An Indy 500 Story

The Indy 500 is always special. Something happens every year which stamps its imprimatur on the history of the race.

The race in 1972 was significant for several reasons. One, the year saw the greatest one year increase in track speed for qualifying racers. Nearly a fourteen mile per hour increase to a then unheard of 196 miles per hour for pole winner Bobby Unser. Second the race winner Mark Donahue raced for rookie team owner Roger Penske, who after his first win at Indy in 1972 went on to have a bit of success in the sport. Third, the pace car was the iconic Hurst Oldsmobile Cutlass.

And fourth and far from least, it was the first time that Jim Nabors sang “Back Home Again in Indiana” at the start of the race — a tradition unlike any other which continued nearly every year until 2014.

Jim Nabors 1972

The year 1972 was an important year for a less auspicious reason. It was the year where I would be assured of never seeing the Indy 500 until well past my emancipation into adulthood. I was two years old then and left at home with my grandmother. I would not witness the greatest spectacle in racing until my fortieth year on this planet.

If you follow the lore of the 500 you’ll hear countless tear stoking stories of family traditions of attending the race.  Those families’ stories are not mine.  My dad, a sixth generation Hoosier, never took me to the race.

My dad hated the Indy 500.

Here is his story why.

+++

It starts New Years Eve 1971.  My father a 27 year old struggling lawyer and my mother a 24 year old stay at home mom with a 20 month old which was me went to a New Year’s Eve Party with among others Bill and Linda Stevens.  

Bill Stevens was rich. He was born rich and he got richer being a lawyer in the glory years of the practice of law, the 1970s. He wasn’t any good as a lawyer but he had rich friends he’d bring to the firm as clients. He had a convertible Cadillac El Dorado and a Corvette Sting Ray. One of his hobbies was flying hot air balloons. He was 32 and had life by the balls. Bill loved to drink.

Linda 28 was smokin’ hot sex on wheels.  Life of the party.  Blonde.  Tan.  Blue eyed and smiling.  So beautiful and fun.  Whatever Bill wanted to do was okay with Linda.

I wasn’t there, instead in the care of my grandparents, but it seems to have been a rager. To hear my mother tell it, it was the most hungover she had ever been. Which considering that I have never seen her drunk is really saying something. My dad too was ‘sick with the flu.’

Mom and Dad didn’t have any money but they were young and good looking and from the limited data gathered that one New Year’s Eve party as available to Bill and Linda, my mom and dad sure seemed to love to party! The phone rang in our house 10 am New Year’s Day. It was Bill and Linda.

“You guys are so much fun!!!”

“Are we? Oh, thank you?”

“We’re inviting you to the Indy 500 this year!!!”

“Oh? Yay. Well goodbye.”

My mother went to throw up.

+++

The trip in was uneventful … easy in the limousine Bill had chartered. Champagne mimosas and Bloody Mary’s. Two of each for Bill. The happy double couple found their seats track side ten rows up from the brick start/finish line by 10:30 am, two hours to start time. By 10:35, Bill had opened a handle bottle of Bombay Saphire gin, which he drank straight up. By 11:35, Bill had puked on the gentleman sitting in front of him.

“Hey, you threw up on me!”

“Fuck you!” retorted Bill.

Pop fished a ten dollar bill out of his thin wallet so the man could go buy a shirt to replace the one Bill had destroyed … and to buy peace lest Bill or anyone else be beaten.

Bill fell asleep during the presentation of the colors and the singing of “Back Home Again in Indiana,” but then came to, just as the gentlemen were starting their engines.

“I gonna take a piss,” said Bill.  

“Follow him please!” intoned beautiful Linda to my dad, and so he did.  

Bill made it the bathroom, took his leak, but then lay down in the floor in the vestibule at the exit door. There he napped for the entire race… snuggled up on the filthy concrete floor of a mens room of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway … the din of cars and crowd and the stepping by and shouting of just-relieved patrons disturbing his slumber not in the least. My father stayed with him the whole three hours of the race like a guardian angel that rich Bill wouldn’t get robbed or arrested. Gary Bettenhausen led 138 laps until he suffered ignition trouble on lap 176. Jerry Grant took over the lead, but pitted for a new tire and fuel on lap 188 in the wrong pit which disqualified him. Only leading the last 13 laps, Donohue won the race. My father saw none of it.

As Donohue pulled into victory lane for his celebratory milk, Bill woke up as if nothing had happened. I suppose my father can be forgiven if he didn’t care to take me to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

+++

You may be wondering what happened to the illustrious couple. A few years later, Bill, then divorced from Linda, drunkenly flipped his convertible Benz on Pennsylvania Street and killed himself. He tried to fix it in his will so Linda and their children would be disinherited … that his girlfriend would get his estate. But Bill was a crummy lawyer and he fucked up the drafting. The probate court ruled in favor of Linda.

Rich now herself, Linda remarried a very nice man. I saw her and her husband a decade ago— in her early seventies. We happened to be seated at the same table at a dinner. She was still beautiful and she smiled wide and happy. I didn’t immediately recognize who she was. When I figured it out I was pleased to make the connection. I didn’t bring up this story. Some things are better forgotten.

As I said, the Indy 500 is always special.

Slippery People

Awake—

Think I saw that girl in a magazine

The same one that shows up in my dreams

She used to … well I’ll just stop here, right? 

Don’t want to swell a scene … start a fight

I’m always reading at night

The shadowed articles on the ceiling

Written in sardonic horn-rimmed style

Feel the meaning of the mean

Who is the medium? Where’s the file?

So much more science than feeling —

Just one standard deviation 

This American nation 

Revealing

Dead Poets Society

Gentle Readers—

Here’s a little blurb that I came across in this week’s Weekend Wall Street Journal. An obituary of Mr. Miles Coon.

Wall Street Journal — May 28-29, 2022

One never knows from whence poetry will come. Sad he never had the joy of touching the crisp substantial pages of the bound cover of his first edition bearing his words.

RIP Mr. Coon.

— SSW

A Policy of Truth

Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode died this week.  He was 60.

He didn’t write the lyrics but one song which has always resonated with me was Policy of Truth.  Here are the lyrics:

You had something to hide
Should have hidden it, shouldn’t you?
Now you’re not satisfied
With what you’re being put through

It’s just time to pay the price
For not listening to advice
And deciding in your youth
On the policy of truth

Things could be so different now
It used to be so civilized
You will always wonder how
It could have been if you’d only lied

It’s too late to change events
It’s time to face the consequence
For delivering the proof
In the policy of truth

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Now you’re standing there tongue tied
You better learn your lesson well
Hide what you have to hide
And tell what you have to tell

You’ll see your problems multiplied
If you continually decide
To faithfully pursue
The policy of truth

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Some people think this song is about how important it is to always tell the truth.  Not exactly.  I guess it’s easy to think, well, just always tell the truth.  You don’t need such a good memory when you … faithfully pursue a policy of truth.  It is true that those with poor memory best not lie.

Such an ironic notion of following a policy of truth.  “It’s our policy to be truthful … but every now and then … for good reasons … we depart from policy.  We thank you in advance for your understanding!”

I had a little push back this week from a fellow wordpresser whom I deeply respect about me operating under a nom de plume… Steven S. Wallace is a fake name.  He wasn’t being difficult about it.  He was just asking why.  To be fair I interjected the issue into the blogosphere by writing obliquely about my work.  

I do adhere to a policy of truth at nostigmata.  I promise I’ll never pass something off as truthful when it’s not.  But there is truth in fiction.  Just because I call some piece fiction doesn’t mean that there aren’t elements of truth and actual experience I’ve had.  

It’s complicated.  I guess I just want to thank everyone for reading my bull shit. The fake and real, the ugly and surreal.  I just could not fill file cabinets in my basement with stuff that no one may ever read.  I must tell my stories to a real if anonymous audience.  I must tell the truth at my own pace. 

I thank you for your patience.

—SSW

A Sticky Situation

One thing they don’t explain to you at Northwestern Medical School is that you do not go into a red dirt tavern in Scottsburg, Tennessee and touch another gentleman’s cue stick.

My white-bread friend, Conner … Doctor as he is now called … from Kenilworth didn’t know that the balanced and heavy cue different from any of the other warped sticks didn’t belong to the house. Rather to a well-tattooed fellow who was taking a break from his game, quaffing a draft and watching wrestling on the one tv in the place with his mates … also tatted and rough. Conner had taken three shots before either I or ‘Pig Pen’ as I’ll call him noticed his breach of etiquette.

The big man with the goatee rose up from his stool, his four buddies looking on, “What’s up Bro!”  It wasn’t a question.

“Nothing much, what’s up with you?” said stupid Conner still holding the cue. Probably the nicest thing Pig Pen owned.

I stepped in between and turned to my friend, “Dude!  That ain’t your cue!”  It had been a few years since I’d been in a bar which served High Life on tap.  But I could still handle myself.  “Give the man his stick back! …. Dumbass!”  I added for good measure.  

Conner turned white.  “Here you go… Sir.”  He held it towards the giant.

“Now.  APOLOGIZE!”

“Sorry Sir.”

Pig Pen smiled. “Ahh fuck it man! You boys ain’t from here!” He was right. We were in town for a buddy’s dad’s funeral. “Go ahead… play your game. Them other sticks ain’t worth shit!”

Pig Pen’s motorcycle buddies looked surprised. “Fuck it man. They ain’t from here!” Said Pig Pen to his boys. “You want me to beat his ass just onaccounta him being stupid! Fuck you pussies!!”

“That’s right,” I said. I put a fist towards Pig Pen and turned to his entourage, “Fuck you pussies!!!”

There was a moment of silence.  Like church. 

Then Pig Pen bumped my fist back and laughed.  The rest of the locals laughed too.

I paid for all them boy’s High Life’s and PBR’s for the whole night.  Two bucks a pop.  They all drank for free.  But I got something for my money.  We all did. 

Rain on the Roof

Rain on the roof

Runs out the gutter

Water to dirt

Batten the shutters—

—

Wash away wash away

Into the breach

Onto the fray

Soaked in bleach—

—

A liquid end

To a perfect day

Under the roof

And ready to pray—

—

Splashing puddles

Spit and sputter

Nothing on the brain

But whiskey and clutter.

My Sweetest Kiss

My sweetest kiss

With me still 

The taste of your lips

I clench my fist—

The perfume of you hair 

Lingers like a misty morning rain

Another passing chance at bliss

Washing the stain

Of wholesome lonely pain—

I regain myself, reweigh the risk

And look for your face

In the shadow’s eclipse—

—

You are so beautiful when you cry

I could fly to the moon

And fall to earth and die

And never miss


Any of this—


The sparkle of your eye

My sweetest kiss.

The Eagle in the Tree

The feather touch of a sculptor

By whose hands the bird sings

Drawing life from rock and water 

Spread open nature’s wings

—

Perched high upon a mountain fir

A river runs below

The eagle sitting on her egg

Regards the melting snow

—

The sky is clear, the sun is cold

Water unto the sea

Like a statue on the mountain 

The eagle in the tree

Writing About Sex

Sex is difficult to write about. It usually comes off as corny. Or as though written by some development-arrested adult who lives in their parent’s basement. I don’t think I’ve ever really written about sex in a way that was at all effective.

Occasionally, I’ll read something good. When it begins to feel like you ought not be reading whatever it is, that if you were there in the scene as a bystander that you ought to leave, but yet you’re going to keep reading, just as though you were driving past an accident on the highway unable to take your eyes off the beautiful wreck — that’s when the writing is working.

There’s an edge though.  Go over it and the writing falls apart.  You’re over the line into the profane, the disgusting and worst of all the uninteresting.

The Purity of Pure Despair

I was a professor at a liberal arts college in the midwestern United States in the 1980’s. My students were the privileged caucasion children of the north shore of the Chicago and other such places who’d come our ‘Athens on the Prairie’ for four years seasoning. They didn’t care much about philosophy or history or any other scholarly endeavor. Mostly they were interested in exercising their libidos. Ahh youth.

I’d been a tenured professor since 1962. I’d witnessed the Kennedy years, the post-Kennedy years, the age of Aquarius, the Era of Suspicion, the Ford Administration, and everything else. Nothing could prepare me for the worthless generation that came in during the Reagan years. Vain. Pretentious. Uncaring. Unintellectual. All of it I was sure was true.

Each Friday Intro to Modern Poetry class, I could smell the dregs of Busch Light and Jim Beam emanating from the pores of my so called students. Pretty sorority twits twirling their hair. Hungover giggling ball-cap wearing fratos surreptitiously spitting tobacco juice into Coca Cola cans. No one read. No one prepared. No one volunteered a goddamned thing in class.

Late on an unusually warm day in April, the cruelest of all months, I had had just about enough.

“All of you, are goddamned near-worthless. I have stood before you these past three months of this semester trying to impart some basic appreciation of the poetry of the modern age to you. My efforts have been met with contempt, boredom and laughter. You have insulted me and the artists I have presented you. No one has read the material. No one here has had one intelligent or heartfelt thing to say!”

The class looked up at me slack-jawed. I watched their expressions searching for a hint of remorse. Of indignation. Of protest. Of hurt feeling. I saw nothing.

This only made me angrier. “I have been wasting my time talking to you . . . assigning you readings that I thought would make you better people. I have hoped against hope that sooner later someone would have something intelligent to say. Something to contribute. You have consistently and repeatedly disappointed me.”

The faces looked back at me, unmoved.

“So I am finished with all of you and your shallowness. I am finished! I’m leaving this room and you can all leave too. You can go back to your BMWs your pot and your beer and your afternoon fuck sessions with your so called boyfriends and girlfriends. You can do whatever the hell you wish … like you will for all of your lives! But before you do, each of you will take out a piece of paper and you will write the name of one goddamned poem that we have talked about this semester. One damn poem, that has meant more to you than a bong of beer, a lay, or a line of coke! One damn poem! That’s all I demand!! If you can do that, then color me surprised!! Good day!” I stormed out of the room.

In thirty minutes, I returned to room to collect the submissions. There they sat. A pile on my desk. What I found astonished me.

There were twenty students in class that day. One student said a poem by Emily Dickenson. Two chose a Walt Whitman. There was a selection of Emily Bishop. There were two William Carlos Williams nominations. The other fourteen all chose the same poem.

In a Dark Time — Theodore Roethke

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;   

I hear my echo in the echoing wood—

A lord of nature weeping to a tree.

I live between the heron and the wren,   

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul

At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!   

I know the purity of pure despair,

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.   

That place among the rocks—is it a cave,   

Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!

A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,   

And in broad day the midnight come again!   

A man goes far to find out what he is—

Death of the self in a long, tearless night,   

All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.   

My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,   

Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?

A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.   

The mind enters itself, and God the mind,   

And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

I sat at my desk and stared at the pile of papers. It could not have been a coincidence. I felt ashamed of myself and how I had spoken to those children.