignition and the engine turns over, the powerful sound of a mighty creature rising from its slumber. Rick feels it in his chest and between his ears. He whistles. “Ooh, baby! Listen to that puppy purr!”
Mateo doesn’t say anything, but his thoughts read plain as day on his amused face– A purring puppy? Before taking off, he revs the engine. Once, twice, three times, before a heavy peal of rubber on dirt kicks up clumps of grass behind them and they speed onto the road, Rick drumming on the dashboard until they reach pavement.
The car slows to the speed limit, an exact 35 miles an hour, the moment the wheels make contact with the road. There is no jolt, just a gradual slow deceleration.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“I have to obey the speed limit while we are still out on the streets.” The tick-tick-tick of a turn signal in a sports car feels wrong to Rick.
He theatrically groans and leans back in his seat, tapping his finger on the armrest and watching the streetlights that pass by. He turns the radio to 102.4 SCREAM MANIACS FM. Mateo turns it off. Rick plays with the window. Mateo puts on the child lock. The silent back and forth continues until they reach the track, a massive loop of pavement surrounded by an even bigger loop of tiered stands. They pass the threshold of a gated entrance and are met with spotlights, illuminating the crisp empty road ahead.
“Alright, finally! Now gun it!” Rick leans forward so fast that the seat belt snaps him back.
“I like getting a warm-up lap. We’ll go faster once I get familiar with the track.”
“Bullshit. You’re plenty familiar with this track.”
“My car, my rules.” For a moment, he seems content to leave it at that, but he furrows his brow and continues. “It is not just for getting familiar– it is about safety. Driving is more physical than you think it would be. You move with the car. You have to work under intense pressure. Everything is working against you when you are on the track. Gravity. Other racers. If you aren’t careful, you will work against yourself.”
Rick watches him intently as he speaks to the windshield.
“This is a deadly sport we play. One wrong move, it’s all fucked. Sopra.” He flicks his hand through the air. Over. “I am risking my life every time I get behind the wheel. And the Tourney… the Tourney is no joke. Pileups happen. It is every driver’s responsibility to not be the one that makes it happen.”
“...Yeah, and you also have to deal with the millions of people cheering you on. Real struggle.” Rick adds, unable to let too heavy of a mood settle in the air around them.
Thankfully, Mateo’s stone face cracks– not into a smile, but his eyebrows are no longer set low and serious.
“Now show me why you’ve got so many fans! C’mon, c’mon, I came here for a race.” Rick drums on his thighs, grinning and expectant.
“Against who?” The man chuckles lightly. “Technically, this isn’t a car made for racing. My personal car and my racecar are separate, though both are–”
“But you can still drive real fucking fast with it, can’t you?”
The quirk of his lip returns. “Who do you think you are talking to?”
“Good. I need to get a taste of the action I’m gonna be seeing on TV.” Rick’s face splits in a crooked smile, exposing yellow teeth. “If I can’t come to the stadium myself, I’ll cheer so loud, you’ll hear me from Rutiler.”
“You are very loud.” Instead of the corner of his mouth barely twitching, an honest-to-goodness expression happens on Mateo Accardi’s face. His crows' feet crinkle above a smile, a real smile, a smile that pronounces his cheeks and deepens his few wrinkles. “I’ll listen for you.”
The words are blunt, but his voice is not; a rare spot of softness, like a caress when you expect a slap.
“So, uh–” Rick turns his head so quickly that his hair twirls around him. “Are you gonna show me how you handle this bitchin’ whip, or what?”
“I will, just be patient. You’re in the car with me. I want to be careful.”
He scoffs and looks out the window, watching the stands pass by at a moderate pace. “It’ll be fine. Don’t be careful on my account– no big loss .”
“Don’t say that.” Mateo snaps. He breathes deep, an uncharacteristic pause filling the space between them. With hesitance in his voice, he continues. “Rick, you matter to me.”
“Oh, butter me up, why don’t you–”
“I’m serious.”
At the sound of those words, like a bark, there is no humor left in the vehicle. The air is heavy in Rick’s throat. The space between seats feels claustrophobic, the thick hair on Rick’s arms stands on end. He cannot spin whatever this is into a joke, into something he can guffaw at and let slide off his shoulders. Fear tells him that he should, that he needs to, that deflection is the only way he will escape this conversation unharmed. But he can’t.
“I, uh…” He tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “Me either. To you, I mean. I mean, you matter to me. Also.”
The needle of the speedometer begins to creep upwards. Mateo stares straight forward. Because he’s driving, Rick thinks. Not because he can’t look at you.
The warm-up lap has ended.
“I care about you a lot.” His foot begins to press harder against the gas. “You are one of my closest friends. You deserve to be kept safe.”
The only thing Rick can do is watch the miles per hour tick up, up, up.
“I started doing this alone. Nobody was there to give me a chance. I couldn’t be a…” He chuckles, an exasperated smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “A ‘bigshot superstar winner’ without someone in my corner. Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Rick?”
He does. He understands that he is a loser in a winner’s car, and the winner is telling him a lie, a lie that he is not a loser.
“...It’s okay to be scared.” Mateo doesn’t move his head to look at him– only his eyes, darting from the road to the passenger seat back to the road again, barely a flicker. He doesn’t even have to look him in the face to know what Rick is thinking. “It is scary. But I know how to handle everything.”
“I’m not scared,” he lies.
Things are moving so fast but they aren’t even at 50 miles an hour yet, and Rick feels as if he is sinking into his chair. Mateo’s devastating composure intimidates in a new way, no longer used as a bone-dry accessory for his jokes. As the sincere droll of his statements continues, it burrows deeper inside Rick.
“Rick,” He says. “I promise I’ll be careful. You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
“I’m not scared.” He repeats. “I trust you.” That is the truth.
“We’re going to speed up now.” Mateo doesn’t yell, but he has to project over the sound of the motor. “Are you ready?”
Rick has seen Mateo drive– but only ever from the outside of the car. He cheered from the stands, blowing an air horn and watching him weave between his competitors, serpentine. Every time, he made it look so effortless. So fun. Watching him race was always about the screaming excitement of seeing him drive like he was flying. In this car, inches away instead of miles, Mateo is white-knuckling the wheel and stiffening his shoulders, as if he is braced for impact at any moment. It is not effortless. It does not look fun. But it still is undeniably, painfully cool. A visage that feels so right to look at that he feels a familiar tinge of guilt, as if he is getting away with something. The angels cannot see through the closed sunroof.
“Are you ready, Rick?” He repeats. “Yes or no?”
“Yes. I’m ready.” His fingers curl over the edge of the armrests, digging into the leather. Soft like skin.
The rolling whine of the engine grows louder, the sound of the motor thrumming like a beast priming itself to scream, a bass rising in the throat of Mateo’s car. Rick’s shoulders slam back into the seat, pressed there, as if he has a body on top of him.
He squeezes his eyes shut.
Six years ago, a drunk man walked into a bar on Luxx Street, the kind of bar you don’t invite your friends to. He was disheveled, bloated, his bare face showing clear signs of damage after years of alcohol abuse. The tail end of his latest spiral brought him there, a final destination before collapsing somewhere, anywhere– on the floor, in an alley, into someone’s arms. It didn’t matter where in the smear of his world he landed. The den he entered, thrumming with bass and lit by disco ball’s shine, would be a suitable enough place. The dance floor was populated with a hot crush of bodies, all writhing in an intense mob to the beat of the music. A slender, handsome man in a red bomber jacket and a pencil-thin mustache stood at the bar, idly sipping a drink, his stone-cold face completely and utterly unapproachable. Foolishly, the drunk approached him.
The man in the jacket was an up-and-coming racecar driver. The drunk was unemployed. He asked if the man in the jacket had a cigarette. He didn’t. The drunk pulled out one of his own, and gave another to the racer. He lit the racer’s cigarette for him.
Through the smoke, the racer told him about his recent first day on a real track. How amazing it felt to feel so free. How no one thought he could do it, how his motivator to keep it together is the sweet taste of proving them wrong. How he knew he would rule the track, one day. The drunk cut him off and tactlessly asked why he was alone at the bar. The racer asked the drunk the same question.
Instead of becoming angry, the drunk guffawed. Caught by surprise, the racer asked what was so funny. He claimed that his strong accent was entertaining. The racer, despite himself, smiled behind a cigarette.
When the disco ball on the ceiling lit up behind Mateo, it crowned him with a halo, the sharp slopes of his face turning soft. The two talked until the bar closed for the night, then they sat in a yellow sports car and talked more. They woke up in their own homes that day, only Rick bleary and hungover, but both with a phone number in their pockets. It was Mateo who decided to call first; only because Rick couldn’t work up the courage.
Their dynamic was always laughter and jokes, cruising down the highway at an easygoing pace, an arm’s distance apart. It made Rick happy. But it was never like this, never as wild and heart-pounding and raw, the kind of elation that sounded like rubber squealing against the road. And here Rick was in the passenger seat, terrified and devastatingly alive.
The spotlights on the track are the tumbling panels of disco balls across their bodies, and the track is nothing but a smear outside the windshield. Bellowing motors overpower whatever thoughts, ideas, or memories lay between Rick's ears, the fear of being seen by celestial bodies completely eradicated and replaced with thrill.
He turns his head to look at Mateo, eyes wide.
Leather-clad fingers curl over the steering wheel, pockmarked by the dash of glittering lights. His eyes are focused on the road ahead, flickering across the runny paint that makes up the outside. There is no fear on Mateo’s face. There is no apprehension. Not for a moment does he waver. He is in control of this small pocket of the world, this car, this metal shell moving so fast that God cannot catch them. It is his domain. Rick is in his hands.
Mateo says something. Rick doesn’t understand it; it’s something he’s never heard him say before. “Vincerò per te. Li vincerò tutti per te.”
“Mateo,” Rick breathes, inaudible under the roar. “You’re incredible. You’re amazing.”
Rick stares at the man in the driver’s seat, the man that he misses already, hurtling across the finish line together like twin shooting stars.