Everyone thinks underground vacuum racing is about speed.
Those people have never smelled a burned-out motor at two hundred miles an hour while someone’s modified Hoover explodes into a confetti storm of HEPA filters and bad decisions.
Maxy says that’s when the sport gets interesting.
Joan says that’s when the insurance paperwork starts.
Neither of them is wrong.
The first rule of the Underground Vacuum Racing League is simple.
Never ask where the machines came from.
The second rule is even simpler.
Never laugh at another racer’s vacuum until you’ve beaten it.
Maxy leaned against The Bissell Banshee, her midnight-blue hover vacuum humming with enough illegal upgrades to make an engineer cry. The transparent dust chamber glowed electric blue, mostly because she’d replaced the dirt sensor with a plasma reactor she’d “found” behind an abandoned appliance repair shop.
“Found” was one of Maxy’s favorite words.
Joan rested a boot against her pride and joy—a hulking Hoover nicknamed The Dirtbag. It looked less like a household appliance and more like a small tank that had swallowed an entire hardware store. Hoses snaked across its armored shell like mechanical pythons, and the oversized collection bag proudly displayed DIRTBAG HOOVER CO.
“It ain’t pretty,” Joan often said.
“It ain’t supposed to be.”
The crowd roared from rusted catwalks suspended above the track. Sparks rained from broken welders. Neon betting boards flashed impossible odds.
1. Dirtgirl
2. Clean Sweep
3. Widow Maker
Maxy sighed.
“They still have me listed as Dirtgirl.”
Joan grinned.
“Considering you once vacuumed a man’s eyebrows off, I think it’s earned.”
“That happened one time.”
“Twice.”
“The second guy leaned too close.”
Their rivalry had started five years earlier over the last industrial shop vacuum at a flea market.
Neither woman had backed down.
The argument escalated.
Somebody suggested a race.
Nobody remembered who.
Now they owned a garage together.
Life was strange like that.
The announcer’s voice boomed through rusty speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s feature race!”
The crowd erupted.
“The Widow Maker versus…”
A dramatic pause.
“…THE DIRTBAG!”
Joan rolled her eyes.
“They never let me race anybody normal.”
Maxy patted the Hoover affectionately.
“That’s because normal people value self-preservation.”
The starting lights blinked.
Red.
Red.
Red.
Green.
Both machines launched forward with the unmistakable scream of overworked electric motors being pushed far beyond what any respectable manufacturer had intended.
Dust exploded behind them.
Loose bolts flew.
Someone’s toupee vanished into Joan’s intake hose.
She’d return it later.
Probably.
Halfway through the course, Maxy’s dashboard lit up.
WARNING: UNKNOWN OBJECT DETECTED.
She frowned.
“What now?”
Joan’s voice crackled over the radio.
“Don’t inhale it!”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know!”
The mysterious object bounced across the track.
Every racer swerved.
The audience held its breath.
The object rolled to a stop beneath a spotlight.
It was…
…a single LEGO brick.
Every veteran racer gasped.
“Dear Lord,” whispered Joan.
“The most dangerous obstacle known to humanity,” Maxy replied.
Neither woman dared drive over it.
There were limits.
Joan sacrificed the race.
She fired her emergency debris hose.
With a thunderous WHOOMP, the LEGO brick disappeared into The Dirtbag’s collection bag.
The audience exploded into applause.
One spectator actually wiped away a tear.
Heroes weren’t born.
Sometimes they simply had more suction.
Joan crossed the finish line second.
Maxy finished third after stopping to make sure Joan still had all her tires.
The prize money barely covered replacement filters.
As usual.
Back in their garage, they split a pizza while cleaning enough dirt from the vacuums to start a respectable compost pile.
Maxy raised her soda.
“Same time next Friday?”
Joan clinked her bottle against it.
“Absolutely.”
“What if we actually win one?”
Joan looked thoughtfully at The Dirtbag, then at The Bissell Banshee.
“Maxy…”
“Yeah?”
“I think we’re having way too much fun to become champions.”
Maxy smiled.
That was the thing about underground vacuum racing.
Nobody got rich.
Nobody got famous.
But if you found someone willing to spend a Friday night risking life and dignity on a heavily modified household appliance…
…you hung onto them tighter than a shop vac clinging to a bowling ball.
Because friends like that didn’t come along every day.
They had to be sucked into your life.
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Memoirs of Madness 