The final installment of a trilogy.

“Of all the gin joints in all of West Texas, she had to walk into this one,” he thought to himself.

Charlie Chambers found himself back in Fort Stockton a broken man.  His gig at Cadillac had become more tenuous with each automotive review that came out on his baby, the Cimarron.  He’d tried smearing as much lipstick on that little piglet as he could, but in the end, his folly had cost him everything.  His reputation.  His wealth.  His career.  When you’ve hit the very bottom, Fort Stockton is the only rung on the ladder you can reach.

But he was welcomed with open arms by the people who’d called him their own.  They’d ridden that train of glory with him when things were at their peak with the first Seville.  They ignored it when he stuffed a diesel under the hood.  They even stuck with Chaz when he’d grafted a British arse end on the back of it.  But they weren’t surprised to see him slink back home after the Cimarron fiasco.  They’d left the light on for him.

When he first got back to town he checked into the Naughty Pine Motel and kept to himself, licking his wounds.  He gradually became used to being ‘Charlie’ again.  Eventually he started coming around to the Lucky Lady again.  Jigger never said “I told you so” about the Cimarron.  He didn’t have to.  There was no point in reminding Charlie of the J-Car debacle.  It was best to just let time run its course.

By the time his severance package from GM had run out, Charlie was ready for a fresh start in a career that didn’t involve cars or cocaine.  His cousin Patch, whose wedding he’d attended right at the peak of the Cimarron sin, offered him an entry level position out at the bull semen business.  “You’ll have to start at the bottom.  Learn the business.  Ground floor,” Patch told him.  Offering Charlie a room in the bunkhouse sweetened the deal and Charlie took Patch and his wife, Patsy, up on the offer.

Patsy volunteered to show him the ropes, so to speak, in order to get him started in the business. “It’s probably a lot more like the car industry than you’d think,” she said as she showed him the best technique in order to yield the greatest results. While Charlie was surprised there wasn’t a bull involved in the demonstration, he couldn’t argue with the technique. Things progressed as well as Charlie could have expected but, in the end, he felt his new position came short of his expectations.

About that same time, Jigger was helping unload a truckload of Lone Star beer back behind the Lucky Lady when an unfortunate incident occurred that would change everything.  Loading up the fifth or six crate of the Texas brew on a dolly to wheel into the cooler, a rogue armadillo that had been hiding under the truck went for Jigger’s ankle.  What Jigger didn’t realize when he attempted to kick the angry armadillo across the parking lot was that there was a whole roll of the ornery bastards under the delivery truck, the first one just being a scout.  Before he knew it, Jigger was surrounded by what officials later figured must have been at least two dozen of the armored beasts.  

While their diets normally consist of plants and insects, the scary beasts, inflamed by their desire for the National Beer of Texas, attacked Jigger like he was a June bug.  By the time the ambulance got there and attendants pulled the last of the domineering ‘dillos off his nearly dead body, Jigger was in critical condition.  Only the heroic efforts of the staff at the Fort Stockton Memorial Hospital and Animal Testing Center saved Jigger, and three of the armadillos.  After three weeks in the ICU, Jigger was finally released, but could no longer fully deal with the pressure of living in Fort Stockton.  He’d lost all ability to deal with reality.  He moved to Austin and went to work in Ted Cruz’ office, who was Attorney General at the time.

This left a hole at the Lucky Lady that only Charlie Chambers could fill. He threw in the towel, stiff though it was, at Patch and Patsy’s and became the full time bartender at the Lucky Lady.  And that’s where he really found his groove again.  Within no time he was dispensing marital advice, stock tips,  gardening guidance, as well as strategies for dealing with menopause to women who Trixie over at the Klip-N-Dye would send to him.  Charlie had seemed to make a full recovery from his experience at Cadillac.  And that’s when she walked in.

She’d unknowingly left him for the guy that turned the Pinto into a Mustang, but regretted it upon learning the details.  She’d taken up with the guy that turned ‘Corinthian Leather’ into a catch phrase at Chrysler.  That relationship fizzled when he walked in on her and Riccardo Motalban on the hood of a Cordoba during a break in filming for a commercial.  She was toxic, but a flame that male moths could not resist.

“Good to see you Chaz,” she said as she saddled up to the bar.  “I’ve been looking for you.”

“It’s Charlie now,” he replied.  “How’d you find me?”

“With a big enough expense account, and enough desire, you can find anything you want,” she said.  “You taught me that.”

It turned out that times had shifted at General Motors.  Changing markets and government mandated diversity programs had put her in Charlie’s old position at Cadillac.  “You wouldn’t recognize the place,” she told him.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if they did away with Pontiac and Oldsmobile before it’s all done.”

Charlie laughed at the absurdity of such an idea, but was nonetheless slipping back into the spell she’d always cast on him.

“Marge, your old secretary, says ‘Burn in Hell’,” she told him.  “I told her you were in Fort Stockton.  Same thing.”

“Why are you here?  You know it’s over,” Charlie asked her.

“I need your help.  They still talk about you in the Executive Wash Room.  What you did with the Seville back in ’75,”  she said.

“What are you doing in the Executive Wash Room?” he asked.  “Never mind.  I don’t want to know.  How could you possibly need my help?”

“You heard what Lincoln did with the Luxury SUV concept?  Turned a damned Ford Expedition into an American Range Rover.  Captured a market we didn’t even know existed.  They want me to come up with something to compete with it.  I want to show you what I’ve come up with.  Give me your opinion,” she confessed.

“Don’t you remember the Cimarron?” he asked her.

“You weren’t yourself then.  You were a coked up has-been that had lost his way.  I’ve heard you’ve found yourself again,” she told him as she looked deep into his eyes and tried to make her case.

“Being on the business end of a bull changes a man,” he said, reflecting on her words.  “Show me what ya got.”

She slid two photographs across the bar.  “I want to call it ‘The Vixen’.”

Charlie was repulsed.  “What the hell are you thinking?  Has this been approved by The Committee?”

“Not yet.  I know it needs work,” she told him.

Charlie took the renderings, wadded them up, and threw them in the trash atop dozens of Lone Star empties, this being long before recycling caught on in Fort Stockton. He took a napkin, and a pen from next to the cash register.  He sketched something out, turned it around and slid it across the bar.  She looked at it and a tear came to her eye.  “Yes.  Yes.  YES!” she yelled out.  The very words stirred memories that had been dormant for years.

“This is just what I needed.  Let me thank you.  I’m staying at Naughty Pine.  Room 7.  Come see me as soon as the bar closes,” she told him.

“No can do.  Sorry.  Patsy’s coming over.  I don’t want to do anything that would threaten that.  I’ve grown accustomed to her touch,” he told her.  “But I’ll give you one more piece of advice, no charge.  Dump the ‘Vixen’,” he said.  “I did and never regretted it.  Call it ‘Escalade’.  Sounds exotic, without going all ‘Corinthian Leather’.  And stay off the hood of the damn thing.”