The Boxkart Rebel

1 - Kitchen Sink

Chris Redding’s dad was a silent mountain, taller than the thirteen-year-old boy thought he could ever become and broader than any parent he knew. Terry Redding was quiet, stern, his face tense all the time. To Chris, this meant that his dad was tough – certainly tougher than any of the other boys’ dads. This was the kind of man who could happily eat a fried breakfast at any time of the day. If Terry had ever gone to Sports Day, he was a sure-fire bet to win the Dads’ Race. But Chris’ old man would never go to Sports Day. That was a job for Chris’ mum. Janine Redding went every year and cheered her youngest boy on, beaming with pride and collecting every participation medal he ‘won’. She kept those prizes in a battered old shoebox inside the bureau by the front door, along with the necklace made of pasta shells and the bracelet made of milk bottle tops that Chris gifted her when he was seven. She kept everything the young boy made.

Chris rested his elbows on the kitchen countertop and made sure his oil-stained hands didn’t touch anything. He was a little short for his age, tubby too, and while he knew a growth spurt was around the corner, his patience was wearing thin. Chris looked at the sink as his dad turned on the taps – huge, grease-stained fingers smearing the fittings.

Terry looked out of the kitchen window at the unkempt garden, his eyes focused on something that Chris couldn’t quite perceive – some faraway problem dealt out only in adulthood.

At the back of the kitchen Janine leaned against the larder doorframe and observed the young boy and his father, both scrubbing their dirty hands in the same way. Janine worked as an administrative assistant in a council building three miles away, and she walked there and back daily. The family car was in the driveway, up on bricks and waiting for Terry to fix her up. She had been like that for two months. Terry’s big red Talbot van was the only working vehicle the family had, and the back of that van was filled with Terry’s tools. A handyman always on the move, a family struggling to make ends meet. They did what they could. There was a recession on, and times were hard, but all the same, it was a happy home. Rarely any cross words between adults thrown about. At least, none that Chris could hear. To him it was life as usual: bricked-up car in the driveway, scaffolding poles dumped in the back garden and an upstairs toilet that only flushed when you threw a bucket of water down it.

“Make your dad a cup of tea,” said Terry, patting Chris a little too heavily on the top of the head. Chris sighed and flicked the kettle on.

“That’s my boy,” he said, turning and walking across the kitchen and out of the back door to return to the lock-up.

“One for your brother too,” came his voice as he disappeared from view.

Chris was good at making tea. So good in fact, that his dad near refused to drink tea made by anyone else. Chris was delicate and concentrated when pouring the boiling water, keeping time in his mind while the bags steeped.

2- Lock-up

Chris stepped out of the house, a corner terrace in a hard-up part of the city. Alongside ran a wide driveway that flanked their long garden on the right and housed a row of lock-ups on the left. Theirs was the last. Inside, Terry stood next to his oldest son Danny and they both pensively scratched their chins in exactly the same way. At sixteen, Danny Redding was already a man. Tall like his father, lean like a young man, focused and steeled like a race car driver. Which is exactly what Danny Redding was – not just any race car driver though, he was the fastest SuperKart racer in the city. That, at least, was what Chris told everyone he met. In fact, when meeting new people, Chris rarely introduced himself as Chris Redding, but as ‘ChrisReddingmybrotheristhefastest-SuperKart-racerinthecity’. And Danny was fast in the car, incredibly so. He had nearly every trophy and cup going to prove it: all gleaming and grand, displayed with great pride on top of the bureau by the front door.

To Chris, Danny was everything – a hero, a brother and a gentleman. An ideal to strive for. But it was in his car that Danny became so beguiling. Chris asked his mother once how it came to be that Danny raced so well. His mother paraphrased a line from her favourite film. She said: “God gave us two sons, the eldest to look after the youngest and the youngest to dream big enough for both… but God also made the eldest boy fast.” Terry then added: “…and because the car is lightning.”

3 - Race Day

Janine and her son didn’t need to show any credentials when they reached the entrance to the Drive Team section of the circuit. Chris passed Team Enzo, McTalbot, Rolfe Racing, Team Caligari… all the teams there for this critical race of the season. He hadn’t paid much attention to the lower kart divisions as they walked along – they were small fry, too amateur, too goddamned slow to really be worth his time. SuperKarts were where the action was. The karts gleamed, each one brand new for every race, each team with stacks of tyres. Chris could not believe the money involved. His family had one car, two sets of tyres and some customised tools that his old man had knocked up and yet they blasted the competition.

Chris let go of his mother’s hand as soon as he saw their kart, his father and Danny. The kart was up on its stanchions, tilted forward slightly and looking mean.

“Make your dad a cup of tea. There’s a good boy,” he said.

Chris fake sighed and walked over to the workbench where his dad’s trusty teasmaid had been set up for him.

“So, how we looking?” asked Janine as Danny walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“No sweat,” replied Terry.

Janine looked around the pit bay.

“Where’s Uncle Tone? No empty cans about.”

Danny smirked and picked up a pair of binoculars from the bench and handed them to his mother.

“In the paddock,” he said.

His mother took the binoculars and walked to the opening of the bay, looking through them and out past the track and to the central reservations.

“There’s the idiot,” she said.

“Can I see?” asked Chris.

Janine handed the binoculars to Chris who looked through and saw his uncle immediately. Chris started laughing.

In the centre of the paddock he saw Uncle Tone: a shade under forty, thin, with a week of stubble, jeans that were more hole than material, an obscure band T-shirt in a similar state to his jeans. Stupidly huge and out of fashion cardigan, unruly explosion of unkempt hair that fell to his shoulders and a pair of ridiculous sunglasses that Chris had once seen on a female Italian movie star from the Sixties. Uncle Tone was sitting on the grass, drinking from a can of lager, a few empties by his side and a blue plastic bag that clearly held more between his legs. Chris knew the type of bag – a heavy-duty plastic bag that could carry twelve cans of beer from the off-licence, no danger. Uncle Tone was yapping away, as usual, sitting in the paddock, drinking his beers and with his arm around a very sober and very bored looking Julie. His mum shook her head and tutted, Chris laughed to himself. To the adults around, Tone was a fool, a nuisance and utterly tiresome but to Chris he was simply a guy who liked his good times.