Here They Come

I was sitting next to Eric 'Elf' Hildebrandt, most likely laughing about the time he told Arie Luyendyk to "go get a haircut you f*cking f*ggot". John Arvai III politely interrupted, informing us that reinforcements were en route and we should clear a couple seats for them. There was no doubt he was referring to Big John Arvai and Jerry Leforge, who respectfully make up two thirds of The Godfathers of Indy. We would resituate ourselves accordingly and make room, with me clearing a spot for Jerry.

The two Carb Day veterans drew closer, both of them cursing the long walk to find us. I shook Big John's hand whilst Jerry and I snapped our usual military salute to each other (which he'd taught me how to do properly many years before). We invited them to sit down and have a brewskie or six and watch the upcoming Pit Stop Challenge, to which they gladly accepted.

A short time later, Jerry left for the restroom so Big John and I struck up a conversation. With soggy cigar in mouth, he said "So how are you guys faring? Jerry and I are pretty f*cked up". Coming as no surprise to me, I joked that it was good to hear him cursing at the Speedway again, just like the old days. Big John explained that due to their level of intoxication and general disregard for yuppies at Carb Day, he and Jerry would be able to clear our section of the stands in no-to-little time. Great.

As Jerry returned from the restroom and found his seat next to me, something about him caught my eye. He didn't really "look" any different per se, except for an odd gleam in his eye, which seemed to keep him from focusing on any one object or person. My intuition told me that he probably drank a couple more on the way to and from the bathroom. I was pretty confident in my assessment of his sobriety, but thought it best to not stoke the fire by asking him how much he had drank, mostly because it was none of my "godd*mn business".

Around this time some of the cars waiting in the pits started up their engines for practice. It is quite honestly one of my favorite sounds in the world, especially while sitting in the infield at the Speedway with a cold one and good friends. It is an experience I hold dear to my heart and I hope it continues for many years to come.

As I contemplated my past and future years at Carb Day, I heard a queer sound emitting from Jerry. He was looking, no, he was glaring at the track and gently swaying from left to right. He pushed air out between his lips, making a consistent "bbrrrrrrrrrr" sound much like a toddler would after hearing their parent ask "what sound does the car make?"

I gave Jerry the benefit of the doubt, convincing myself that I had merely caught him in the middle of a belch. There was no way he was *this* loaded, right? I mean c'mon - he's one of the Godfathers!

There was a slight poking sensation on my right arm, so I turned to acknowledge Jerry's finger jabbing at my bicep. He now had, for lack of a better definition, a look in his eye that creeped me out. It was a slithery, quasi-evil expression that I would imagine seeing on the face of a jackyl right before its pack makes their open-terrain kill. (My grandmother is legally blind in both eyes, so I guess I've learned how to pick up on when someone's not really looking at anything particular. This was the look in Jerry's eyes: slightly down and towards the left, but not exactly focused on anything). He spoke with poor annunciation, but I could make out the following:

"Hey, yeah you know them cars is gettin' ready to start up when you hear that, baby". Jerry started chuckling, so I began laughing and nudged Elf, nodding towards Jerry's direction. By this time a couple of the cars had left the pits and were on their way back around to the yard of bricks just down the main straight.

"Here they come! Bbbrrrrrrrrr!"... it was like watching a four year old child who'd never seen an Indy car.

Elf and I were laughing pretty hard by this point, so I waited a few seconds and caught my breath before asking Jerry what the hell he was talking about. "Jerry," I calmly said, "what in the name of sh*t are you talking about?"

"The CARS!", he cried. "Them cars er comin back around. Hahaha ... wait, here they go! Bbbbrrrrrrrrrrr". This went on, and on... and on... and on. The ability to use vision was now rendered impossible thanks to the amount of tears in my eyes. Between the laughing and Elf poking me in the ribs every time Jerry spoke, my sides hurt badly and I began to feel like I would soon sh*t myself if it didn't stop. Jerry, with his swaying now a smooth and circular motion, spoke again.

"Hey Gabe, you sonofab*tch, I know how you won all them drinking titles. You know how I know? Cause I WATCHED you, mother f*cker. Yeeeeaahh, I watched you sneak away to take naps when you thought no one was looking, but *I* was looking and I caught you red handed.

"You couldn't win honorably. You had to cheat. But you know who can drink is Webb. Boy, you put him and I at the legion with equal amounts of beer in front of us and it's gonna go down to the wire, I'm telling ya."

Somewhere around this point he began to slur his speech to the point I couldn't understand what he was saying. Eventually his sentence fragments became unrecognizable, but he punctuated whatever his point was by spewing a series of profanities previously unspoken by any human being before or since.

At first, I felt hurt and disenchanted by Jerry's accusations towards my drinking victories of the past. Stil, I knew deep in my heart that it didn't happen that way, and that he was (hopefully) just kidding around. And that, folks, is what Indy is all about: Jerry Leforge making toddler race care noises and still believing that he can put 'em away with the best of 'em. And you know what? He still can.

Bbbrrrrrrrr...