Chuck Palahniuk - Stranger Than Fiction (True Stories)

Twenty years old, Cochrane says, "Yeah, there are combine-demolition groupies. I don't think there are groupies from Lind, but they're from other towns. They kind of follow the little circuit, I think. There are only two derbies, so that's a little circuit."

Cochrane looks at the girls as one of them leaves her friends and heads over. "What are the groupies like? First of all," he says, "she's kind of a hick. Cowboy boots and shit like that. Kind of just the country way, but not like her." He nods as the girl walks up. Her name is Megan Wills. When asked why there are no women drivers, she says, "Because it's fucked! Josh got his ass kicked!"

"There used to be women drivers," Cochrane says.

"One! A long time ago!" shouts Wills, whose brother is on the pit crew for number 14, Beaver Patrol. "There's no women driving because that shit's fucked-up! I'm not going to take my ass in there. Fuck that! I'd rather get drunk and service all the hotties than fuckin' drive that shit! Hell, no!"

Cochrane tilts back his beer, then says, "I think if you don't drink any, you get too nervous. You get in there and you're all nerved up and shit. You got to get a little laid-back."

Before the consolation round, the judges walk through the pit area, telling people their thirty minutes of repair time is more than up. Only Mickie Mouse and J&M Fabrication are ready and waiting in the arena. The sun is below the horizon, and it's getting dark fast. Over the loudspeaker the judges announce: "We need nine combines in the ring. We only have two. We got seven to go."

Frank Bren, the driver of American Spirit, runs up, his T-shirt and hands soaked dark with motor oil, sweat, and crusted blood. "We're not going to make it," he tells the judges. "We can't get a hydraulic line changed out."

A judge reads the names of the combines still expected in the arena. "You're pushing the time limit," he says. "And you're pushing the judges."

Rambulance enters the ring, dragging a flat rear tire. Red Lightnin' makes it in. The Silver Bullet limps in. As the round starts, Red Lightnin' rams Rambulance, and sparks fly from the hit. The Silver Bullet digs its header into the front tires of J&M Fabrication. Rambulance loses its rear axle. Mickie Mouse loses a rear wheel. J&M Fabrication rams head-on into Red Lightnin'. Then Rambulance butts headers with J&M so hard that the rear ends of both combines bounce three feet into the air. Mickie Mouse snags Red Lightnin' hard enough to rip both rear wheels off, then pops a front tire. The hit rips the header off Mickie Mouse, and Davis drops his flag. He sits, sprawled in the driver's seat, his arms spread and his face tipped up at the dark sky. Rambulance drags itself around a field littered with bolts and scraps of metal. The Silver Bullet and J&M Fabrication slam Red Lightnin' so hard that the hit kills the Silver Bullet. Then J&M drops its flag.

While we wait for the wreckers to clean up and the winners to enter for the final showdown, Thompson throws more T-shirts into the stands. A huge orange moon comes up and seems to stop, balanced on the horizon.

The winners from the first three heats and any surviving combines enter the arena. It's full dark, and the red flags next to each driver look black, outlined against the smoke and dust. The radiator is failing on BC Machine, and the little Massey 510 combine is lost in a cloud of white steam. The engines of all nine combines roar together, and the final heat begins.

Right away Little Green Men loses its rear end and sits dead in a corner. Jaws rams the rear end of Beaver Patrol, killing it on the spot. BC Machine darts around the ring, filling the arena with steam from its spouting radiator. As a Burlington Northern freight train speeds past, blowing its whistle above the demolition noise, Jaws finds itself stuck, its header hooked under the dead rear end of Beaver Patrol. Porker Express crushes the ass end of Mean Gang-Green. The Turtle hides out, sitting with its rear wheels braced against the edge of the ring, where no combine can hit it without forcing it into the packed crowd. The Porker Express stops, dead. The Turtle ventures out to hit Rambulance, which now has no rear axle. In a corner Little Green Men sits dead, Cochrane's silver radar dish still spinning.

Hiding out at the edge, number 11, the Turtle, isn't a crowd favorite. "Some say I'm a sandbagger," says Schoesler, its driver. "That I just avoid contact a little too much. I like to think of it as the old Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope. Lay on the ropes and let them pound you where it doesn't hurt. And if there's an opening, you jab them and then retreat. It's worked pretty well over the years."

For Schoesler, who represents the Ninth Legislative District in the Washington State House of Representatives, the derby is a chance to campaign. He's planning to run for the State Senate.

"Being an elected official always generates a few jabs," he says. "All in fun, I hope. And a winner from a previous derby is a marked man. Having won in the past, I'm a target. Being an elected official makes me a double target."

In the arena now, BC Machine still fills the air with steam, and sparks shoot from its engine. The Turtle hides back, safe against the crowd of spectators.

Rambulance drops its flag. Mean Gang-Green rams the Turtle, driving it back into the crowd. J&M Fabrication rams the Turtle, and the dead combines sit, black and wrecked, just obstacles in the dark smoke- and steam-filled arena. The Turtle tries to escape and ends up pinched between Good Ol' Boys, Mean Gang-Green, and J&M Fabrication. BC Machine stops dead but with its radiator still steaming. The Turtle escapes, leaving its three attackers to slam one another. The header on J&M is still factory perfect, but the combine has no steering left in its ass end. You can smell hot, bitter brake fluid, and J&M Fabrication stops, with Miller stooped down, trying to restart the engine. The header drops off Mean Gang-Green, and Hardung is out. The Turtle still hides at the edge. Good Ol' Boys can hardly steer.

As the clock runs out, the judges rule. The money for first and second place is split between Mean Gang-Green and the Turtle. Good Ol' Boys takes third.

By 10:00 P.M. it's over, except for the serious drinking. Already cowboy boots kick up dust on their way to the parking lot. Country music mixes with hip-hop, and the air turns pink from thousands of taillights and brake lights waiting to turn onto the highway.

Terry Harding and the team for Red Lightnin' say, "Find us come midnight or one o'clock and we'll be blitzed."

Kevin Cochrane will go back to studying agriculture at Washington State.

Frank Bren will go back to driving his grain truck.

Mark Schoesler will no doubt go back to state government for another term. And the combines-Red Lightnin', Jaws, Beaver Patrol, Orange Crush-will sit parked and rusting until it's time to fix them and crash them and fix them and crash them, again and again, next year.

This is the way the men of Adams County come back together. The farmers, now working at jobs in the city. The families spreading apart. The kids, whose shared years in high school get further and further behind them. This is their structure of rules and tasks. A way to work and play, together. To suffer and celebrate. To reunite.

Until next year, it's all over. Except for tomorrow's parade. The rodeo and the barbecue. The stories and the bruises.

"They'll all be walking stiff tomorrow," says derby organizer Carol Kelly. "They'll have sore shoulders and arms. And their necks, they'll barely be able to turn their heads."

She says, "Of course they get hurt. If they tell you otherwise, they're lying so you think they're tough."

The faces that make eye contact, they're twisted into sneers. The top lip pulled up to show teeth, the whole face bunched around the nose and eyes. One blond Huck Finn kid walks along after us, slapping our legs and shouting, "I can see your NECK! Hey, asshole! I can see your neck from behind…"