Born to Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

golden elixirwas slid expertly into tilted glasses that were then set with a hard knock on the wooden bar. There I stood, a small spirit reminder of what a lot of these men were spending a few moments trying to forget—work, responsibility, the family, the blessings and burdens of an adult life. Looking back, it was a mix of mostly average guys who simply needed to let off a little steam at the end of theweek and a few others, moved by harder things, who didn’t know where to draw the line.
    Finally, someone would notice a small interloper amongst them and bemusedly draw me over to my dad. My view from the floor was bar stool, black shoes, white socks, work trousers, haunches and powerful legs, work belt, then the face, slightly discolored and misshapen by alcohol, peering down through cigarettesmoke as I uttered the immortal words “Mom wants you to come home.” There would be no introductions to friends, no pat on the head, no soft intonation of voice or tousle of the hair, just “Go outside, I’ll be right out.” I’d follow my bread crumb trail back out the barroom door into the cool evening air, into my town, which felt somehow so welcoming and hostile. Drifting to the curb, I’d hop intothe backseat and inform my mother, “He’ll be right out.”
    I was not my father’s favorite citizen. As a boy I figured it was just the way men were, distant, uncommunicative, busy within the currents of the grown-up world. As a child you don’t question your parents’ choices. You accept them. They are justified by the godlike status of parenthood. If you aren’t spoken to, you’re not worth the time.If you’re not greeted with love and affection, you haven’t earned it. If you’re ignored, you don’t exist. Control over your own behavior is the only card you have to play in the hope of modifying theirs. Maybe you have to be tougher, stronger, more athletic, smarter, in some way better . . . who knows? One evening my father was giving me a few boxing lessons in the living room. I was flattered,excited by his attention and eager to learn. Things were going well. And then he threw a few open-palmed punches to my face that landed just a little too hard. It stung; I wasn’t hurt, but a line had been crossed. I knew something was being communicated. We had slipped into the dark nether land beyond father and son. I sensed what was being said: I was an intruder, a stranger, a competitor in ourhome and a fearful disappointment. My heart broke and I crumpled. He walked away in disgust.
    When my dad looked at me, he didn’t see what he needed to see. This was my crime. My best friend in the neighborhood was Bobby Duncan. He’d ride with his pop every Saturday night to Wall Stadium for the stock car races. At five o’clock sharp a halt would be called to whatever endeavor we were involvedin and at six, right after dinner, he’d come bounding down the front steps of his home two doors down, shirt pressed, hair Brylcreemed, followed by his pop. Into the Ford and off they’d go to Wall Stadium . . . that tire-screeching, high-octane heaven where families bonded over local madmen in garage-built American steel either roaring round and round in insane circles or at field’s center smashingthe hell out of one another in the weekly demolition derby. For the demo, all you needed was a football helmet, a seat belt and something you were willing to wreck to take your place amongst the chosen . . . Wall Stadium, that smoky, rubber-burning circle of love where families came together in common purpose and thingswere as God intended them. I stood exiled from my father’s love AND hot rodheaven!
    Unfortunately, my dad’s desire to engage with me almost always came after the nightly religious ritual of the “sacred six-pack.” One beer after another in the pitch dark of our kitchen. It was always then that he wanted to see me and it was always the same. A few moments of feigned parental concern for my well-being followed