East Tennessee
Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
Until the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
--"Dark as a Dungeon Down In the Mines", Merle Travis In a flashback to the summer of 1976, 10-year-old Waylan and 6-year-old Reese Beulay see their Daddy drive his truck (the one with the 333 mile-to-the-gallon carburetor he invented) into a mine shaft. (They save Homer Beulay from going in with it, but he sends the truck in anyway, carrying the head of a massive sledgehammer, metal marbled with the strange emerald mineral orichalka.) In modern day Briceville, Tennessee, Waylan gets a visit from a black man dressed all in brown. Very slick in a 1970s Shaft / Superfly / Dolemite way. Enter our good friend John Moses. He has an inconclusive "who's more badass?" staredown with Waylan. (That question will ultimately be answered in Chicago in Session15.) Reese, Mickey, Danny and Ben arrive. (Angie has stayed in DC.) It is immediately evident that Reese and Waylon are closely related. (It was very fun to watch Jere and Bryant in fulltilt road-occult-BS action, with Brant gamely trying to instill some sanity into the discussion.) Dinner is interrupted when a couple of teenagers try to steal Waylon's mighty Chevelle SS. Not noticing that despite its 450 hp engine, it's up on blocks. Then our heroes head down into the Fraterville Mine, to take on the Nome King and get back that Hammer. Lots of creepiness down in the mines, amplified by Reese's fear of the dark and Waylon's tendency to keep remembering creepy factoids to tell everyone en route. Ultimately the fellowship faces the Nome King in his lair, the sentient embodiment of the Coal Trust, or at least its ghost. Ben embraces his role as King to keep Danny from flipping out. Mickey comes to the rescue, facing Lady Luck with a round of Russian Roulette and getting the rush of his luck back in spades. And Waylon retrieves the Hammer. Then JohnMoses shows up and tries to take the Hammer. In fact, he shoots Danny square in the chest, but Mickey calls in Lady Luck's debt to him to save Danny's life. Danny, Mickey and Waylon take Moses down and send him packing.
- John Moses has retribution coming. We treated him like a honorable foe (served him pancakes and everything) and he went and betrayed us to his bosses. There's only one way to deal that back. [Jere]
- He even dissed your Momma's pancakes (when taunting Reese in Chicago). [Rob]
- He dissed Momma's pancakes? He's so doomed. [Jere]
- Rob: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnknownUSA/message/436
- Dear Brother: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UnknownUSA/message/667
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Page last modified on October 15, 2003, at 10:24 PM