Previously on Wicked Theory: Months ago, our Presidential Primary Candidates representing the WTF Party, Notsocrazy and Bill Blogins, disappeared while on their Campaign Bus tour. Their last stop? HAZZARD COUNTY. The smoke has cleared, a media embargo lifted, and now, finally they can reveal the truth. In Part 1 they recalled a whole slew of dark and nonsensical jibber-jabber. It's more than we want to recap here, because this is way too long as it is, so we recommend you read that first.
The twisting and tumbling Cletus did falling out of Enos' car might have done him more damage than the bullet that caught his neck. His shoulder had dislocated with a gritty crunch and his bad knee finally twisted out. He also had rolled further then Rosco assumed a man of that girth would. When he came to an incredibly painful rest, the coward in him insisted he play dead. Through almost-closed eyes he peeked to watch Rosco. After Rosco assumed him dead, Cletus shifted his eyes to see his
Uncle, Boss Hogg, up in the car, pressed against the glass. Then Cletus heard a sound, not unlike the sound of the thing that had burst through the Duke's roof, but heavier. More bass. He felt it in his teeth. He never moved his head, he never had to. His dead mans view was perfect.
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| Jefferson Davis Hogg |
"Roscowhatdidyoudooo..?" And than a loud smack...
Age loosened wood planks popped off the barn when the rushing winds of the Coyvance entered it. Cletus, still afraid to move his head, could not see into the structure. He heard an engine start and thought he recognized that chugging, but then it quickly changed and it no longer sounded quite like a '69 Doge Charger.
It was meatier… angrier...
Up on the ridge, Rosco started his patrol car and pulled away harshly, kicking up dust and rocks...
Cletus then watched as the General Lee slowly rolled out of the garage, glowing red hot, blazing, like coals in a fire. Driverless. It too peeled out, it's rear shifting sideways, then it tore off across the lawn right up the embankment, a trail of fire behind it in the dry grass…
Down in the darkness, the tunnel ended and became the root cellar. Wider and loaded with what I thought at first was junk, the room was scantly lit from slivers of daylight creeping in around a doorframe ahead. Bo slammed up on the door with his shoulder.
"Locked from out there. Paranoid Jessie." Bo took a moment, and tried again. Luke went over and they did did it together. The padlock broke and the door swung open, both of them stumbling. The light's golden rays revealed an hap-hazardous, mind-warping array that was Jessie's secret distillery room. No ordinary set up was this, no sir. It was as though Rube Goldberg himself had helped design it… and then rejected it for being too ridiculous.
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| Sketch found in debris on Duke farm. Blueprints? |
It was Bill calling my name. I snapped out of it.
"The General Lee… it's GONE!" Bo chirped with shock. "Wha? Where…Who? When…?" He dropped to his knees. "Why…?…why?" His head dropped as had his heart. "….not the car…" He started sobbing. It was all too much. His head lifted, we saw his tears. He saw the collapsed, flattened, burring pile of house.
He wailed.
Awwwkwarrrd. Bill and I looked around at nothing really. I scratched the back of my neck...
Only several yards away, but unseen, Cletus heard us and started to move. Suddenly, he now found courage enough to raise his good hand up. His vocal pleas a scant whisper due to his throat damage. No one heard him.
"Bo, pick yourself up, get your gear and man the fuck up…" Luke stood behind him, but the blonde headed boy-man didn't move, he just moaned weakly. Luke had no time for this. "You think we have nothing left. Is that it? You're wrong!" Luke squatted down, getting close to Bo's ear. He hushed his tone. "We have two new friends to help…"
Bill and I looked at each other... Us? To the left of the barn, Cletus sat up and made an attempt to stand. Constantly racked with pain, his motions were stiff and slight. His left arm, dislocated at the shoulder only gave the slightest counter balance. Every bolt of pain triggering a jerk reaction.
"...And most of all…We have dynamite and we have vengeance. Righteous vengeance of… biblical proportions. So, get up… Get your gear… And get on the weird fucking bus. Tonight, we dine on the Hogg."
Bo got up, wiped his eyes, stared into the sun. He nodded.
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| He look's like the life of the party. |
Cletus was trying not to use his bad knee, which was difficult and just as he thought he had it, his balance gave. His blunt weight tipped him and he slammed down on his damaged shoulder, neutron stars exploded in his vision and he blacked out...
Bo grabbed his bow and arrows from a wall mounting and followed us around the barn. Luke had kept us moving but Bo froze when he saw Cletus yards out, covered in blood and slumped oddly.
"Damn you Rosco…" Luke took him for dead, as did we all, and kept moving. Cletus would not be found for six hours, luckily he would miss the tragedy still to come…
Luke took the drivers seat like a shorter, curlier-haired Sandra Bullock and we left the farm behind. Bo stood at his side, one leg in the stepwell, Keaneu style. We didn't understand the trail of fire we followed through the grass but it led to the road where we only spotted it randomly, where it had caught onto the dying brush in patches. Perhaps The General lee was leaking gasoline? Bo cursed the bus for being slow.
"Well it was keeping up with you this morning…" Bill said.
"Because we let you." Luke replied with a dismissing wave.
I was in the back most seat regaining clarity. Still buzzed, yet it seemed as though the harsh times had passed. Bo was constantly jostled by the way the bus took the road but he finally turned on the CB under the dash. Tuned to channel 18 and whistled "Shave and a Haircut" a few times, pausing in-between. Finally someone broke through the channel and whistled back "…Two Bits". Luke smiled and changed to channel 20.
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| Cooter Davenport for CB Radio: "Suck it, Verizon." |
"I got my ears on, but it can't be good if you're using our secret-secret emergency whistle." Cooter said over the radio.
"Yeah. It's bad…" Bo took a moment. "…remember that worse case scenario we talked about?" he asked.
"Oh yeah, sure." Cooter replied.
"It's worse than that…" Bo looked out his window. His lip quivered. "Jessie and Daisy are dead."
Silence, long and thick. Cooters feelings for Daisy were the worst kept secret in the county. Bo gave him a moment but we didn't really have time on our side.
"Did... did you copy?" Bo asked knowing that his friend surely had.
"…Yeah…" Cooter cleared his throat. "How?"
"Rosco's lost his mind. Opened fire on the house. Him and the Hogg are heading back toward town now. So we need to put that plan in motion, right quick."
"Copy that…stay on channel. Two Bits, Out." Cooter signed off.
Luke realized we were never going to catch up like this. He snapped a left turn, a shortcut he said. He told us all to hold on. Telling us to buckle up would've been better, from the back I had no idea what was coming. Luke gunned it, we slammed up a dirt ramp and sailed high, right across a wide stream. Bo came off his feet. This jump was by far bigger than anything we had jumped that morning...
We landed hard and lost only a mere hubcap but Bo tumbled badly down the stairwell, his weight forcing the door open. He was holding the CB handset, it's cord went taunt and then snapped. He swung out, feet flailing as he just barely grabbed the door jam and slammed hard against the bus. We fishtailed, Bo swung back inside and banged himself up some more, his back hitting the stairs.
"Dang, Bo, you okay?" Luke asked.
"Hurt but okay. Radio's finished." Wincing, Bo looked at the useless handset he held, threw it away and shut the bus door.
"Thanks for the help, Bill!" Bo snorted.
"What? That? Oh you had that…" Bill said.
Luke steered us off the trail back onto the main "road" and low and behold, we could see, what was now for lack of a better name, The Coyvance Lee. It was far ahead but we could tell car's color was darker red and glowing. Heat radiating a blur like the desert floor. Bo asked if it was on fire.
"Who's driving is a better question…" Luke posed. "….or how."
"It's possessed." Bill said coldly. "Just as Daisy was… except there are four souls now. But, what do I know, I got my degree online... It's just a theory."
"That's a wicked theory." I said to my running mate.
"It's not so crazy." He replied.
I deadpan to camera B.
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| Bo's favorite band. I'm trying to see a connection... |
"Shut UP, about Skynard, Bo!" Luke turned to us as he drove. "PLEASE. Do not get him started on Skynard, okay?"
We nodded. Bo scanned the CB channels. "Screw you, Luke."
We crested a ridge line and the valley opened its view before us. We saw that the red hot Challenger chased no one. Rosco, at some point, had slipped away.
"Rosco lost whoever's driving the General. If he took Oakridge pass he's way ahead.." Luke said as he let off the gas just enough, cut the wheel just right and caught some smoooooth Tokyo drift around a tight turn. That's about when Luke finally found a good channel on the CB.
It was a conversation the Duke boys wanted very badly to interrupt, interject and intervene but could not. Their radio's handset was in a gully about a quarter mile back. What we heard only served to boiled their blood further. Sheriff Coltrane was informing ATF Senior Field Agent Bram Hannagin of his own thoroughly misrepresented version of the mornings events. How the Dukes had opened fire when he arrived, and he was forced to engage them. That the Dukes had killed his two deputies and set fire to their own home and that it had collapsed. And that from the ruble he was still fired upon, so he retreated. Agent Hannagin apologized for taking longer than expected. Hazzard county had given their GPS some trouble. Rosco failed to mention hat he was chased around by a sentient ball of human energy, or that he was fairly certain all the Dukes were dead. Hannagin asked where he was headed and they soon agreed to meet up at the Boar's Nest. Rosco signed off and shut the radio properly this time.
"Well ain't that a hoot…" Bo said. "That's where we're headed."
"We are?" I asked.
"Wellll, yeah...." Bo replied, looking at me like I was stupid.
"Don't you have to give a speech there or somethin'?" Luke asked me.
Somehow, in all the madness, I had forgotten what brought us to this town.
"Well,… I mean, yeah, but in light of everything, I don't know if it's really the most--"
"What? C'mon! You almost had my Uncle Jessie's vote! Do you have any idea what an honor that is?" Bo asked, wide-eyed.
Bo waved me off when I said nothing and he turned back front. I thought about it...
"The man did make some mean 'shine." I said.
Bo looked out the window. He sighed.
"Yes. Yes he did." Bo said with a throat thick with melancholy.
Meanwhile, in the town we were fast approaching, the local watering hole more revered than town hall was now the point of convergence.
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| The Boar's Nest, before all the excitement. Obviously |
The Boars Nest of Hazzard County had seen many a riotous scene but nothing quite like it would today. Arriving around this time was the legion of media that had decided to turn out for our campaign rally.
One reporter.
74 year old Barbara Needleman from The South-East Picanyue Mid-Morning Gazette. Barbra normally wrote only her "Pets Corner" column in the Wednesday lifestyle section. She was here because she lost a bet with Zelda Pandatakis from Horoscopes. After driving more than 8 hours by herself she really needed to use the rest room.
Perhaps more as important as Barbra, a car had also arrived. An intentionally nondescript, four door, blue-gray #17b, 1979 1/2 Dodge sedan. Landers, Moose and Johnny Ray. You remember them right? From waaaaay back at the start of all this? Yup, right, right, the counterfeit NASCAR tickets. Now here they were, in broad daylight, unloading cardboard boxes three at a time from the trunk and carrying them into a backdoor of the Boars Nest. Now, I wonder what you suppose might be in those poorly sealed boxes? Well, as Barbra approached Moose's path, he stutter stepped, tipping over the top box which spewed it's contents across the concrete directly in her path. They exchanged awkward, rushed apologies as he scrambled to hide the illegal materials and she turned but never stopped moving, her bladder screaming. She did glimpse the NASCAR logo before she turned back, though she thought little of it at the time. She headed straight inside the saloon and then waited on line to use the facilities. She didn't curse often but she grumbled something nasty while hot-steppin'...
Still in route, but closing, was Senior Field Agent Bram Hannagin and his convoy. Four black SUV's carrying twelve fully armed ATF agents, had found the right dirt road and were now minutes away from Hazzard County. Bram Hannagin was as big as his name implied and extremely fit for his age but he was certainly not young anymore. This day was doing it's very best to remind him of that. This morning he had received a call from his former squad member. It had only been a few years since they last spoke and a lifetime since they served together, but he'd do almost anything for Rosco P. Coltraine, the man who saved his life back in that jungle hell. Within an hour Bram received forged clearance, cobbled together a small team, geared up, grabbed his Young Guns 2 soundtrack cassette, (more specifically, Blaze Of Glory) and hit the road. Now heading southeast, with Jon Bon Jovi singing his damned heart out about redemption and the old west, Bram felt in his gut that this was going to be something big….
About three blocks from The Boars nest, at the intersection of Main Street and Whiskey Barrel Road, the last remaining members of the Hazzard County Sherrif's Department had formed a two-car roadblock. Gary Summers and Larry Winters were volunteer deputies and in fine Hazzard tradition they were also bumbling idiots. Somehow they had managed to set up a textbook blockade and felt proud of themselves for a job well done. Suddenly, further up the road, Rosco came taring around a corner and blared his horn. Larry dove into his vehicle and backed it up to let the Sheriff pass through, the opening wasn't wide enough or Larry wasn't fast enough, because Rosco tore Larry's bumper clean off. Rosco dead stopped, screeching rubber on pavement. He popped his head out the window.
"The Dukes are wanted murderers! They killed Enos and Cletus. You see 'em, you kill 'em! You got that? I'm getting' fatty here to safety, then I'll be back!" Rosco slammed the gas, his tires spun and then caught traction. The extra bumper still forcibly latched onto the passenger side, shooting high arching sparks as it scraped the blacktop. Rosco headed for The Boars Nest....
We were gaining on the soul-possessed Coyvance Lee. Flaming globs of molten rubber flew back at our van but the Hell-Car just kept on going as though the wheels just constantly replenished themselves. Bo put his hand out the window and said he could feel the heat. Bo grabbed his quiver of arrows and the greasy bag of dynamite, fished out a roll of scotch tape from the glove box and set to work. He attached one stick of TNT to an arrow, repeatedly until he had six such arial explosives.
Just as he finished, Cooter's whistle came over the radio.
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| Picture this, but in slightly better shape. Y'know, running. |
Far up ahead, Cooter pulled out of hiding in his grandfathers ancient flatbed tow truck, probably one of the first ever made, pale green and rusted, it was a monster. Cooter slipped onto the road but he was ahead of The Coyvance Lee. He thought we were in it. Keeping speed, he activated the bed. It lifted up at an angle and then dropped down becoming a moving ramp. Cooter was closing in on the roadblock quickly.
He jammed his breaks and The Coyvance Lee shot up the impromptu launch, we followed close behind in the van and both vehicles sailed over the roadblock like graceful birds.
In the air, we all put our seat belts on. Except Bo.
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| This picture is real. Absolutely no Photoshop was used. None. |
"Wasn't that AWESOME?!" His eyes so wide they might pop out.
I nodded. "Yeah, but… you don't feel that?" I pointed to his arm.
Bo looked down and saw his fore arm had broken and a wedge of bone was bursting through his skin. The rolled up cuff of his yellow shirt was soaked red. Bo raised his arm to examine it, cocked an eyebrow at the damage and fainted.
Behind us, Cooter crashed through the blockade loosing a rust-rotted fender in the process. The old beast took the impact badly but chugged along, angrily spewing black breath from its stacks. It had more momentum then we had speed. Deftly, Cooter drove around our van to avoid taking us out too and as he passed, I saw his head was bloody. Somehow he had gashed himself impacting the patrol cars. He weaved in front of us again. As we approached The Boars Nest, Cooter spotted Rosco's parked patrol car and accelerated. Blood in his eyes and rage in his heart he slammed his grandfather's truck into the car, broadside, pushing it across the parking at least lot a hundred feet until a row of port-a-potties stopped it. Well, the wall behind the port-a-potties, really. Four of the six johns erupted upon impact and a shower of blue and brown liquids drenched the scene and Cooter himself as he passed forward through the windshield, over the patrol car and straight into one of the johns.
Bill reset Bo's arm which a crunchy snap Bo woke from the pain and immediately blacked out again. I made a tourniquet out of Bo's shirt. As we pulled up, we noticed that The Coyvance Lee was nowhere to be seen…
Inside The Boars Nest, the patrons and staff all heard the truck crash outside and flocked to go see. Rosco stayed put, guarding the door while in the basement, a very nervous Boss Hogg had made his deal...
The price paid to flood the market with bogus NASCAR tickets so as to bankrupt a racetrack two towns over? $4,500. The fat man was sweating. His hands trembled. Landers didn't like that.
"What's the matter Hogg? Why so shaky? You and the Sheriff been actin' strange."
"It has been, a most interesting day.. and now that we're done… I'm not sure what happens next…" He said this last part mostly to himself but Landers was reading too much into it.
"What does that mean? What are you up to Hogg?" I knew something was fishy. I could smell it! Did you turn on us? " Landers pulled out his small revolver.
This had spun bad, and quickly. Hogg was shoved to the floor from behind. Moose went up the stairs to the door and locked it...
On the other side Rosco heard the dead bolt and spun around. He tried the door.
"Bosh! Bosh! You all right? Unlock this door!" Rosco kicked at the door, just beside the knob, as per training. It didn't budge. Rosco knew his revolver wouldn't be enough. He needed an axe or a sledge hammer. Or a shotgun. He spun looking for Mel, the bartender, but every single person was outside. He went behind the bar, searching down below the counter. Nothing.
He ducked into the storage room and the door, spring loaded, closed before he pulled string for the light. He didn't need to. There was plenty of light. Intense, red light. And heat. He squinted tightly and he was bumped backwards.
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| This image was caught by a security camera right before it melted. |
He felt the searing burn, heard the sizzle, as The Coyvance Lee pushed him against the door pinning him and burning his legs. He screamed like a girl. Reflexively, he put his hands down upon the hood and wailed again instantly as he recoiled from the burn. The thinest layer of his right palm tore free and stuck there. His head went back, his hat popped off, flopping onto the hood of the soul-possessed car he had been in hot pursuit of countless times.
The hat smoked.
This made no logical sense. How could a car fit…? How did it get in? He saw no driver at the wheel.
Despite the obvious implausibility of it all, the car was there, the heat was real and the pain undeniable. His hat smoke wafted right into his face making him hack. The car lurched forward in the smallest amounts, toying with him….
Agent Bram Hannigin and his convoy rolled slowly through the "blockade". Easily so, with both squad cars pushed aside. Deputies Summers and Winters, trotting, said nothing and pointed towards The Boars Nest when the agent flashed his badge. He motioned for his driver to go. Ahead he saw a large crowd of people gathered outside the bar….
We had exited the bus and were tending to the scene. Luke had chased after Cooter, Bill had gotten Bo on his feet and moving. I had crowd control. Seeing this as the perfect captive audience, I went right into political pitch mode. I shook hands and gave out buttons and when I saw a little old lady taking notes, I found a milk crate and started my prepared speech….
Hogg stayed on the floor, not because the concrete was cool on his left cheek, it had more to do with the boot on his right cheek, pinning him. He tried to explain that the Feds were here for a totally different reason, but once he got to the part about the glowing, driverless car, Landers shut him up.
But Landers knew he was trapped. That door was the only way out and as far as he knew, Rosco was on the other side waiting with an army of federal agents…
But Rosco had pressing matters. A blistering hot, soul driven Dodge Charger was crushing his legs. The Confederate Flag and lettering on the roof bubbled. His hat, past it threshold, burst into flame. The Coyvance blared it's wretched horn. The sound, as mournful as a dying beasts last call and growing older by the moment forced Rosco to cover his ears with his pained and bloody hands…
In the parking lot, as Luke helped a stinky, sticky and stunned Cooter out of the port-a-potty, a sound rose up and filled the air. All activity stopped and all heads turned. From The Boar's nest came the moan of a hundred crying foghorns. It was as unnatural as it was unnerving and unyielding. No one could hear each other, worse yet, no one could hear my speech. Bill found me and pulled me down from the milk crate and motioned that we should get out of there. That crowd began to back away from the building. We saw Bo exit the Campaign Van with his bow in one hand, dynamite strapped arrows in the other. i wondered how he would pull back with his arm like that? Luke yelled for Bo to stop, to wait, but no one could hear him over the din. Luke chased after his cousin. Bo disappeared through a side door, as did Luke just a few heartbeats later. Bill grabbed my arm, pointed to the van and then the hills, signalling that we should get the hell out of there. As soon as I nodded, Hannigan and his men had swarmed the scene and began ushering people back further…
In the stooge room of the town's oldest establishment, the fire was catching, the smoke was thick and
Rosco hacked harshly. The haunted car pressed on him harder still. His eyes stung, his ears bled now his bones were cracking…
In the basement, the blaring noise had sent the men to their knees, their hands covering their ears. Hogg new the secret escape tunnel was his best option but he'd have to get past Landers. Instead he tried to run for the stairs and slipped just as Landers shot him. The clean pop of the gunshot could not be heard and as Hogg falls onto the stairs. The bullet catches him right in the ass and exits his chest…
In the barroom, Luke finally caught up to his cousin…
In the storage room, The Coyvance pushed and pushed…
Hogg bleeds…
The crowd sees smoke…
Finally, the wall gives way. The Coyvance Lee breaks through seventy year old plaster and lath, roaring into the barroom clipping the Duke cousins, knocking Bo's arrows into the air...
Many of the people had rushed over to the wide lawn in front of Town Hall, across the street, as per the ATF agents insistence. Bill and I passed out our campaign buttons. Then, inside The Boar's Nest a natural gas line caught and the entire building exploded outward and upward. It was incinerated.
Something rose up from the center of the billowing cloud, The Souls Of Coyvance Bill and I believe, and dissipated into the sky…
Then the gasoline pumps blew. But he terror was far from over.
Half a block away, The County Commishoners Office exploded just the same way. And then First County Bank.
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| Popcorn's almost ready. |
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| This... uh... random guy... |
Just when we thought it was over, another building would explode. Then another. Then nothing - then another. The randomness was like awaiting the last kernels of popcorn... but drawn out so much longer and so much more maddening. For another hour, every ten minutes or so, a random building would just pop. Injuries everywhere you looked. Fire. Cries. Smoke. Local Emergency Service was too thinly spread. People were being tended to… but it was hell on earth.
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| OK, Enough with the pictures! That's just... I mean...C'MON! |
"An old joke from around here…" he said. " It goes something' like, People from New York are called NewYorkers. Florida? Floridians. Well, ya know what we are?"
Bill, Cooter and I scanned the smoking rubble. The chaos of a town destroyed.
"We're Hazardous..."
Looked at him, Bill and I realized we had never seen a dirtier, nastier Cooter.
After the explosions stopped, and questions started being asked, Bill and I stepped up and helped answer as many as we could and over time, we would be one of several key pieces to understanding the larger puzzle that was the events of the last two days.
The FBI and ATF immediately initiated a media blackout until there was a full investigation and in actuality, locked down the entire county. Hazzard's a really small town so this may not have hit the news around your way.
Cletus was eventually found and he helped put some of the facts straight as to what happened on the farm and why. Barbara Needleman would be the one to, somewhat, corroborate our NASCAR story.
It came to light that Boss Hogg had, months ago, installed cameras all throughout The Boar's Nest to watch over his employees from home. The footage found on a backup drive showed everything until the initial explosion. When all the debris was sifted through, that loose-lipped lummox, Moose was the only one of Landers' crew found alive.
Beauregard and Lucas Duke were not. In total, the day would claim the lives of sixteen people, leave another forty-five injured and thirteen buildings as nothing more than smoking rubble.
A closer look at stashed documents would reveal that HOGGAS, the only natural gas supplier in town, (of which Hogg Investment Holdings owned a 88% stake) never should have opted for the cheaper, imported and inferior ceramic pipework used throughout the town.
For Bill and I, we were forced into a "radio silence" situation for the next few months and that meant putting our run for the White House aside. Sadly, we did not realize how much time would transpire and ultimately had to pull out of the race altogether. We apologize to any of our supporters who may have felt disappointed or abandoned that we just fell off the grid, but we had little choice. We too, are saddened to see the campaign trail end like this. As Bill sometimes says, shit just got too real, yo.
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| A year before the Hazzard Tragedy, Daisy's 14th birthday. |
Bill and I know what we saw and it is why we insisted on putting out our version of the story. And every word, is the gorsh darn honest truth.
The folks in Hazzard County for the most part, were some of the nicest bunch we ever met. We like to think that Bo and Luke Duke were just some …good ol' boys, that never really meant any harm. Until they were pushed.
As a thank you gesture, we are planning on getting some development funds their way to fill all of those dips in the roads and level out all of the huge, free-standing mounds of dirt; it’s just too dangerous for normal folk to drive there with all of the jumping they have to do.
Yee! Ha!
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