Chapter 14 ~~
The house was dark and empty as Jr. yanked open the door in a sleepy haze. He was glad that someone had thought of getting his keys from Teresa or he’d be sleeping on the lawn or worse, he’d have to call her.
He couldn’t believe she would start accusing people especially himself or Kerry for something that was an accident. He didn’t know he was allergic to that prescription and the fact that she thought Kerry would ever hurt him was ridiculous! He’s his brother! Well half brother but still! He’s blood.
He switched on the lights and proceeded into the kitchen after double-checking the locks on the door. He needed water to take some Tylenol… the only thing he could take for pain till further notice. Luckily, even though he did a lot today he wasn’t in that much pain.
As he reached his hand into the cabinet, a loud crash erupted behind him causing Jr. to knock half the cups out onto the floor.
“Holy Shit!” He yelped out in shock.
He spun around to find out what caused it when a ball of fur jumped onto the counter next to him.
“Bud?!” Jr. yelled while picking up his cat and holding its fuzzy face close to his.
“You scared the hell outta me kitty!” The cat just meowed at him and started to purr loudly. He set the cat down and walked over to the pots and pans on the floor that were once in the drain board. He then looked back behind him to the plastic cups on the floor. The kitchen was a mess.
“Your lucky I wasn’t getting a glass!” he said to the cat. “Well I don’t have the strength to try to pick them up now. How’d you get here huh? Taylor drop you off?”
His answer was a cat rub on his legs and Jr. laughed.
“Well I’m glad someone is here for me to talk too!”
~~~~~~~~~~
After finally getting his water, Bud and Jr. made their way into the bedroom. As he walked in, something on the bed caught his eye. A letter…
“Prolly from Teresa saying sorry…” he said looking at the cat. Bud meowed back like he understood his owner.
“Well she can wait.” Jr. was in a good mood at the moment and didn’t want to mess it up. He walked away from the letter and headed into the bathroom to freshen up before hitting the sack. He wanted to sleep for a year or two. As he walked out about 10 minutes later the phone started to ring.
“Should I let the Machine get it Bud??” He looked over at his cat but the fuzzy fur ball was fast asleep on the pillows.
“Great company you are.” He mumbled while reaching for the phone on the nightstand.
“Holla!” He said into the phone.
“Um… What?” The voice of Jeff Burton filled his ear and Junior laughed.
“Ha Ha! Hi Jeff!”
“What do they have you on?” The Ford driver questioned at Jr’s weird actions.
“I’m just in a good mood.”
“Well that’s good!”
“Yeah”
There was a pause and Jr. was wondering why Jeff had called him… especially so late at night.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“That’s good…”
“No offense Jeff but what the hell do ya want? Its 11 o’clock at night!”
Jeff laughed on the other end. He realized that this situation was really weird.
“Ok um…. Stewart told me to call… he wanted me to talk to you about… well… that day…” Jeff who was always very punctual was tripping over his words horribly.
“Did he…” suddenly Jr. wanted to crack a vase over Tony Stewarts head.
“He said you haven’t yet.”
A large vase… a VERY large vase!
“Well Jeff… I don’t mean to be rude but… I’ve had a long day and I’m not in the mood to talk right now… especially about this.”
“Dale you should really talk about it… and any time is a good time.”
A vase with water still in it!
“Oh really? You my shrink now?”
“I just think you should talk about it. Thought if I caught you off guard then you wouldn’t have time to think about it and just spill.”
“Well your wrong… I’m not talking about anything tonight Jeff… sorry.”
“Junior…”
“No!” Jr’s good mood was far from being existent.
“It was a traumatizing thing Dale! You don’t’ have to be so damn strong! Drop the Earnhardt barrier for god sake! Just talk to me about it!”
“Fuck you…”
“You were scared…”
Jr. started to clench his fists till his knuckles turned a white as snow.
“I’m hanging up…”
“You couldn’t’ do anything…”
“Son of a bitch!” Jr. yelled stomping his feet. His eyes were starting to glisten and his sudden need to sniff clued Jeff into it.
“See… you should discuss it and get it all out.”
There was an other long and drawn out pause. Jr. was far from ready to talk about what had happened but it was the first time someone was trying to make him do it.
“I hate you.” He whispered into the phone.
“No you don’t”
“I hate fords than!”
Jeff let out a hearty chuckle. “Fine! Haha… So are you gonna talk or what?”
“Yeah.... But I’m not doing it now.”
“That’s ok… as long as you do alright? Want me to call you when I get back from New Hampshire?” The #99 driver was ecstatic that he had a small break through.
“Yeah whatever”
“Well I’ll take that as a yes! Go get some sleep.”
“Was attempting to do just that when you called getting me all emotional!” Jr. pointed out.
“Sorry buddy… Had to be done.
“Yeah yeah yeah… Alright I’m really going now.”
“Ok Jr. Good to hear from you… and don’t’ forget… when I get back we are gonna chat.”
“Yup…”
“Buh bye…”
“Wait… Jeff?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks…”
Jeff Burton smiled on his end and it showed in his voice. “We love ya boy... get better.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The garage was full of energy the next morning in New Hampshire. Teams were unloading and fixing away at their stock cars getting ready for Qualifying later on in the afternoon. It was a nice warm and sunny day and the track was full of good moods.
A group of drivers in their regular clothes stood together on pit road. They were loud with laughter and got many stares by people and crews walking by.
“Oh I thought I was gonna piss my pants laughing when he put a doughnut on your car man! That was great!” Tony Stewart said almost in tears.
“I know!! You were definitely not expecting it!” Kevin Harvick added.
“I sure wasn’t! But hey... I have a good luck charm this weekend! Watch out!” Elliot Sadler said while puffing out his chest.
“Whatever Elliot! An Earnhardt Doughnut is certainly not a good luck charm! It simply means you were conquered so move over!” Dale Jarrett informed the younger driver.
“I don’t care! I’m not letting them paint it over!” Elliot chuckled. The rest of the group followed suit.
“Thought he was seriously gonna hurt you DJ!” Michael Waltrip said to the UPS driver.
“ME TOO! Thought we were gonna end up back at that hospital but this time for DJ!” Steve giggled.
“The Earnhardt Glare was in full effect last night now wasn’t it guys?” Kevin said.
Just then a voice behind them startled the group of giddy drivers.
“Earnhardt Glare? You guys went to visit Jr. last night?”
The group froze as Hank Parker Jr. awaited an answer anxiously. He hadn’t had a chance to talk with his old friend and felt horrible for it. He was so busy with driving his Busch car and now driving Jr’s car for him that he didn’t have much time. He also didn’t want to bother his friend if he wasn’t feeling well.
“Umm… Hi Hank….” Tony said while trying not to make eye contact.
The group was told not to say anything about the test drive the night before. Jr. wasn’t supposta be driving at all and they didn’t exactly have higher up permission to use the track. Things needed to be kept quiet for now.
“How is he? What did he say??” Hank asked with such curiosity that he looked and sounded 10 years younger.
“Umm… He didn’t say much.” Elliot lied and turned his head in time to wince at his answer.
“He seems to be doing better.” Michael added.
“Oh… well that’s good.” Hank replied. He wasn’t entirely sure they were telling him the truth but had a feeling he wouldn’t get it out of them.
“Well! Gotta go Hank! See ya guys! “ Kevin said with a wide smile and high tailed it outta there.
“Yeah... uh… got stuff to do!” Tony muttered and spun on his heels.
The rest of the guys said good bye to the Busch driver and left him standing all alone.
“What the hell was that all about?” He was very confused. With a shrug he kept walking in the direction he was headed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A loud ringing echoed through his ears. The horrible noise cut through his head like a laser beam making sure it lasted long enough to pull him out of his dream world.
“Son of a bitch.” Junior garbled as he reached for the phone on the night stand. After fumbling with it for a few seconds in an attempt to keep it in his hands, he finally got it to his ear.
“If this isn’t a hot chick then so help me god I’ll rip out your…”
The person on the other line interrupted the young Earnhardt before he could finish his sentence. It was a good thing too because what was going to come out even HBO wouldn’t play after midnight!
“Mr. Earnhardt? This is Dr. Shepard… the ER doctor you saw yesterday?”
Jr. allowed his eyes to open fully in an attempt to actually listen to the caller by waking himself up so more.
“Yeah…”
“I’m sorry to bother you so early. I wanted to tell you the results of the test I did on your pills.”
‘Huh?’ he thought. No one told him about some tests.
“What test?”
“Excuse me?”
“What test?? I didn’t know about a test?”
Jr. couldn’t help thinking it was way to early for mind games and his temper for being woken up before noon was evident in his groggy voice.
“Oh… I thought your Step-mother would have told you. I took the pills you were recently prescribed to analyze them. I couldn’t help but wonder why they caused such a reaction. And I just got the tests back.”
Teresa had struck again. He couldn’t believe she didn’t tell him… especially if he was gonna have to be woken up so damn early! ‘Maybe I should have read the letter’ he thought.
“Well what did you find?”
“As a matter of fact… It wasn’t the prescription that was on the bottle at all. It was an extremely high dose of a version of Sleeping pills. It’s rare to find such a high dose. That’s why you had the problem you had with it. It just made you pass out completely.”
“Alright…” Jr said while rubbing his face to help wake him up some more. This was all too much to talk right now. “So how did I get these sleeping pills instead of what I should have gotten?”
“I’m not sure. I checked where you had the prescription filled… they don’t’ carry this high dose. It could have been a number of things though. A mess up somewhere.” The doctor sounded confused and Jr. felt his pain.
“Well obviously there was a mess up!”
“I’m sorry sir… I don’t’ have much else to tell you except that’s what I found out. I’ll keep trying the pharmacy to see if there was an other incident.”
“Yeah thanks…” and with that Junior hung up the phone. His mind was racing. How in the hell did these sleeping pills get in his bottle! Those dumb asses at the store must have some loose brains to make a mistake like that.
He threw his legs over the end of the bed and pushed himself up off the warm soft mattress. He cursed under his breath at the fact that he was leaving it after seeing his cat curled up on HIS pillow and staggered his way into the kitchen.
“Where the hell did I put the phone book?” He questioned while opening cabinets. He was going to call the damn pharmacy and find out what happened and if they gave him a hard time he would go down there and show off a little Earnhardt temper! He didn’t care what his family said… He’d get right in his truck and go. He was no longer helpless right? He drove at 170 + miles an hour last night! A mere 55 was peanuts.
“Do I even HAVE a phone book?” he said after looking for a couple minutes. “OH fuck! It’s way to early for this!”
Finally he opened the drawer underneath the answering machine and low and behold... he had a phone book!
“Halleluiah!” He yelped and yanked the thing out of the drawer and immediately started flipping pages. “Cant believe they would do that sorta thing… can I sue um?? All these problems with the damn pills! First they think I OD’ed and then they blamed…”
Junior froze. Suddenly the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. Kerry DID hand him his pills… He couldn’t’ see him from the kitchen… He HAD been acting very weird lately…
He flashed back to yesterday when Kerry came over to talk.
~~~~
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“You… you’re acting weird.”
“I am?” Kerry gave a fake confused face.
“Don’t’ play cute with me Kerry… you wouldn’t talk to me in the hospital… you LEFT! You drive Steve’s car instead of mine. You don’t call and you avoided everyone at the track like the plague when all they wanted from you was an answer to if I was ok or not! Was that so hard to do?? What the hell is wrong with you!!”
Kerry stared into his eyes for what felt like an eternity and then moved his gaze to his hands.
“Sorry… It’s just…. Been really crazy…”
“Yeah and…”
“Ever since I heard about your accident I guess I’ve been a little distant.”
“Why…”
“I don’t know… probably because It scared me a little… Having someone else in the family hurt by a race track?”
“Uh... Kerry… the damn asphalt didn’t lift off the ground and stab me… don’t dig so deep into this.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyways go on…”
“Umm… I guess I felt a little awkward too… since I’m not your whole brother…”
“Oh cut it out! You’re my brother… that’s all that matters. Who gives a shit about the HALF part.”
“I do…”
“Well your nuts…”
“Maybe your right.”
“Look… I just had to know what was wrong with you. You were acting stupid and pissed a few people off.”
“Like who?”
“Kevin… me…”
“Oh… sorry.”
There was a few minutes of silence before Kerry added something that Jr. didn’t quite understand.
“I was really bad Dale… will you ever forgive me?” his brother started to grow tears in the corners of his eyes and Junior’s eyebrows fused together.
“Of course I forgive you… don’t’ get upset just stop being a dumb ass is all.” He tried to smile to get Kerry to loosen up but it didn’t work.
“No Dale… you shouldn’t forgive me. I hurt you… Uh… made you feel bad…I’m so sorry.”
Jr. nodded and then reached for his glass of water and the pill bottle. Kerry’s eyes followed it like a puppy watching a hotdog. His eyes never left him as Junior took out a pill and swallowed it down in one gulp of water. Suddenly Kerry stood up.
“I gotta go ok? I was going up to New Hampshire early. Feel better… I’m glad we talked. Again… I’m sorry.”
Junior stood up and shook Kerry’s hand.
“You’re my brother dude… I couldn’t’ leave things hanging.”
“Yeah… See ya…”
And with that… Kerry opened the door and stepped out.
5 seconds later… Junior was out cold.
~~~~~
“Oh Fuck! You’re kidding me right?” Jr. yelled while slamming the phone book shut. Suddenly he felt bad for yelling at Teresa for her accusation. He headed back into his room to get the cordless phone and his eyes landed on the while envelope that he had never opened. He grabbed it and ripped it open. There was one piece of paper… with no lines on it. There was only one sentence as well.
His eyes widened as he read the bold print out loud.
“I’m Back!?”
The same familiar type of letter… Junior dropped the letter to the floor and grabbed for the phone. But something wouldn’t let him…
He felt his arms grabbed and yanked back forcefully, pinned at his sides. He struggled and started to yell for help. Hopefully maybe the officers out front would hear him.
His attempts were muffled as the strong hands pushed him onto his bed stomach first and he cried out in pain as he felt stitches rip from his skin. His head was half buried in the blankets but not enough so he couldn’t breath. He felt his hands pulled back ward and held in place so he couldn’t’ do anything but lay there. All he could see was blankets.
He felt movement as his captor leaned down to whisper in his ear. Junior felt the hot breath on him as it came closer to him. He cringed at the thought of being so close to the bastard.
“Why wont you die?” he whispered while tightening his grip on Jr’s arms and pushing down causing his stomach to flare even more from the pressure.
“Alright boy… We’re gonna go visit some friends of your…”
Jr’s body started to shake from the pain as he felt a knee be replaced by hands leaving the asshole able to use his hands again.
“Up for a road trip?” The mans growl was making Junior sick. But it wouldn’t’ last long. He felt the bed shift and heard something being picked up. Junior closed his eyes. He was so scared and wished he could just leave his body.
The last thing he heard was the mans growl again.
“Wonder how the weather is in New Hampshire!” and with that… a sharp pain erupted from his head sending him into the dark world once more. At least now he was free again.
