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Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 66 Parley no escape. I don't know, but it seemed the Plymouth went from zero to sixty in ten feet. We all looked up and stopped throwing rocks when we heard the gravel roaring, and I saw Parley go right up over the balloon fender on the river side. He vaulted over on his arms, and it was amazing: he landed on his feet. But Mr. Wilkes had handled his death car well too, and he wheeled in a vicious circle in front of all the startled parents picking up their kids, and he came back hard. We could hear the Plymouth hissing, coming so fast that even though we were across the river, we ran back up the slope of the schoolyard. This time Parley just ran down the bank, well off the road, but Mr. Wilkes was overcommitted by now; he could taste it. And he swung wide and dropped a wheel off the shoulder, and it pulled the rest of that large blue vehicle into the river gulley- I saw Parley stand straight up, as if to meet death, and the car whomped past him so close that he and Carol could have touched each other's face. I guess Old man Wilkes was finally more scared of driving into the river than of killing Parley. That was his one chance to do both. He raced the flopping Plymouth up through the brambles and onto the road. I'm sure he didn't stop at one stop sign between the school and their own home. Parley came across the bridge and walked by us. He wasn't even breathing hard. He spoke to Butch: "He's going to have to try harder if that bastard wants me to jump in the goddamned river." |