In the cafeteria, swarming with blue uniforms, they hand me a nine-inch block of pine wood and a plastic bag.

The bag contains four six-penny nails, four rubber wheels and an instruction sheet. The Scout leader wishes us all good luck.

"Ours will be special," Dad tells me, as we drove home in the rain, "I'm going to call it the Screamer."

He lights a cigarette, rolls down the window. Little drops of rain blow in me. Dad takes a deep puff on the cigarette, then rolls the window up again.

On the way home, smoke filters into the back seat of the Hummer. I understand. The Screamer is his project, not mine.

I watch Dad in the garage that night, under the shop light. He slices away at the wooden block with a little curved knife, taking pulls off a bottle of Jim Beam. Oldies blare from the radio.

I am fascinated by the little hooked blade he uses. I picture myself touching it, carefully running my thumb over its edge, watching a red line appear, wanting to see how deep it will cut. I won't, though. We don't touch Dad's tools.

I left one of his saws out in the rain once, the weird flat Japanese one that cuts backwards. He whipped me for that until I bled.

"Come here, boy," Dad says. He's been working on the wooden block now, day and night, for a week.

I walk into the garage, past the Harley. The leather belt and the chaps, the hanging chains and the weight bench send a little shiver up my back.

I pass the lawnmower. It smells musty, like last year's brown mulch.

One Saturday last July I pulled the mower's start cord and nothing happened. I pulled it again and again. It wouldn't start. I watched, terrified, as the grass grew taller. Three weeks later, Dad finally noticed.

Then Dad was slamming me against the wall and I was blubbering that I couldn't get the mower started and he was screaming at me "why the hell not!" and I told him I didn't know.

Dad grabbed me by the ear and pulled me outside, yelling "You're a pain in the shit!" The screen door slammed behind us. Dad shoved me and I went flying, off the patio, into the grass. I lay there with the wind knocked out of me. He marched on toward the garage.

I ran up to my room, crying quietly to myself.

When I came back a half hour later I found Dad sitting calmly on the back patio with a beer. He'd taken the mower apart and was squirting some stuff inside of it. He carefully reassembled it. He pulled the cord once. The mower started. Dad turned and looked at me like I was something he'd wiped off his windshield. I pushed the mower around in the four-inch grass for three hours after that, chiggers biting my ankles, trying to keep the mower from stalling, leaving behind little green mounds of badly-digested grass.

The Screamer is on the workbench, under a drop cloth. I have this sudden fantasy, of taking one of his hammers and bringing it down on what's underneath there, his Screamer, again and again and again.

Dad pulls aside the drop cloth. The pinewood car is low and sharp and mean. Its black lacquer finish gleams in the shop light. A cruel skull decal with red eyes runs smoothly down the hood.

"Well?" Dad says.

"It's beautiful," I whisper, and I mean it.

The room around the track is noisy. I watch the grinning dads, patting their sons on the back, throwing their arms around their bony shoulders. The kids show their cars to each other with enthusiasm, arguing about whose is coolest.

Dad keeps the Screamer to himself, displayed on the table next to him on top of an inverted shoe box. I wander around the room, feeling far away from everyone.

There are two time trial brackets. We're in the "A" bracket.

The Screamer wins every match-up. Comes in first again and again. Dad smiles. He's friendly with the losers, shaking hands and patting them on the back, wishing them better luck next year.

In "B" bracket, Jim Kramer's car has taken the lead. Kramer's dad's an engineer. His car is super-cool, aerodynamic, with air vents and a spoiler. He calls it "The Mongoose."

Eventually, it comes down to The Mongoose vs. The Screamer. Everyone is silent as the cars spin down the track.

The Mongoose wins. Jim Kramer lets out a whoop and gives his dad a high five.

I watch my Dad force a smile and shake Mr. Kramer's hand. I can see Dad's other hand, behind his back, knotted into a fist.

"Get in back," Dad hisses.

I obey. The Screamer is in its foam rubber holder, inside the shoe box on the front passenger seat of the Hummer.

We pull away from the church parking lot, slowly.

We're following Mr. Kramer's car.

Dad waits until we get out on Tower Road. It's dark. Not another car in sight.

When we get to the Chicksaw River bridge, Dad makes his move. He accelerates and slams into the side of Kramer's car, forcing it over the edge with a screech of tortured metal.

Dad slams on the brakes. We pull over.

"Get out," he says.

I follow him, trembling. Our feet crunch on the gravel under the moonlight as we walk back to the bridge. We look down on the brown river flowing beneath us. Kramer's car is turned upside down in the current.

We walk back to the Hummer, in silence. I notice that Dad is carrying the shoe box with him.

Inside the car, Dad grabs me by the shirt collar, pulls me up into the front seat. He pokes a finger in my face.

"Never tell. Anybody. Or I'll kill you."

Then he shoves me back into the seat.

He turns on the dome light. He carefully opens the shoe box and pulls out the Screamer.

He runs his fingers slowly down the smooth black finish.

"Screamer, see," he says, "She don't like to lose."

He puts it back into the box.

"Wait ‘til next year, kid," he says, and smiles.