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Freeriding	By : DodgeSuperBee Category: +1 through F > Cars Views: 1717 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Cars, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Doreen awoke, disoriented at first when she opened her eyes and found that she was still resting on her roof. She grinned, hearing Mater’s familiar snoring, but from above her, and she wriggled out from under his embrace. Though she slid him gently to the ground, he stirred and smiled back at her groggily.
“Ya s’pose Fred’ll have anythin’ to say ‘bout all the noise ya was makin’ last night?” he teased.
“Prob’ly not,” she rationalized, “he abandoned his tent and slept in the locker room after hearin’ yer ghost stories. He’s a notorious fraidy-cat and if I didn’t know better I’d think ya scared him off just to git that chance to be alone.”
“I ain’t sayin’,” he laughed, twanging her antenna with his tow hook. “Last night was amazin’, though. Something’s going on, Doreen, I just know it. Ya even took Flo’s advice an’ gave up the ethanol, an’ I know ya wouldn’t a done that if ya weren’t thinkin’ there was at least a tiny chance ya could become a mama.”
“I think yer right, an’ I know last night didn’t fix everythin’, but we’ll be okay from now on, huh?” Doreen said, asking slyly, “So, was that as good as bein’ with a Jaguar?”
“Who needs a Jaguar when I’ve got a wildcat?” came Mater’s reply, which made his lover blush down to her tires. “I don’t reckon I’m gonna race too well today, but dang did we need to do that.”
* * *
“To our…friendship?” asked Chrissi cautiously, toasting Curtis with their glasses of juice at the racetrack’s concession stand. The pickup grinned awkwardly back at her.
“Sure, I’d be honored to still be your friend,” he replied honestly. “Best of luck with Tommy Joe and if he doesn’t take you back, I’ll personally kick his trunk in.” The Jaguar stifled a laugh, knowing he was probably serious, and when they’d finished their breakfast she watched without regret as Curtis rolled off, closing a painful chapter in her life.
“Yeow!” she gasped as someone crashed into her rear fender, though not too harshly. She turned to face none other than Tommy Joe, who had been playfully knocking into his friends as a way of greeting since his youth. “Hey,” she said, awaiting his response while examining her flank. No damage was visible save for a scuff, and she could easily have that repainted. Catching his gaze, she hoped their relationship could be made just as whole again.
“Hey yerself,” he countered, his reply coming as more of a question than a response. “So Curtis was the other guy, and ya’ll just…broke up?” He gave up trying to conceal the hopefulness in his voice.
Chrissi batted her lashes at him, realizing he had no intentions of making her beg for forgiveness after all. “Yes, and I’m open to a rebound relationship, if you know what I mean.” As they embraced, Tommy Joe swallowed hard, blinking away grateful tears.
“There’s not going to be anyone else for me from now on,” he promised, “No more of this freeriding stuff where I’m too busy chasing every other girl who’ll have me instead of spending time with you. I’m not even sure how we got to this point but did I ever miss ya.” He grinned since he was uncomfortable revealing that he’d been about to cry. “Though fer the sake of full disclosure I prob’ly should tell ya I’m pretty sure I knocked up yer best friend while ya’ll were gone.”
Chrissi pulled away and giggled, then caught his loving gaze. “I can forgive you. In fact, it’s sweet that you were willing to do that.” Then, growing serious again, she added, “I’m so sorry I ever hurt you. I told myself I wouldn’t beg, but I’d be grateful if you’d find it in yourself to forgive me for what I put you through.” As they nuzzled, words weren’t necessary and she knew he had done just that.
* * *
From a distance, Curtis watched, something stirring in him as the Jaguar was forgiven by her lover. If that had been him in Tommy Joe’s place, how would he have voiced it if he’d only been able to? He was swept up in a fantasy…
Rachel, it’ll be okay. I wish it hadn’t happened this way but I’m going to raise that boy like he was my own. He won’t know anything but love from me.
Curtis, you won’t regret this.
Swatting from his windshield the tingling sensation that threatened to bring tears, Curtis quickly wheeled into the locker room. A deep red sedan pulled quickly away from Tommy Joe’s locker, sliding a small toolbox behind his tire, not realizing how conspicuous he looked.
“Son, I don’t recognize you as a vendor or anyone who should be back here, and I know you weren’t about to sabotage a racer,” chided Curtis. “this is a dirty sport and most everyone cheats, but how about letting us race fairly so the best man can win?”
The sedan shifted his tires, looking utterly petrified, and the truck continued, “I imagine you weren’t expecting to get caught but I’m going to let you split out of here so long as you don’t do anything like that again. Let me guess, someone offered you some money to slit a few tires or something?” he guessed, correctly. “C’mon, your mama had to have taught you better than that.”
“You leave my mama out of this,” the car choked out, seizing up the toolbox and tearing away from the truck he’d only seen in old photographs that his mother never knew he’d come across.
“Kids today,” sighed Curtis, the irony escaping him as he dumped the poisoned fuel additive from his own locker down the drain set in the center of the floor. It wasn’t like him to let a troublemaker off that easily, but the young sedan’s clumsy handling of the sabotage made Curtis suspect he’d never attempted such a thing before. The pickup paused with the last container of additive suspended over the drain. Now or never… He upended the bottle over the metal grid before he could have second thoughts. His heart immediately growing lighter, Curtis examined his competitor’s locker and found it hadn’t been wrenched open before he’d intervened. I guess that makes up for what I was about to do, he rationalized, but Tommy Joe’s got to be my strongest competition if everyone’s aiming to bring him down before the race even starts.
* * *
Waiting on the starting line, Curtis felt at peace. He was a strong truck and however he placed in today’s race, it would be accomplished without cheating. He told himself that trickery was just a crutch someone would use if he was afraid of losing. Besides, he told himself, if I’d had to rely on sabotage I’d never really have known how well I could have done on my own.
In a flash of flags and a blast of gunfire, Curtis, Tommy Joe and Mater charged forward, their tires spraying mud. By the third lap, Mater had fallen behind with the other competitors, exhausted, and he realized that while he’d had a great time the night before, he wasn’t going to make this his championship year. Tommy Joe and his sworn enemy furiously kept up the front of the pack, hugging the curves of the figure-eight track, each looking for a chance to edge the other out.
No sooner had he pulled ahead than Curtis struck a jagged piece of guardrail, which sent him reeling sideways and across the width of the driving lane at a crazy diagonal. He slid to a halt, unharmed, but by the time he was able to get up to speed again, he already knew he’d ceded the race to his rival.
Back in the locker room, he showered and gathered his belongings from his locker, wistfully acknowledging the season was over for himself and all those who hadn’t qualified for the championships. Next week Tommy Joe would have a send-off party from this very stadium, with all his fans gathered to see him climb aboard a trailer headed for the statewide finals. Maybe I’ll even go to the send-off this year, he mused, all the previous years I was so bitter about losing I never got to see any of the champions off. Curtis thought he’d spend the remaining days of summer at the Strip Joint. Maybe they’d hire him as a bouncer or something…
“Curtis?” inquired a voice he’d never expected to hear. Closing the empty locker with a gentle click, the pickup eyed Tommy Joe. “I just wanted to say, uh…that was some dang good racin’. In all our other races I was too busy keepin’ an eye on ya’ll to make sure ya didn’t try anythin’ dirty to even see how good ya are. Ya got a lotta strategy an’ finesse an’ all that stuff the drivin’ coaches talk about. Good luck next season.”
Curtis was stunned. “Good luck at the finals,” he stammered lamely. No sooner had Tommy Joe rolled away than he heard the slam of another locker behind him. He turned to face Doreen, who had come to empty her husband’s locker. “Oh, what brings you here?” he asked, no more self-assured than he’d been when talking to the new champion.
“I just figured, what the hey, maybe I’d sneak back here and have sex with ya,” she shrugged, “either right here on the floor or over there in the carwash if ya prefer.” She stabbed a tire in the direction of the shower. “That way when Mater comes in he kin git an eyeload of us. One of his favorite pastimes is to be forced to watch other cars git it on with his friends and then make fun of him.”
“Okay, okay!” Curtis protested, “I was a real ass that night.” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Look, I was having a rough time and did a helluva lot of things I regret. Seducing your friend in front of your husband was one of them and I’m working on one apology at a time.” His anger got the better of him. “I’m not the only one who’s whoring around,” he accused hotly, remembering something, “I saw you leaving Tommy Joe’s.”
“What?” sputtered Doreen in shock. She shook her cab in denial. “Ya’ve got it all wrong. Mater knows I went there. Hell, he sent me off with a smile. Ya kin go ask him fer all I care!” She sank lower on her tires, realizing that if she had become pregnant, she’d be explaining the circumstances of the conception for years to come. “Damn if we didn’t try forever to become parents,” she said in a low voice. “So after a while I up an’ slept with Tommy to see if we’d have better luck together. Not that you’d know anythin’ ‘bout those kinda problems.”
“I know more than you might think,” said Curtis quietly as Mater joined her. He was weary and he no longer cared who heard about his traumatic past. “You’ve been trying, what, maybe a year? Try hurting for twenty-seven years! That’s how long ago it was that Rachel told me she was carrying Tommy Joe’s boy instead of mine.”
Tow Mater and Doreen exchanged worried glances, uncomfortable with his sudden decision to confide in them.
“We’d wanted a child together so badly, but just one, and when she was a few months along I had myself, uh, ‘fixed’ so I could return to the pro circuit I’d given up. Then I find out what was really going on. Gaw, I still love her and I’d have a dozen kids with her if she’d only take me back, but most of all I love that kid I gave up like a fool.” Mater wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a wet gleam in Curtis’s eyes. “You can’t love someone since he was that tiny and then let him go forever.”
“No, you can’t,” agreed Mater softly, eyeing Doreen’s side where he imagined their children, who would only be his distant cousins rather than his offspring, might be growing if things had gone right between her and Tommy Joe.
“The anger was even harder to let go. Years later it still hurt and I convinced myself if I could just humiliate Tommy Joe and bump him out of racing, maybe steal his girl in the process, it would make us even and I could put the rest behind me.”
He sighed, looking defeated. “I tried that and it didn’t work. So what else could I do? I sent Chrissi back to him and ran the race fairly. I still lost, and I’m not talking about the mud drags.” The shine in his eyes spilled over to tears, and he angrily swatted them away with his antenna.
He groaned. “So that’s my explanation and it’ll have to serve as an apology too. Take what you want from it.” He stormed out into the night before either truck could ask him to stay.
“That sure explains a lot,” mused the tow truck. “He never was right after that gal left him an’ I finally find out why.” Tommy Joe drove around the corner unexpectedly, a dazed look on his face. He had been listening from behind the row of lockers and the pain in Curtis’s confession had not even begun to register, let alone the news that he’d fathered a son he didn’t know about.
“Damn…” he muttered.
* * *
Who else is going to confront me today? Curtis wondered irritably, spotting the red sedan waiting for him outside the building. The car anxiously strummed the chain-link fence with a tire and cleared his throat.
“You called me son back there,” he breathed, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You said, ‘Son, I don’t recognize—‘” In one moment Curtis realized he was looking upon the car who would have been his boy.
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- 11
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Freeriding