Black Velvet Ring Short Story By Steven Benjamin (2012)
Description: A lesson in life; a man and a tired boy, in the sleepy darkness. It was a fear from long ago, a story of a past life, and the humble legacy it left behind. Through the grogginess and the dark, they traveled to another life, a different time, and took a quiet ride, through a green hell.
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***
“Nah, I don’t feel like reading tonight.”
“Then tell me a story Abba, something from your life.” He looked down at his son’s face in the dim light.
For a moment Chael thought his father would decline, but then he moved forward and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. He was quiet for a while as Chael watched him think. His father sat as if in prayer, his elbows on his knees and his forehead touching his clasped hands. He could just make out the features on his father’s face. It was as if he was still taking Chael’s request under consideration.
“Something, from my life… well then…”
Chael savoured the moment. It had been a while since he’d been tucked in by his father.
“I was young, not so much in age but, in my behaviour. I was old enough in years but still young in mind – that’s what your mother would say.” His father turned to him. “Now before I continue I must say this: this story, is about only one thing” he whispered, pointing his index finger to the ceiling, “a lesson. One that was taught to me at the perfect moment. I really needed to learn it. You see, if I didn’t, if I didn’t learn it, I wouldn’t be here today, and then, neither would you.”
“And what about Mommy?”
“She’d be around, but probably somebody else’s mom. If she didn’t die of a broken heart, because, she really loves me, I mean, she can’t live without me… ”
“Okay…” Chael interrupted, “Where did you learn this lesson?”
His father’s smile faded, “A place called the ring, but it goes by several names. One famous man even called it the Green Hell. Many men have died there.”
“What did you do in the ring?”
“Well it’s not a normal ring, because it isn’t a circle, and we didn’t do anything in it, so much as on it. It was a race venue, you see. It was known, because it was a race like no other. You see when we raced at this place; we didn’t race each other…”
The room fell quiet. Chael squinted in the dimness at the dark figure that was his father, trying dearly to keep pace with him on this journey to a rapt place, and time.
“The gentleman who taught me this lesson is still alive today, and it was he who, a few days before the meet, introduced me to that twisting black road, through the woods. I remember, it was still morning, with the tops of the trees still covered in fog. You see, this ring was in fact laid up in a very beautiful place; high and deep within the mountains, kind of perched there, waiting for a worthy challenger.
No one ever seems to remember the beauty…”
“It was so quiet… and there, in that cold hour, we snuck around while she slept and he introduced me to her secrets, the ones he knew of anyway… They certainly served him well.”
“Her?”
“Mm, it sometimes felt like the ring was alive, even though it was just this undulating river of asphalt. As are they all.”
Chael didn’t completely understand, but he hesitated to interrupt again.
“It’ll never escape me. He drove, not saying much. I watched him; every movement. All you could hear was the engine. He seemed so relaxed in his seat, wearing his favourite corduroy jacket. He also wore sunglasses, but not for the sun – it hadn’t found its way through the cloud cover…, they were for the wind. It comes to me so easily because, despite all the banks and turns and straights, I hardly ever felt a gear change, I just felt the wind. It was like we were sailing, and then in some parts we were flying… but always smooth.”
“What kind of car was it?” Chael said yawningly.
His father hummed softly, “You would have been in your element. It was Bristol convertible, and it was as white as a sail boat. He claimed that it had a tricky clutch but I never felt it. I suppose he would know. That car was more than just his inheritance; he would say it was his zero. It would always be there no matter what, whether to fix or to drive, or maybe just to look at. No one would ever be able to drive it like him, he could charm speed from anything with wheels, but that thing. It was his secret that everybody just happened to know about.
I tell you, in those moments, that morning, we were the only men in the world. No other noise, a clean fresh strip of black stretching through those woods, like velvet. It was so pure.”
“Do you miss it?” a voice whispered.
“Some mornings, in traffic…” he murmured, “I miss the peace… and isolation.”
“I thought you said it was loud.”
“Mm, but after a wee bit, if you’re used to it, everything fades. The faster you go, and everything else seems slower, of less consequence.”
The room fell silent.
“Do you remember that time, a year ago, at Uncle Warren’s place?” he assumed the reply of silence to mean ‘no’.
“That time when you rode on the horses.”
Chael nodded and accompanied it with an acknowledging moan. He smiled as he closed his eyes remembering.
“Remember my instruction? That you should just let him run. He knows those grounds. He’ll take you. You only need to trust him. Settle back in the saddle, let out the reigns just a tad, and hold with your legs.”
Chael’s drowsy mind teemed with visions of a gleaming Valhalla, the shining black. He remembered it like no other beast.
He recalled hearing the grunts and snorts as he walked along the cobbles. And then the beauty came into view, dwarfing the little five year old as fear gripped his bones and exhilaration flared his eyes. His father wouldn’t let him ride alone, but he recalled the brute power of the black shining beast beneath him, sailing on a sea of the greenest grass, nestled within those English hills.
“Well,” his father continued, “driving can be like that sometimes. You learn to trust your chariot and the power she possesses. Phil taught me to tame what was inside me, because there’s no room for three beasts in the ring. You’ve got to try to conduct and orchestrate this duel. There’s only one certainty though, the ring will never lose.
It was the lefthander just after Flugpplatz; that was where I found the moment that perhaps saved my life. If Phil had not talked me down, I may well have disobeyed my instincts. Instead, I chose wisely, to survive. I must stress why this was so pivotal, you see… this portion of track, whilst not the most feared or even the most dangerous, for me, it was the most satisfying. You came over the blind crest, literally airborne before the almost immediate right kink; and then comes the enticingly long left hand curve. It was my favourite, merely because it strummed my nerves so, and because it required such quick responses. Of course the rest did too. But on lap twelve, I had the chance to overtake, hugging the outside of the curve… it felt so narrow and before I knew it I had one wheel on the grass. Had I continued, well, I had visions of green, smoke, flames, and nothingness that, to this day, I cannot articulate fully. I remember it every now and then… fear, a strange thing.
It wasn’t impossible though.
He once called me a ravenous animal, not to my face mind you. Actually I overheard him and Uncle Warren chatting. I was standing just outside Warren’s office. I suppose office is a bit modest; library-cum-lounge would be more accurate. That was his sanctuary, sort of, for all the many exotic things he collected. The team was one of those things; he’d assembled us all as components of his vision, his dream. We had many conversations in that room that year; he’d always wear the same hat, speaking from beyond the smoke from the pipe he was puffing on, and that faded green cardigan.” Chael’s father whispered, staring into a dark corner of the room.
“One day, this was well before Germany, he pulled me into his study to ask me a question. I think I was as curious as he was. Firstly he wanted to hear from me if there was any truth to the rumours; there were murmurings going around that the cars were faulty, or that they were just one turn away from disaster – that his automobiles were destined to fail, at least more than others. The other thing, the main reason he wanted to see me, was to know what I was about…
It was a lonely feeling. All this time in this new family and he asks me that. But I guess I should have expected it. He said that when he first saw me, and after meeting me in person with a view to getting me on his team, he said he got the impression, no he worded it differently… He said, ‘I believe, you and I were meant for each other, pieces of the same cloth’ – he said he recognized something in me, that I reminded him of himself, when he was my age. I think he got it mostly right. But in that meeting, he said that he was recognizing me less and less. He thought that he knew what I was made of, what drove me. And then he asked it: ‘What makes you so wanton, what’s your secret?’ Of course you must understand that I was clocking times that were faster than what people believed ours cars were capable of.
Phil called me an animal because he likened my speed to an appetite – like all I wanted, was more speed.
He came the closest – to figuring me out – and it was on that practice lap of the ring where he said it to me. He said I should stop trying to escape, or run for the hills or the horizon, that I should stop escaping, ‘because if you try to do any of those things here, it’ll kill you. Just be aware in the moment and put all else to rest… or she’ll put you to rest.’ Those were the only words he spoke during that whole lap, almost ten minutes…
At the end of that race I felt a little aged, lighter, and maybe even taller.
Chael’s father was silent for a while before he said, “I learned my limits up in those mountains. I learned the art of being calm in the middle of thunder and smoke in a green hell. I learned to accept that there are things I just cannot control, could never control.” He rested his forehead against his clasped hands and closed his eyes.
A soft hand came through the dim light to rest on his shoulder, though it took him a moment to react.
“He didn’t hear you.”
He turned to look down at Chael who was asleep. Slowly he leaned in to kiss his son’s forehead.
Before he got up, he paused, to look at the boy.
“I remember things going a little differently.” She said once they were both in the hallway.
She took him by the hand and led him to the lounge where she wrapped her arms around him. They began to sway in the darkness, dancing minus any melody.
With her head on his shoulder she whispered, “When you told me that story, it ended where you said you were trying to run away… but that you weren’t fast enough.”
“Mm…” Eventually he found his voice again, “There was nothing I could do, it took me a while to grasp that... I was never fast enough…”