pockets full of labels peeled off of boxes and tools. We plastered them across the kart, so it’d look like we were sponsored. “Now all she needs is a name,” Dad said.
*
Race day. We rolled out of the shed, into the backyard where Mama could see. She gave a thumb’s up from her window. I raised my hand to forehead in salute. The sky was sunny and perfect, the track a winding asphalt belt between hay bales. The other kids stared as we wheeled our creation off the pickup and into the staging area. I realized what we must have looked like, our resurrected mower-racer alongside their shiny store-bought karts with seatbelts and brakes. I’d hear the laughs, but when I looked, they’d be turned, eyes averted. I clenched my fist, wondered why we’d been singled out as a spectacle. But then again, mine was the only kart with a steel blade. Before I strapped on my goggles and started the engine, Dad pointed to the lever we’d left alone. He was not a man who believed in luck anymore, he said. “You get in trouble out there, you yank on this.” I nodded, and climbed in.
*
When the gun went off, I ripped out the gate and into first. I led down the straightaway, but the beast hugged the hay bale turns about as poorly as you’d expect
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