The Circuit
D Weber
Marty Field's ‘67 Barracuda was a slick jacked-up powerhouse, its big raised white letter racing tires gripping the pavement and it's aerodynamic lines making it look fast standing still.
Marty had always been the guy who caught all the red lights and then didn't know what to do when he was stopped.
This was usually the case at The Circuit: a mile-long circular four lane one-way road where all the teens gathered to show off their newest hot rods.
Maybe the problem was that the twelve traffic lights were timed just wrong, since they usually slowed the traffic down to a slow cruise. So at one of the traffic lights, whenThe Beatle’s I Saw Her Standing There came on, Marty thought: Real drivers knew how to play it just right and to anticipate the greens.
Marty had made plans with a girl and had told her the exact corner he’d stop at, across from the burger joint with the flickering neon sign. But when he got there, she was nowhere to be found.
He waited. Revving his v-eight, four barrel engine through his glass pack mufflers and getting some looks from other girls. He waited ten minutes, twenty and then thirty minutes. Instead of shutting down his car, he had his rock n roll on full with guitarist Alvin Lee soloing on "I'm Going Home." As engines raced, tires squealed and laughter filled the quiet spaces, he paused. A Deuce Coupe rumbled by with flames air brushed on it's sides and almost blew his doors off, its driver giving him a nod. The night was alive with possibilities, so he was anxious to get into the flow of traffic again.
He fired up his Barracuda and checked traffic to see if his lane was clear. The Circuit was its own world, a loop where time didn’t really matter. Custom coups straight out of American Graffiti cruised alongside low-slung muscle cars like his. There were chopped and dropped Fords, GTOs that roared with sixpacks under their hoods, passengers leaning out of windows to chat, to challenge, to admire. Twice, someone flagged him down just to talk about his car.
When Marty heard “That’s some fine muscle you got there,” he took it personally and flexed his left arm, like it was he who was strong.
“I'm not strong but my car is,” Marty admitted to himself, still distracted by the thought of Tiffany Flash and her no-show.
Lap after lap, the wheels kept spinning around The Circuit. He waved to familiar faces, nodded at challengers but he wasn’t in the mood to race. After five full rounds, Marty figured he’d call it a night.
And then he saw her standing there on the side of the road, under the buzzing glow of a streetlight. It was her, wasn't it? Wasn’t she the girl who turned up at the most unlikely moments? He had to slow down and take a closer look to make sure it was the wild blonde Tiffany Flash, with her thumb out like she was just another hitchhiker.
Marty pulled up beside her, leaned over, and popped the passenger door open. “You going my way?”
She slid in, flashing that same mischievous grin when she'd first seen his car.
“Crank up the rock n roll. Yours is a ride worth waiting for,” she said with such innocent bravado.
He shook his head, laughing as he eased the Barracuda back into the circuit, merging into the endless stream of shiny customs and their neon reflections, driving into a night that still had stories to tell.
With his girlfriend as his witness, Marty worked the lights like a pro, slipping past challengers and catching the right gaps. But just as he was getting into the rhythm of the night, Tiffany twisted toward him.
"I feel a need for speed," she said, then suggested they ride the roller coaster that they'd already cruised by a few times. The coaster got a lot of foot traffic from the boardwalk but not so much from the cars on the circuit. But with Tiffany, Marty got lucky and pulled into a parking spot that had just opened in front of the almost block long coaster, which was outlined in white lights.
"The best ride in town," Marty said, conveying the notion that he was very lucky to have Tiffany along.
She pumped her chest out and then playfully said: "Take me to the amusement park."
With his Cuda parked where it could be seen, gleaming under the streetlights, he stopped her for a moment to get her picture with the car and coaster as a background before she went running happily up the ramp to where the line began for the ride. He stopped at the ticket booth first, making certain that he had enough tickets for all the rides she wanted to do. They hit the coaster first, the Ferris wheel next, and then the sky ride, gliding over the scene of neon and chrome, with all the strolling lovers in the heart of the night below.
Everything was cool until they hit a gang of toughs loitering near the bumper cars. This was the group of five bikers he'd seen cruising the loop. Leaning against their souped-up choppers, Marty could see they had intentions. One of them, a wiry guy with a cigarette tucked behind his ear, straightened up when he saw Tiffany.
"Alyssa?" he said, disbelief and something darker in his voice.
When the biker used that name, Marty felt Tiffany’s grip on his arm tighten. She squared her shoulders.
"You got the wrong girl."
"Nah. You got short blonde hair now but it's still you" the guy grinned, looking her up and down. "You’re Alyssa. You just changed your name for the night, huh?"
Tiffany stepped forward, chin high. "I changed my whole life, loser. You’re just stuck in the same dead-end scene."
The words set something off. The guy’s crew bristled, eyes darting between Marty and the girl.
“Tiffany, huh? Thought you vanished off the face of the earth. Guess you just changed names instead of growing up,” the biker said and a few low chuckles rippled through the group. One of the bikers, a stocky one, his arms inked with fading tattoos - seemed to be ready to rumble.
“That right? Because from where I’m standing, looks like you just found another sucker to drag around. Ain’t that right, big guy?” the biker continued, nodding at Marty, who laughed, shaking his head. “You still nursing a bruised ego, or did I miss the part where you got interesting?” Marty said.
The biker grit his teeth, stepping closer. “Watch it, man.”
“Ooooh. You gonna do something about it, or just stand there flexing for your fan club?” Tiffany said, mocking him.
The crew murmured, some grinning, others shifting their weight like they were expecting a fight. Eyes darted between Marty and Tiffany, waiting for the moment things turned.
“You always had a big mouth, Alyssa. Too bad all that talk never meant a damn thing,” said the biker.
Tiffany leaned in, voice dripping with fake sympathy. “And you always had big dreams, but, well… here you are.”
A couple of his own crew laughed at that one.
“Careful, girl,” the biker said, voice tight.
“Nah, she’s good. But you? You look like you need a drink. Maybe a new hobby,” Marty said, grinning as he put his arm around her shoulder.
The tension hung in the air as the guys crew seemed to be waiting to find if he was pissed or impressed. But when he didn't give anything up, Tiffany tilted her head back and laughed loud and carefree, like she owned the moment. Marty gave the guy a wink, then turned away, leading Tiffany with him.
“Same dead-end scene, same dead-end fools,” she said, not looking back.
Before they got into Marty's Cuda, he stopped and watched a stretched, supercharged Model T rumble by. Instead of slowing, the driver stomped the gas, causing tires to scream against pavement, smoke rising into the night, burning rubber in reckless celebration - until the cops showed up.
Instead of getting in his car, Marty took Tiffany’s hand and pulled her into the beer garden that opened onto the sidewalk. The rock n roll escaped the confines of the small open bar, the band doing Springsteen's Born To Run. She downed one beer and then another. Marty watched as she hit the dance floor, twisting and moving: drawing every eye within sight.
The way she swayed, the way she laughed too loud, the way she let every cool guy orbit her like she was the sun - Marty knew then that she could never be his.
So he stepped back, fading into the crowd and letting her shine. Because some girls weren’t meant to be caught. Some girls were just meant to burn bright.
And Marty Field? He had a Cuda and a circuit to run. Maybe he'd meet someone else there, maybe not. Parked in the same spot across from where she'd left him, he was keeping busy greeting car enthusiasts, all of whom had the same questions to ask him, over and over again, about his choices in performance parts. When out of the crowd came Tiffany Flash herself, appearing to be eager to see him again.
Tiffany didn’t just see cars. She felt them. At least, when she touched Marty’s ’67 Barracuda, it seemed like she was brushing the flank of a wild animal she meant to tame. Her palm lingered on the polished sparkling brown paint, trailing toward the twin valve cover ornaments in the center of the hood.
“You built this?” she asked, her voice like poured honey.
“Mopar built it. I get my parts from Tom at the parts store,” Marty said smartly, grateful for her interest. “Glass packs, open headers, four-speed Hurst, edelbrock intake. Just pure power.”
She laughed. “It’s cool.”
Marty floated just above it all, watching himself play the role of “the guy she might like,” even though deep down, he didn’t believe she ever really could like him.
Of all the guys who had given her attention at the open rock bar across the street, she was back with Marty.
She climbed into the driver’s seat of his car without even asking, which caused Marty to hesitate. There was an old superstition in him that was like watching someone kiss your sister. But damn if it wasn’t the most alluring thing he'd ever seen, the way she gripped the wheel like she owned it.
He opened the passenger door and got in. “You drive stick?”
“I dance with it,” she said, and winked.
Two minutes later, they were fishtailing out of the lot, and by minute three, she’d ground second so hard it sounded like the Barracuda cried out for relief. She laughed again, loud and reckless, so Marty asked her to turn off into a side neighborhood, where she’d get into less trouble. It wasn't the shifter as much as the manual steering that fought her like it was winning.
“Let off, let off the clutch now!” he shouted.
“What clutch?!”
They hopped a curb and shot along a row of decorative hedges that never had a chance. One by one, the bushes surrendered in a leafy blur, like green explosions beneath the undercarriage. The rear end, jacked up on shackles, flexed defiantly through it all.
They finally lurched to a stop beside the furious home owner. Tiffany looked over, breathless and thrilled, cheeks flushed. But this angry homeowner didn't seem receptive to any excuses, standing there with his hedge clippers, where the car came to a stop. He wasn't about to let anyone slide on this one.
"Is this your car, little girl?" he asked.
"No. He was just letting me try it out," she mumbled.
"Why did you do this?" He asked, turning directly to Marty.
"I couldn't steer it," she answered, taking responsibility.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"Then you shouldn't be driving until you've had some lessons."
As they talked, Marty went around the front of the car. It took the hedges well, without any damage to the car.
“…You flattened my whole natural wall against ,” the owner shouted at him, turning away from the girl now and directing his venom at him. "Someone is going to pay for this."
Marty gave the owner his license and after he'd gotten all his contact information, he got behind the wheel.
She was conspicuously quiet as Marty steered his car slowly along two miles of back road to get her home.
The next morning, he’d start the Barracuda, wipe it down, look for scratches, and check underneath.
The bill for the hedges finally came. It was thousands of dollars. No surprise there.
There was an "illusion of control" while driving on The Circuit. Just don't get off the circuit or give your car to a beginner to drive.