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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 Ingri
d 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?”

  “Yes? So?”

  Harvey Porter lit up a cigarette. Bailey figured he was fifteen or sixteen, but he was built like a full grown man. He had muscles that bulged and a tattoo of a saxophone on his left bicep. He was at least six feet tall, and was more than a little scary. He had that swarthy complexion and that ugly scar between his eyebrows.

  “Young man, what is it you want here?”

  “I told you, we’re relatives and I need a place to stay. I’ve been basically on the street for the past six years. My dodger’s name was Harvey Porter, so I just took it on for myself after he died.”

  Bailey knew that “dodger” was street people slang for a mentor or a guide. “When did this man, the real Harvey Porter die?”

  “About a week ago. We could all see it comin’. He was almost 70 and had trouble breathing. So much so that he had to quit playin’ his sax on street corners. That was the only money he made, and it wasn’t much.”

  Bailey could just imagine. A tramp with a coffee can on a street corner playing a saxophone for money. It was the kind of fraud Bailey strictly avoided. “But what does any of this have to do with my family?” he demanded.

  “Just before Harvey died,” replied Harvey, “he told me if I ever needed a port in the storm Mushrush at this address would take me in, because they were relatives.”

  “You keep saying that. What kind of relatives? How could anyone in my family be related to you?”

  “That’s a mystery to me too, Pops. He never said how. He just said you were relatives and would take me in if he died.”

  “Relatives of his? Or yours?”

  “That would be me, Pops.”

  “Will you quit calling me that? My name is Bailey Mushrush. That’s Mister Mushrush to you. And I’m certainly not your “pop” or your father.”

  “I might shorten it to Mr: M. Would that be cool?”

  By now Bailey was confused and annoyed by this entire preposterous conversation. “Yeah, yeah, that’s okay,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll tell you the best we can do for you. You can stay with us for a couple of days until we get this relative thing figured out. After that, you’ll probably be on the street again. Maybe you can be somebody’s dodger.”

  “That’s cool, Mr. M. Thanks.”

  “By the way, how’d you get that ugly scar?”

  “I was knifed in a street brawl with Carlos Villanueva. Some of his brown bread stools ganged up on me.”

  “And you survived?” Bailey recognized the name of Villanueva. He was one of Dallas’ most notorious gang leaders, arrested so often for criminal behavior that he was a person anyone would know who read the local newspapers.

  “I not only survived,” said Harvey, smiling for the first time, “but I beat the shit out of him. He walked funny for more’n two weeks.”

  Bailey just shook his head. He had no words. “Like I said, you can stay for a couple of days until we get this phony relative thing sorted out.”

  “I’m cool with that,” said Harvey. “It might be a hoot; I’ve never stayed with white bread before.”

  Bailey banged on the door until BoBo came to peek out through the cracked opening. “Unlock the door, Bobo, we’re coming inside.”

  “Who’s the scumbag with you?”

  “I’ve warned you about using that kind of vulgar language. His name is Harvey Porter. I’m sure he’ll be glad to tell you all about himself.” Then the door swung wide, making room for Bailey and Harvey to enter.

  Bobo was nearly as tall as Harvey, but so fat he probably outweighed him by 150 pounds. One good look at Harvey, and BoBo was plenty scared. The scar made even Harvey’s smiles look like leers.

  “Bobo,” instructed Bailey, “take Harvey upstairs to your room. You can clean out your walk-in closet to make room for a cot. He’ll need a place to sleep.”

  “All my stuff?” Bobo whined.

  “Yes. All of it.”

  Bobo whined again: “But where am I s’posed to put it all?”

  “You’ll have to store it in the basement,” his father replied. “There’s enough room down there if you move a few things out of the way.”

  Bobo waddled up the stairs with his face in a pout. Harvey followed after, lugging the suitcase. There were posters of Dallas Cowboys players on the wall of Bobo’s room. Harvey had no interest in sports heroes, but he was flexible.

  He asked Bobo, “Where’s Mrs. M.?”

  “Ms. M.?” Bobo asked.

  “Your mother. Your father’s wife.”

  “She works afternoons in the canning factory. She’ll be coming home pretty soon. Harvey plopped his suitcase on the bed and said, “Yeah, this’ll be just okay.”

  “But this is my room,” Bobo protested.

  “No, fatboy, this used to be your room.” He pointed at the huge closet. “There’s your new room.”

  Bobo’s eyes turned wide, at least as wide as they could get in his pudgy face. “But you can’t just take over my room,” he whined.

  “I can’t?” Harvey said. He turned and looked Bobo straight in the eye. He put his right index finger under one of Bobo’s chins. “Now, blubber-butt, say that again to me.”

  Suddenly Bobo’s lip began to quiver and his chins trembled. He was scared almost to death. Harvey opened his suitcase and began throwing dirty clothes on the floor. He didn’t have many clothes, though. “Where’s the laundry basket?” he asked.

  “In my parents’ room,” Bobo gulped.

  “That sounds like a good place to start. Take all my dirty clothes and put them in the basket.”

  “Okay,” was the quick answer. And he took Harvey’s clothes into his parents’ room and delivered them to the laundry basket, which was nearly full. That was probably a good thing; his mom would be doing laundry this evening.

  When he got back, Harvey was staring inside the closet at the piles of video games, computer parts, and a stack of interactive TV games. The name on these games was tubeview. Harvey had heard of them, but never saw one work before. On the floor of the closet were boxes
and boxes of toys, sports equipment, books, and old clothes.

  “Will you at least help me move this stuff to the basement?” Bobo asked, his chins still quaking.

  “I don’t see that happening,” was Harvey’s reply. “Take a look at this mess. All this crap piled everywhere. Did I make the mess?”

  “N-n-o.”

  “But you did?” said Harvey.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Okay, blimpy, first new rule: whoever makes the mess takes the mess. Sound fair?”

  “Y-yes.” Bobo didn’t stutter, but the presence of Harvey Porter was turning his insides to mush.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Harvey. “I’ll give you a break.”

  “What break?”

  “I’ll show you what’s left in the suitcase.”

  Bobo waddled slowly to the bedside to look inside Harvey’s suitcase. All that was left was something with an odd shape that was wrapped in a chamois. He opened it and brought out a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun.

  Bobo gulped. About three times. “Is that real?” he asked Harvey.

  “Would I have some reason to carry a toy gun around with me?” was the sarcastic reply. “Of course it’s real.”

  “D-do you d-do you ever use it?”

  “Only when I’m cornered and overwhelmed. I almost had to use it on Carlos Villanueva.”

  “C-c-carlos Vil-vil anueva?”

  “Yeah. He gave me this nasty scar here,” said Harvey, pointing at the jagged and poorly-stitched zipper on his forehead. “But I didn’t have to use it after all. I broke his jaw for him and gave him my best rabbit punches. When I left, he was all doubled up and squirming on the sidewalk.”

  Carlos Villanueva? Bobo’s fear had turned to terror.

  Harvey continued, “I was brown bread and so was his gang. It can get that way out on the streets.”

  “You were in a brown bread street gang?”

  “Yeah, eventually. But when I was younger I had to make my way in more acceptable ways, like stealing and panhandling. But that’s enough of that crap. You’ve got a lot of work to do to set up your new bedroom. You better get started.”