The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Back in nineteen and twelve, the Lucky Lady was on the exact same spot, in the exact same building, but there wasn’t much around it.  Nothing like now, of course.  There was a blacksmith just down the street, and a big open stockade next to it where longhorns were branded, horses were broken,  and dreams were ground into dust by the sporting girls who worked in the four rooms up above the saloon.  Probably where the place got its name, though the degree of Luck those Ladies had on their side was inarguably marginal, at best.  Those rooms are now where birthday parties are held, Little League Banquets take place, and Hank, the bartender, will occasionally sneak away to catch a nap, or rodent, depending on the time of year.

Back in the 40s, when the Cactus Pricks were playing on the stage in the corner of the bar nearly every weekend, Stoney Saguaro wrote a song about what the place was like back in the day.  When he sang it, it sounded like Tom Waits gargling with barbed wire, so most of the lyrics were completely imperceptible, but the gist of it involved cheap beer, broken hearts, summers that were too hot, and chlamydia.  Not completely sure of that last one; like I said, the lyrics were garbled.  But Stoney said that line of the song always got the biggest response from the crowd.  As stated previously, the more things change…

Anyway, there was one particular night back in 1912 when things came together in a way that doesn’t often happen.  History may have been made.  Or maybe just changed.  Or maybe it was just another night in Fort Stockton at that particular point in time, but the details are interesting to note, nonetheless.

The Texas Tumbleweeds were on the stage that night, singing a song W.C. Hardy had just published called Memphis Blues, and folks said they’d never heard anything like it.  There were reports of grown men hearing the tune and crying in their beer.  Others, more sober, commented that they just witnessed the birth of The Blues.  Talk of witnessing any type of birth, musical or otherwise, would be enough for the typical patron to need another beer.  Somebody probably bought a round for the house. And then a few more.

Meanwhile, in the backroom behind the bar, there was a card game going on.  It was hard to even make out the players sitting around the table, as the smoke was stronger than a mother’s love and thicker than her petticoats.  But in between hands, Joe Pulitzer, in town to learn the newspaper business from the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch, was talking about Alaska becoming a U.S. Territory.  “If they ever become a state, they’ll be bigger than Texas,” he said as he asked for two cards.

“I’ll make sure that never happens,” Teddy Roosevelt said.

“That is if that damned Woodrow Wilson doesn’t kick your ass back to New York!” Pulitzer proclaimed.  Everyone just laughed at the thought of Wilson winning.

“Tell you what, ”Pulitzer protested, “If Wilson wins, I’ll put up enough cash to fund a prize for everything that happens that has any importance to it at all!”  There were more laughs all the way around the table at the absurdity of the idea, as old Joe fished around for his wallet to cover the latest raise.  “I may be a little light.  Can you spot me a thousand, Adolph?”

Adolph Zukor, sitting next to him and about three sheets to the wind, said, “I’ll spot ya, but you make damn sure I get this back.  I’m starting a movie studio and it’s gonna take every dime I’ve got.”

“What’s it going to be called?” asked Lucy, displaying an interest and abundance of cleavage.  “I may be interested in acting.”

“You’d probably be pretty good at it, Teddy said, “You can act like you actually enjoy going upstairs with ol’ Pulitzer!”  Everyone laughed.  Well, everyone but Pulitzer who made a mental note to make sure and endorse Wilson in the election.

It was about then there was a loud rumble outside and a bunch of dust kicked up into a cloud next to the saloon.  Lucy went over to the window and reported.  “It’s one of them newfangled auto-o-mo-biles.  Damn it’s purdy.  Bigger ’n Dallas and just one ol’ boy sitting inside.  Must be important.”

Go see if he wants to play cards, or finance pictures,” Zukor said.

Lucy swished out the door leaving a trail of stares, lustful thoughts and a cloud of expensive perfume.  Came back just a few minutes later with a man in tow.  Kind of a wild character, but obviously one of means.  He had a wad of money in his fist that he seemed anxious to lose.  “Edgar Rice Burroughs, gentlemen.  Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Turns out the cash and the new Buick Model 29 Three-Door Touring, parked just outside, were both earned by the recent publishing of his book, Tarzan of the Apes.  He’d go on to see both the currency and the Buick go home with new owners that night, his gift for fiction much stronger than his talent with cards.  “You may want to get out of here before you got nothin’ but a loin cloth, just like that Tarzan feller you told us about,” Lucy laughed as he handed over his last dollar.

As Zuckor stuffed the last of Burroughs’ money into his pockets, he snickered, “I may not even need the partner from Europe anymore, now.  In the morning I’ll send him a telegraph and tell him not to bother getting on that new boat sailing over from England.  Maybe he can get a refund on the ticket.  Paid a fortune for passage, just because the new beast is supposedly the biggest ship in the world.  They call it Titan, or some damn thing.”

He scooped Lucy up by the waist, nearly lifting her off the ground.  “Let’s go upstairs honey,” he said.  “Show me somethin’ new and that big ol’ Buick out there is yours.  Don’t know how to drive one of those newfangled contraptions, and don’t want to learn.”  They headed up the stairs while those remaining continued to play cards.  Wasn’t long before there was a huge commotion.  They originally thought all the noise was from upstairs where Lucy was earning a new Buick.  Found out later it was even bigger than that.  Seems a meteorite exploded over the state of Arizona.  They figured later that it had a mass of about 420 pounds and shattered into 16,000 pieces over Holbrook.  The sheer force of the explosion and the sound it made apparently happened just at the climax of the bumping of uglies upstairs and Zuckor thought it to be such a magical experience it made him a changed man.  It wasn’t just a coincidence that The Girl Scouts were established later that year.

Of course that was nothing compared to the explosion of Novarupta taking place in Alaska about the same time.  Turned out to be the biggest volcanic eruption of the whole 20th century.  Goodness knows what ol’ Zuckor would have given Lucy if he’d have been anywhere near when that erupted.  With 30 times the force of Mount St. Helens, she may have wound up with a new Cadillac.  And a bigger budget for The Girl Scouts.

Early next morning by the time Harriet Quimby stumbled in, the party was breaking up.  She’d parked her French Blériot monoplane over at the Fort Stockton Regional Airport and Feedlot and barely had time to check in at the Naughty Pine Motel before making her way over to the Lucky Lady.  She busted in to the backroom as the players were divvying up the pot from the final hand and damn near scared everyone to death shouting, “I just became the first woman to fly across the English Channel!”

Unimpressed, Teddy said, “You’re going to have to do a damn site more than that to get a free Buick!  But, if you want to give it a go, let’s head upstairs.”  Harriet was having none of that.

“They’re gassing up the plane.  If we leave now, we can make it to Boston in a week and a half and be there for the opening of the new Fenway Ball Park,” she offered.

“I’ll take the train,” Teddy said.  “That whole airplane thing is just a fad and sounds dangerous as hell.  When they can make those as safe as that new ship leaving England, I’ll be the first one on board.”  As soon as he said it, he felt a chill run up his spine.  The hair on the back of his neck felt damn near icy.

Lucy learned to drive the Buick just as quickly as she’d taken to her other talents.  She made a small fortune racing the big ol’ beast against other cars, horses, or whatever else came down the road, the 25.5 horsepower 201 cubic inch inline four never letting her down.  In ’16 or ’17 she even loaded up all the sporting girls from the Lucky Lady and drove the Model 29 Three-Door Touring in the Founder’s Day Parade down Main Street.  The local women were aghast, the menfolk thoroughly entertained by the whole thing.

They say that’s where the riverboat gambler first encountered Lucy.  When their eyes met at the intersection of Main and Houston, it was like the meteorite over Arizona collided with the volcano in Alaska.  The affair that followed was as torrid as it was tempestuous.  Of course they never married.  Brother Boyce, over at Second Baptist Church of Fort Stockton, said if the two of them ever stepped foot in a church it was sure to be struck by lightning.  An odd comment, seeing as how the tall dashing stranger had helped him out of a pickle when Brother Boyce’s wife came to the Lucky Lady looking for him one night.  Stashed him in the back seat of the Buick and covered him with Pendleton blankets from upstairs so he couldn’t be found.

Must have been twenty years or so that The Gambler and Lucy, the best sporting girl from the Lucky Lady, carried on in broad daylight, galavanting around in the Buick like they had good sense or a lick of morals.  When Lucy became heavy with child back in about ’30 or ’31, The Gambler disappeared into thin air.  Folks kept thinking he’d come back and do right by Lucy and the child, but no one ever saw Gordon Goodman again, or the 1912 Buick he left town in.

Mayor Goodman hardly ever talks about it.