Offroad Fever -- Catch It!

Fred Junior stands tall like his dad,
whittled down pale and thin,
left hand pasted fingers down
on outthrust hip,
right boot aimed toe down,
heel tapping the other shin.
Both men's eyes are half open,
blue stares vacant
as they drawl out words
and turn unseen straws
round their mouths.
 
Fred smokes Marlboro's,
hacks up lung tar,
drinks rotgut like his dad --
an old gray haired man at forty,
skin tinged yellow from a wasted liver.
Fred dropped out like his dad, too,
and shuffles two steps behind,
patching drywall, plumbing, appliances
in a fifty year-old apartment building.
 
Like father like son -- 'til today,
at the offroad racetrack,
when old Fred reels back
and young Fred steps up
to the first thing that's ever
lit his burners blue --
black dirt boiling
from bloated knobby tires
in a melee' of roaring V-12's
and monster trucks rolled over.
 
Some racer's engine blows a rod
in a puff of tarry smoke.
Fred Junior jumps the spare tire fence,
dashes across the track,
darts between four ton chunks
of growling metal.
He flips up the wrecked racer's hood,
dives spread-eagled atop
the burning manifold,
smothering the fire 
with his sweaty t-shirt,
ribs showing.

Now his eyes are wide open,
his mouth is sucking air,
his teeth are bared,
fire-curled hair matted to his forehead,
mom screaming,
dad's mouth dropped open,
cigarette smoldering in the dirt.
 
Fred Junior hops to the ground,
grins, smacks the soot
from his scorched t-shirt.
We can barely read the words --
"Offroad Fever -- Catch It!"

Scott Speck
05/20/2002