THE HEAT GOES ON... August (Part 163d)

THE HEAT GOES ON… August (Part 163d)

The almost one hour ride to the track was the longest amount of time I’d spent alone with Bret since starting at the bank. However, we’d shared a lot of things in brief chats after work, mostly family and background history. Even with that, I’d been left with a number of questions. In high school he’d been a star athlete including being the football quarterback for two years, captain of the basketball team and best hitter on the baseball team. With all that going for him I had a hard time accepting his reticence in taking an initiative with his work at the bank. He’d recently stepped up a bit which pleased me to no end. I’d quizzed Trish a few times as she’d been a classmate of his but she was reluctant to talk about him behind his back. About the only thing she told me, and with a smile, was that he was definitely not a student. Sports was everything to him. He’d told me he’d gone to a Junior college for two years but not much else. I’d reviewed his application to the bank and there was not much to glean from it. He’d graduated with an associates degree in business and worked very briefly at the local bank where his father was manager. So, I decided to do some probing.

Knowing his penchant for sports and his participation in high school I wanted to know if he’d competed in college and to what degree. Reluctant at first, I had to push him for details. He admitted he’d expected to get to play right away. But, as a freshman he was third on the chart for quarterback. The coach wanted to make him a lineman because of his size but Bret told me he didn’t want to have to learn a whole different style of play so ended up not playing at all while he was there. In basketball, he said he wasn’t expecting the quality of players they had. He made the team but didn’t get to play all that much. In baseball, it was pretty much the same thing… made the team but didn’t play. He said it was pretty depressing and for his second year didn’t even bother to try out. From the way he described the situation I could sense it was a big let down for him after being the ‘hero’ in high school. I’d witnessed the same thing in one of my freshman roommates in college... from ’hero’ to part of the “great unwashed’. My roommate didn’t come back for his sophomore year and in my senior year I heard from a guy from his home town that he’d ended up working as a short order cook in a diner. At least Bret finished his two years and had made an attempt at using his degree.

In any case, I wanted to take advantage of the privacy we had to delve into the ‘Jerry situation’. After the meeting with Trish and Bret to let them know my status concerning Jerry I’d expected him to press me for details. Since he was my assistant and would be the one to go to the branch during my time in ’purgatory’ when it came to dealing with Jerry I wanted him to know all the details. The main thing I wanted to get across was for him to document each and every time he had to deal with him, on the phone or at the branch. There were two reasons… to protect him and to have a full record of just what a ‘clown’ Jerry was. I would’ve liked a more positive response from him but, in the end I felt he got the idea. By then we were almost to the track.

I changed the subject and got him to talk about C J and how he became such a fan of his. I knew that there were three of his high school classmates that had become racers but I also knew C J was younger than they were. It was somewhat funny because when he (Bret) was playing football, he was C J’s favorite player. Then, later on the roles reversed. I took the opportunity to ask about C J’s girlfriend, Karen. Even though I was driving I was looking at Bret when I asked the question. I saw him raise his eyebrows and I’m sure that if I could’ve seen his eyes they would’ve been rolling. I remember him taking a few seconds before saying anything and I saw him turn to look at me when he did.

I’d casually asked him about her in the past and that’s where I got the information that she was from Poland and was a distant cousin. His first words were along the lines of complimenting her on her looks… and I already knew she was good looking. I was going to say something but before I could he started ‘editorializing’ about the situation at C J’s house. He was fairly blunt about his feelings and how he couldn’t understand how C J’s parents would let him date a cousin and have her living in the same house. Now, you do have to realize that even though this was in the late 60’s we were living in a very rural, conservative area and the hippie movement hadn’t been embraced by most of the people who lived there. Be that as it may, Bret was eager to get past Karen and into the racing stuff.

At the track, I introduced him to the guys on the crew. Cliffy had moved on from the ’snit’ he was in on Friday night and welcomed Bret. He’d seen him around at the other track so he wasn’t a total stranger. But, Bret wanted to get over to see C J and the guys who worked on his car so that was pretty much the last I saw of him until the feature race. We sat together in the pit grandstands and I asked what he thought of this race track as compared to the other one. He was duly impressed at the quality of the racers and said he’d find a way to come back more often. As far as the racing went, C J started in the back, as usual, and Cliffy in the middle. It was a bit discouraging though, to see C J pass Cliffy before the race was half way over. I don’t really remember where C J finished as I was preoccupied by the fact that one of the ‘back-packers' had run into us and blown one of our tires. We ended up in the infield.

Bret spent all his time after the races were over down at C J’s pit. When our race car left I had to go find him. The good thing about that was I got to see Karen… and, as usual, she was wearing her white pants. Even though I’d seen a VPL on her any number of times it still gave me pleasure to see it again. The portable lights that they had in their pit area made the crotch line perfectly clear. On our drive back home Bret made a comment on how he’d observed me “leering” at Karens’s backside. If we’d been in daylight Bret would’ve seen my face turn red. However, the observation did trigger a conversation on the pending move of Joanie from upstairs to our area. Bret mentioned that she now had a boyfriend and he wasn’t too thrilled with who it was. He was a barber in the shop right across the street and, according to Bret, hung around with “the wrong people”. I hated hearing that because Joanie was not very ’street smart’ and this was her first boyfriend. I made a mental note to talk with Laura who was still living with Joanie and her parents hoping to find out more about the guy and their relationship.

To be continued…