This is the sixth chapter of a seven part story that will run all this week.

Whiskey ended up being the toughest one to find the right farewell for.  That surprised Mason McCullough, as he never thought it’d be any trouble at all.  Suppose that’s due to the fact that he never really sat and pondered Whiskey that long before.  Whiskey was just always ‘there’, not requiring a lot of thought.  Maybe that’s why they’d been friends since grammar school.

As far as Mason could remember, there’d never been a cross word between them. Sure, there was one time that Mason had been in the cups a little more than he had a reason to be and he’d gotten mouthy. There’d only been a handful of times in his life when that had happened, and Whiskey was probably there for all of them. But the one in particular was back when they were in their late twenties and still full of piss and vinegar. Mason couldn’t even remember all the details of what led to the incident.

It might have had something to do with a gal Whiskey was seeing on the side. Best anyone knew she was of Mexican or Indian descent and nobody really knew anything much about her. That’s probably what irritated Mason more than anything, the not knowing. So after he had a few belts in him he spouted off something about the girl. “She must be uglier than a mud fence or you’d bring her around and let everyone have a look at her,” Mason said. Not getting any response, much less the one he was angling for, he poked the stick in a little deeper. “Bet ya you have to put a sack over her head just to do the deed.”

With that, Whiskey bristled just a bit.

“Probably have to put one on yourself, just in case hers falls off,” Mason continued.  Of course it was the alcohol talking.  In a state of sobriety Mason would never have insulted his friend to such a degree.  “Probably keep a sack by the door to your bedroom, just in case anyone walks in on ya.”  It was at that point Mason felt as sharp of a pain as he’d ever encountered and was suddenly laid out flat on his back on the floor.

The whole thing happened so fast he didn’t even remember spitting out the tooth. Whiskey reached down to help him up without saying a word. In fact, neither of them said a word again that night. In the decades that followed, the incident was never mentioned again. Mason regretted being such a jerk to his friend. Whiskey hated having to put him in his place, but would have again if he ever had to. “It don’t ever pay to talk about a woman like that,” Whiskey told Lucinda at the Lucky Lady Lounge a week or so later. She was the only one he ever told. Lucinda held him in slightly higher regard after that, and she held him in high regard to begin with.

Of course Whiskey never married.  He figured no woman would ever tolerate him and damn sure wasn’t going to risk finding out.  He rented an old trailer in Modern Manors Mobile Home Village, but more often than not, would bunk in the barn at Mason’s place.  “When you grow up with nothing, it doesn’t take much to meet your needs,” Mason explained to Lucinda at the Grounds for Divorce way back in the day.  

That was part of it, to be sure.  But Whiskey was cut from a different cloth.  Or cowhide, maybe.  

They’d been friends since they were both in Alamo Elementary.  Best friends since middle school.  Brothers since Jim Bowie High School.  Some folks said it was because of the way Whiskey stood up for Mason when the whole brouhaha with Shanon Hudspeth allegedly getting knocked up in the press box overlooking the football field at Bowie High.  Plenty of folks in Fort Stockton were ready to nail Mason to a fence post and let the coyotes eat him.  It cost him his relationship with his girlfriend, shots at a scholarship, and plenty of other consequences that folks took a long time to forget.  Or forgive, anyway.

“You and Miss Throckmorton were the only ones I never had to worry about,” Mason told Whiskey years later.  Whiskey was surprised that Mason had thought there would ever be any other kind of reaction.

In the years that followed, Whiskey worked for Mason, though neither of them ever looked at it like an employer / employee relationship.  Whiskey was just there to do whatever had to be done.  His payment was whatever he needed.  When Mason’s accountant forced him to make the relationship more defined, he set up a trust.  “Paychecks” were deposited.  Taxes were paid.  Returns were filed.  But Whiskey never had anything to do with it.  He just got an envelope of cash every month that was more than he needed.  No questions were ever asked.

Mason never knew of Whiskey’s romantic dalliances, if there were any.  For all he knew, his best friend had married the woman he’d snuck off to see a few days at a time.  He may have a cabin full of strapping offspring on a place somewhere between Fort Stockton and Mexico, or over the border for all he knew.  But just like his own forays into and out of romance, it was a subject that had never been broached again.

There’d be a lot of times the two would cook steaks together, eat a full meal, wash it down with two fingers of Scotch and a wedge of pecan pie and not exchange a word.  No need to.  Both were firm believers in saying only that which actually needed to be said.  It was as if words were a currency, and both were trying to save as much as they could for retirement.

So when Mason sat down in front of the big rock fireplace and tried to decide what to do about Whiskey, it was a harder decision than he’d bargained for.  Sutton, in a ball at his feet, was of no help whatsoever.  Even Honky Tonk Heroes spinning on the turntable didn’t seem to pave the way to greater thought.  In fact, it seemed to muddy the waters.  It took getting up, stepping over the dog, stocking the fire, getting another Scotch, sliding Waylon back into his jacket and on to the shelf and putting on Barcelona Nights to really help Mason focus.  It was probably around the fifth track on the album, Passing Storm, that the vision for what to do for his friend came into focus.

Of course it involved the old truck Whiskey had been driving for years.

The Ford F100 Stepside 4X4 had been a fixture on the place forever, it seemed.  Whiskey had driven it into town as needed, around the place for endless chores, and chasing cows that had gotten out.  The thing hadn’t been registered since sometime in the nineties.  There had been an accumulation of tickets thrown in the glovebox over the years for expired inspections, no tags, lack of proof of insurance, not to mention any number of safety violations.  When the number of outstanding tickets got to the point that a warrant was about to be issued, or something worse, Chief Martin would drive out with a stack of violations and Mason would write a check to take care of the whole thing all at once.  

“It’ll be a lot cheaper if you’d just maintain the damn thing like everyone else does,” he’d say.

“Then Whiskey wouldn’t feel like he’s getting away with something.” Mason would say.  “Puttin’ it to the Man.”

“He needs to focus on puttin’ it to a woman instead.  The Man is always going to get what’s coming to him,” the Chief would respond.

“And women don’t?”

It was a tradition.

The truck could have been a metaphor for Whiskey, himself.  Mason had pulled it from a neighbor’s barn and dragged it home in settlement of a bet over the Texas / A&M game twenty years ago and told Whiskey to get it running.  It didn’t take him long.  Then it was pressed into service for just about anything that could come up.

Whiskey would drive it out to a pasture where a mama cow was in distress trying to deliver a calf.  Without missing a beat, he’d have his arm up inside the poor heffer, up to his shoulder, turning the calf around and then pulling it out before the newborn killed itself and the mother.  The F-100 was an ambulance a lot more often than it was a hearse.

It hadn’t seen a car wash since Johnson was in the White House, but it had the oil changed and the big ol’ knobby tires rotated more often than most new exotic cars.  There was never a question but what Mason would give it to whiskey.  The rest of the plan came together by the time Otmar was finished playing Moon Over Trees.

Mason took out a yellow legal pad and scrawled out some thoughts for his old friend:

“The truck is yours, you ol’ bastard.  Suppose it really always has been, but now it’s official.  That means you’re going to have to pay all the tickets.  I won’t be able to keep them from impounding the truck and arresting you if you don’t, and that’s what they’ll do.  Don’t be a hardhead about it.  The title is in the glovebox.

I’ve deeded the place over to Kristen. You’re probably not surprised. I’ve told her the barn goes along with the property, but it’s yours to live in as long as you want to. You should move in and enjoy it. Think about the nights we sat in front of the fire and made up lies about women and drank Scotch and kept each other company.

Quit paying rent on that derelict trailer and move in to the barn out here.  Kristen’s got a passel of grandsons.  Do whatever you can to help them enjoy the place.  They’ve got a lifetime of blessings to make up for.  Help them find them wherever you can.  Don’t let the place go to hell in a hand basket.  Keep everything maintained just like you do the old F-100.  But for godsakes, don’t let it ever look like the Ford does.  There’s enough in trust for anything that you’ll need.  Plenty in there for a paint job on the old truck, too, but I know that’ll never happen.

You’ve been a better friend than I’ve deserved. A damn good companion, and yet remained enough of a mystery to keep me guessing. I deserved to lose the tooth at the Lucky Lady all those tears ago. Wish that was the only mistake I could take back.

If your path ends up taking you through Hell at times, I know you’ll walk through like you own the place.

-Mason”

After finishing the letter, tearing it off the pad and folding it in twice, he placed it in the glove box of the old Ford truck on top of the Texas title. He walked slowly back to the barn, sliding the big door closed behind him. Sutton was waiting, just like always. Once he started a fire and poured a Scotch, Sutton jumped up on the leather couch and curled up next to Mason. They both closed their eyes and let the ataraxia of the moment flow over them.

If you’re enjoying this series, consider buying the Captain a cuppa Folgers at the Grounds for Divorce to help offset the cost of maintaining the blog. He’d be grateful, and promises to leave a big tip for Lucinda.