Requiem for a Dream

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Summary: What’s in a legacy?

AUTHOR: Zippit
EMAIL: zippit@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTER: Dale Earnhardt Jr, Dale Jr POV
COMPLETED: November 18, 2008
WORD COUNT: 1,244
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 June/July 2008 when rumors of DEI’s sale to Max Siegal were rampant. In truth, it does apply to the merger between DEI and Ganassi though I’m not sure if my muse will want to deal with that separately or not.
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June/July 2008

It burns.  It really fucking does.

Teresa’s selling DEI to Max Siegal because she’s finally fucking had enough with the racing business. She started it with Daddy, you’d think she’d have the pride in it to want to see it succeed. Nope, guess again. She’s nuthin’ but the bitch who only cares about Daddy’s Legacy. As if she’s the only one.  Me and Kelley care. We would’ve done everything to make sure Daddy’s Legacy was taken care of the right way. Not some of the fucking shoddy things that’ve come out recently. The fucking stupid 3 COT car for one and now all this Daddy and Johnny Cash stuff. Sure it’s cool, but fuck, even the fans can tell all you’re doing is making money off of Daddy’s memory.

Now there ain’t even gonna be an Earnhardt running the place…. It’s the death of Daddy’s dream and it fucking sucks. We were supposed to get it. His kids: Me, Kelley, Kerry, and Taylor if she ever wanted a part of it. Not some outside fucking business man. I got all the damn respect for Max in the world but he ain’t no Earnhardt. It should be an Earnhardt at the helm of that company. It shoulda been me and Kelley.

Stupid fucking bitch.

It’s our birthright. Just cause Daddy didn’t have a will in place that really outlined his plans we all knew it.  But, no.  Gotta fuckin’ follow the letter of the law and that landed DEI right in the hands of the ungrateful bitch. Maybe Max’ll turn it around but the damn damage is done. It’s not been family owned for as long as it’ll be in existence. Hell, with all the shit that’s happening, I might even have to restart the thing up when it’s all said and done. It ain’t right. It ain’t fair and it’s all cause of her.

They’re burning bridges left and right and now they’re blaming Martin for the car failing inspection? What the fuck does he have to do with the car? Drivers ain’t allowed to touch the car. Any driver worth his damn talent knows how to work on a car, but that don’t mean we’re allowed to touch them.  It’s almost like losing a limb getting to the NASCAR series and being told to fuck off when you try and get near a car with any sort of tool. If it ain’t anything but duct tape, good luck.

All the people Daddy had at DEI, they left because there’s nothing they could do. They wanna win. They wanna be competitive. They want to be a part of the sport, not struggling to keep just one team afloat. My team. It wasn’t fucking right. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stand by and watch my team run decent while everyone around me struggled.

I got no clue about Martin’s current contract or even Jeffrey’s but I bet they ain’t pretty. I heard they fucking picked up the option on Martin instead of being the sensible fucking owner and trying to get a negotiated contract worked out. Fucking burning bridges. No one’s gonna want to work for DEI at this rate. Max may be able to turn it around, but it ain’t gonna be the powerhouse that Daddy would’ve wanted it to be. More like one of the startup teams. Satellite even because it’s fucking painfully obvious that that’s what it’s gonna be. It’s the death of Daddy’s dream and all I can fucking do is stand back and watch.

I couldn’t get ownership, couldn’t even fucking get my granddaddy’s number and look what it’s finally come to. She’s tired of the fucking public eye, tired of having to deal with anything that doesn’t concern Daddy’s Legacy. FUCK HER. He was MY daddy. He was her husband but he was MY damn daddy. He wanted the damn company for us, HIS kids. All his kids, not just Taylor.

I’m watching the ashes fall faster and faster from the great thing that was DEI. The vision that Daddy had is gone. It’s all gone. Just gone because he’s not here. He wasn’t supposed to go. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. DEI is nearly all I have left of him and now even that is slipping away. I got racing, I got family, DEI was his dream. I wanted to keep his dream alive. He must hate what he sees right now. I’d never have been an HMS boy. I’d never have left the family company. He’d have skinned me alive. Fucking not right.

Kelley can get deeper into this than I can, but I know she don’t want to. It’s painful enough hearing DEI’s on sale to anyone but family. We could talk to Max, try and work something out, but so damn soon after last year? Is it really fucking worth it? I got the 88 and Rick to think about. New sponsorship on the Busch 88 cause the fucking economy’s started driving sponsors off. Navy ain’t coming back and now the scramble to find new sponsorship begins. I may be the big damn name but that don’t mean people can see my company as a good business opportunity when I ain’t running the races for them. There’s only so damn much I can do. It ain’t like I’m Superman. If I was, I’d have gotten DEI last year and not have to watch the death of it now.

We don’t talk about it, me and Kelley. We have enough on our plate without adding more to it, but just looking in her eyes I know she shares my pain. She worked with Daddy, she has his business mind, and she’s been with me through the years, fighting in the trenches. We did what we could the best way we knew how. Let the racing monster that was DEI eat me up in those years after Daddy’s death to try and make up for him not being there until I couldn’t stand it no more. It was either pull back or lose myself and I know Daddy would’ve liked that even less than what’s going on.

Teresa’s “family” and you’re not supposed to hate family, but I do. I fucking hate her and all she’s done to DEI, to me and Kelley. To Daddy’s family and all he wanted to have for them all. Teresa isn’t family. She never has been. I don’t know about everyone else but I know I made nice only for Daddy. Too much history, too much shit went down for me to even come close to thinking about her with any sort of emotion outside of bad history. Now she’s ruined it all past any sort of reconciliation. She ain’t ever even at the Earnhardt family get togethers. Sometimes you’ll get Taylor there, but only sometimes. We ain’t never been a real family. Only family we got in common is our Daddy and though that’s a strong ass link, it don’t make us real family.

But I got Kelley and Momma and everyone else. I got my friends in the garage, my Posse, everyone that really matters. We don’t need Teresa. We don’t need DEI no matter how much it hurts. We ain’t need no damn Legacy because I AM the Legacy. What I do, what me and Kelley accomplish on and off the track, that’s what matters in the end. That’s the real legacy Daddy leaves behind.

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Zippit - zippit@cryptoffic.com