“Mostly Jet Rangers and maybe a 407,” replied Macovich, who knew firsthand what landed at the racetrack because the First Family was quite fond of stock cars that thunder around and around in circles all night long. “Now I gotta deliver this seafood before it’s dead,” Macovich said. “I’ll be right back and let you get by with paying me only a hundred dollars for your first lesson, as sort of a courtesy. But it gonna cost you more after that. This is a ‘spensive machine.”
“How much it worth on the street?” Cat eagerly asked.
” ‘Bout six mil,” Macovich said as he locked the helicopter’s doors and baggage compartment.
Possum wasn’t allowed to have a lock on his bedroom door, but he could surely use one, he thought, as he worried that Smoke was going to be pissed off when he found out that Possum had wormed his way out of the helicopter lesson. Possum nervously ate a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich in his dark bedroom as he continued to sketch out ideas for a pirate flag while he watched Bonanza and petted Popeye.
“Wish I could do that,” he muttered to Popeye as Hoss, who was out by the barn, bent horseshoes with his bare hands.
Little Joe was whipping Hoss in shape to wrestle the infamous Bear Cat Sampson at the Tweedy Circus that had just come to town. All Hoss had to do was pin the undefeated circus wrestler in five minutes, and Hoss and Little Joe would win a hundred dollars. That was probably a lot of money back then, Possum thought. These days, a hundred dollars would barely buy a decent pair of basketball shoes.
Possum sketched a bent horseshoe in his theme book and scratched through it. Then he tried drawing Hoss lifting a wagon full of heavy feed sacks. Next, Little Joe was slamming a board into Hoss’s big belly, and Hoss couldn’t even feel it. None of these themes worked on paper, either. So Possum tried his hand at the Ponderosa map burning up, and he felt he was at least on the right track.
His door flew open and Smoke was standing there glaring at him. Possum squinted in the sudden light seeping into his room.
“What the fuck you doing?” Smoke said angrily, as if he might just snatch Possum and Popeye off the bed and hurt both of them.
“Nothing.”
“Why didn’t you go to the hangar? I get a call from Cat while your lazy ass is back here watching TV! You were supposed to take the lesson, not Cat!”
“Cat be better at flying than me,” Possum meekly replied. “You was asleep, Smoke, so we didn’t want to bother you ’bout it.”
“Well, get your ugly ass up. We’re going to Wal-Mart to get some NASCAR clothes. From now on, that’s our colors and don’t let me catch you wearing no more Michael Jordan shit. We’re going to the race,” Smoke went on. “There’s one in town Saturday night, the Winston Series.”
“But we ain’t got tickets!” Possum exclaimed. “How we get in this late with no tickets? And there won’t be no place to park the car.”
“We don’t need tickets or a place to park,” Smoke said, walking out of the bedroom and slamming the door shut.
Hoss entered the ring and was sucker-punched a few times before he locked Bear Cat in a bear hug and broke the wrestler’s ribs.
“Let go of him, let go of him!” Possum whispered, even though he had seen this rerun so many times he knew that Hoss wouldn’t let go of Bear Cat before time was up, and Hoss and Little Joe would lose the hundred dollars and end up traveling with the circus until Bear Cat healed up enough to wrestle again. “Let him go, Hoss!”
Ben Cartwright and Little Joe cheered from the stands, and Possum started sketching again. NASCAR had given him an idea. Like pirates, NASCAR used all kinds of flags for different warnings and penalties. Possum drew a checkered flag and turned it into a Jolly Roger, coloring the skull and crossbones red.
“Shit,” he muttered. “That don’t work neither, Pop-eye.”