The Fast and the Furious my story

Chapter 6

Most of the next few weeks was spent preparing our cars for the upcoming Race Wars. When we weren't working on our own cars or working in the store, we helped Brian rebuild his Supra that he dragged in. From the diagrams Jesse showed us it was going to be a rather beautiful car. I was still a little suspicious of Brian but little by little I began to trust him. He soon became like an older brother to me. Turns out he knew a bit about American Muscle as well as imports and he solved a problem with my throttle on my Charger that had been bugging me for weeks. The Mustang didn't really need a whole lot of work but I did change the Nitrous bottles out for fresh ones.

One Saturday morning we where working in the garage behind the store on Brian's Supra. It was a particularly nice day and everyone was in a good mood. Brain and Dom where putting the radiator in while myself and the rest of the group worked on the engine. It was going to be a beast. 

After a while Dom jumped out of the engine compartment where he was previously sitting and called me over.

"Hey Baker, why don't you follow us back to the house. I wanna show you something," he said.

"Alright, I'll see you there," I responded. 

We drove back to Dom's place. As we drove I wondered what could be so important at the house that Dom couldn't show us when we got home for that night. I would soon find out.

After we pulled into the drive Dom led Brian and I up to the garage behind the house. I often wondered what was in there but as I like to mind my own business I never asked nor took the time to look.

Dom slid open the garage door to reveal an absolutely stunning 1970 Dodge Charger. This beauty was solid black with a blower poking out the hood. 

"Wow," Brian said when he laid eyes on it. 

"Me and my dad built her," said Dom. "Nine hundred horses of Detroit muscle. Its a beast. Know what she ran in Palmdale?"

"No, what did she run?" asked Brian.

"Nine seconds flat."

"Wow that's impressive," I said.

"My dad was driving. So much torque the chassis twisted coming off the line. Barely kept it on the track."

"So what's your best time?" asked Brain.

"I've never driven her," said Dom.

"Why not?"

"Scares the shit out of me," responded Dominic. He turned and pointed to a picture behind me of a man and a teenager. " That's my dad. He was coming up in the pro stock circuit. Last race of the season. Uh a guy named Kenny Linder came up from inside on the final turn clipped his bumper, put him into the wall at one hundred and twenty. Um...I watched my dad burn to death."

"Oh my god," I said. I partly understood Dom's pain. My own mom lost a four year battle with cancer when I was a teenager. I wasn't there when it happened so I can only guess as to what Dom felt watching his father die right before his eyes.

"I remembered hearing him scream," he had a faraway look in his eyes now. "The people that where there said that he had died before the tanks blew." Dom turned and looked at us, "They said that is was me who was screaming. I saw Linder a week later, I had a wrench and I hit and I didn't intend to keep hitting him but by the time I was done I could barely lift my arm."

Brian sat down on a stool, both of us speechless.

"He's a janitor at a high school," Dom continued. "Has to take the bus to work every day. And they banned me from the tracks for life." Dom circled back around the car before going on. "I live my life a quarter of a mile at a time. Nothing else matters. Not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less I'm free." 

Brian and I looked at Dominic dumbfounded. This man carried that kind of weight on his shoulders to the point where he didn't really even care if he lived or died. Brian and I both received new appreciation and respect for Dominic Toretto that day.