Intro:
Howdy folks! Thanks for dropping by! This is my first attempt at anything like this, and you can thank (or swear at) my good friend Kissaki for prompting me to explore this avenue of creativity.
I've added a Glossary and Notes section at the end of the story to help clarify a few things, for those readers out there who have no grasp of the genre I've set this in. I hope it helps!
And now I guess, onto the story...
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Amos Dumbledore waited for the last television set to be turned off in the trailer before venturing out from the shadows. He spotted her almost immediately...a very out-of-place cat on this particular spread. "Izzat you, Minnie?" inquired Amos quietly. With as much of a look of disappointment as a cat could muster, it materialized into a matronly older woman before Amos Dumbledore. "Yes" she said just a tad tersely, "I thought I'd have you pokin' around here for hours trying to find me!"
"Oh, lucky me" mumbled Dumbledore.
It was hard to be very fussed about Minnie's disposition. Everybody was on edge after the news.
"So, it's true then is it? Lily and Earl Potter?" she inquired nervously. Upon Amos' reassuring look that the stories were indeed true, she began to slowly shake her head. "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Who'd a thunk it? What of their young'un? Harry?"
"Hack's bringing him here as we speak" said Dumbledore.
"You really think that's a good idea? Hack's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer." Minnie McGonnegal had little use for a layabout such as Hack. "He managed to git hisself tossed outta Hogwarts, how can you trust him so?"
"I would trust Hack with my life, Minnie. And have on a couple of occaisions."
As if on queue, the rumble of some mechanical nightmare approached them quickly. From astride the mechanical horse strode a mountain of a man. Long haired, bearded, clad in coveralls that looked as if they hadn't been washed since they were bought described Hack to the perverbial 'T'. Since it was a cold
night, he was wearing an old Army field jacket to help keep warm. "Evenin' Perfesser, Mizz McGonnegal" he said.
"Hack, where's the boy?" inquired Amos, almost too quickly. "Got him bundled up rightchere to keep him warm" said Hack, as he produced a large bundle from under the bib of his overalls. The infant was fast asleep.
"My stars!" exclaimed Minnie, "What is that on his forehead?"
All eyes looked to young Harry, and lo and behold there was a mark in the shape of a lightning bolt above his right eye, clear as day. "A result of the curse" said Amos. The others nodded in silent agreement. "He'll wear it with him the rest of his days as a reminder of a most terrible act, which he survived, and
will never be able to recall. A trophy of sorts, of having bested Old M..."
"PROFESSOR!" hissed Minnie, as loud as she could get away with. "Don't speak that devil's name aloud! We all know who done it, we don't need to be callin' out what's-his-name! I for one don't believe he's dead and gone, no siree. And I'm certainly not the only one."
She was right. The look in Hack's eyes confirmed he also suspected as much, and truth be told, Dumbledore agreed with them that their nemesis was not gone, merely weakened. However, he was not afraid to speak his name aloud, but now was no time to impress upon his compadres the downright silliness
of their superstitions.
"You can't still be thinkin' to leave him with these...people, can you?" Minnie almost spat out the word 'people' in her sentence. "I've been keepin' an eye on them. They're terrible! That woman has boxes of instant grits in her cupboard, they put beans in their chili for heavens sake, and they think the Von Erichs'
are on their way out of wrasslin'! " Minnie was almost indignant at this point.
Amos diplomatically stepped in with a very soothing "Shhh" putting his finger to his lips. "They're also the only kin little Harry's got. Besides" added Amos, "nobody will find him here."
At that, Amos walked up to the front door of the fairly new trailer home and set the bundled infant at the threshold. He then placed a letter in the folds of the blanket. "So that he'll know who he is one day" said Amos.
When he returned to his little group, he looked meaningfully at Hack who was obviously fighting back tears. "Now, now, Hack. Harry will be fine" he said reassuringly.
"I know, perfessor. Just don't seem right, a boy that young losing his momma and his daddy. Especially that way" he said, referring to their horrible plight. "But, I reckon he's gonna be famous."
"That's right, Hack. Our entire world will know the name of Harry Potter. He's the boy who lived."
Young Harry awoke with a start, and then a thought. Does a rooster have some innate sense to pick the worst time, on the worst day, to find the worst spot to start crowing? This time Red was right next to his window. Harry knew it would be mere moments before Aunt Daisy or his cousin Dirk would make
sure he was up to start on his chores.
With a heavy sigh, Harry slid on his freshest pair of jeans, an old Stryper t-shirt that had been handed down from Uncle Vern, to Dirk, somehow missing Blue (the family hound) in the process before it wound up in Harry's possession. He was pulling on his beat up pair of Justins when the clanging began.
Harry lived just outside of the Dursley's proper residence. They had a pre- fabricated home.what the rest of the world called a trailer, or maybe a mobile home. It was definitely a nice one, nicer than any on the street. It was only a single-wide though, because Uncle Vern had said they could get a much better
home if they didn't go for the double-wide. But Harry did not live within the confines of 'Dursley Manor.' No, Uncle Vern had made a deal with old man Williams, and limped home an ancient Winnebago RV. Recreational Vehicle. Harry chuckled everytime he heard that term because he simply could not
imagine just what anybody would find remotely recreational to do in that thing, even when it must have been new.
Of course, Uncle Vern had built up the situation first. "Harry, I've decided you need your own space" he said. Harry of course was in shock.it was one of the very rare times that any of the Dursley's spoke civil to him, much less took it upon themselves to consider any aspect of Harry's welfare. At least, considering
his welfare in some way that wasn't designed to make it any more miserable. That fact right there should have been his first warning, but Uncle Vern, Aunt Daisy, and Dirk were too happy to know he was going to be not sharing the same roof as them that he missed all the signals to the contrary.
Then came that fateful Thursday evening, back when Uncle Vern still owned an Ford F-150, he pulled into the Dursley's yard with this museum piece of American road heritage behind it. Of course the Winnebago had seen a good number of years go by since the last time it went anywhere under it's own
power. Probably more years than Harry had been alive in fact. When Harry learned that this was to be his new home the number of emotions struggling for his attention was tremendous.
What happened immediately afterwards is the truly strange part. The towing strap Uncle Vern had used snapped and the Winnebago was rolling by the sheer grace of gravity towards the telephone pole, easily 60 feet away. It was creaking and complaining the entire way, and struck the pole soundly. The
pole seemed to survive ok, but the back end of the Winnebago was crumpled pretty bad.
Uncle Vern slowly leveled his extremely unamused gaze at Harry after witnessing this occurrence. "I'm tellin' you, boy, this is EXACTLY why you git yer own space. I dunno how you done it, but I KNOW it was YOU who done that" pointing at the newly repositioned RV. Uncle Vern's voice had experienced a pretty
healthy crescendo during those few sentences. Harry didn't know whether to be impressed that it was the most Uncle Vern had spoken to him in any one session in quite some time, or feel he was again in trouble for something that clearly wasn't his fault.
That was four years ago. Uncle Vern had since traded in his F-150 for a Chevy Dually Crew Cab that he was immensely proud of. Harry had to move into the RV the night it repositioned itself. The RV just flat stunk. Much of it was because it had sat behind old man Williams' barn for God knows how many years to
rot, but there were clear and definite signs that SOMETHING had lived in it recently. Harry had managed to patch up some of the bigger holes, and remove what was left of the original carpet and seat cusions that had long ago become someone's science experiment. These four years later, it still retained a
good bit of it's musty, moldy smell.
There were times when Harry would sit up front, in the drivers seat, and pretend to be on the road, going whereever the pavement could take him. That didn't last long, however, once Dirk spotted him up there. The very next day, Dirk had decided that he just couldn't do without his own chair on the porch,
and that of course came out of Harry's RV.
About two weeks shy of four years ago, Harry managed to give the Dursley's a good scare, apparently. He decided to stay outside at night and watch the stars, just to see what he could see. Blue chose that night to be far more active than usual, and Harry managed to startle him, causing Blue to bark out a
warning that woke the whole area. Lights in the trailer came on, horses whinnied, other dogs started to bark, all before Uncle Vern got out the front door with his 12-guage in hand to see just what in the hell was going on.
He of course found Harry out in the yard staring up at nothing.
"What in the hell's goin' on out here?" bellowed Uncle Vern.
"Nuthin' " replied Harry.
"Nuthin' my ass. What's Blue barkin' at?"
"Me. I decided to do a little star-gazing tonight and I think I surprised him."
Uncle Vern closed his eyes and furrowed his brow in a vain attempt to comprehend the moment. "Boy," he muttered, "you got yerself exactly three seconds
to git your butt back in that RV. AND STAY THERE!"
The next day found Uncle Vern adding a hasp to each of the RV's doors. From that night on, when Harry was sent to bed it was never without Uncle Vern, Aunt Daisy, or Dirk accompanying him to his RV to lock him in at night.
The clanging that greeted him this particular morning had to come from Dirk pounding a tire iron on the doorframe. Nobody else's pounding was that enthusiastic. Except perhaps Aunt Daisy's, but then she usually had to have some drama to be wound up over to get THAT enthusiastic.
"Git up, cousin!" yelled Dirk. Harry found Dirk to be a bit of a mystery. Most schoolyard bully types you could just ignore and after awhile, after a long while in a couple of cases, they would get bored with whatever they were trying to bug you with and move on to something else. Not Dirk. Harry couldn't quite
decide if it was Dirk's inability to realize Harry wasn't reacting much to him anymore, or dogged determination on Dirk's part, but Harry was pretty much sold on putting it down to Dirk's inability to figure things out.
"I'm up, I'm up" muttered Harry. And stomped towards the door to open it. It remained locked. Dirk heard the familiar huffing from the other side that signified Dirk's laughter at the situation. 'Dirk, the easily amused, often is' thought Harry quietly to himself.
"Yer gonna be in trouble if yer late gittin' yer chores done, cousin Harry!" taunted Dirk. "You wouldn't wanna git into trouble now would ya?!?"
This was a regular game of Dirks. Dirk of course thought it was hilarious, and found new hilarity each time he perpetrated it on Harry. When Vern or Daisy scolded Harry for not getting his morning chores done they didn't particularly care to hear any excuses. So Harry had just learned to take it in stride.
"C'mon, Dirk, unlock the stupid door already" yelled Harry. Harry often let himself fall victim to Dirk's mindless pranks because they had the nasty habit of getting under Harry's skin, mostly because they were so, well, mindless. Dirk obviously had great fun at Harry's outburst and his noiseless laughter sounded
as if Dirk were perhaps having some kind of seizure. That was a regular morning fantasy of Harry's.
Finally he heard Dirk left the padlock out of the hasp and Harry could open the door. "Yer late" said Dirk. "I don't think Aunt Daisy's gonna be too happy with you, making her wait on her breakfast and all. "
Harry just rolled his eyes and headed for the barn to feed the horses.
"And ya know, today ain't a day she's gonna take to bein' late. Not...at...all."
Harry rounded on Dirk at that, to find him standing there with a very surprising look of smug satisfaction on his face. It wasn't often Harry found Dirk smart enough to be very smug, but this time Dirk knew he had struck gold. It was Dirks birthday.
Dirks birthdays were always momentous occaisions. Vern and Daisy went to great pains to celebrate and lavish Dirk with tokens of their affection. Half the trailer was filled with the discards of their tokens, either because Dirk had grown bored with them or managed to render them inoperable. There was one
room solely devoted to Dirks discards. Old footballs, Nintendo's, and bicycles in various states of disrepair. If anything stood in the way of Vern and Daisy's attempt at making the day go as smoothly as possible, it would be met with an increased amount of rancor.
Harry sighed deeply, shook his head while he closed his eyes, and ran to the barn leaving the sound of Dirks laughter behind him.
Fortunately for Harry, he wasn't as late as he'd thought. He apparently managed to make up some time while hurrying through his chores, and even if he was a few minutes late, Aunt Daisy didn't seem to notice. "Don't burn the bacon this time" Aunt Daisy warbled at him, "and don't turn the heat up too high
for the eggs, you know how he hates them when the edges get crispy." Things seemed to be fairly normal this morning in Harry's opinion. That changed very quickly when Dirk and Uncle Vern came into the kitchenette.
"Happy Birthday, sugar!" squeaked Aunt Daisy, giving Dirk a big hug. "Happy Birthday, boy!" said Uncle Vern while giving Dirk an exaggerated clap on the back. "This is a big day!"
Harry kept to fixing the breakfast. Harry hadn't ever had a birthday celebration before.
"We got you some great presents this year, boy! And after you open them, guess what? We're going into town!" Uncle Vern positively beamed. Dirk looked extremely excited. "You mean," gasped Dirk, "you mean we're really going?"
"That's right!" exclaimed Uncle Vern. Harry had no clue what they were referring to, but obviously Uncle Vern was almost as excited about going whereever it was as much as Dirk. "We've got tickets to the time trials at the speedway!"
There seemed to be a general release of excitement at the saying of those words, although they all pretty much had to know what the big event was before Uncle Vern got around to saying so. Harry found it curious that Uncle Vern would indulge Dirk's passion for NASCAR. Not that Uncle Vern wasn't a
NASCAR fan, he was, and tremendous one at that. But Uncle Vern was a Dale Earnhardt fan...and Dirk liked Jeff Gordon. That led to many a fued that lasted all weekend long during race season. But today was different. Today was Dirks birthday. His 11th birthday at that.
After breakfast, and after all the presents had been torn into, the clock finally arrived at the moment when they needed to pack up and go. Dirk and Aunt Daisy piled into the crew cabbed Chevy dually, and just before Harry could open his door Uncle Vern spun him around by the shoulder. "Now listen up, boy.
There ain't gonna be no weird stuff, ya un'erstand? I ain't puttin' up with NUTHIN' outta you. Ya got it??" Harry nodded and got in the truck.
It took the better part of an hour to drive to the speedway normally. Being that there was a NASCAR event going on, it took over two hours, and they had to park in a field across the street and walk from there. Being that it was summer, the heat was almost overwhelming. Harry, who had a wiry frame and
whose chores tended to keep him in decent shape, wasn't having too hard of a time with it, but the rest of the Dursleys were given to being a bit on the pudgy side, and Dirk even more so.
By the time they reached the grandstands, Harry noticed the early signs of sunburn on Dirks face and arms. Aunt Daisy apparently noticed it too, and quickly rubbed Dirk down with a coconut scented conconction designed to keep from getting too burnt. She then proceeded to apply liberal amounts to herself and
passed the squirt bottle to Uncle Vern. Uncle Vern was used to the outdoors, being a feed salesman, so he didn't use very much. There was virtually none left when he finally passed it to Harry. Harry spread what he could on his forearms and pulled his gimme cap a little lower, hoping his face wouldn't burn. Harry didn't care for the smell of coconut anyway.
Harry didn't follow NASCAR very much. He knew enough by listening to Uncle Vern and Dirks feuds to know who most of the important drivers were and what corporate logo they drove for. But when it came to what all is involved in a race, or in this case a time trial, he expected it would be pretty much what he
briefly glimpsed on television: cars going around in a circle really really fast, and shirtless people much like the Dursleys sitting on the tops of actual working RV's drinking beer. They were here, too, he could see them across the track in the infield. But they were in the grandstands, and since this was a time trial,
there were very few cars on the track at any one time, and they weren't really racing each other. It took a little longer for Dirks enthusiasm to wane than Harry at first anticipated, but after a couple of Uncle Vern's impatient replies to Dirks repeated requests to look through Vern's binoculars, the truth came out. "They ain't gonna be no racing today, son" Vern said in his best impatiently-nice tone of voice. "These are time trials, remember? They use these to figger out whose gonna be in which startin' position. 'Course, we all KNOW that Earnhardt's gonna get the pole..."
It was a remark designed to provoke Dirk, and provoke it did. Dirk exercised his normal lack of diplomatic skills in letting Uncle Vern know exactly what he thought of Dale Earnhardt, but Dirk also did not have the presence of mind to take into consideration who's shirts and hats most of the crowd around them
were wearing. This was Earnhardt country, and Dirk was making himself no friends.
The voracity of Dirks tirade surprised even Harry, and took that opportunity to announce that he was going to see if he could get up toward the fence, or maybe even the pit., and with the barest of acknowledgements from Aunt Daisy, he took off.
Harry really had no intention of mingling with the mass of humanity that was already at the fence, and had little interest in seeing the pit area. Instead, he wandered out toward the concession area. He had managed to scrape together a couple of dollars, and he was dying of thirst. So he went to buy a Coke.
He then scouted for a place to get out of the direct heat, because it would melt the ice in his coke before he got halfway through it otherwise. He found some shade under the grandstands out near the grass, and headed there. He was suprised how quiet and unoccupied it was down there, but then a roar
of approval from the crowd above provided explaination. Dale Earnhardt had obviously taken to the track, and was now performing some warm-up laps. If this had been race-day, Harry was sure he'd never have had this area to himself.
After Harry had enjoyed his coke, he wandered back out into the sunlight. He found an area where some people had brought things to sell and display. He found some taxidermied animals, wallets and belts made out of snakeskin, a table full of beanie babies, he even found a 'gypsy' who offered to read his
palm for free. That little episode struck Harry as very odd. Harry was just wandering by her booth, and she made him the same offer she had made to every other passerby. Being that it was so hot, Harry removed his cap and wiped his brow. When he looked back up at her, she was gazing at Harry for a moment, for all the world looking like she could not believe her eyes. She then seemed extremely nice to Harry, although that wouldn't be hard. Harry was used to people either not noticing him, or not being at all nice to him. Harry happened to also notice she did not seem quite as nice to the other people, either, and he caught her continuing to look after him. That made Harry feel a bit creepy so he went to another section of the fairgrounds and found something that made him really take notice: The Snake Charmers.
Harry had only heard about these people but never thought they really existed. Yet here they were, with a sign and everything. And snakes...more snakes than Harry ever thought could live in one tank. They were all writhing and sticking their tongues out, and it fascinated Harry. He recognized many of them from science classes, and most of them were some form of grass snake. But Harry then came up on a snake in a tank all by itself that he didn't believe. He stood there in obvious awe, because the grizzled old man tending the display spoke "Ain't ya never seen one o' them afore, son? That there's a Diamondback rattler. Careful now, we don't want him bitin' anybody!" the old man cackled in self amusement. "Check this out" he said, and he removed the cover of the tank and reached in with his bare hands. Harry was stunned, he was certain the old man was going to get bit! "See? Gentle as a lamb" he said as he picked up the snake. As the snake uncoiled, it was far bigger than Harry, or many of the rest of the small crowd that was developing, had thought.
"Wanna hold him, son?" the old man asked Harry. Or at least he thought he was asking Harry, but suddenly Dirk appeared at his shoulder, and Harry realized Uncle Vern and Aunt Daisy were there, too. Dirk looked pale, which was a real trick for as much sun as he had already absorbed. So Harry just said "Sure." Before Aunt Daisy's protests gained volume, Harry had stepped up and held out his hands. The old man made to put the snake across Harry's outstretched hands when Harry heard "I hate that old man..."
Harry looked around quickly, then looked at the old man. The old man appeared as if he hadn't heard a word, and it looked like Dirk was still too petrified to have said it. "What am I, some kind of circus freak?" Harry realized he was hearing the snake talk. He simply could not believe his ears. The crowd was
thinning, having seen a young boy handle something as dangerous as a diamondback they figured something was up, and were rapidly losing interest. Aunt Daisy had switched from voicing her objections to Harry handling the huge snake to tending to Dirks uneasy stomach. Uncle Vern had apparently wandered over to the t-shirt vendor. The old man had turned away momentarily, so Harry spoke in a quiet voice "you can speak? That's amazing!"
"Alright, that's enough" the old man said, half laughing. "Had his fangs and poison sacks removed a couple of years ago when I first got him. Even if he wanted to be ornery, he couldn't." At that, the old man took the snake and place him back in the aquarium tank, and replaced the screen over the top. "He couldn't hurt a fly, but nobody can tell that by lookin' at him." The old man then went to tend to one of the other tanks.
Harry leaned down and said "can you hear me?" "Yeth.." came the reply. He clearly had the snakes attention now. "How would you feel, living in a thmall cage for motht of your life?" said the snake. "I wishth I could ethcape."
Harry immediately sympathized. It must be a terrible fate he thought, then he thought about his own situation. Even though the snake didn't have a Dirk to contend with, that problem was quickly solved. Harry was violently shoved aside by a reinvigorated Dirk who blurted "I heard what the old man said, no fangs, no poison! No big trick to handling them then, is there?!?" Dirk began knocking on the glass to get some kind of reaction out of the snake.
At that moment, it was as if the aquarium just gave up hope. First, Harry thought Dirk had simply broken the tank. It would have been no big surprise if he had. But Harry saw no broken glass, no pieces anywhere. But then his attention was immediately diverted to the huge Diamondback wrapping himself around Dirks outstretched arm, making its way quickly up toward Dirk's head.
It took a couple of moments for Dirk to find his voice, and when he did, he found the loudest part first. Dirk was screaming, and starting to flail. He knocked Harry to the ground in his impromptu choreography and managed to shake the snake loose, but only after getting the attention of the crowd and causing them all to panic. The only two people in the crowd not trying to distance themselves from Dirk were the old man and Aunt Daisy. "Thankth, buddy..." Harry heard as he searched for his dislodged glasses. When he regained them, he couldn't find the snake anywhere. The old man was looking around furiously, shouting "It's alright, he's toothless!" and took off in a direction he determined the snake had gone. Dirk had managed to get sick in all the excitement and was wearing half the result all down the front of his jeans and his new Jeff Gordon t-shirt. Aunt Daisy was futily trying to clean him up.
Mere moments later, Harry percieved a presence directly behind him. He looked up to see the towering, unhappy visage of Uncle Vern. Harry quickly looked at the aquarium on the table, only to find it completely intact. "I told you, boy" Uncle Vern said through clenched teeth, "I wasn't gonna abide nuthin' weird
today. I dunno what you done, but I know you was the one who done it. You are gonna catch such a beatin' when we git home."
Glossary and Notes
The setting is supposed to be what's considered America's "Deep South." This could be just about any of the former Confederate States, but I pictured
something like Georgia or Alabama, maybe even Texas. America's 'South' has a unique culture all it's own, and that's what I've tried to represent. However,
for anybody completely unfamiliar with the area or culture, some of the references I've used might be completely lost on the reader, so I thought I'd try to
do a little bit of explaining here.
If I didn't cover something you have any questions about, please feel free to email me.
Trailer - used generically, this term applies to a lot of variations on some kind of apparatus you hook up to another vehicle and tow. Anything from a little
moving trailer you can hook up to a car, to a semi-trailer you find attached to a big diesel truck, or lorry. However in this case, it is a dwelling. There are
'trailer parks' all over America, they are typically very low cost and do not have the structural integrity of regular homes. Trailers typically have a 'regular'
size, then there are larger versions which are basically two of them stuck together, known as 'double- wide's' because they are twice as wide as the normal
ones. Not all people living in trailers live in a trailer park, though. When you get out into rural country it is not uncommon to see a trailer as the dwelling on a
large-ish plot of land. This was the setting I envisioned.
Dually - I don't think this is a real word, but it is a term used to describe a pickup-truck with dual rear wheels. Typically this is found on very large pickup
trucks, designed to haul very heavy loads. It is also a feature often purchased just to show off with. Where exactly Uncle Vern's reason for having a dually
comes into play is somewhere inbetween!
Chevy - a common truncation of Chevrolet.
NASCAR - the National Association of Stock Car Racing. Or something very close to that. Today's NASCAR is enjoying it's highest popularity ever. And while
auto racing is very popular all across the USA, the 'South' has come to embrace it as their own. It is not uncommon to see people adorn their personal
vehicles with the number of their favorite driver somewhere on their back window. The race cars are very colorful, and typically are sponsored by multiple
concerns, but there is generally one primary corporate sponsor whose logo and colors dominate the decorative scheme of the car.
Dale Earnhardt - an extremely popular race car driver who, sadly, lost his life earlier in the year 2001 at the end of the first race of the season. He was
nicknamed 'The Terminator' because of his no-holds barred style of competition. His car was sponsored by GM (General Motors, the home of Chevrolet)
Goodwrench, whose primary color is black.
Jeff Gordon - another extremely popular race car driver, but for different reasons. He is very young and handsome, and it is no big secret that his daddy paid
a lot of money to buy Jeff a race car team and train him to be the driver, instead of 'working his way up through the ranks' as so many other drivers must.
He wins often, too. He seems to be a driver that a lot of NASCAR fans love to hate.
pickup truck - a very common personal vehicle. It consists of a cab, much like a car except it only has the front seat and no room behind them, and
sometimes they have either 'extended cabs' which include space behind the front seats, or crew cab which has four door and a full back seat just like a car.
Behind the cab is an open cargo area.
grits vs. instant grits - ok, I have no personal knowledge on this one, I was just borrowing the reference from the movie "My Cousin Vinnie" which does a
pretty good job of showing the clashes of cultures in America. It is set in the deep American south as well. I am to understand that 'instant grits' are
considered less than desirable.
Von Erichs - a stage name of a family of professional wrestlers. The father enjoyed notoriety as a professional wrestler, and his sons continued the tradition.
in the 80's they were very popular, but as 1990 drew near the family experienced a number of tragedies, and between medical problems and suicides, at
least four of the brothers perished.
Wrestling - I of course am referring to the WWF and its ilk.
RV - Recreational Vehicle. This term is applied to those self-contained monstrosities roaming the highways and byways of America (and beyond!) They range
anywhere from just enough room to curl up and go to sleep in the back, to palaces on wheels where you have enough room to entertain a medium number
of guests and put them all up for the night without ever having to leave the vehicle. However in this instance of course we're dealing with a very old one. It
just seems to me you often see these things rotting outside some rural home as if it got parked there and forgotten about...come to think of it that seems
to happen with a lot of automobiles in rural communities, but the RV suits the story's purpose! Winnebago is a popular maker of these.
Justins - Justin is a popular boot maker out of Texas.
Howdy folks! Thanks for dropping by! This is my first attempt at anything like this, and you can thank (or swear at) my good friend Kissaki for prompting me to explore this avenue of creativity.
I've added a Glossary and Notes section at the end of the story to help clarify a few things, for those readers out there who have no grasp of the genre I've set this in. I hope it helps!
And now I guess, onto the story...
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Amos Dumbledore waited for the last television set to be turned off in the trailer before venturing out from the shadows. He spotted her almost immediately...a very out-of-place cat on this particular spread. "Izzat you, Minnie?" inquired Amos quietly. With as much of a look of disappointment as a cat could muster, it materialized into a matronly older woman before Amos Dumbledore. "Yes" she said just a tad tersely, "I thought I'd have you pokin' around here for hours trying to find me!"
"Oh, lucky me" mumbled Dumbledore.
It was hard to be very fussed about Minnie's disposition. Everybody was on edge after the news.
"So, it's true then is it? Lily and Earl Potter?" she inquired nervously. Upon Amos' reassuring look that the stories were indeed true, she began to slowly shake her head. "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Who'd a thunk it? What of their young'un? Harry?"
"Hack's bringing him here as we speak" said Dumbledore.
"You really think that's a good idea? Hack's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer." Minnie McGonnegal had little use for a layabout such as Hack. "He managed to git hisself tossed outta Hogwarts, how can you trust him so?"
"I would trust Hack with my life, Minnie. And have on a couple of occaisions."
As if on queue, the rumble of some mechanical nightmare approached them quickly. From astride the mechanical horse strode a mountain of a man. Long haired, bearded, clad in coveralls that looked as if they hadn't been washed since they were bought described Hack to the perverbial 'T'. Since it was a cold
night, he was wearing an old Army field jacket to help keep warm. "Evenin' Perfesser, Mizz McGonnegal" he said.
"Hack, where's the boy?" inquired Amos, almost too quickly. "Got him bundled up rightchere to keep him warm" said Hack, as he produced a large bundle from under the bib of his overalls. The infant was fast asleep.
"My stars!" exclaimed Minnie, "What is that on his forehead?"
All eyes looked to young Harry, and lo and behold there was a mark in the shape of a lightning bolt above his right eye, clear as day. "A result of the curse" said Amos. The others nodded in silent agreement. "He'll wear it with him the rest of his days as a reminder of a most terrible act, which he survived, and
will never be able to recall. A trophy of sorts, of having bested Old M..."
"PROFESSOR!" hissed Minnie, as loud as she could get away with. "Don't speak that devil's name aloud! We all know who done it, we don't need to be callin' out what's-his-name! I for one don't believe he's dead and gone, no siree. And I'm certainly not the only one."
She was right. The look in Hack's eyes confirmed he also suspected as much, and truth be told, Dumbledore agreed with them that their nemesis was not gone, merely weakened. However, he was not afraid to speak his name aloud, but now was no time to impress upon his compadres the downright silliness
of their superstitions.
"You can't still be thinkin' to leave him with these...people, can you?" Minnie almost spat out the word 'people' in her sentence. "I've been keepin' an eye on them. They're terrible! That woman has boxes of instant grits in her cupboard, they put beans in their chili for heavens sake, and they think the Von Erichs'
are on their way out of wrasslin'! " Minnie was almost indignant at this point.
Amos diplomatically stepped in with a very soothing "Shhh" putting his finger to his lips. "They're also the only kin little Harry's got. Besides" added Amos, "nobody will find him here."
At that, Amos walked up to the front door of the fairly new trailer home and set the bundled infant at the threshold. He then placed a letter in the folds of the blanket. "So that he'll know who he is one day" said Amos.
When he returned to his little group, he looked meaningfully at Hack who was obviously fighting back tears. "Now, now, Hack. Harry will be fine" he said reassuringly.
"I know, perfessor. Just don't seem right, a boy that young losing his momma and his daddy. Especially that way" he said, referring to their horrible plight. "But, I reckon he's gonna be famous."
"That's right, Hack. Our entire world will know the name of Harry Potter. He's the boy who lived."
Young Harry awoke with a start, and then a thought. Does a rooster have some innate sense to pick the worst time, on the worst day, to find the worst spot to start crowing? This time Red was right next to his window. Harry knew it would be mere moments before Aunt Daisy or his cousin Dirk would make
sure he was up to start on his chores.
With a heavy sigh, Harry slid on his freshest pair of jeans, an old Stryper t-shirt that had been handed down from Uncle Vern, to Dirk, somehow missing Blue (the family hound) in the process before it wound up in Harry's possession. He was pulling on his beat up pair of Justins when the clanging began.
Harry lived just outside of the Dursley's proper residence. They had a pre- fabricated home.what the rest of the world called a trailer, or maybe a mobile home. It was definitely a nice one, nicer than any on the street. It was only a single-wide though, because Uncle Vern had said they could get a much better
home if they didn't go for the double-wide. But Harry did not live within the confines of 'Dursley Manor.' No, Uncle Vern had made a deal with old man Williams, and limped home an ancient Winnebago RV. Recreational Vehicle. Harry chuckled everytime he heard that term because he simply could not
imagine just what anybody would find remotely recreational to do in that thing, even when it must have been new.
Of course, Uncle Vern had built up the situation first. "Harry, I've decided you need your own space" he said. Harry of course was in shock.it was one of the very rare times that any of the Dursley's spoke civil to him, much less took it upon themselves to consider any aspect of Harry's welfare. At least, considering
his welfare in some way that wasn't designed to make it any more miserable. That fact right there should have been his first warning, but Uncle Vern, Aunt Daisy, and Dirk were too happy to know he was going to be not sharing the same roof as them that he missed all the signals to the contrary.
Then came that fateful Thursday evening, back when Uncle Vern still owned an Ford F-150, he pulled into the Dursley's yard with this museum piece of American road heritage behind it. Of course the Winnebago had seen a good number of years go by since the last time it went anywhere under it's own
power. Probably more years than Harry had been alive in fact. When Harry learned that this was to be his new home the number of emotions struggling for his attention was tremendous.
What happened immediately afterwards is the truly strange part. The towing strap Uncle Vern had used snapped and the Winnebago was rolling by the sheer grace of gravity towards the telephone pole, easily 60 feet away. It was creaking and complaining the entire way, and struck the pole soundly. The
pole seemed to survive ok, but the back end of the Winnebago was crumpled pretty bad.
Uncle Vern slowly leveled his extremely unamused gaze at Harry after witnessing this occurrence. "I'm tellin' you, boy, this is EXACTLY why you git yer own space. I dunno how you done it, but I KNOW it was YOU who done that" pointing at the newly repositioned RV. Uncle Vern's voice had experienced a pretty
healthy crescendo during those few sentences. Harry didn't know whether to be impressed that it was the most Uncle Vern had spoken to him in any one session in quite some time, or feel he was again in trouble for something that clearly wasn't his fault.
That was four years ago. Uncle Vern had since traded in his F-150 for a Chevy Dually Crew Cab that he was immensely proud of. Harry had to move into the RV the night it repositioned itself. The RV just flat stunk. Much of it was because it had sat behind old man Williams' barn for God knows how many years to
rot, but there were clear and definite signs that SOMETHING had lived in it recently. Harry had managed to patch up some of the bigger holes, and remove what was left of the original carpet and seat cusions that had long ago become someone's science experiment. These four years later, it still retained a
good bit of it's musty, moldy smell.
There were times when Harry would sit up front, in the drivers seat, and pretend to be on the road, going whereever the pavement could take him. That didn't last long, however, once Dirk spotted him up there. The very next day, Dirk had decided that he just couldn't do without his own chair on the porch,
and that of course came out of Harry's RV.
About two weeks shy of four years ago, Harry managed to give the Dursley's a good scare, apparently. He decided to stay outside at night and watch the stars, just to see what he could see. Blue chose that night to be far more active than usual, and Harry managed to startle him, causing Blue to bark out a
warning that woke the whole area. Lights in the trailer came on, horses whinnied, other dogs started to bark, all before Uncle Vern got out the front door with his 12-guage in hand to see just what in the hell was going on.
He of course found Harry out in the yard staring up at nothing.
"What in the hell's goin' on out here?" bellowed Uncle Vern.
"Nuthin' " replied Harry.
"Nuthin' my ass. What's Blue barkin' at?"
"Me. I decided to do a little star-gazing tonight and I think I surprised him."
Uncle Vern closed his eyes and furrowed his brow in a vain attempt to comprehend the moment. "Boy," he muttered, "you got yerself exactly three seconds
to git your butt back in that RV. AND STAY THERE!"
The next day found Uncle Vern adding a hasp to each of the RV's doors. From that night on, when Harry was sent to bed it was never without Uncle Vern, Aunt Daisy, or Dirk accompanying him to his RV to lock him in at night.
The clanging that greeted him this particular morning had to come from Dirk pounding a tire iron on the doorframe. Nobody else's pounding was that enthusiastic. Except perhaps Aunt Daisy's, but then she usually had to have some drama to be wound up over to get THAT enthusiastic.
"Git up, cousin!" yelled Dirk. Harry found Dirk to be a bit of a mystery. Most schoolyard bully types you could just ignore and after awhile, after a long while in a couple of cases, they would get bored with whatever they were trying to bug you with and move on to something else. Not Dirk. Harry couldn't quite
decide if it was Dirk's inability to realize Harry wasn't reacting much to him anymore, or dogged determination on Dirk's part, but Harry was pretty much sold on putting it down to Dirk's inability to figure things out.
"I'm up, I'm up" muttered Harry. And stomped towards the door to open it. It remained locked. Dirk heard the familiar huffing from the other side that signified Dirk's laughter at the situation. 'Dirk, the easily amused, often is' thought Harry quietly to himself.
"Yer gonna be in trouble if yer late gittin' yer chores done, cousin Harry!" taunted Dirk. "You wouldn't wanna git into trouble now would ya?!?"
This was a regular game of Dirks. Dirk of course thought it was hilarious, and found new hilarity each time he perpetrated it on Harry. When Vern or Daisy scolded Harry for not getting his morning chores done they didn't particularly care to hear any excuses. So Harry had just learned to take it in stride.
"C'mon, Dirk, unlock the stupid door already" yelled Harry. Harry often let himself fall victim to Dirk's mindless pranks because they had the nasty habit of getting under Harry's skin, mostly because they were so, well, mindless. Dirk obviously had great fun at Harry's outburst and his noiseless laughter sounded
as if Dirk were perhaps having some kind of seizure. That was a regular morning fantasy of Harry's.
Finally he heard Dirk left the padlock out of the hasp and Harry could open the door. "Yer late" said Dirk. "I don't think Aunt Daisy's gonna be too happy with you, making her wait on her breakfast and all. "
Harry just rolled his eyes and headed for the barn to feed the horses.
"And ya know, today ain't a day she's gonna take to bein' late. Not...at...all."
Harry rounded on Dirk at that, to find him standing there with a very surprising look of smug satisfaction on his face. It wasn't often Harry found Dirk smart enough to be very smug, but this time Dirk knew he had struck gold. It was Dirks birthday.
Dirks birthdays were always momentous occaisions. Vern and Daisy went to great pains to celebrate and lavish Dirk with tokens of their affection. Half the trailer was filled with the discards of their tokens, either because Dirk had grown bored with them or managed to render them inoperable. There was one
room solely devoted to Dirks discards. Old footballs, Nintendo's, and bicycles in various states of disrepair. If anything stood in the way of Vern and Daisy's attempt at making the day go as smoothly as possible, it would be met with an increased amount of rancor.
Harry sighed deeply, shook his head while he closed his eyes, and ran to the barn leaving the sound of Dirks laughter behind him.
Fortunately for Harry, he wasn't as late as he'd thought. He apparently managed to make up some time while hurrying through his chores, and even if he was a few minutes late, Aunt Daisy didn't seem to notice. "Don't burn the bacon this time" Aunt Daisy warbled at him, "and don't turn the heat up too high
for the eggs, you know how he hates them when the edges get crispy." Things seemed to be fairly normal this morning in Harry's opinion. That changed very quickly when Dirk and Uncle Vern came into the kitchenette.
"Happy Birthday, sugar!" squeaked Aunt Daisy, giving Dirk a big hug. "Happy Birthday, boy!" said Uncle Vern while giving Dirk an exaggerated clap on the back. "This is a big day!"
Harry kept to fixing the breakfast. Harry hadn't ever had a birthday celebration before.
"We got you some great presents this year, boy! And after you open them, guess what? We're going into town!" Uncle Vern positively beamed. Dirk looked extremely excited. "You mean," gasped Dirk, "you mean we're really going?"
"That's right!" exclaimed Uncle Vern. Harry had no clue what they were referring to, but obviously Uncle Vern was almost as excited about going whereever it was as much as Dirk. "We've got tickets to the time trials at the speedway!"
There seemed to be a general release of excitement at the saying of those words, although they all pretty much had to know what the big event was before Uncle Vern got around to saying so. Harry found it curious that Uncle Vern would indulge Dirk's passion for NASCAR. Not that Uncle Vern wasn't a
NASCAR fan, he was, and tremendous one at that. But Uncle Vern was a Dale Earnhardt fan...and Dirk liked Jeff Gordon. That led to many a fued that lasted all weekend long during race season. But today was different. Today was Dirks birthday. His 11th birthday at that.
After breakfast, and after all the presents had been torn into, the clock finally arrived at the moment when they needed to pack up and go. Dirk and Aunt Daisy piled into the crew cabbed Chevy dually, and just before Harry could open his door Uncle Vern spun him around by the shoulder. "Now listen up, boy.
There ain't gonna be no weird stuff, ya un'erstand? I ain't puttin' up with NUTHIN' outta you. Ya got it??" Harry nodded and got in the truck.
It took the better part of an hour to drive to the speedway normally. Being that there was a NASCAR event going on, it took over two hours, and they had to park in a field across the street and walk from there. Being that it was summer, the heat was almost overwhelming. Harry, who had a wiry frame and
whose chores tended to keep him in decent shape, wasn't having too hard of a time with it, but the rest of the Dursleys were given to being a bit on the pudgy side, and Dirk even more so.
By the time they reached the grandstands, Harry noticed the early signs of sunburn on Dirks face and arms. Aunt Daisy apparently noticed it too, and quickly rubbed Dirk down with a coconut scented conconction designed to keep from getting too burnt. She then proceeded to apply liberal amounts to herself and
passed the squirt bottle to Uncle Vern. Uncle Vern was used to the outdoors, being a feed salesman, so he didn't use very much. There was virtually none left when he finally passed it to Harry. Harry spread what he could on his forearms and pulled his gimme cap a little lower, hoping his face wouldn't burn. Harry didn't care for the smell of coconut anyway.
Harry didn't follow NASCAR very much. He knew enough by listening to Uncle Vern and Dirks feuds to know who most of the important drivers were and what corporate logo they drove for. But when it came to what all is involved in a race, or in this case a time trial, he expected it would be pretty much what he
briefly glimpsed on television: cars going around in a circle really really fast, and shirtless people much like the Dursleys sitting on the tops of actual working RV's drinking beer. They were here, too, he could see them across the track in the infield. But they were in the grandstands, and since this was a time trial,
there were very few cars on the track at any one time, and they weren't really racing each other. It took a little longer for Dirks enthusiasm to wane than Harry at first anticipated, but after a couple of Uncle Vern's impatient replies to Dirks repeated requests to look through Vern's binoculars, the truth came out. "They ain't gonna be no racing today, son" Vern said in his best impatiently-nice tone of voice. "These are time trials, remember? They use these to figger out whose gonna be in which startin' position. 'Course, we all KNOW that Earnhardt's gonna get the pole..."
It was a remark designed to provoke Dirk, and provoke it did. Dirk exercised his normal lack of diplomatic skills in letting Uncle Vern know exactly what he thought of Dale Earnhardt, but Dirk also did not have the presence of mind to take into consideration who's shirts and hats most of the crowd around them
were wearing. This was Earnhardt country, and Dirk was making himself no friends.
The voracity of Dirks tirade surprised even Harry, and took that opportunity to announce that he was going to see if he could get up toward the fence, or maybe even the pit., and with the barest of acknowledgements from Aunt Daisy, he took off.
Harry really had no intention of mingling with the mass of humanity that was already at the fence, and had little interest in seeing the pit area. Instead, he wandered out toward the concession area. He had managed to scrape together a couple of dollars, and he was dying of thirst. So he went to buy a Coke.
He then scouted for a place to get out of the direct heat, because it would melt the ice in his coke before he got halfway through it otherwise. He found some shade under the grandstands out near the grass, and headed there. He was suprised how quiet and unoccupied it was down there, but then a roar
of approval from the crowd above provided explaination. Dale Earnhardt had obviously taken to the track, and was now performing some warm-up laps. If this had been race-day, Harry was sure he'd never have had this area to himself.
After Harry had enjoyed his coke, he wandered back out into the sunlight. He found an area where some people had brought things to sell and display. He found some taxidermied animals, wallets and belts made out of snakeskin, a table full of beanie babies, he even found a 'gypsy' who offered to read his
palm for free. That little episode struck Harry as very odd. Harry was just wandering by her booth, and she made him the same offer she had made to every other passerby. Being that it was so hot, Harry removed his cap and wiped his brow. When he looked back up at her, she was gazing at Harry for a moment, for all the world looking like she could not believe her eyes. She then seemed extremely nice to Harry, although that wouldn't be hard. Harry was used to people either not noticing him, or not being at all nice to him. Harry happened to also notice she did not seem quite as nice to the other people, either, and he caught her continuing to look after him. That made Harry feel a bit creepy so he went to another section of the fairgrounds and found something that made him really take notice: The Snake Charmers.
Harry had only heard about these people but never thought they really existed. Yet here they were, with a sign and everything. And snakes...more snakes than Harry ever thought could live in one tank. They were all writhing and sticking their tongues out, and it fascinated Harry. He recognized many of them from science classes, and most of them were some form of grass snake. But Harry then came up on a snake in a tank all by itself that he didn't believe. He stood there in obvious awe, because the grizzled old man tending the display spoke "Ain't ya never seen one o' them afore, son? That there's a Diamondback rattler. Careful now, we don't want him bitin' anybody!" the old man cackled in self amusement. "Check this out" he said, and he removed the cover of the tank and reached in with his bare hands. Harry was stunned, he was certain the old man was going to get bit! "See? Gentle as a lamb" he said as he picked up the snake. As the snake uncoiled, it was far bigger than Harry, or many of the rest of the small crowd that was developing, had thought.
"Wanna hold him, son?" the old man asked Harry. Or at least he thought he was asking Harry, but suddenly Dirk appeared at his shoulder, and Harry realized Uncle Vern and Aunt Daisy were there, too. Dirk looked pale, which was a real trick for as much sun as he had already absorbed. So Harry just said "Sure." Before Aunt Daisy's protests gained volume, Harry had stepped up and held out his hands. The old man made to put the snake across Harry's outstretched hands when Harry heard "I hate that old man..."
Harry looked around quickly, then looked at the old man. The old man appeared as if he hadn't heard a word, and it looked like Dirk was still too petrified to have said it. "What am I, some kind of circus freak?" Harry realized he was hearing the snake talk. He simply could not believe his ears. The crowd was
thinning, having seen a young boy handle something as dangerous as a diamondback they figured something was up, and were rapidly losing interest. Aunt Daisy had switched from voicing her objections to Harry handling the huge snake to tending to Dirks uneasy stomach. Uncle Vern had apparently wandered over to the t-shirt vendor. The old man had turned away momentarily, so Harry spoke in a quiet voice "you can speak? That's amazing!"
"Alright, that's enough" the old man said, half laughing. "Had his fangs and poison sacks removed a couple of years ago when I first got him. Even if he wanted to be ornery, he couldn't." At that, the old man took the snake and place him back in the aquarium tank, and replaced the screen over the top. "He couldn't hurt a fly, but nobody can tell that by lookin' at him." The old man then went to tend to one of the other tanks.
Harry leaned down and said "can you hear me?" "Yeth.." came the reply. He clearly had the snakes attention now. "How would you feel, living in a thmall cage for motht of your life?" said the snake. "I wishth I could ethcape."
Harry immediately sympathized. It must be a terrible fate he thought, then he thought about his own situation. Even though the snake didn't have a Dirk to contend with, that problem was quickly solved. Harry was violently shoved aside by a reinvigorated Dirk who blurted "I heard what the old man said, no fangs, no poison! No big trick to handling them then, is there?!?" Dirk began knocking on the glass to get some kind of reaction out of the snake.
At that moment, it was as if the aquarium just gave up hope. First, Harry thought Dirk had simply broken the tank. It would have been no big surprise if he had. But Harry saw no broken glass, no pieces anywhere. But then his attention was immediately diverted to the huge Diamondback wrapping himself around Dirks outstretched arm, making its way quickly up toward Dirk's head.
It took a couple of moments for Dirk to find his voice, and when he did, he found the loudest part first. Dirk was screaming, and starting to flail. He knocked Harry to the ground in his impromptu choreography and managed to shake the snake loose, but only after getting the attention of the crowd and causing them all to panic. The only two people in the crowd not trying to distance themselves from Dirk were the old man and Aunt Daisy. "Thankth, buddy..." Harry heard as he searched for his dislodged glasses. When he regained them, he couldn't find the snake anywhere. The old man was looking around furiously, shouting "It's alright, he's toothless!" and took off in a direction he determined the snake had gone. Dirk had managed to get sick in all the excitement and was wearing half the result all down the front of his jeans and his new Jeff Gordon t-shirt. Aunt Daisy was futily trying to clean him up.
Mere moments later, Harry percieved a presence directly behind him. He looked up to see the towering, unhappy visage of Uncle Vern. Harry quickly looked at the aquarium on the table, only to find it completely intact. "I told you, boy" Uncle Vern said through clenched teeth, "I wasn't gonna abide nuthin' weird
today. I dunno what you done, but I know you was the one who done it. You are gonna catch such a beatin' when we git home."
Glossary and Notes
The setting is supposed to be what's considered America's "Deep South." This could be just about any of the former Confederate States, but I pictured
something like Georgia or Alabama, maybe even Texas. America's 'South' has a unique culture all it's own, and that's what I've tried to represent. However,
for anybody completely unfamiliar with the area or culture, some of the references I've used might be completely lost on the reader, so I thought I'd try to
do a little bit of explaining here.
If I didn't cover something you have any questions about, please feel free to email me.
Trailer - used generically, this term applies to a lot of variations on some kind of apparatus you hook up to another vehicle and tow. Anything from a little
moving trailer you can hook up to a car, to a semi-trailer you find attached to a big diesel truck, or lorry. However in this case, it is a dwelling. There are
'trailer parks' all over America, they are typically very low cost and do not have the structural integrity of regular homes. Trailers typically have a 'regular'
size, then there are larger versions which are basically two of them stuck together, known as 'double- wide's' because they are twice as wide as the normal
ones. Not all people living in trailers live in a trailer park, though. When you get out into rural country it is not uncommon to see a trailer as the dwelling on a
large-ish plot of land. This was the setting I envisioned.
Dually - I don't think this is a real word, but it is a term used to describe a pickup-truck with dual rear wheels. Typically this is found on very large pickup
trucks, designed to haul very heavy loads. It is also a feature often purchased just to show off with. Where exactly Uncle Vern's reason for having a dually
comes into play is somewhere inbetween!
Chevy - a common truncation of Chevrolet.
NASCAR - the National Association of Stock Car Racing. Or something very close to that. Today's NASCAR is enjoying it's highest popularity ever. And while
auto racing is very popular all across the USA, the 'South' has come to embrace it as their own. It is not uncommon to see people adorn their personal
vehicles with the number of their favorite driver somewhere on their back window. The race cars are very colorful, and typically are sponsored by multiple
concerns, but there is generally one primary corporate sponsor whose logo and colors dominate the decorative scheme of the car.
Dale Earnhardt - an extremely popular race car driver who, sadly, lost his life earlier in the year 2001 at the end of the first race of the season. He was
nicknamed 'The Terminator' because of his no-holds barred style of competition. His car was sponsored by GM (General Motors, the home of Chevrolet)
Goodwrench, whose primary color is black.
Jeff Gordon - another extremely popular race car driver, but for different reasons. He is very young and handsome, and it is no big secret that his daddy paid
a lot of money to buy Jeff a race car team and train him to be the driver, instead of 'working his way up through the ranks' as so many other drivers must.
He wins often, too. He seems to be a driver that a lot of NASCAR fans love to hate.
pickup truck - a very common personal vehicle. It consists of a cab, much like a car except it only has the front seat and no room behind them, and
sometimes they have either 'extended cabs' which include space behind the front seats, or crew cab which has four door and a full back seat just like a car.
Behind the cab is an open cargo area.
grits vs. instant grits - ok, I have no personal knowledge on this one, I was just borrowing the reference from the movie "My Cousin Vinnie" which does a
pretty good job of showing the clashes of cultures in America. It is set in the deep American south as well. I am to understand that 'instant grits' are
considered less than desirable.
Von Erichs - a stage name of a family of professional wrestlers. The father enjoyed notoriety as a professional wrestler, and his sons continued the tradition.
in the 80's they were very popular, but as 1990 drew near the family experienced a number of tragedies, and between medical problems and suicides, at
least four of the brothers perished.
Wrestling - I of course am referring to the WWF and its ilk.
RV - Recreational Vehicle. This term is applied to those self-contained monstrosities roaming the highways and byways of America (and beyond!) They range
anywhere from just enough room to curl up and go to sleep in the back, to palaces on wheels where you have enough room to entertain a medium number
of guests and put them all up for the night without ever having to leave the vehicle. However in this instance of course we're dealing with a very old one. It
just seems to me you often see these things rotting outside some rural home as if it got parked there and forgotten about...come to think of it that seems
to happen with a lot of automobiles in rural communities, but the RV suits the story's purpose! Winnebago is a popular maker of these.
Justins - Justin is a popular boot maker out of Texas.