I mean, he's got a kid that lost his way because of the goddamn go-carts. Some kids get into drugs, okay, it's understandable, you've got to shake it out of them. Some might bet too much or party too much, love alcohol and its forgiveness. But the go-carts, the stupid little go-carts at place with the arcades, whatever it's called.

I've seen little girls get obsessed with horses or ice skating the way this boy loved the go-carts. It's just embarrassing. These girls, they collect little horse action figures, they beg their parents for riding lessons, they read Misty of Chicoteague about a million times. They're like eight and all they care about is horses, and everyone else around them is thinking about what these girls want is this muscular thing under their command between their legs and it's just embarrassing for everybody except the girl that doesn't even know yet what it is she's trying to figure out. Jesus, how is anyone the parent of a girl anymore?

Or ice skating. And this kid was like that. Every chance he got he was back down at that arcade place putting out his allowance for another hour in the go-cart track. He's out there with kids who are like ten and he's seventeen. Sure, he's good compared to them. He can drive loops around them, and lots of kids go home crying from their birthdays or whatever reason they're at the arcade because he just took them to town on the go-carts. Just wiped the place up with them, these ten-year-olds who get in the cars thinking it's all for fun and not realizing they're on the track with such a competitor. He didn't care. It didn't see how it made such a difference. All that mattered was how good it felt to beat them.

He can't think there's a future in it. The Olympics of go-cart racing. Me and his dad would be sitting in the kitchen when he came home and we'd ask him: kicked any ten-year-old ass tonight? You sent any kids home crying today? Hey tough guy, you bring home the trophy? They'd do this shit when kids had birthday parties where everyone in the party would race and they give out a trophy at the end. I have this image of him taking the cup out of the hands of some blubbering kid. He probably figured he deserved it more because he loved the sport so goddamn much.

Some people waste their lives like that in the small time, never figure out that they're very good at something of little importance. So you won the junior high school spelling bee, who gives a shit? You're employee of the month, what fucking diff? King of the go-carts. Master of whimpering children.

Thing is, this kid was good. I went with his dad to pick him up. Seventeen and didn't have his drivers license yet. We watched from outside. I knew he was embarrassed, but still he watched, he's a good dad that way. Kids will always embarrass you, nothing new there. They're so dumb sometimes, there's no other way to say it, but you just put up with it and hope they turn out okay. So this kid was just tearing up the track, leaning into the curves and flying by the little kids like they were traffic cones. He had this maroon sparkly helmet on, like a bowling ball stuck on his head, and when he came around on to the homestretch you could see he was grinning under it. Smiling like he was crazy, happier than anyone has any right to expect. Lost to the world, edging around other little furious kids and not quite realizing they hate him for it. He's practically spilling out of the little go-cart, he weighs more than it now, but he's steering the tiny little wheel with expert finesse. He just can't let go. It's embarrassing how good he is, because he just cares so much more about it than anyone was ever meant to.

I'm going back to the car. It's just too depressing to see them lost this way, the father who wanted more and the kid who thinks this is as good as it gets. No one ever seems to get anywhere. You get really good at something, you want it to be the size of the world. Someday you figure out all you are is a little better than all the other stupid children on a closed circuit track. They leave and you stay on, getting better and better at nothing much at all.