Uncle Hank’s Caravan

Aliases: none Status: Minor

Uncle Hank’s Caravan is an enchanted mobile residence that looks like a van rebuilt by a wandering gypsy and is, on the inside, impossibly larger than the outside. Hank calls it home — “It’s home,” when Chino asks what it is — and the answer is “Magic” when Chino asks how it’s so big in there. It’s a residence, a storage unit, a meeting site, and a weapons cache, and it ends the way most things in this universe end: on fire, and then exploding.

Description

Outside: a tall, gypsy-rebuilt van, the kind of vehicle that announces its owner before he speaks. Inside: mismatched wood, runes, tapestries, books, and equipment — the accumulated interior of a Green Beret from the “days of desmadre” who went strange a long time ago. It smells of gun oil, tobacco, and something herbal. The armory runs to a fifty-caliber sniper rifle and C4, counted off on fingers like a grocery list. The storage runs to merchandise: a crate stenciled CINDERELLA holding Hank’s next shipment for Mr. Bitches — magic mushrooms of his own design, the supply link between Hank and the Emporium’s duplication operation (see Emporium Duplication Pods for the mushroom end of that chain).

Role in Volume 02

• Uncle Hank and the Naked Pod People: First appearance. The Gremlin dies mid-U-turn, Homeboy spots Hank on the sidewalk, and the caravan gets its establishing tour: bigger inside than outside, “Magic,” and the CINDERELLA crate that exposes Hank’s income stream — Mr. Bitches pays him thousands, more than his retirement, and Hank is not cutting that off for anybody.
• The Return of Dos Santos: the caravan’s last appearance. The crew piles in to plan the Dos Santos problem — Lucy gives her full self-description, Hank starts counting weapons — and then Homeboy smells smoke. The caravan is on fire. Hank scrambles for the extinguisher; Chino grabs Lucy and bolts; the caravan explodes in a thunderous blast. Through the haze comes Dos Santos with a sword, and the scene moves on without the caravan, because there is no more caravan.

Relationships

• Uncle Hank: owner, resident, magician-landlord. The caravan is home; everything in it is his.
• Mr. Bitches: customer. The Cinderella pipeline runs from this van to his Emporium.
• Dos Santos: arsonist. Burns the caravan; survives the consequences better than the caravan does.
• Chino, Homeboy, Lucy: passengers at the end — the meeting the caravan hosted right before it stopped existing.

Notes

• Hank’s ability or stated intention to build another caravan is not confirmation that a replacement exists. The text shows one caravan, and then it shows an explosion. This page will not stock a second one on speculation.
• The interior’s impossible size is attributed in-text to “Magic” — Hank’s whole explanation. No mechanism is supplied, and none is invented here.
• One mobile-place entry covers the vehicle and the interior together, per the brief. Don’t split them.