Chapter 9
Back in the Charlotte area at the exact same time, in the town of Mint Hill, Travis’s big bonfire party in Fred’s memory was nearing its conclusion. Loud rock music by Frank Zappa was still playing and everyone was now polluted drunk, as three kegs of beer had been drained by over eighty revelers in a cornfield off Brief Road. The scent of burning weed popped up here and there.
Despite Travis’s pleading for everyone to just sleep on the five-acre property on this mild and clear night, some partiers decided that they needed to go elsewhere. Some wanted more beer and wanted to beat the 2:00 AM cut-off. Most just wanted to sleep in their own beds. However, most cars did not have anything close to a sober designated driver.
Their vehicles – even the four-wheel-drive ones – were getting stuck in the deep muck as they tried to drive away. Travis had set up the parking so that you entered one way – at the high side of the parcel of land – and exited at another side of the field – the low side. The exit side was a swamp from the recent heavy rains. It was a drunk driver trap, and it was proving to be very effective.
Drunken merrymakers were pushing on the backs of mud-stuck vehicles and falling down. One after another. It was becoming quite a comedy on the slippery red clay.
Then this one pissed-off throttle-head floored it and charged the bonfire. Several people were struck by his souped-up maroon-red Chevy Chevelle. Legs were run over and broken. The screaming could be heard over the hundred-decibel recorded music.
The 1968 Chevelle came to rest on the red-hot fire pit. The gas tank was right atop the hot coals. As soon as a few not-totally-obliterated partiers figured out what might be getting ready to happen – it did happen: BOOM!
The Chevelle’s fuel tank exploded. Flames shot thirty-five feet into the night sky. Pieces of the car were sent airborne, some landing up to three hundred feet away.
Six people died from the initial explosion, including the crazed driver. Travis and his wife Nancy escaped harm, as they were manning the stereo system at the time. Fourteen more were hospitalized. It was all over the Charlotte news the next morning. The online news aggregators picked it up, too.
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At a split-level home adjacent to the cornfield, a ten-year-old boy was in his room doing some research on the former Vikings kicker, Fred Cox. His dad had told him that the famous Minnesota purple people eaters’ placekicker had missed back-to-back extra points on his birthday in a game in the mid-70s. He told him that he was sure of it, as he remembered watching that game on TV. The ten-year-old thought his dad was going daft.
The young lad scanned NFL game-summary boxes from the 1974 through 1976 seasons on his tablet computer. He noticed that Fred Cox missed back-to-back extra points in Miami on his thirty-eighth birthday: December 11, 1976. That’s when the Chevelle’s gas tank explosion caused his green Nerf football to roll off the overhead hutch shelf and bonk him on the head.
There was no harm or injury. However, he couldn’t believe his dad’s memory was still that accurate.