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Speedway

Penzoil    /Quaker State/STP/Yokohama, Michelin, Firestone/the spit and
detonation/a weird petroleum rodeo/out in the barren paddocks, skin drying
sheds/the full moon dissolving in the clouded blue like a pill into water only to
reappear golden and whole/vicious twisted scrap and the raw exhilaration/mufflers
farting like shotguns/boiling radiators and steaming tires/the wild revving/Cougar
Martin laying it down on the backstretch just for the love of it/spraying hot dirt
exhaust pipes backfiring flame/clouds of dust and oilsmoke/bikes, sidecars, street rods
and the “Thundering Sprintcars”/lots of men in overalls, pickups flashing their lights,
tow trucks, a grader and a watering truck to keep the choking dust down/the PA
system misses every other word/foot-long hot dogs bloody with ketchup and slick
bags of fat jam-filled doughnuts, buckets of grease wet French fries and cigarettes
ground underfoot/the hardcore regulars wearing protective earmuffs/skintight
jeans, leather jackets, John Deere caps, tank tops, Levi jackets, permed hair and
painted nails/Women’s Auxiliary Raffle—sheepskin seat covers, electric frying pan
a few engine fires suffocated by hand-held fire extinguishers/drab tartan blankets and
shiny thermoses of thin black coffee/500 cc single gear bikes, the rider in the pole
position always winning/Monster Trucks climbing a mountain of cinderblocks/a far
groan from the prestige of Formula 1 racing, with sudden close-ups of gorgeous Italian
women wearing next to nothing/Valvoline and nicotine/and then
some guy named Big Dog Horton steps out zipping up
from the Porta Pottie and says to his brother who’s disappeared for a beer
“Next time we do the Suicide Derby, I want to have a lot more metal around me.”

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© Kris Saknussemm 2010

KRIS SAKNUSSEMM is the author of the cult novels Zanesville and Private Midnight.  His third book, Enigmatic Pilot will be published by Random House in 2011.

Note from Ed. – In 2006 I received a copy of Kris Saknussemm’s book Zanesville in the mail for review. I read it and it blew me away – in my review I said – “Zanesville is something entirely new, a new art form, a digital petrii dish, an uncontained biomystic disaster that is still somehow contained, somehow…”  Read the review and interview in the Retort Archives