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Summary: The show must go on.

AUTHOR: Zippit
EMAIL: zippit@cryptoffic.com
RATING: R
SERIES: The K. D. Harvey Show
CHARACTER: Kevin Harvick, DeLana Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kevin POV
COMPLETED: March 2, 2009
WORD COUNT: 4,138
DISCLAIMER: If you recognize anyone in this piece, I am in no way affiliated with or know them personally. I am neither making a profit nor plan to do so. This is nothing more than an exercise in fiction. This is a result of an overactive imagination and I claim no truth to these words.
BETA: Thanks to Catw00man for the beta. All other errors are mine.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I love these snarky things! I hope you enjoy some of the lines as much as I did.
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Production – Week 1

Harvick Household - Kernersville, North Carolina – February 10th, 2009

“Kev-in, you don’t need to do the show with the trophy in the room.”

“Well, I want to.”

“But it reeks of beer.”

“It’s the smell of victory, D. C’mon, you have to admit that’s a good thing to have around with our first show tonight.”

“I still think once you put it in a case it should stay there.”

“Lay off, D.” Smell the brand new leather mixed with Budweiser as I slip into the jacket and grin. There’s really no better way to start off a season.

“If you get that mess anywhere, I’m going to kill you.” She glares at me from across the table.

“You shouldn’t be complaining. I’ve already won you something this year.”

It’s stickier than I remembered and not something I want to wear for however long it’ll take us to get enough material for an hour long show. Take it off and drape it over the trophy which completes the look. Lean back in my chair and put my hands behind my head to look at it. D rolls her eyes at me before she bows her head to look at a sheet of paper with things we could talk about.

She’s come up with a list of topics we can discuss and I’m glad we could head home from Daytona and do this. Yeah, we have a private jet, so what? The goody-two shoes like Gordon are trying to show the fans they’re just like them by flying commercial to save money. Sure, the economy’s affecting us all but like Burton said no one wants to hear about it from us.

Rock back and forth in the chair and say, “Did you know Gordon flew commercial over the offseason?”

“Oh really?” D looks at me with a curious look on her face, finger poised over the last word she was reading.

“Uh huh. Said something about doing what he could to save money. Flew out of the same airport that that plane that went down in the Hudson did.”

“He was lucky he didn’t end up on that flight.”

“Yeah. You think we should fly commercial?” The look she gives me is answer enough. We don’t have time to deal with all that hoopla especially with the dogs. Everyone’s feeling the pinch of the economic crisis and flying commercial only does so much and it sure doesn’t save you time.

Push back from the table and walk over to the window to peer through the blinds. Pull them closed then sit back down. “So…you ready to start this thing?”

She folds her hands neatly over the paper and looks me. “Let’s get this over with. You’ve tested everything to make sure it’s working right?”

“Have been for the past several weeks, D. Everything works and we won’t blow the grid.”

“If you say so,” she says before looking around the room at the equipment tucked into the corners, the laptops and microphones set in front of us, and the array of buttons and switches on my side of the table. She frowns at the one piece she doesn’t recognize. I wondered how long it would take her to notice and she doesn’t even have to point when she says, “What is that?”

“Sound effects board.”

“Where’d you get it from?”

“Producer Mike was kind enough to convince Earnhardt to part with it which is something he’s currently very put out by.” Chuckle because that conversation had been wonderful to have. “And yes, I know how to use it, D.”

She shakes her head and taps her fingers against the tabletop before she nods at me. “Flip the switch so we can get started.”

Grin widely as I move to do as she asks, reaching down under the table to turn on all the machines. The low hum rises up around us and the lights in the room flare brighter for a moment before everything plunges into silent darkness.

“KEVIN! What’d you do?!”

“I didn’t do anything!” Scramble wildly below the table to flip the switch on and off but nothing happens. “C’mon, c’mon. The electrician said this wouldn’t happen. C’MON!” Jam the switch on and off one more time before I curse and kick the table hard enough to move me backwards. Hear the cuffs of the leather jacket skitter back and forth across the tabletop when the trophy wobbles. Reach out for it and nearly send it over instead when I slam my fingers into the hard crystal.

D’s on the other side cursing softly as she moves around and knocks into everything. Hear a hard thump against wood which’s probably D’s knee against the table followed by the almost muffled thud of something onto the surface. That’s gotta be her headset and it’s followed by a pfft sound as she shoves the mic out of her way. “KEVIN. Turn it back on!”

“I tried! It’s not coming back on. Augh!” Squint and turn away when a beam of light reflects off the trophy and straight into my eyes. “Thanks for that, D.” Tip the trophy down to lay sideways on the table, cradled in the jacket.

“This is great. They need the show by eight at the latest.”

“I know that, D. Go get some damn lights in here so we can figure out what the hell we’re gonna do.”

The light from her cell phone throws eerie shadows on her face as she gets up and stalks from the room. I’m not sure how I know it’s a stalk but something about the way the light bobs makes me think so. Call after her into the darkness, “There’s some in the room on the left!”

Pat my hands over the table to find my cell phone and finally find it tucked under a fold of the leather jacket. Open it and use the light like a flashlight to crawl under the table and pull out all the plugs from the extension cord then flick it on again.

Still nothing.

Growl low and shove all the plugs back in, leaving the whole damn thing turned off. Crawl out from under the table and sit back on my heels. Look at the table’s outline from the light of my cell and I probably need to fuck with the breakers again. Push to my feet and head for the stairs, taking them two at a time until I reach the ground floor and yank the closet door open. I’ve already done this once and I’m not happy about having to do it again.

Shove the jackets out of the way with more force than necessary and roll my eyes when I hear a few fall to the floor. The metal lid to the breaker box slides open easily and I frown when I see the switches all in the “on” position. If the show caused the blackout, the breakers would’ve snapped to the “off” position. This feels like it’s bigger than just our place. Use the palm of my hand to flip them all off then snap them back to the on position…and nothing.

Push open the door and shout, “D! Are the lights back on?”

“NO! Hurry up and fix it, Kevin. You know it’s a good thing we tried to do this early. Otherwise, we’d be screwed!”

Mutter to myself, “yeah, but guess what, DeLana, this wasn’t my fault.”  Slam the door on the circuit breakers shut and stalk out of the hall closet. What the fuck can we do? We need to record the show before it gets any later.  Who the fuck can help us?

Earnhardt! That’s who! Press eight on my phone to speed dial him and he better be fucking home. Pace back and forth in front of the damn hall table with the stupid flower vase on it while I listen to the stupid ringing. To my surprise he actually picks up after the third ring. “Earnhardt, get your ass over here and help me out.”

“What? Why? What’d you do now, Harvick?”

“Think the power’s gone out and we need to get the show recorded by eight. C’mon, help me out.”

“What’s in it for me?” This is not the time for him to be getting vindictive on me! Not when I’m about to lose the show before it even gets off the ground.

“All the Bud you could ever want and my eternal gratitude?” Hear his snort of laughter and please let that be enough to get him over here. “Earnhardt for as long as we’ve known each other, have I ever left you hanging?”

“Sheesh, you ain’t gotta pour on the guilt trip. Yeah, I’ll be over there to save your ass.” He pauses for dramatic effect then continues, “Once again.”

Roll my eyes and run a hand through my hair. “Seriously I’m pacing in the complete darkness in my front hall. Just fucking get over here with whatever solution you’ve got up your sleeve.” Snap the phone shut before he can answer and toss it on the table. Glance at the vague outline of our front door and I grab the handle, stepping outside into the twilight. Fuck, how’d it get so late? Wasn’t it light out when we sat down in the studio?

Walk down the steps into the driveway to see if I can spot Earnhardt’s lights heading up the drive. It’s too damn soon I know but hell, I’m sure he can break a few traffic laws on the way over. Move over to my truck and lean against the side, resting my arm along the bed rail. Glance at my watch every couple minutes and damnit, twenty minutes never took so long. Tap my fingers against the rail as the seconds drag by slow and torturous until finally I see two pinpricks of light. That better be him. It really damn well better be him.

That big ass truck of his pulls into the driveway and thankfully he doesn’t turn off his lights because while I’ve been waiting it’s gotten dark as hell.  “About damn time. You couldn’t have broken a few speed limits on your way over here?”

“What good would I be to you if I’d gotten pulled over?” He says as he tugs at something heavy in the back of his truck. “Harvick, get over here and help me with this thing.”

There’s no good reply to his words so I don’t say anything. Just head over and go to the side he directs me towards. “What the hell is this thing?”

“Your radio show miracle. I’m surprised you don’t have a Honda generator yourself.” He fucking brought a generator? Ok, so I take back what I said about him taking too long. I have no damn clue how he got this motherfucker into the back of his truck by himself.

“I didn’t design my home to need a generator.”

“Should’ve for times like these.”

Roll my eyes as we manage to get it off the truck bed and carry it between us, slowly make our way toward the house. “June, thanks for this.”

“No problem, but you have any idea how hard it is to move one of these things by yourself? I’m lucky Keselowski was only a short distance down the road or else you’d have been shit outta luck.

“Was wondering how you got it into the back of your truck. Guess he does come in handy sometimes.”

“Hey, we can’t all have shock guys wheeling our cars.”

“Walk faster Earnhardt or I’m dropping this on your feet.” He mutters something I don’t catch as we negotiate our way up the front porch and into the house. His headlights are aimed right at the front door so we don’t have to deal with seeing our way up the stairs. Pause at the bottom and look over at him. “Could use the elevator.”

He shakes his head and shifts his grip on the generator. “Did you electrocute yourself or something? You ain’t got no power! How’re we using the elevator? Wait…you have a damn elevator and you didn’t include a backup generator for this place???”

Ignore everything he says and start climbing the stairs. “D’ll kill me if we scrape up the walls or the railing so don’t make me have to take it out on you.”

“How the hell did you not put a generator into your damn plans? If you had one this wouldn’t be a damn issue.”

“Shut up, Earnhardt.”

“What the hell do you need an elevator for? Never figured you for being that damn lazy. Damn, Harvick, you would think you were Donald Trump or something.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re telling me that you designed this place from the ground up and didn’t see no need for a backup generator? I wouldn’t be chancing a hernia for you right now if you had.”

Grit my teeth and how long is this fucking staircase?  Are we seriously only halfway up the damn thing? If we don’t get to the top soon, I’m gonna end up killing him and that mouth of his when we’re all set to go. There’s no mistaking whose son he is though June probably goes on longer than his Dad ever did.

“Are you listening to me, Harvick? I expect this back sometime this week. Don’t care how you get it back that’s your business, not mine. And I do expect it back. You’re not getting this baby as a freebie offa me. No way.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” I don’t even think he’s listening to me. Sometimes I swear there’s no time delay between the thoughts forming in his head and them coming out of his mouth. Finally we’re off the staircase and I turn so I don’t run into something with my backside and make sitting painful.

“C’mon, it’s the second room on the left.” I can just make out the doorways in the light from the foyer.

“Wait, can’t have it in the room while you’re recording. It’s quiet but it’ll still be audible during the show.”

Move a few more feet down the hall and thank god he’s started figuring out how we need to do this so his mouth has shut down. We set the generator inside the doorway of the first room.

“Should have enough cable to make this work. Let me grab the extension cords and the gas from the truck. You get it set up here,” he tells me before I hear him jog back down the stairs. He better know how to use this thing in the dark because D will kill me if we spill gasoline on the carpet. Make my way down the hall, frowning at the flickers of light I see dancing across the walls. Head into the KDH “studio” and stop at the sight that greets me. “What the hell, D?! I thought I told you to get some lights, not commune with the dogs!”

She’s sitting at the end of the bed with LO in her lap and Endy curled at her feet. I’m not sure where Bebe and Mills are but I hope they’re not in the room cause there’s candles on every available flat surface. Somehow I know this is probably the worst fire hazard we could think up though we can see everything now.

“What? We didn’t have anything else, Kev-in. You told me to get lights and we have lights. What’ve you been doing to fix this?”

Drag my hand over my face before I move over to the table and kick the extension cord with all the plugs out from under it in the direction of the doorway. “I called Earnhardt and he brought a generator. You should know it wasn’t my fault. Evidently our area’s in the middle of a black out. Have to ask Earnhardt how far it goes.”

She strokes LO’s head and nods. “Well ok. At least we’ll be able to record the show now.” Then she pauses and looks at me. “Kevin, why don’t we have our own generator?”

Groan in disbelief before I say, “Don’t start, D. Just don’t.” Look toward the doorway when I hear a sound and it’s Earnhardt with a look of wry amusement on his face.

“Harvick, if you wanted a romantic night with your wife, there was really no need to invite me over.”

Choke on any words I might say because he did not just say that. He really did not. Look over at D and the bitch is just sitting there on the bed calmly stroking LO.

“Having your first show be a preview into your sex lives wasn’t something I expected from you. Never took you for an exhibitionist.”

Make a noise like something died in my throat because how do you have a comeback to that when D says, “Then doesn’t that make you our neighborhood Peeping Tom, Junior?”

He has the decency to duck his head and blush while I laugh until I’m doubled over. “That was fucking priceless, D,” I manage to gasp out.

“Alright, boys. Enough with the chitchat. Let’s get that generator hooked up and record this show. By the way Junior, if we ever needed a director, we know exactly who to call.” And then she fucking winks at him! Okay, so I need to have a long talk with my wife when this is all over.

June goes back into the hall and cranks the generator before he drags in the extension cord he’d hooked to it. He’s right about the sound. It’s not as loud as it could be but definitely too loud to have in the room with us. I plug in the extension cord with all our equipment and look between D and June. “Here’s hoping it works.” Turn everything on and hold my breath.

I can’t hear the customary hum over the generator but the lights on the consoles are winking on. Power on the laptops and everything seems to be working. Guess there’s only way to find out. Push the chair back toward the table and slide the headset on as I sit down. D’s taken up her spot on the other side and here goes nothing. Make sure it’s recording then say, “Welcome to the K.D. Harvey Show,” and see jagged lines run across the screen like they’re supposed to.

Grin across at D and shoot one at June who’s claimed one of the other chairs from under the mess of candles. Turn off the recording so we can get ourselves set. This is the real deal. We may not have full power but we have enough light to see by and enough power to get this recorded. “Ready D?” At her nod, I turn to June again. “You staying Earnhardt?”

“Yeah, why not. Have to make sure you don’t cause another catastrophe. Don’t want your demise on my head.”

“Very funny.” Face D again and delete the previous recording so we can begin fresh. I’m trusting D to have all the segments and other details planned out. That’s more her thing than mine anyway. “We’re doing this for real this time.” Set it to record at the first sound into the mic and nod at D. Here we go. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the K.D. Harvey show. I’m your host Kevin Harvick and my lovely co-host is none other than my beautiful wife, DeLana.”

“Hi.”

“This show couldn’t have been brought to you without the tech support of one Dale Earnhardt Jr.”

“Yeah, since we’re sitting in the pitch black.”

“That’s not completely true. The room’s filled with a lot of lovely candles and has probably become the worst fire hazard in Guilford County.”

“Hey folks, Dale Jr. here. If you hadn’t picked up on it, we’re currently in the middle of a blackout.” Jump when I hear June’s voice and look back at him. He’s somehow managed to find another headset and it’s connected to something he’s holding in his lap. The machines damn well be picking this up cause this is gonna be so good.

“And it wasn’t my fault this time, D.”

“Unlike the first time when you blew our power grid.”

“How was I supposed to know the house wasn’t wired right for something like this?”

“You’re the wannabe architect.”

“That doesn’t make me the de facto electrician around here!”

“Hey Harvick, what’s that lump of stuff on the table there?”

“Oh, thanks for reminding me.” Stand the trophy up and drape the jacket around the base. “It’s my Budweiser Shootout trophy. I figured we needed the smell of victory in here to lend us some luck.”

“Don’t think it did you much good.”

“You know he put that jacket on earlier before we lost power?”

“Really? I thought you didn’t wash them.”

“I don’t.”

“He doesn’t.”

“That’s disgusting, Harvick.”

“Do you see me wearing it right now?”

“Wanna know one of the most useless stats ever?”

“What is it?”

“We both won the Shootout after going winless for a season.”

“Think I’ll get more regular season wins than you did.”

“Oh really, you sure about that?”

“Uh huh.”

“Boys.”

“You wanna bet on it?”

“Boys.”

“What’cha wanna bet?”

“BOYS! Let’s not do this on air.”

“Awww, D. Why not? The fans want a look inside the life of a NASCAR driver. You saying we shouldn’t give them what they want?”

“Kev-in, let me remind you of whose idea it was to have this show.”

“Mine, of course. Earnhardt, Stewart, and Johnson couldn’t have all the fun. Oh, by the way Bowyer, I hope you were true to your word and made Tuesday at 9p.m. primetime listening time because I’m gonna need your help with something in a few days.”

“So that’s why you stole my show out from under me? Besides selling yourself out like a cheap whore.”

“Hey, you know how the times are. You gotta do what you gotta do to get what you want.”

“Uh huh and being cheap is part of that?”

“It got me this show didn’t it?”

Smirk when he doesn’t have anything to say in reply then look down when D passes me a note saying we need to end this segment and I nod, passing the note back to her so we can use it again later. “Folks, we’ve reached the end of our first segment and need to step away for a moment. Hope to see you on the other side of the break.” I can make out the label saying “To Commercial” and I press it along with the mute mics button. So far everything’s going good. It just needs to keep going that way and we’ll have this off to the bigwigs in D.C. soon enough. I wonder what sort of music intros and exits they’ll be using. Hope they’re just as good as on the other shows.

“I’m going to go feed the dogs real quick,” D says and gets up, trailing Endy behind her. Hope she doesn’t take too long. We have a time budget to keep. She’s the better time keeper so I’m not even gonna try. We’ll just wait for her to get back before we start the next segment.

Swivel to face June and ask, “Where’d you get that headset and thing that patches you into the system?”

“Was a holdover from my show.  Ain’t wanted to be tied to a table like you are so we asked them for something more portable and got these.” He holds up the headset with a mic on it and the whole thing looks a lot like something a crew chief would wear even down to the reception unit.

“Neat. You gonna be free next Tuesday around this time?”

“Why…? I’m not bailing your ass out every time you have a problem.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to already be here in case something did happen instead of me dragging you away from whatever you’re doing?”

He looks at me a long moment before he sighs and mutters, “A’right, but you better damn well provide some good incentives to keep me coming back week after week.”

Grin wide because I know I’ve got him. I’m sure I can find plenty of reasons he needs to keep coming. Maybe even finally get him into a damn dirt car. “Oh you know I will. Just get your ass over here every week.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get back to your mic. I think I hear DeLana coming back.”

He’s right because D comes back into the room minus both dogs and settles into her seat. She checks her watch and nods at me to take us back in. And our first show is off and running. Hopefully the rest won’t be as eventful as this one.

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Zippit - zippit@cryptoffic.com