The Legend (36 page)

Blinding white bursts of throbbing pain in radiating waves
swept through me. The pain was flashing and indescribable. Any thought or
movement I made only spurred the stabbing jolts. I felt nauseous with the total
insurmountable hurt. I wanted it to stop.

Passing out would have been a blessing. I couldn’t see
anything, blackness surrounded me but I heard voices and the faint sound of
engines rumbling.

My ears felt like they were on fire with the sound of a
whooshing noise I couldn’t place or decipher. The pain was so strong, so
searing that I wasn’t sure I could continue for much longer without passing
out.

I felt it then, another movement. From my hair to my toes,
fire shot throughout me as I dimly became aware of someone touching me;
touching my shoulders and my neck as if they were checking my pulse. The flare
of agony spread throughout my body, bursting into powerful flames. It was too
much and I moaned trying to get away. I didn’t want to be touched or moved, it
hurt too much.

Everything began to swirl in sickening loops. The sharp
pain rose throughout me from my stomach into my head fighting against the
adrenaline and I vomited.

Why did I hurt so badly?

It made no sense, but abruptly my brain focused for once on
one image.

The wreck.

I struggled against the pain to focus. My dad came to mind,
was he okay?

“D
...
ad,”
I called out but my voice sounded different, rough and forced. I’d never heard
it before.

My body wouldn’t respond. The command was there, the expectation
of unconscious obedience to my will, but I couldn’t make any part of me move. I
panicked.

Pain was all I felt now; without movement or was I moving?

I tried to be still in that moment, wanting the pain to
subside with no movements but just trying to breathe was a challenge, a bleak
effort.

I felt pressure on my face, on my cheek as they removed my
helmet and realized that someone was touching my face, sweeping my hair aside.
A sharp prong spread from below my eyes to wrap around my head and down my
neck. It felt like someone was slowing pouring warm water over my forehead but
no one was there, that I could see.

I moaned once again and tried to get away from it, the
response to the incredible throb was instinctive and involuntary. Pain
instantly tore through my body at the movement.

Next thing I knew I was vomiting again, which caused the
agony throughout and my stomach knotted at the onset.

Clenching my teeth against another wave of nausea, I became
aware of the sound of Axel’s muffled sobs close to my ear.

I did nothing. I vomited again, I think. I couldn’t focus.
All I saw was light, white fuzzy lights mixing with yellow and reds and the
occasion whisper of a voice. People hovered over me moving frantically but it
only made me dizzy.

I wanted to ask him what had happened, what was wrong, why
did I hurt so fucking much, but then I remembered again.

Everything that had just happened came back to me in a
horrifying rush along with the urge to vomit again.

My front wheels clipping dad’s, the white hard concrete
wall, flipping along the backstretch, the catch fence and then the ground.

Oh god
what did I do?

“M
...
m
...
my
...
d
...
a
...
,” speech was an effort, one I
didn’t have.

I couldn’t force out any more than that. I couldn’t even
make the thought completely form in my head or find my voice to utter the
words. My head pounded, a sharp, blazing spike being driven through my skull
into my brain like a hammer driving a nail. I felt the hot liquid again,
pouring over my scalp down my back. Dripping and wet. I tasted blood, lots of
blood and vomited again. I could feel the blood coming from my nose mixing with
dirt.

An echoing fire scorched my chest, my lungs, and every
heartbeat felt heavy, forced. The blood pumped rapidly throughout me
counteracting with the adrenaline pulsating in my muscles and joints begging to
heal. There was no healing right now, only hurting.

I couldn’t bear to think that I caused the wreck. I
couldn’t have.

Was he even alive? If I felt
this, what was he feeling?

“Ok-k-k-
kay
...
,” I croaked, struggling to make
my body obey. I just had to know, and then I could fall apart, but every word
was a hideous effort. “M-y-y-y
...
d
...
ad
...
?”

Why couldn’t I form words?

“The safety crew is helping him.” The voice was Axel, I
think. “Just stay still dad, please.”

“Jameson?” another voice was beside my ear, I felt the cool
breeze and more pain at the sound. “We need you to remain still. Please try not
to move.”

“O
...
k-k-k
...
a
...
y?” I tried again to get up, to move, to look around, get
some bearing on my surroundings, but
...
fuck
I couldn’t do anything. My body wouldn’t respond to even the
basic commands.

I managed to get my arms underneath me, but I had no
control over them, no strength.

I collapsed and my head hit something hard.

I wanted to scream with the pain swallowing me, but I
couldn’t. My will, whatever was left of it was begging this feeling to stop. I
couldn’t see. Everything appeared distorted, blurry and smoggy.

I could fall apart later, not now though, I kept telling myself.

Axel’s voice was at me ear again. “You guys tangled coming
out of two when Grandpa got up against the wall.”

I wrecked with him?
Oh god, this couldn’t be
real.
It’s not real, no, I won’t let it be.

I tried to move once again but the pain shook me through my
core this time, palpitating rapidly around my ears and eyes. I screamed, but no
sound came.

“Dad,” Axel asked frantically. He was scared. “Can you move
your legs?”

I tried to shift, to prove myself wrong, but something
shifted inside my chest and it felt like someone placed a thousand pounds on my
chest. The pain was instant, blinding again. Grunting in pain, I fought once
again not to pass out. At this point, passing out was what I wanted. I couldn’t
continue to feel this. I wanted to pass out. I begged for it. I need it.

I vomited as the agony increased instead of lessening, and
the vomiting only made it worse with the retching movements. I couldn’t endure
this much longer, I was sure of that. I started to panic as I realized I was
either going to pass out soon or maybe even die unless someone helped me. I
couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t leave Sway and the kids. I couldn’t leave
my family.

“Jameson, we need to transport you to the hospital.” A
voice said. “You have a severe open head injury. Please stay as still as
possible.”

No wonder I hurt so badly.

When I could faintly see my surroundings, I heard the
paramedics hurried around me, but I couldn’t see them around dads’ car. The
mangled chaos of destroyed sprint cars obscured my views of him, but I could
faintly see his prone figure.

I
could feel the pain in my head, my chest, my stomach, in my entire body. It
pounded away in the background, waiting for its chance to take over and consume
every last piece of me. I held it off as I needed to know dad was okay.

I
saw him clearly after a moment but he wasn’t moving, nothing, just lying
perfectly still.

I
gave up.

I
couldn’t take the pain any longer.

Attrition – Axel

How could this be? How
...
why?

“Be
careful with his head.” I told the paramedic sweeping my tears away with the
sleeve of my driver’s suit. “He’s
...
injured.”

“Kid,
we know that.” He barked at me frantically. It wasn’t meant to be rude but a
man trying to do his job saving my dad. “Now, I need you to back away. He’s
losing a lot of blood right now.”

I
knew that. It was all over the place on me, and him, and pooling in the dirt
below. His head was bleeding, his nose, ears and mouth. He was vomiting, and
more blood.

This
was not good. That was not good at all.

I
was torn. I wasn’t sure who to run to, my dad or my grandpa. Justin was huddled
around grandpa along with Lane and Cole. Tommy was looking from my dad to
grandpa as well wondering who to check on.

The
landing of the helicopter in the infield caught my attention knowing help would
soon come. Where there were once haulers lined up, was cleared for a safer
landing.

Turning
my attention back to the wreck, everything stood still again.

It
was like watching a horrible aftermath unfurl in slow agonizing motions.
Everyone’s once frantic movements were still, to me. Time stopped, wind ceased.
My vision on two legends, the greatest racers our sport had ever seen.

Grandpa
hadn’t moved and showed no signs of response; his body was limp, lifeless as
they performed CPR on him. Paramedics, safety crews, Spencer and Aiden were all
crowded around with Justin holding his neck and head still as they lifted him
on the stretcher, continuing CPR.

Justin
was frantically yelling out orders to the paramedics trying to get them to
hurry but I think they knew. It hovered in the air, suppressing and vaporous
like the fog.

Two
helicopters landed, one took grandpa first and the other took my dad.

Spencer
and Lane went with grandpa while Tommy and I went with my dad. Everyone else
drove the eighty miles to the University of Iowa hospital where they were
transporting both of them.

I
couldn’t tell you what they were doing to my dad on the way there, everything
seemed rushed and I couldn’t focus. It took all of my control not to vomit
right along with him. When we landed, he quit breathing on his own.

Lane
met me outside the trauma center, they performed CPR the entire way on grandpa
but nothing was working. When they got him into the trauma center, they hooked
him up to monitors and were able to get a faint heartbeat but brain damage was
a concern at that point.

Lane,
Justin and Cole stayed with him while Spencer, Tommy and me followed the
stretcher dad was one. Aiden went to get my mom and grandma who knew nothing at
that point.

They
wouldn’t let us in the room; the doors slammed shut behind him while hospital
staff rushed all around him. The three of us stood there, frozen outside the
doors.

They
eventually kicked us out into the waiting room to wait with the other families.

That’s
when it hit me that every one of these people in here was experiencing these
same mind numbing thoughts. Hoping and praying for an outcome that wouldn’t
break them.

Some
hide it well, others didn’t and cried openly.

The
guy next to me talked about needing ice cubes in his water bottle. His wife
nodded and looked over their medical financial plan probably wondering if their
medical insurance covered them.

An
older man across from Justin was slouched, sleeping. His daughter, I assumed,
knitted besides him kicking him occasionally when he snored.

All
of these people were waiting. Just like us.

We
weren’t a famous racing family right then. We were just like everyone else in
that waiting room.

The
guys around me were texting their loved ones, or whatever they were doing but I
did nothing. I sat there staring at the man snoring in front of me, and his
daughter knitting. I wouldn’t know what to say to Lily at this point and I
couldn’t speak to my mom, I couldn’t be the one to tell her this.

After
another moment of silence, I couldn’t sit there any longer.

Spencer
and I went back to the trauma center and checked to see if anything changed,
they stopped us outside the doors.

Media
hovered too, they wanted to know and soon every single person that was at that
racetrack was at the hospital in the waiting rooms with us. That’s about the
time word got out to the media and our phones were blowing up with phone calls
from everyone from Simplex, to dad’s crewmembers on his Cup team. They all
wanted to know what in the hell went wrong and I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t
know what went wrong.

Until
right now, in that exact moment when I saw the CEO of NASCAR’s number flash
across my phone, I realized what this meant and I scrambled to find some sort
of justification.

The
fifteen-time champion to the NASCAR Cup series had been critically injured
racing in something other than what his sponsor paid him to race. I knew what
that meant for him.