Harvey Porter Does Dallas

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Harvey Porter Does Dallas

James W. Bennett

AUTHOR'S STATEMENT OF DISCLAIMER

Harvey Porter Does Dallas
is not affiliated with J.K. Rowling, Scholastic books, Warner Brothers, or any person or entity associated with the “Harry Potter” series. It is not endorsed by any of the aforementioned parties. The book is a work of parody, and any similarities between it and people living or dead, real or imaginary, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Rights to the Potter characters and their likenesses are neither claimed nor implied.

James W. Bennett,

Spring, 2004

1. THE BOY ON THE CORNER

As Bailey Mushrush was brushing his teeth, he remembered that he was now 50 years old. It happened every morning: Brushing his teeth while looking at his pudgy face in the mirror, the mirror seemed to say to him, “You're 50 years old now. That means you're old.”

On this particular morning, he talked back to the mirror. “I had my birthday more than a month ago. Let's stop having this conversation, okay?” Then he felt silly about trying to talk back and forth with his own florid, blotchy face. After all, it was just a mirror; it had no life of its own. It didn't have a brain. It couldn't talk.

He tied his tie in a hurry, as he was running a little late this morning. He fussed and cursed silently to himself.
I may be 50 years old, but I've never learned how to tie a tie exactly right even so
. He felt frustrated, as always.

He hurried downstairs to the kitchen. His wife, Wilberta, had breakfast all prepared. Scrambled eggs, toast, sausage and coffee.
But then she's not 50 years old
, Bailey reminded himself.

He gobbled two slices of toast down in ten seconds, then sipped away at his coffee briefly.

“Sit down and have a proper breakfast,” suggested his wife.

“Can't. Running late.” His two children, Sasha and BoBo were eating slowly. They had the time. Bailey looked down over Sasha's shoulder. She was twelve. She had finished her scrambled eggs and was eating her sausage links with her fingers. Her fork was on the table beside her plate. “Sasha, I've spoken to you about this before. You eat sausage properly, with your knife and fork.”

Sasha seemed not to notice him, but she said in a flat voice, “Okay, Dad. If you say so.”

“And look at your fork,” Bailey felt compelled to tell her. “We've spoken about this before too.”

“Right, Dad.”

“If you use the fork and then lay it on the table, rather than your plate, crumbs of eggs or sausage will end up on the table top. Your mother will have to wash that up.”

“Right, Dad.”

Bailey looked briefly at BoBo, who was diving into seconds of everything and wiping his greasy hands on his pants. BoBo was 14. He was a fat blimp who weighed more than 250 pounds. Bailey had pretty much given up the ghost when it came to teaching him about table manners. He'd like to put him on a juice and water diet so he could lose about 100 pounds. But he wouldn't dare; nobody could throw a tantrum better than BoBo, and even though he was a pudge, he was getting stronger.

Bailey ignored him. He kissed Wilberta quickly on the cheek, picked up his briefcase from the wing chair in the living room, and headed straight for the car. He drove smartly out of his overstuffed garage and left his home at 3204 Forest Lane, Garland, Texas.

The car was the biggest, gas-guzzling SUV Dodge had to offer. It got about 7 miles per gallon. But Bailey liked sitting high in traffic, looking down on other motorists. He also liked to max out his credit by buying things like a giant, thin TV which hung on the wall like a big work of art. Only much bigger. He also liked to buy the latest (and most expensive) computer games for his children. Sasha and BoBo had huge, walk-in closets that looked like storage bins, only not as tidy.

Bailey's wife Wilberta had had to find a part-time job at a canning factory in Mesquite to help pay against all the credit cards.

It was an unusually cool day for mid-August, so Bailey drove without the air conditioning. He put down both front windows and drove with his left arm out the window. The biggest news story on the radio was that the Dallas School District had purchased the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza. This was the building where Lee Harvey Oswald holed up on the sixth floor and used his
Manlicher
scope rifle to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.

The school district planned to turn the building into a “Special Alternative School.” The man on the radio referred to it as a S.A.S. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked the rear view mirror. The mirror didn't answer. Bailey went on, “Another stupid educational experiment which will add up to more and more taxes.”

He turned the radio off and put in his favorite CD,
The Greatest Hits of the King Family
, and hummed along with the music. Traffic was moving well in Garland, but when he entered Dallas proper, he ran into problems. He was driving on Garland Road, moving briskly along, but at the edge of White Rock Lake he saw the dreadful sign:

Road Construction Ahead. Expect Delays
.

“Oh drat. What now?” It wasn't long until he found out the “what now.” Construction on Grand Avenue had traffic down to a single lane. Bailey was stopped dead in his tracks, waiting to get on the Thornton Freeway. He cursed his bad luck, assuming all the other drivers were doing likewise. He was stopped dead on a corner with a Krispy Kreme shop and a used car lot. Someone behind honked a horn. Bailey turned in anger and yelled, “What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”

His rear view mirror seemed to say,
take it easy; you're too old to come unglued over a traffic jam
. He thought to himself,
so now I'm talking to mirrors again and they're answering back
. He wondered if he was developing some kind of mental illness saved up for people over 50.

He said to the mirror, “This wind has completely mussed my hair.” And the mirror seemed to say,
you're going bald; you can comb what little hair you've got left sideways, but it won't change anything
.

“Will you shut up?!” he yelled at the mirror. Then he felt very self-conscious because the lady driving the car beside him was staring. She had heard his nasty reaction to the rear view mirror. He rolled up his windows and turned on the AC.

On the corner just outside the used car lot, stood a teenage boy with a suitcase. Bailey looked at him for more than five minutes, then traffic moved a little bit. The boy was swarthy, with a bored, arrogant look on his face. There was a big scar on his forehead. The suitcase next to him was so old-fashioned it looked like it might have been from the World War Two era; it was covered with plaid fabric which was torn loose at all the corners. The boy's worn-out looking pants were much too short—they barely covered the top of his white sox. He wore black leather shoes that were worn and dirty.

“Probably some kind of juvenile delinquent,” said Bailey in a very low voice, forgetting that his windows were now closed.

But then he noticed that the boy was staring straight back at him with dark, defiant eyes.
Actually
, thought Bailey Mushrush,
glaring would be a better word
. Bailey turned away. He didn't want to exchange stares with this nasty-looking kid. But then the traffic started moving once again, slowly, for about half a mile. He was still not on the Thornton Freeway.

When he finally got to the insurance office, he was half an hour late. He hurried into the bathroom to comb his hair again and take one more shot at tying his tie. Frustrated, he said loudly, “Forty years of practice and I still can't get it right! It's not fair.”

“Who are you talking to, Bailey?” It was Ingrid Finch, in one of the stalls. Ever since the company had made the bathroom unisex, Bailey had been uncomfortable using it. And now he felt embarrassed again. Ingrid had heard his “private” outburst, just like the woman driver in the construction zone.

“It's nothing,” he replied to Ingrid. And why should he care what Ingrid Finch might think? She was an old woman who smelled bad and had a hook nose. Nobody in the office liked her; in fact, behind her back, all the employees called her “The Witch.” She believed in all sorts of weird stuff, like “channeling” dead people, holding séances, and claimed she knew many people who had been kidnapped by aliens from other planets. He took one more quick glance in the mirror—and for the briefest moment—less than one second—he thought he saw the glaring face of the grubby boy with the suitcase. He left the bathroom immediately, and vowed to avoid all mirrors the rest of the day.

Try to imagine his shock and surprise when he returned home from work. Sitting on his front porch stoop, right next to the suitcase, was the boy he'd seen on the way to work. Bailey was confused.
What the hell is this about?
He got out of his car to approach the young hobo with the scowl still on his face. “Who are you, and what are you doing on my front stoop?”

2. THE WALK-IN CLOSET

“I would have been inside by now, but some fat-ass kid inside locked the door on me,” said the hoodlum/hobo.

“That's not what I asked you, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't characterize one of my children in that vulgar way.”

“Okay, Pops, my name is Harvey Porter and I've come to move in. Your family and I are relatives.”

“Relatives? What
kind
of relatives? We don't know who you are.”

The boy named Harvey fished a crumpled piece of paper from his threadbare slacks. “This is 3204 Forest Lane, right?”

“Yes, but what difference does that make?”

“It means I'm at the right address. Your name is Mushrush, right?”