Edward Vincent Prescott III is a snob in trouble. The elitist adman has blown a multi-million dollar campaign for a chain of wholesale consumer stores. His penance is to go undercover to study the ad campaign's target consumer group: the blue-collar society he abhors. Taking on his task with the fervor of an anthropology student, he dives headfirst into a world of trailer parks, stock cars, southern rock, and fish sticks.

From the acclaimed author of In The Way That Elephants Do comes a novel that is politically incorrect, irreverent, and bitingly satiric. Undercover White Trash is a story that both tickles the funny bone and challenges the way we think about our society. They say that one man's trash is another man's treasure and Edward Prescott III learns this the hard way: on the potholed streets of America's forgotten underclass.

David was born in the metropolis of Beaumont, Texas, in 1961 where he lived a somewhat normal existence until his 18th birthday (his parents might disagree, however). He moved to Fort Worth, Texas, at that time and soon became part of the landscape there. He received a B.S. degree in Education from Texas Christian University in 1984. After a semester of teaching English, he decided he would rather work with convicted felons than eighth graders. He became a probation officer at that time and has been one ever since. He currently lives in Fort Worth with his wife, Antonia.

As I looked through my binoculars at Papa on that fourth evening, I tried to envision what on earth made this man go on with life. He was obviously not overjoyed with his family; I saw him grimace as the toddler spilled a plastic tumbler of red Kool-Aid on the coffee table where he had propped his feet. He was also not much into keeping up with the latest trappings of suburban life, I reasoned as I scanned the outside of his decrepit trailer house. As I watched him down his fifth beer and belch out loud, I realized that he didn't even care about his own personal appearance or even his health.

Just what did this man care about? What kept him from jumping off a bridge? It was then that it came to me. He did care about something. He cared for it so much, he had placed a tarp over it to protect it from the weather; he wouldn't have even done this for his own wife. No kids bothered it. Even the mean-looking cat wouldn't go near it. I turned my binoculars to the unidentified car that was nestled so closely to the trailer.

I could not tell what kind of car it was. All I could see were the bottoms of four very wide tires that protruded from under the tarp. It had a strange shape, one that I could not put with any car that I had ever seen before. I needed to get a closer look at the thing. I waited until the family went to bed, then made my move.

I put on one of my black T-shirts and covered my face with black soot that I made by holding a match under the blade of a kitchen knife; I had seen William Holden do this in a commando movie once. Having sufficiently camouflaged myself, I then turned out all of my lights, grabbed a flashlight, and slipped out the front door very quietly. I only got about two steps before the four dogs across the street began howling at me. I ran back into the house and waited a few minutes to see if the barking had disturbed the park. Nothing happened, so I went to my refrigerator, retrieved a pack of pickle loaf luncheon meat, and went out the front door again. As I crouched behind my Bonneville, I took the meat out of the package and hurled it, grenade-style, across the road. The four mongrels immediately pounced on it and proceeded to chase the poor dog that had gotten to it first. I made a beeline to the car.

I raised the tarp a little and flicked on the flashlight. The first thing that could be seen was a large number "22" painted on the side of the thing. All over the side of the car's dented and damaged blue body were stickers from various oil and tire companies. Inside were just one plastic seat, a stick shift, and a fire extinguisher. A heavy roll bar ran across the roof. Dried mud was caked all over it.

It was a dirt-track racing car.

¥

Luckily for me, the Bonneville had a trailer hitch. I wheeled a flatbed trailer behind me as I drove into the park. On the flatbed was the bait. Very expensive bait, but something that would get Papa out of the house and into my research in no time at all. As I deliberately motored slowly past Papa's trailer, I saw him exert some uncharacteristic energy as he sprang from his couch. He practically stuck his head through the plate-glass window trying to get a closer look at my 1969 Chevelle dirt-tracker, complete with straight pipes, wide tires, and a huge sheet metal wing that was welded on a frame about five feet above the trunk. I personally doubted the aerodynamic merit of this silly-looking wing, but the guy at the welding shop where I bought the car said that it helped keep the rear end pushed down, which in turn would keep the car from "flying off the track." That was fine, but I had no intention of ever driving the rolling coffin to begin with.

I maneuvered the flatbed next to my house and stopped. I could still see Papa staring wide-eyed through the window as I unhitched the trailer from the Bonneville. After propping it up on two cinder blocks, I took an old towel and proceeded to taunt the poor slob by rubbing the car's Cherry Bomb High Luster Super Metallic paint job like I was drying off Anna Nichole Smith after a dip in the hot tub. After a few minutes of this, he couldn't stand it any.