Home : Stories by Zippit : Piece by piece, Tumble into Something new
Summary: If only Sunday could last forever.
AUTHOR: Zippit
EMAIL: zippit@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTER: Dale Earnhardt Jr, Dale Jr POV
COMPLETED: November 18, 2008
WORD COUNT: 631
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: Set during 2001, it’s a look into the mind of the namesake of the legend we lost.
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Spring/Early Summer 2001
Colorless is what the world goes in the months after Daddy’s death. Nothing breaks the grey scale monotony except dark blue splotches of frozen distance whenever the memory of that day rears up in the words of well meaning fans. I’m doing the appearances that were his because I’m the last…driving Earnhardt. It’s a blur of faces and empty words as they “know” how I feel, but they’ll never see me let them in that deep.
Daytona’s come calling again and even with the flash flood of bright red pain/healing on the day Harvick won in Daddy’s car, we’re not healed yet. At least I’m not. The laps pass race after race and the tributes on lap three, before, during, and after the race drive the grey blankness further inside me. Live and breathe in color all around me yet none of it touches me.
I want the racing, just the racing. No silence, no tributes, no fingers upheld on lap 3 while we drive past. I want the adrenaline rush. I want the deafening roar of engines as we go ‘round and ‘round. It’s when I feel closest to him, where I understood him the most. He was the father I never really knew ‘til I showed an interest in his passion. It’s when the brief flashes of color that surround me begin to seep into me, forcing the grey away and showing me I can still feel. Sponsors and fans and the pressure of being Dale Earnhardt’s son wash away under the thrum-whirl of the race pace, slowed only by crashes.
Aliiiive.
The hum of voices in my ear, the dull slaps of knees hitting the pavement during pitstops, the whirrrr of lugnuts coming off and on, the controlled chaos of pitroad. Shift through the gears, merge into traffic, claw my way to the best finishes I can. If only it wouldn’t end each weekend. If only Sunday could last forever.
Tug and whirl of sponsors, like a marionette on strings, I spin whichever way they want me to go. We’re an organization without a head, reeling from the loss and barely holding on as the world continues on around us. It’s not fair. It’s never fair. He was gone while we were kids and now he’s gone again. Gone, always gone.
I chose to follow him. I chose the same life. I chose to be like him. I wanted my father, but I hope I don’t become my father. I can’t be my father.
Daytona, Daytona, Daytona. Plague, boon, hope, future, past, present all rolled into one. Off week the week before and I’ve gotta do something. I’ll go crazy in that time otherwise. Too much time to think, too much time to feel what will never be.
Friends, Daytona, the beach. Make peace. I can’t be here, I can’t be there, but I have to be there in two weeks time. Do the unexpected, that’s me. I was gonna be an artist, a mechanic. I chose neither and became a racecar driver. I became who I watched since I was a little boy.
I was a good mechanic. Would’ve been an artist in my spare time, drawing cars all the while. Content with the simple life, maybe racing on the weekends with good buddies. That would’ve been me if not for my last name. It’s true what they say. It’s all about who you know, who you are. I hear what they say. I know what they say. The only one I gotta prove anything to is myself. True friends don’t care who I am, but how I am to them. Family will always be there. Always. As the years pass, racing may come and go, but I am who I am.
I am Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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Zippit - zippit@cryptoffic.com
This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission. |