Was it trauma?

Or just experiences on the edge?

I grew up around people who fixed their own cars and trucks in the side yard or the curb. Mostly to save money, but there was much pride in the "I got this shit" attitudes from the tool wielders.

So it doesn't sound so strange that when I was seven or eight, we went to the midget car races at Danbury. Little cars with one seat and big engines.  

I remember spectacular snack food: overcooked egg rolls, fountain Coke with a jolt of soft serve ice cream stirred in, and the predecessors of sliders: grilled burgers dripping grease, cheese, and Heinz. Better than the drive-in, but that's coming up.

The racing itself was pretty boring. Round and round with no apparent winner. From where we sat in the bleachers, the cars looked like toys. Colors like kindergarten blocks with big numbers in circles on their side panels. The yellow and black striped #8 sticks out in memory.  Maybe that was him, dead halfway up the light pole at the end of the track. 

The noise was stupefying. Hold toilet paper tubes to your ears and stand by a burning beehive, waiting to be stung. 

 It had to happen. The drivers were ignoring the laws of physics. One of the cars flew off the track and wrapped around a light pole fifteen feet in the air. I didn't hear it, but I saw it happen. There was thin smoke. I could not tell if the driver had been thrown clear. A dark liquid--oil? blood? oil? oozed down the pole as fire trucks pulled up, finally blocking the view. We (I don't remember if or which sibs were along for the ride) were hustled back to the car. Was Mom with us, or were we sworn to secrecy? It was a quiet ride home. 

There was also the drive-in theater. You have to be pretty old to have gone to one. Sorry for those who missed the experience.

We wore our footy pajamas, and I was never embarrassed about it. Half the kids on the playground were dressed for bed. We had a half hour or so of running wild on the rusty playground equipment, to go pee, and get popcorn, which I hate to this day.

Management waited until deep dusk before they started the show. The moment the screen lit up with the dancing sodas, hot dogs, and donuts, we beat feet back to Dad's early 60's Ford Country Squire, blue with the fake wood side panels. The second seat was folded away, and we had blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals. My sisters would both conk out before the feature even started. I think my baby brother was in the front, sleeping on the seat between my parents because they sat miles apart. I was grateful for the unobstructed view of the patched screen, where I never knew what would be next. 

Drive-ins did not show first-run movies. The cartoons were usually Fleischer's weirdness, mostly banned from TV later by network censors. I loved Superman, but it was the feature I was there for, even if they seemed to be scraping the bottom of Hollywood's barrel. I was a movie critic at the age of ten. I don't think we ever saw an Oscar contender at the Starlight.  Maybe this was a backup movie for when something went wrong. It happened. The film would break or the sound fail, and everyone would flash their lights, blow their horns, and wake up cranky children.

It had to be 1950 or so, when they ran a movie released in 1949 called "The Big Wheel" starring Mickey Rooney. A racecar story. More ego-driven men risking their lives for a checkered flag and shit money.

 One of the drivers, a sympathetic character named Happy, crashed and was trapped in the car, which then burst into flames, roasting him alive. The camera work, makeup, and dubbed screaming were horrifically convincing. I remember feeling that the moment was wasted in the story that I was too bored to stay awake for. 

It might be a fitting death for my antagonist, dovetailing nicely with my fmc's ability to cause spontaneous human combustion. The things writers have to consider.  Did I mention it's a romance?