Bakersfield Escape

Home : Stories by Zippit : Bittersweet Miracles : Bakersfield Escape

Summary: He’s always watched. He just has more important reasons now.

AUTHOR: Zippit
EMAIL: zippit@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG
SERIES: Bittersweet Miracles
CHARACTER: Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kevin Harvick, Dale Jr POV
COMPLETED: August 28, 2008
WORD COUNT: 3,513
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.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The boy was giving me fits on this. I wanted him to talk more but he said he’d said enough. Anyway, enjoy!
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Bakersfield, California - February 23rd, 2008

The drive in to Bakersfield was a lot less eventful than getting out of the track. Grin as I remember feeling all James Bond-y hiding in the back of Mike’s rental as he drove us out. Cause honestly, there was no damn chance of the rain letting up long enough for us to race no matter how much NASCAR was bsing the media. We finally climbed out when Mike pulled to the curb just around the corner from the gate. Not sure what story he spun to get back into the track especially when he was minus the rental car he’d driven out in. Just glad he was willing to help me out.

I took one look at Kev and there was no way I was gonna let him get behind the wheel with as tired as he looked. I know neither of us like driving too much outside the track cause there’s something about driving 200 mph each weekend with people you trust versus having your life in the hands of complete idiots who’d rather pay attention to their cell phones than the road. It makes us the pickiest back seat drivers on Earth. Frayed nerves and that type of situation ain’t a combination I’m willing to subject him to. Just ask Kelley. She hates chauffeuring me around...though lately she hasn’t needed to. Wonder if she misses it and how the girls are doing.... Hell what about the animals? I gotta stop by more often to make sure it’s not all going up in smoke.

We started drifting north after a bit and if we’d had more time, I’d have dragged his ass back to some of his old race haunts. He kept telling me ‘bout this and that and it’s amazing what you can pick up about a place when you’ve grown up there your whole life. Kept getting so lost in his tales I nearly missed several turns. But once he realized we were heading towards Bakersfield I figured, why not go all the way?  It was quite an experience with a few close calls where I swerved wildly to get onto the right lane and I’m sure some people were cursing us for lunatics. Then we lost a couple hours when I ended up on the complete opposite road we were supposed to be on cause I got lost in yet another story of Kev’s stories. Even NASCAR drivers can get lost when we’re roughin’ it. Ain’t gonna rely on some namby pamby GPS system when one of us is a native.

Once we got up here we drove around for a bit and he showed me the sights. Thankfully it wasn’t raining up here. I’ve had enough of rain for the weekend. From his old high school to his old house and the best spots in town to meet other racers, he showed me everything. I even tried to talk him into heading out to the nearest local track so we could maybe catch a race. Blend into the crowd for a bit. The look he shot me clearly said that us being us and especially me being me there’d be no chance in hell that’d happen. Yeah, well wasn’t no harm in trying. He finally just shook his head at me and laughed, demanding we stop for food first.

So here we are in an old creaky booth in the back of what’s gotta be a mom and pop shop.  I watch him as he babbles on about this town and it almost makes me wish I’d been a Caliboy like him. He makes it sound absolutely perfect out here. The place just big enough to disappear in, but not so big you feel insignificant. You don’t know everyone around you and they could care less if your daddy raced or not. Watch him sip the pink strawberry milkshake which somehow fits. I’d always figured him for a chocolate kind of guy especially with the Reese’s sponsorship he has, but I was completely wrong. He doesn’t have as strong a sweet tooth as I do, but damn, set the right thing in front of him and he completely pigs out cause he’s already working his way through his third one while I’m still nursing my first chocolate shake.

The people don’t know him in this place. They don’t care if he’s a big star in NASCAR, he’s just another regular person and I envy that. Nibble on the end of my bendy straw and just watch him be...the Harvick I knew before the babies came. Maybe not the same Harvick because I’ve never really seen this side of him. He kept this to the special ones around him like I do with my posse. Trace my thumb along the wide band along the top of the glass and smile as he launches into another story about his childhood hijinks. I had a vague idea he’d be as bad a wild child as I was, but it’s something else entirely to have it straight from the source. I’m not surprised in the least the mischief from his childhood carried over to adulthood. Those pranks he loves to pull gave more than an indication of that. Sip slowly at my own milkshake and realize this is the first time I’ve seen him so relaxed since the babies came.

“Place wasn’t this big when I was growing up,” he says and I can imagine. Must’ve been like Mooresville and Charlotte. Small places in the beginning until they experienced a big boom in development. Watch him tap the straw on the bottom of the glass before he takes a sip and then glances out the window. I wonder what he sees. The childhood he never really talks about? The family he never mentions? We all got our demons, but I’m glad he can separate the demons from the good times, that they ain’t so twined together that it’s impossible to do. Bend my straw back and forth a few times as I look toward the front of the store where we placed our orders for some good old burgers and fries. They’re pretty busy for a Saturday night and looking all around it’s lots of high schoolers and only a smattering of folks like us.

“Think the track’s changed much since you’ve been?” I ask then smile my thanks at the harried blonde waitress who can’t be out of high school yet as she sets our plates in front of us. Gotta remember to tip her plenty when we leave. Tug my plate close and crunch on some fries as I watch him.

“Nah, maybe a new coat of asphalt and a few coats of paint. Weather isn’t bad enough to need a complete overhaul unless they decided to get fancy.”

He absently spins his wedding ring on his finger and I doubt he even notices it. It’s a habit he’s long had and probably doesn’t even register no more. He hasn’t taken his wedding ring off at all. I know he was prone to taking it off one day then wearing it the next. Never did figure out what that was all about, just know that it was him. Bet he won’t ever take that ring off now. Not for a long time coming. He’s...too devoted and I envy him. It ain’t easy to find the right someone with how much of our lives we devote to racing. Then to actually have the wherewithal to marry her when Daddy died, when our worlds were tilted on their axis.... They were lucky. Look down to my shake and brush my thumb along the base of the glass. I ain’t ever gonna be as lucky as they were. I know that now. It ain’t in my history and it just ain’t in me.

It’s my schedule. It’s my life. It’s a whole heap of things, but the thing is there’s just no one that can give me what I want. Glance across to him and I wonder what he sees ahead for himself. Babies are one thing and racing’s taken a massive backseat to the real important things in life. Does he see himself getting married again? Giving the sweet kits a mother to love them? Somehow that picture don’t fit. Run my hand through my hair and for once Kev’s not wearing his own hat. Ours both got rain soaked when we made the switch to driving.

Sip at my shake slowly and watch Kev look out the window. He looks different without his hat. We ain’t got any reason to hide from people. Maybe the occasional fan, but racing ain’t the same up here. It’s not the life pulse. They don’t want to take your every waking minute. They’ll actually let you be. Maybe it’s the absence of shadows on his face or cause he ain’t got as much hair as you’d expect? I don’t know, but he’s softer, almost like he’s someone completely different without the hat. I know it ain’t true because he’s still Kev under the bravado. We all do it for races. Not like we really mean to, it’s just our jobs and our passion. It’s why I ain’t too friendly before a race. I hafta get in a certain frame of mind and I just ain’t willing to switch out of it for the media. They deal with me like I am or don’t bother with interviews.

There’s a slump to his shoulders that was never there before. A tension inside him that jerks him to frantic and tense in short order. It’s all tied to the extra lines on his face and the hollowness in his eyes when he smiles. That won’t just go away, it’ll only fade slowly with time. Take another sip from my shake and push a fry around my plate. I need to remember to get something for the kits. Their Daddy’s hometown, they deserve something. I hope I can find something good.

I know what Kelley would say and I don’t want to hear it. I’m not wasting my time. It’s personal and complicated and Kev will never know, but I have to do it. Somehow it means more, feels like I’m doing more with him and the kits than all I do for Make-A-Wish. Maybe it’s cause I care too damn much about him or maybe it’s cause I’m hurting for the life that should’ve been. Maybe it’s some weird sort of payment for him stepping in, smoothing the edges of the great hole left behind by Daddy. I don’t know. Though, there’s one thing I do know.

They deserve all the good in their lives they can get. Cause it was supposed to be the fairytale. Momma and Daddy and two perfect little babies. Dream come true and a future to explore all the possibilities. It shouldn’t have ended in tragedy. Didn’t we get enough tragedy? He was supposed to be happy, supposed to be perfect. Scrub my hand over my face and drain the last of the shake then nudge his leg under the table. There’s no way we’re gonna spend the few hours we have sitting here. The track may be out of the question, but there’s other places we can go to lose ourselves in being normal. “You wanna wander around some? See the malls and stuff?”

He stares at me a moment then shrugs and picks at a few more French fries before sliding from the booth. I guess I’m paying. Toss down enough bills to cover the cost and trail after Kev. I let him think too long, but I’ll fix it. I will. This is supposed to be a good trip down memory lane, away from the track, away from everything. Catch up with him outside and knock my shoulder against his as we walk down the street, not sure where to go, just headed someplace. We can’t be too far from a mall. Smile at him when he looks at me and say, “Maybe we can find some stuff for the babies. Might even find some stuff for you.”

He blinks at me and I swallow a sigh. I’m supposed to be better at this. I know him, don’t I? I wonder if I’m not doing more harm than good because if he’s anything like me he doesn’t like shopping that much. He probably went with DeLana a lot and I bite the inside of my cheek. Shit, what if I’m only reminding him ‘bout her? Nudge him again and nod to the big mall right in front of us. People streaming in and out through the doors, chattering lost in their own lives. “This place around when you were?”

He shakes his head no and loosens up a bit as he starts to ramble on about how things have changed, how different it was. Louder, noisier with all the technology we got. I ‘member playing hooky at the mall a town over when I was a kid. Best things in the world were to let loose in the arcades for a couple hours. Can’t do that now. Not with cars and freeways and a ton of better shit to do. Arcades are in homes now. Ain’t gotta leave at all. Just sit down in front of your TV, see if a buddy’s on and off you go. Games are a whole lot better too, but there was something to just getting out with your buddies.

I prod him occasionally about what he misses and what he wouldn’t change as we slip inside the mall and wander up and down the levels. Essentially walk in circles as I let him talk. It’s cool to hear it all from his view, about how Bakersfield was too confining. I can surmise enough ‘bout his family even though he doesn’t go into it at all. How as much as he loved it out here, he had to move east because that’s where all the racing was. That if you wanted to be anyone you had to be where the racing was best. Tough competition, tough series. He was probably the best before he came to Charlotte and I think he started whupping everyone’s asses before…we lost Daddy.

Bite my lip and look across at him, he’s lost in telling me the story about this one time at the track where he wasn’t trying to be aggressive but that’s how it turned out and they’d given him warning number million and two. Grin as he talks about getting pissed drunk and blowing off steam by trying to pick a fight. I ain’t surprised at all. This was probably all before DeLana’s time because I don’t see her willing to take that kind of behavior too long. Stop in front of an open space against the railing around the upper floor and glance down at the floors below. His next words take me by surprise, “Living in California you’d think I’d be scared of heights, but it’s the blondes and look I even ended up married to one.” The smile he shoots me is one I haven’t seen in months.

I want to grab onto the moment and make it last but even as I try, it slips away because his face crumples and he stares hard down at the people moving below. There’s nothing I can say because for just a moment he forgot, for just a moment he was normal again. Squeeze his shoulder and leave my hand there as this time it’s me filling in the space with endless chatter about the mall, about anything, and somehow that leads me into spilling more about my own childhood than I’ve ever done. I can’t stop, it just pours out to him. I ain’t even told Kelley half of what I’m saying.

Watch him nervously and he’s not even listening, he’s letting my voice wash over him as he struggles with his own inner demons. I’m more relieved than anything. I don’t have to go explaining half of the things I just said. Turn my mental diarrhea to less personal territory. Babble on about racing and the mall and things I’ve done with the guys. Just nonsense that’ll keep my voice going to help him and give him whatever he needs.  I have to wonder if this was a good thing. The trip, the talk, everything. Because this is Kev. The man whose life was DeLana and racing. Now it’s babies and maybe racing if only because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. Talk about Australia and that leads to Europe and all I wanna see there. Somehow end up talking ‘bout Jay-Z and Beyonce and it’s so fucking surreal.

It’s normal yet not cause as much as we were “friends” I never talked to him like this. It wasn’t something we did. He’s not taking any of my words in. Unfocused look in his eyes and he’s staring at a pretty blonde with her kids. I’m so worried about what I’m saying I don’t even realize the tension in my clasped hands till they go numb. Wince and shake my hands out before I reach over to drag him by the arm cause I have an idea. “C’mon, show me some more of that sweet tooth of yours.” He just stares at me cause this is only something I would come up with in all it’s weird fun glory. What am I but someone to entertain? Tug him reluctantly behind me while I try to find that sweet shop we passed earlier. So yeah, I’m nothing but a big kid. People’ve been saying that for years. So what? If me and my friends can’t have fun, what’s the point?

Drag him inside the store and grin when I see the big lollipops and head straight for the counter. “Excuse me, how much are the giant lollipops?”

Get an elbow to the side as Kev’s followed me. “Earnhardt, you’ve got to be kidding.”

Just grin at him and buy one, pushing it into his hands. “Either suck on this or show me what else you like.” He shakes his head and that look people get when they’re humoring someone settles on his face. That ain’t out of place, if anything it’s normal. I’ve always been a bit out there with the things I like, my obsession with the 70s, some of the things I’ve done. I got used to the flak, don’t really care what they think. I get to have fun.

Spot some chocolate covered malt balls in one of the many clear cases and make a beeline for them. God I haven’t had these in too damn long. Slide the lid open and pop one in my mouth. Shit. Perfect, just perfect. Been awhile since I had one of these. Been looking just never found ones that tasted right. My damn luck I’d find ‘em all the way out in California. Mmm...turn when I feel him come up beside me.

“I don’t get you at all.” His head tilts to the side as he eyes me. The lollipop’s still tucked in its wrapper. He hasn’t touched it yet and if he hasn’t by the time we’re done here, I’ll make him eat it on the drive back.

“What’re you waiting for? What other sweets do you like?” He must think I’m the weirdest thing he’s ever seen, but that’s fine by me. Long as he ain’t sad I’ll take it. He opens his mouth to speak again and that’s when I drop two malt balls in his mouth, grinning at him. “C’mon, lots more to taste. Bet you haven’t had half the stuff in here.”

Gather up a bag of those malt balls then move all round the shop, from one case to the next, making him try everything. We’re both gonna be lucky not to get sick, but I don’t care. It’s worth it to see him something other than sad and so worried about the kits he can’t see past the end of his nose. One day, Harvick, you’ll be doing this with the kits and I’ll probably not be there to see it. I just want you to have the chance.

Eventually, he wanders on his own, trying to find something I haven’t tried and it ain’t much. Obediently eat whatever he holds up in his hand. Some are completely freaking vile like those blue green pretzel thingies, but then there’s those things like orange jawbreakers? Absolutely fucking awesome and I need to find places around Mooresville that sell those. By the end of all this, I got nearly ten different bags of candies I get to take with me and I grin when I see Kev eyeing them and shaking his head. He’s not happy, but he’s not sad. I’ll take it. I’ll take neutral and maybe enjoying himself any day. I just hope I can keep giving him days like this. He needs ‘em so bad. I just hope I’m helping in some way.

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Zippit - zippit@cryptoffic.com