Setup – A combination of settings of a car’s engine, tires, and chassis. Teams make constant adjustments to a race car’s setup based on the driver’s input.
Watching Jameson being examined by countless doctors was difficult.
For one, he hated it and I didn’t like seeing their dejected faces when he wouldn’t respond or got confused and told them the wrong answer. He couldn’t bend over without stumbling and the headaches he got were so blinding that he would vomit. His mood shifted drastically at times. So drastically that it scared me. He wasn’t hungry and when he did eat, he would usually throw up.
In the mornings, he was hard to wake up sometimes and had a seizure upon waking. The brain injury was taking a toll on him. It didn’t help that he already had plenty of concussions in the past and receiving a brain injury of this nature made it worse.
One morning, his twenty-seventh day in that hospital, a younger female doctor came in to perform her exams. She was apparently the head of the orthopedics department and wanted to look at how Jameson’s bones were healing. His shoulder had been giving him the most pain but his chest seemed to be worse.
“I’m Dr. Baine.” She reached for my hand and shook it. “I’m here to look over Jameson and see if there’s anything we need to be cautious of before we consider starting him on a rehabilitation program.” She smiled. “I’m sure he’s eventually gonna want to get back in his car.”
Dr. Baine was a familiar face to the race car drivers. Being the closest hospital to Knoxville, they had seen their fair share of injuries related to racing over the years.
Jameson didn’t acknowledge her presence, his gaze still on the window.
I gave her a smile for his lack of response and she smiled back. “Let’s get started.”
When she removed the blankets, his bare chest was revealed. My eyes traveled the length of his dwindling body to his chest, ribs and stomach which were still nearly completely covered in deep purple blotches mixing with some yellow and brown markings. Some wounds were healing where others were making themselves known. It was hard watching him lose weight and muscle knowing the toll it was taking on him.
My eyes drifted to his tattoo across his chest under the bandage from his splint holding his shoulder in place. Reading the scripture that matched the one on my spine, tears came to my eyes. Jameson’s eyes met mine.
Jameson rarely let anyone see that particular tattoo as it was something very sacred between the two of us. It was the meaning behind how we fell in love. For so long, we had avoided the change in our relationship until it was there, staring at us.
The doctor read it and smiled softly knowing she may have overstepped her boundary. Her cheeks heated and she looked away. “It’s a beautiful scripture.”
Jameson said nothing to her in response, his eyes still on mine. It was strange looking into his eyes now. They were different and I often wondered if they would change.
Jameson blinked watching me carefully as the doctor felt his stomach and then pulled the blanket down further to reveal his pelvis. His eyes never left mine.
I swallowed and dropped my eyes from his and finally looked at his injuries. You could see every bruise where bones had been broken and now were healing. Smiling, I noticed the marks of our drunken nights together before we were married.
My eyes drifted lower as she moved the blanket a touch lower revealing an area I didn’t think too highly of her seeing. I looked at Jameson. He was looking at me still, watching my reaction.
I smiled letting him know I was okay and then I took a peek down there. I hadn’t seen him naked in weeks, and yes, I missed my camshaft. The thought of having sex wasn’t really on my mind these days but when she pushed the blanket just a fraction lower and I saw his camshaft, my mind immediately went there.
Part of me was thankful it was still there, you know, still attached and all. I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t but it was reassuring.
When I looked back up at Jameson, he winked. He knew me too well. I nearly cried because it was the first wink I had seen since the accident.
The doctor left not long after that and left us alone. We didn’t speak much, small talk regarding the kids and his sprint car team.
We didn’t talk about his injuries and we didn’t talk about what I saw. We didn’t talk about a lot of things these days.
He asked questions but they were usually related to racing. We didn’t talk about the void we felt and the distance that seemed to be growing between us.
When Jameson finally watched the accident on television the reaction was similar to the one with Darrin but different because he knew a life was lost. It was nice that the media respected our wishes and never publicly played the video other than that first night. Knoxville recorded the race but immediately released the only copy to Alley at her request. Something as horrifying as that video didn’t need to be seen. Sprint car crashes are extremely violent when the cars start flipping and that video clearly displayed the dangers and the aftermath.
I watched it with him and the only indication he gave that he was affected by it was the heart monitor he was connected to, began beeping faster. It was tough to watch, both his reaction and the video.
Of course it happened on lap fourteen. Everyone who knew Jameson understood fourteen wasn’t a number he liked. Everything bad that happened to him was related to the number in an eerie way.
“Get rid of that,” he told me as I took the DVD out of the player.
“You want me to throw it away?” I asked turning to face him, the DVD in hand.
Jameson looked from my hand to the window. He gave a careful nod and then closed his eyes.
I knew watching that had to have been hard on him and I didn’t want to go all Dr. Phil on him because he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be bothered. So I sat there and simply offered my presence.
I couldn’t sleep that night but I also didn’t want to stay at the hotel with Emma. She snored. Usually falling asleep beside Jameson in his bed, I removed myself once he was asleep because I didn’t want to hurt him. His body was still so fragile and one wrong move by me, or him, in the middle of the night could set his healing back more. There was also the possibility of him having a seizure. I was in bed with him when it happened once and it wasn’t pretty and he was more upset with himself for smacking me in the mouth than reinjuring his shoulder.
Through his window, I watched night give way to dawn, stars replaced with pinks and purples. Soon a haze appeared as clouds moved in and snow began to fall. My eyes stung from the tears last night and my back was aching from sleeping in the chair.
Rubbing my eyes, I looked over at him to see that he was awake, quietly watching me.
“You... don’t look good.” He studied my face for a moment, his eyes scanning and looking for something but what I didn’t know.
“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“I just mean… well… you haven’t been eating, have you?”
I gave him a smile. “It’s kinda hard when your husband is attached to machines.”
He relaxed and a hint of amusement came over his worn features. “Sounds stressful.”
We were quiet for a moment and he asked, “Are they going to give me food today or do I have to go get it?”
Looking over at the clock I noticed it was nearly eight in the morning. “She should be here any minute.”
Taking a deep breath, he made a humming sound that, well, turned me on.
In that moment, with that sound, my hormones went nuts. I think he sensed it and his eyes met mine. Then he did probably the sexiest gesture he had ever done and, believe me, Jameson has done a lot of sexy gestures in his time.
His eyes that were focused on mine slowly traveled down my body. From my eyes to my lips and the path to my hips, he eyed me. Blinking slowly, he let out a shaky breath. His breathing had increased, the heart monitor indicating the reaction. Inside I was doing a victory burnout. I turned him on.
He winked again and gave a light smile, his voice hoarse from the tube being in his throat for so long and the usual rasp he had. “You’re still as sexy as I remember.”
Sitting on the edge of his bed, I turned my head to see if any of the nurses were coming in and hating the fact that his room was all glass. “Are you... getting aroused, Mr. Riley?”
He tried to play it coy by licking his lips, his gaze focused on my lips. “Maybe,” he said unexpectedly.
Hot damn.
“Would it help if I showed you my boobs?”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Show me and let’s see.”
So I did. I flipped my shirt up and showed him the funbags.
Problem was that his nurse decided to pick that moment to bring his breakfast.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry!” she screeched slamming the cart with food into the wall. “I should have knocked!”
When she did that, I turned and gave a full on shot to her of my chest. Yep. Nice move by the Mama Wizard.
Hot damn? More like hot mess.
The nurse covered her eyes and hurried out of the room. There wasn’t much else I could do at that point so I turned to face to Jameson and offered my only explanation. “I saw that going differently in my head,” I said between giggles.
Righting my clothing, I sat there still giggling and wondering what else might go wrong when I noticed that my picture, a much crumbled picture by now, had fallen out of my shirt and was sitting on his stomach.
I laughed. Loud cackling laughter and it felt good.
And for the first time in four weeks, I heard the sound I had been craving for. Jameson laughed. Actually laughed. His eyes were creased at the edges with that full on magical Jameson Riley smile plastered on his face. He looked so much like the boy I fell in love with right then that I broke down and cried in between my own laughs. I missed that boy so much.
Picking up the picture, he handed it back to me. “I thought Spencer was joking about that picture.”
I stuffed it back in my bra. “No, he wasn’t. I’m keeping you safe.”
“Oh, well,” he laughed again pulling my hands into his. “I’m happy to be kept safe.”
We stared at each other silently when his eyes darted to my lips again.
“Kiss me,” he demanded, his voice low and husky.
With extreme caution, I leaned in and touched my lips to his. Fumbling with my fingers, he removed his hand from mine to cup my cheek and then he was holding me closer. So far, we hadn’t done more than a quick kiss. This wasn’t quick and I knew that he was getting turned on. His breathing, the monitors and his actions, all told me that he wanted more. A soft moan escaped his lips, his tongue found mine and we both gasped at the sensation, his body shifted involuntarily trying to get closer to me. The movement ended the moment pain shot through him and he tensed as it radiated through him. He moaned jerking away from me and then moaned again when the motion of jerking way caused more pain.
Settling a safe distance from him, I gave him a smile. “Hopefully soon it won’t hurt as badly.”
Jameson was quiet for a few moments, the pain fading, and then found his window again with a sigh.
“I hope that a lot of things don’t hurt as badly.”
I hoped that he was right. I hoped that we were making the right adjustments for him, for us, for our family.
There are times that I wished I would have paid better attention to warnings. Not that it would have helped now but it might have. In a lifestyle sent soaring, and then crashing into a wall, I wished that I would have listened to that vibration a little sooner, checked that rising temperature, listened more, loved more, kissed more, made love more often, more of anything. Wisdom ignored, I fell for so long that I almost felt a little relief to not be falling anymore. I was allowed to want more, feel more, and most of all, love more.
Time was all I had these days. I thought a lot, felt a lot, and remembered even more. I thought that my dad was full of wisdom that I ignored. It was right in front of me like a rising temperature or a vibration.
Since time was all I had, I thought about my dad mostly and the affect this was having on my family. Eventually I didn’t want to think anymore. Instead, I wanted out of this damn hospital.
Around that time, I hurled every ounce of hatred I had for the situation into recovering.
Within five weeks of coming out of the coma, I was starting physical therapy.
No one thought I would come back to racing. I watched the news. I knew what they were saying. The media, the fans, my family... they all thought I would retire. Sure I was forty-one years old and was nearly killed a month ago but that right there is what kept me going.
My dad wouldn’t have wanted me to quit just because he was killed in a wreck.
He would have said something along the lines of, “Are you a fucking idiot?” if I told him I was retiring because of him.
But I did think about it.
Did I want to get back inside a race car?
Yes, I did.
Why? Because I needed to know that I could. A man like me, someone who has been so single-minded on one specific goal for the last forty years of his life, doesn’t just quit like that. Not without thought at least and I had a lot of time to deal with that thought.
I’ll tell you one thing though. No time spent inside a hospital was a good time. In fact, it was horrible. I think mostly because over the years if I didn’t want to hear what you had to say, I left.
Now I couldn’t do that.
What bothered me most about this, was the one person I did it to so often, was no longer here. It was waves of emotions, one minute I was fine and then next I wanted to say fuck it all.
Reality is fucking stupid. That was my general conclusion.
I love it when people bitch about a bad day now while me, and my walker, are strolling around the hospital trying to get away from my family. I wanted to say, “Fuck you, wish for that! Wish that you didn’t get your coffee or the nurse didn’t get your extra pillow, jerk off.”
I’d take a bad day over this overwhelming anxiety any day. It doesn’t make the shit any easier. Knowing that it is reality only makes it fucking real. When your life is ripped apart so suddenly like mine, it makes not getting your coffee pretty fucking desirable.
I wasn’t left alone very often, but when I was, that was what I thought about. Reality. I thought about what I would have left everyone to deal with. My family, my team, my sponsors, it was reality.
Other times my room was filled with family and though I enjoyed that time with them, it was a constant reminder that our family was now one short.
My kids helped as did Sway. They knew me better than anyone and were always trying to make me laugh … which hurt, but Arie claimed laughter was the best medicine.
Because of this, they sent Casten in a lot. That was when he had time. He was trying to go to school and help out as much as he could with the sprint car team. I felt bad but he claimed he was having fun doing it.
Casten may have quit racing but he still relished in the race life because of its fast pace.
“I need a favor,” I told him one morning after he arrived to watch Sports Center with me. After I broke a TV last week, I could now only watch television supervised and then was allowed control of the remote when they left. That was probably because that was how the television was broken in the first place.
“Uh, I’m leaving,” Casten said, jetting for the door.
“No... help me!” I yelled after him. I didn’t yell, yelling hurt. But I did raise my voice.
Casten frowned, his brow pulled together in disgust. “I have no desire to see you naked. I’ll get mom.”
“Casten,” I chuckled trying to shift in the bed but decided against it when moving my hips shot excruciating pain throughout my body. “I just need the remote.”
“Oh yeah,” he grinned reaching for it. “Here,” then he slouched in the chair holding his cell phone. “Now about that nurse of yours... how old is she?”
I grunted flipping through the channels to find something interesting and not that reality TV bullshit. “Fuck if I know. Older than you,”
These nurses were making me crazy. They were too attentive. I only wanted that type of attention from one person, my wife.
“Pft... that doesn’t matter.” He craned his neck to watch her walk past carrying a clipboard. “She’s hot.”
Most of my time spent with Casten was him trying to win the attention of the nursing staff.
Axel and I talked mostly about racing. So far, he’d won the three-night show in Barberville the Outlaws at Pike County, the Texas Shootout, and had just won the Las Vegas Nationals. He was racing the perfect season this year.
This just proved to me the kid was a spitting image of me. While he was determined to win, I was determined to recover and get the hell out of this hospital.
When he was able to visit the hospital and not talk about racing, he asked if I was scared.
Was I?
In a way I guess you could say I was but not for the obvious reasons of wrecking or safety.
I was scared of seeing the look I saw in my mother’s eyes, on my wife.
Arie came to see me almost every day and forced me to watch ridiculous shows while she gave me all the dirt around the track. Emma and Arie were far too alike but I found her entertaining to say the least. Even though Sway thought for sure she wasn’t like her, I saw it in the way her lips pouted out when she slept or the way she would look at the bright side of everything. She was like her. Arie also had this way that she needed to disobey every order given to her.
One afternoon she showed up with ice cream and donuts, two things we loved to eat together, and sat down beside me in the chair next to the bed.
“So, listen Dad,” she began flipping the lid of her ice cream and handing me a donut. “How are you really feeling?”
“Huh?” I took a bite of my donut biding my time for an answer. I couldn’t lie to my daughter. Just like Sway, she knew me.
“You know what I mean.” Her brow furrowed in warning, her green eyes met mine. “You blame yourself.”
I was quiet for a while before I answered. “It’s complicated.”
“I know it’s complicated, but holding yourself responsible for grandpa’s accident is not healthy.” She set her ice cream aside. “Grandma... mom, they need you right now and holding this inside like that is hurting them, too.”
Arie was right. I did hold myself responsible but she was also right that everyone needed me now and I needed myself. I couldn’t hold it in like this. But it also wasn’t something I could just turn off like a switch. Feelings don’t work that way.
Instead, I focused on recovery. That I could control.
I had physical therapy every day along with spa time as the doctor called it. Really it was just me sitting in a fucking bath. Physical therapy wasn’t ideal. It was intense, painful and challenging. It was everything I was used to with all the years of racing and pushing my body and mind to its limits. Being in excellent physical condition before the accident played a huge role in my recovery, as did my mindset that I would return to racing.
After seven weeks in the hospital, I was ready to leave. But no, they wouldn’t let me. They insisted I stay for nine weeks. I had other ideas and was contemplating just leaving if I could actually drive. But I couldn’t.
They had all these stipulations that had to be done before I could leave. I had to answer all these questions everyday about myself, then basic shit like what color grass was or what letter comes after C. I had to be able to walk, not only walk, but also they wanted me to climb stairs. They wanted me to be able to dress myself, too.
Then there were the physical tests. When you have broken nearly every bone in your upper body, moving hurts. Hell, just breathing hurts. During the physical tests I had this nurse who would come in and was burlier than Spencer. Gentle was not her specialty. Most of the time I would jerk and wince from the pain but then usually I would end up trying to burn a hole through her with my glare.
Perhaps I was being unfair but I was certain that no one had ever had to go through so many hoops just to get released from the hospital.
This left me, once again, depending on others, mostly my mom and Sway.
Emma was there a lot too and most of the time she was there on business. I didn’t want to talk business. It was as if I was avoiding reality. Not knowing was okay with me and actually made the recovery easier. I wasn’t sure what I would have to come back to as far as my career and that scared me.
Would my sponsors support me?
Would my fans still cheer for me?
Would the other drivers treat me the same?
And I still wasn’t entirely sure that I could race again. Would my body let me?
I was sure double vision at 200 mph wouldn’t be ideal and when it took me five minutes just to go to the bathroom. I was positive getting inside a race car wouldn’t be easy.
Another reason for my frequent visitors was from my threats to leave the hospital. It was as though I was now on hospital arrest. It was like a fucking high security prison.
Emma was there the morning of the Fontana race that Easton, the kid driving my car, qualified for the pole.
“Do you need some help?” Emma asked when I moved myself to the edge of the bed.
“No, leave me alone,” I grumbled, crutching my way to the bathroom. Those damn crutches were stupid but my pelvis was still healing and the less weight I put on my legs the easier it was.
“I was only trying to help your cranky ass.”
“Could have fooled me,” I yelled over my shoulder in Emma’s direction. She found the most entertainment in making fun of me and took way too many pictures of me crippled.
“Nice, asshole!” I heard the door slam behind her, thankful she finally decided to leave.
I sent Sway a message when the race began.
Me: Thanks a lot for sending over my sister. I thought you loved me!
She replied instantly.
Sway: I do love you but you need to supervision mister. She’s the only one willing.
It was true. Most people wouldn’t come see me anymore because I usually kicked them out.
I was moody. It had nothing to do with anyone in particular. I was just moody. I guarantee if it were them spending nearly nine weeks in the hospital, they would be moody, too.
And, well, I was starting to get my sex drive back.
I wanted my wife. I wanted to be alone with her. I wanted to not have broken bones and blinding headaches and I want to show her how much I missed her. I wanted to kiss every inch of her, feel her sweat on me, watch her move above me as I filled her and pushed her to her limits. I wanted to hear her scream my name with her hands buried in my hair.
Fuck.
Those were the times I had to physically stop the reactions I was having. The first time I got hard since the accident was when Sway showed me her boobs one morning. I wanted her so bad that morning but simply kissing her was painful because I couldn’t stop. I wanted more. I wanted more so bad. It even got to the point where I tried to take care of the intense erections I would get when I was allowed to shower. I would get halfway there and a nurse would check on me and then it would throw my concentration, or the mood, and I would be left with the desire. And then when I would get there and be able to feel some sort of release, it wouldn’t happen. I wanted my wife. I wanted the closeness that she provided and the warm comforting feeling of touching her skin against mine. It was torture of the worst kind both mentally and physically.
The nurses took the brunt of it but they deserved it with their stupid comments.
One afternoon, the one I despised the most, was not very nice with needles. I couldn’t understand why they needed so much blood from me anyway. Where they trying to clone me?
Well, she came back after taking blood and missing my vein four times. I now had a huge fucking hole the size of a dime in my arm.
“So it looks like your blood pressure is great,” she said with the same enthusiasm she used when she said, “Oh, look, we finally found the vein.”
I looked at Sway while the nurse smiled at me. “Oh, great Sway, I have a cracked pelvis. I can’t have sex for months. I see double vision, my entire body feels like someone beat the shit out of me with a fucking bat and she says I have good blood pressure.” I took a deep breath. “Wow, I guess I have nothing to worry about.” I finished with a particular sour edge.
“Jameson!” Sway scolded with wide eyes as if I just committed murder. She turned to the nurse. “I’m sorry about him.”
“Don’t be... he told me to get the hell out earlier. I’m getting used to it.”
“Obviously not. You came back,” I added.
I wasn’t sure who wanted me to leave more, the hospital staff or me. Either way, I couldn’t wait for my time to be up here.
Visitors came and went but one person who stayed away was Spencer. He wasn’t dealing with the death very well. Hell, none of us were but Spencer had a lot going on with the Cup team and trying to keep everything going.
He was no longer on the pit crew. Instead he had taken over as the car chief so Mason could be back at the shop ensuring that all the mechanics were doing their jobs correctly. After the mishap in Homestead last year, we made a lot of changes back at the shop.
Our entire life had shifted because of this one incident. It left little time for mourning but there were the occasional conversations of remembrance that took place. It took weeks before anyone would expand on the details of the accident that I could remember. And when they did, it hit me just as hard.
Through it all, the needs, the wants, the changes, I was making ground. I was feeling better and getting the setup that I needed. The right setup that my family needed.