Atlas

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Summary: Dale’s had enough.

AUTHOR: Zippit
EMAIL: zippit@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTER: Dale Earnhardt Jr, Dale Jr POV
PROMPT: Taming the Muse #59 - Desolate
COMPLETED: September 5th, 2007
WORD COUNT: 653
DISCLAIMER: Not real; don't know them, don't claim to know them. Only the makings of my imagination. I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is more… character study than anything. The title refers to the Atlas star system because Dale’s the center of so many things, but who’s his center?
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It’s been what? Six years now? Rapidly approaching seven, the Chase has become the mainstay and all that matters in a 38 race season. 26 races, gone, poof. The all important Chase for the Championship. Last year at DEI, last year with Budweiser, last year with the 8, and it all fucking rides on me. NASCAR’s favored son, DEI’s namesake, more like DEI’s stepchild, and now HMS’s 25 team. Their stepchild of a team. And I wonder, does it all matter anymore?

HMS. Five championships, multitude of Dayonta 500 wins, of wins in general, prestige, top of the line cars. Does it matter? Should I care? Daddy won six championships after the age of 33. Damnit and it always comes back to him. Lingering shadow that never goes away. Reason why Daytona’s become a second home, morbid as it may be. It’s a part of me, part of the Earnhardt name.

I got plenty of supporters and plenty of others who would love to see me fail. I know what they say, think I’m an arrogant bastard for wanting company control, for wanting to decide my own number.

I have the right, I have the goddamn right!

If I blue tarped what would they do? Say good riddance? Talk about all the potential lost? Life wasted by racing?

I know some would rejoice, dance on my grave.

How many would come to the funeral? Would it be as big as Daddy’s? Would they come? Come to support a family struck by tragedy yet again? Would the nation mourn? And if they did, it’d all be a mockery. A mockery of the real emotions Daddy’s had. Everything would be a mockery.

Goddamnit, I have the right, I have the goddamn right! No other family, no other sport. The Allisons…they have each other. They were a…family. Daddy didn’t…couldn’t care. He had more to worry about, he had families to provide for, set us up well enough for later in life.

I was getting to know the goddamn bastard and racing took him away! My childhood, my adulthood, there’s nothing left.

So who do I please now? My fans? No. Too fickle. My family? They want me to be happy. Tried pleasing my stepmother for the longest time, for my daddy, but enough was enough. I lost him but I’d be damned if I lost my identity to her. So it’s time to transition.

DEI to HMS. Rival to home. Jeff’s there, Jimmie’s there, Casey’s there. Rick’s there and who better to understand the loss. He lost a son, I lost a father, who better than two broken halves to be put together.

Richard’s been a second father over the years and I would’ve loved to have gone to RCR but…. Just too many memories. Too many times I hung around in the shop, watching, trying to learn, trying to be part of his world, to matter just a little more to him. He was my daddy, my hero.

I miss his touch, his life, his jokes, his presence, the way he invaded every part of our lives. Everywhere and nowhere and he’s gone. Big gaping black hole, pulling in everything that was him until you can’t remember him at all.

So the media can say what they want, label me however they want. It’s nothing, it’s fucking nothing compared to what it does when they talk about him, bring him up.

Who was it? Weber, wasn’t it? Pepsi 400 in ’01 and Daytona in ’04, fucking just couldn’t leave it alone. Couldn’t let me bask in the win, nope, there Daddy was, front and center and I was gone. Living up to his name yet again.

I’m not some media sideshow.

“Oooh let’s see how far we can push him ‘til he breaks.”

I’m an Earnhardt damnit! Double edged sword that it is. Sigh. Nothing but a name and the carefully crafted persona around it.

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Zippit - zippit@cryptoffic.com