Not for you (FIN)

>Not as long as I had wanted it to be, but I thought it would be a rather good idea to give you *less* of a prologue but rather slowly but surely start to introduce some better known characters to you than just my own...

This is also why I didn't give the other street racers any particular names, nor did I take time to describe them - they're not too important for the rest of the story.

By the way, I chose that particular 'Shasta' trailer for a lot of reasons: It's the only trailer that's relatively widespread in the US, can still be bought at half way reasonable prices, looks cool *and* could indeed be towed by the car which I describe as 'mine' in this story. Not that I would have ever seen a Shasta trailer myself, but I found them really lovely in the pictures I saw. That's definitely something I would love to own!

There's one slight 'change' I'm making on one of the original FATF-characters in this chapter and therefore in my story. I have thought long about how Vince would feel and / or be like after his accident (and the prison that would obviously follow his hospital stay...), and what you're reading here is what I came up with. If you've ever seen "House, MD" and are just a bit of a fan of that character, you'll know why I described Vince now being a bit like him. Vince *would* have changed after all this, given that he would have had the chance to think everything he did over, and he sure as hell would have had that time in hospital and prison.

Anyway... enough of the introduction... here it is....:




I really managed to get some sleep on that flight, though it wasn't as much as I had wished for, so I arrived fairly tired in New York; and the fact that you're asked a *lot* of questions if you want to stay in the US for a year didn't necessarily improve the sour mood I had by then.

This all resulted in me spending almost two days in my hotel bed, not without at least giving Dirk a call that I had arrived safely. I really wasn't in the mood to call Michael.

On the afternoon of the second day, I went internet researching for a small trailer I could buy. The biggest problem was the weight, my car wouldn't be able to tow anything heavier than about 1,900 pounds. As much as I would have wanted an Airstream, this wasn't an option because of the weight.

In the end I bought a 1959 Shasta travel trailer - without toilet and shower, so I spent a week in a hobby garage to install those very important things. I also threw out most of the interior, redesigning it to my needs. As much as I disliked having to work on a trailer instead of searching for Toretto, I knew that it would be important to have the trailer finished when my car would arrive. The trailer itself was just what I wanted, not too large, not too small and really cool looking; and the biggest advantage was the weight of 1800 pounds which meant I could still tow it with my small car.

I knew that the other men in the garage were eyeing me. They tried to approach me, offering their help, but as I refused, they were just staring at me, and I was incredibly thankful that most of the work had to be done inside the trailer where no one could watch me.

I can't even begin to describe how much I hated the two days I spent getting my car and my container out of the harbor once they had arrived. No one had told me I would have so much walking to do, from one office to the other, always being told that I needed papers signed which, of course, *should* have been signed at the office I had visited before.

But eventually I managed, took my car - which, to my own surprise, really did well with the new motor - picked up my trailer from the garage and then went on to emptying the container into the trailer. It had been a good idea to redesign the interior, now my belongings fit into the trailer without too much of a hassle.

And there I was, standing on a parking lot, installing the very last thing on my trailer: My computer and a wireless satellite internet connection. As soon as that was finished, I began scanning the well-known and not-so-well-known boards and sites for information on illegal street racing in New York, particularly the drivers.

This was the way I had found out back in Germany that Toretto had to be somewhere in New York, together with his old companions and some new ones. I just hoped that they hadn't moved by now.

I didn't find any information where they currently were, but I what I did find was the announcement for a street race for the next night. This was probably my way to get into that weird, strange world of American street racing, and so I decided to drive there - if not for participating, then at least for looking at it and maybe make my car and face known to other racers.

I found a safe place for my trailer, my car and myself, got some good hours of sleep, woke up early the next morning, drove to a store, bought two bottles of NOS and installed them to the pipes that were already in my car. I didn't dare to test them by daylight, so the only way of testing them was during an actual race, but I didn't mind. The boys had done such a fabulous job on the engine that I doubted they'd have done anything wrong with the piping and wiring.

The initial meeting for the race was on an old, abandoned warehouse parking lot; and I can't find words to express my sheer surprise and excitement about the massive amount of beautiful cars I saw when driving slowly and carefully towards them.

I was well aware of the funny faces and the eyebrows my car earned when I arrived. No wonder, my car was much smaller than most cars here plus it was twenty years older than most of them, but I didn't care. With that engine and equipment I would probably smoke them all.

I parked a bit aside from the big crowd and just watched. So many cars in one place was something I had rarely seen, and I had never seen so many beautiful and especially obviously fast cars in one place.

I also had never seen so many beautiful girls in one place and decided that I could afford to be a bit jealous: of their looks, bodies, hairstyles and clothes. Perhaps, I thought, I should start caring a bit more for my own appearance. But then I didn't want to impress the racers with my looks, I wasn't looking for a place on a passenger seat and certainly not for a bed to sleep - or not! - in, I was looking to winning some races.

Some of them walked by my car and snickered. I didn't care, in fact, I could understand them. Their cars were high tech equipped, shiny new machines; not almost 25 years old German low tech cars - that's, last not least, what my car still looked like from the outside. So I just stood there, smiled, and enjoyed watching the crowd; but no matter how much I looked around, I couldn't see any car or face I recognized from the videos I had seen. Never mind, I thought; New York is big, and there were probably a few dozen places where street racers would meet.

Eventually they lined up and two at a time were racing each other over a short distance. I still just watched, enjoying the sheer excitement of watching the cars.

A short-haired, too-thin-to-be-healthy girl on roller-skates came by and asked whose car I was leaning to. I told her this was mine.

"So you're a racer? Or have you just taken your boyfriend's ride out for a little tour?"

"Neither. As you can see, I'm just watching, not racing, and this is indeed my car - who needs boys to care for them?"

She grinned and handed me a flyer.

"Here, perhaps that's something for you."

I took a look at the flyer. "Girls race" it read, having a black and white car picture, a date and time for next week and a place written on it. My attention wasn't caught by either of them, but by a person in the background of the crudely cropped car picture. It looked almost like one of Toretto's old companions, Vince, but the picture was small and not too focussed.

"Thanks," I said, "nice car in the picture. Is that an actual racing car at that event?"

"Sure," she said, "was taken last week at our last race."

"Guess I should give it a try then," I said, hiding my excitement.

"Perhaps you should," she winked, rolling away on her skates. I stashed the flyer to my dashboard and continued watching the races.

Eventually they all obviously decided that it was time to leave for home, so I did about the same, not without having a nice chase with two other departing cars on my way.

I drove to the "Girls race" just to find that it was more about girls in wet t-shirts washing cars, and again I found no trace of Toretto or his followers, but got flyers for other races. So I went to those too, still found no trace of Toretto or anyone else I would recognize, but slowly but surely, my car got noticed. I still didn't race anyone at the actual events, but took each and every chance to race others on the way home.

So the question what I had under my hood came, eventually, but each time I opened it to show what actually was hidden there just brought me some really amazed and questioning looks. I just smiled in return and said nothing.

After almost eight weeks of practically nothing than driving from one end of New York to the other, fixing and building this and that in my trailer and silently smiling about what that cable- and tubeless thing under my hood was I had almost reached the point where I was about to forget about anything Toretto and just concentrate on watching street racing in general. There were so many good racers out there, I almost asked myself why I had ever thought that Toretto was, well, the king of the road, sort of.

The weekly phone calls with Dirk and Christian didn't exactly improve my mood either. From them I heard that Michael had obviously practically locked himself into his garage, working on something they had no idea about what it could possibly be. I knew he was brooding; I knew him too well.

And then, on a fine and warm early summer evening I visited a race which would change everything.

It started out as usual, racers meeting, talking and me by now no more so much standing at the very side of the meeting place, also talking to some people I knew by then, as suddenly a silver Nissan Skyline with some very, very unusual exhaust system, NOS purges at the sides of his car and a bright blue floor light showed up, and everyone became really quiet.

Me too - I knew that car.

"O'Conner", someone said. And as he came nearer, most of the racers turned their backs on him. I found that behavior unusual, so I thought it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Can anyone please explain why you turn your backs on him?" I said.
"That's a cop," another one said.

"As far as I know he's no more, and hasn't been for several years" I replied.

"Yes, but he was, and he cheated on one of us." Said someone else.

"And as far as I know that one has forgiven him." I said.

"He's a hell of a driver, and that car of his can't be beaten," came a voice from somewhere, "it would be extremely stupid to race him, unless you have too much money at hand."

"And that's a reason not to even just look at him? Or talk to him? Are you all cowards because he may be faster than all of you together, and therefore seek out poor excuses not having to race him?" I asked, snorting, walked to the hood of my car and sat down on it, facing Brian's arriving Nissan in a demonstrative manner.

His gaze wandered over the crowd and cars as he came nearer, clearly realizing that most of them didn't really wanted to look at him - the bright interior light in his car made me see his face extremely well.

When he drove by he looked at me for a moment, and I smiled, raised my hand to greet him. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed when he just drove by, made his way through the crowd and speeded away.

"He's gone," the first guy who had mentioned his name said, "we can continue."

I shook my head and snorted. "Is this here some kind of Kindergarten or what? Honestly, I had thought better of you than to not welcome him. He's one of the legends that are even known overseas, and mind you, they haven't heard of any of you there, as far as I can tell."

The namesaying guy approached me. "And how would you know that?"

"Because I came from overseas to see people like him, that's why. See my license plate? It's German, in case you shouldn't recognize it."

Suddenly it was me who they turned their backs on. Great, I thought, just great. I shrugged and was almost about to get into my car and drive back to my trailer as another guy who had been standing by his car in the shadow of a building nearby came limping towards us.

"She's right, you're all behaving like preschoolers. The only person who would have any right on turning his back on Brian is Dom, and he didn't. Not even I did, and I always suspected he was a cop."

My heart started racing faster than any car around would have been able to. Or perhaps it stopped doing anything, I wasn't too sure about this. Fact was I couldn't breathe when I recognized him.

Coming towards me was Vince, Dom's best friend, as far as I knew, with his trademark limp which he had since that weird accident. Some also called him 'Dr. Vince' or simply 'Doc' because of the limp, his beard stubbles, straightforwardness and therefore his obvious likeliness to a TV character known as Dr. House - well, at least they did that online...

"Hey Doc," said the namesaying guy.

...and also in real life, as it seemed.

"And to meet people like him, in case that shouldn't be obvious," I said, "hi Vince, nice to meet you."

"Fangirls!" He snorted with a grin, walking past me right to the namesaying guy.

"What exactly gives you the right to judge over Brian?" He asked.

"Well, he cheated on Dom and you and the whole team, and he even sent you to prison, so..."

"He did not send me to prison. He saved my life, and I sent myself to prison by doing the stupid things I did back then. I deserved prison for what I did. He saved my life, he saved Dom and the others from prison, and he gave up a very safe life as a cop to become an outlaw." He shook his head. "Who of you would do that for anyone? Give up a safe work, your home, family, car, - everything! - for people you've barely been knowing for a month? I bet none of you would do that. Hell, I wouldn't have done it for anyone before he did it for me."

"No, that's stupid," said someone else.

"That's not stupid," Vince answered.

"And that still doesn't make him a real racer," said the namesaying guy.

"You..." Vince pointed at him in an almost threatening manner, "you go and tell me what makes a real racer."

"Well," the guy started, "a good car, good driving skills and..."

"No," barked Vince, "wrong answer. Anyone else?"

"Number of races won?" guessed another.

"Still wrong answer. Hey, fangirl, do you know what makes a real racer?"

Okay, I thought, hope I get that right....

"It's about passion, I guess. Passion and compassion. It's about friendship, tolerance and self control. About seeing who needs help and give it, if you can, and all you can. Giving help means receiving help eventually, if and when you need it. It's about not turning your back on anyone, because people can change. It's about excitement, about adrenaline, and for some very few seconds it can be about freedom. And if you have all of this and train some years, then, eventually you could perhaps become a real racer, because then you would have what you need. Well, that's at least what racing means to me and the people who I think to be real racers, I can't speak for the others here..." I said, speaking with a small voice to my shoes, afraid to look at him in order not to see his outburst when I wouldn't get that right.

They had grown so quiet during my short speech that I almost thought they had vanished. One began to laugh, then another, and yet another, and I thought I had given the wrong answer while I was still hypnotizing my shoes.

Finally someone broke the laughter - with short, applauding claps of his hands. I looked up and was more than surprised to find that this clapping person was Vince.

"What's so funny?" He asked the others who stopped laughing and stared at him open mouthed. "That girl here is the only one of you who obviously got it right, and if you find that funny, I suggest selling the things you call racecars and buy bobbycars instead, learning a bit about the human factor in a race before you get into something again that has an engine."

Vince came to me and looked at me for a long moment. I just stared back at him. Was that the same man which I knew from other people's online talk? The one that was notorious for rather thinking with this fists than his brain? Well, I rethought, the nickname 'Doc' must have come from somewhere else than his likeliness to some TV doctor...

"You surprised me, so I'll surprise you. Here, take this." He pressed a crumpled paper into my hand. "Hope to see you there," he winked, ignoring anyone but me, then turned and slowly but surely walked, or rather limped, back to his car in the shadows.

By the time he had disappeared it seemed that the other racers had already conveniently forgotten that he had ever been there, except of making some not so funny jokes about how strange some people become when they grow older. I was still somewhat frozen in the position he left me, leaning to my hood, the hand half stretched out with - oh, had he given me something?

I opened my hand and carefully straightened the crumpled paper, trying to read what was written on it by hand, taking several attempts in doing so as I couldn't believe what he had given me.

Oh Gods... Gods of heavens, kingdoms, people and cars... in my hands was the address and date for the next Racewars event, something usually kept so secret that my otherwise very good online researches didn't even bring up the addresses to the previous events. And now, I guessed, I could consider myself being invited to it by Vince himself....

I burned the small paper right away, having the address and date already memorized, got into my car and speeded back to my trailer. If Vince had taught me one thing, it definitely was that those so-called 'racers' I had been spending the evenings of the last weeks with were not worth spending time with them.

That night I couldn't get any sleep. I tossed and turned and was tired like hell, but I couldn't sleep; too many thoughts raced through my brain.

So that had been Vince. Good lord, had that man changed, at least compared with what I thought to know about him from what other people said, or rather wrote. The face was the same but the behavior wasn't. And I couldn't say that I didn't like to what he had changed.

And he gave me the address to Racewars. I had expected that from anyone but him. Anyone, really, but never him, especially if he didn't know me at all, which obviously was the case after just exchanging a few words with me.

I still had almost a week to get there, but I think that was something good - I could train a little for the races in which I definitely wanted to participate, plus there was this big problem: Where the hell was that new Racewars place, anyway? Somewhere in Missouri... While lying on the bed, I started rummaging through my maps, planning an appropriate route. That would take me through half of the US, as I realized. Not that I would have bothered, though; after the weeks in New York it was about time to see something else.

In the early morning the sleep finally overwhelmed me and I slept until late afternoon, just to wake up in a mess of maps. I packed the ones away that I didn't need, packed the others into the car, tidied the trailer a bit, hooked it to my car and slowly but surely moved out of New York, moving west, towards the Racewars camp in Missouri.