Once you hit a certain age, you become permanently unimpressed by a lot of stuff.  Call it what you want to, a blessing or a curse, but it’s an accurate observation that most of us can agree to.

Certainly goes for those who normally gather around the big table in the middle of the Grounds for Divorce for coffee.  Bring a Trailer is a perfect example of how that works.  Those of a certain age tend to be drawn to the hyper-expensive exotic supercars constructed of carbon fiber and harvested testosterone.  To each his own.  Those of us around the table though, are much more apt to pull up cars from decades ago that were commonplace and part of the everyday life of our youth.  A Galaxie, or Impala, or New Yorker from the fifties or sixties says more to most of us that a Porsche, or Mercedes, or BMW ever could.  It’s not about horsepower, it’s about significance.

“You get more sentimental as you get old,” Lucinda says.  She’s probably right.  She usually is.  And I don’t take her observation as an insult.  There are things I see now that bring a tear to my eye that I would have scoffed at twenty or thirty years ago.  I’ll admit to it, though I usually turn the other way so it isn’t obvious to others.

All that to say, when the 1958 Bertone-Built Aston Martin DB2/4 Coupe pulled up out front of the cafe, there wasn’t an eye that wasn’t drawn to it.  The fact that it was pulling a trailer was counterintuitive to everything any of us felt about such a car.  “Hot damn!” Rusty proclaimed.  That seemed to sum up the feelings of everyone around the table.  The fact that no one had ever seen anything like it is because there had never been another one like it.  It was the proverbial “one of one”.  But then, so it seemed, was the guy that got out of it and walked into the Grounds for Divorce.

In a bold move, the stranger headed right for our table and sat down.  Such a thing just doesn’t happen in Fort Stockton, much less the Grounds for Divorce.  We are a people who prefer to just give a tip of the hat or a nod to strangers.  Even Brother Bob and Pastor Peterson were taken aback, and they are probably the two most outgoing of the group, considering their gifts for making people feel welcome.  And Sister Thelma.  She was surprised, but tried to act normal.

Let me just come right out and say it:  it was obvious the guy was not Fort Stockton.  No disrespect intended.  But the long hair and beard screamed “out-of-towner”.  Probably California.  “Mind if I join you?” he said as he was already halfway seated.  Lucinda was there in no time, handing him a menu and putting a CMC mug in front of him.  It’s always assumed folks want a hot cup of Folgers when they come in.  “You must be Lucinda,” he said looking up.  “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Do your eyes actually match the color of your car?” Lucinda replied.  She seemed to be somewhat transfixed.

“I suppose they do,” he said looking out towards the parking lot.  “I suppose they do.”

“What brings you to Fort Stockton?” New Guy asked.

“Just passing through,” he said.  “I’ve actually been around for a while.  Spent the last forty days out in the wilderness west of town.  Finally came in to see what Fort Stockton was all about.”

“What did you think of the wilderness?” Pastor Peterson asked.

“Tempting,” he said.  Pretty much left it at that.

Sister Thelma kept looking at him like she recognized him from someplace, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it.  The guy had a presence.  I’ll give him that.  I mean to pull up in a car like that, pulling a trailer of all things, and not a single one of us around the table getting up out of our seats and going out to look at it immediately says a whole lot.

It was about then that Rex Hall, the pharmacist here in town, glanced down at the green and white check he’d been given for his breakfast and noted that he’d been charged seventy-five cents for the extra syrup he’d requested for his waffle.  “There’s no way I’m ponying up and extra seventy-five cents for extra syrup!” Rex said.

Sister Thelma reminded him it said right on the menu that was the charge.  “Don’t care!  I’ve never been charged for it before.  I’m not paying for it!”  It got awkward.

Everyone seemed to turn their gaze towards the guy with the long hair, as though he had some idea of the right way to handle the situation.  “Render unto Delgado that which is Delgado’s,” he told the group.  It was weird because Delgado had never even been mentioned.  Yet, the dude spoke with a certain clarity and wisdom that made Rex go ahead and throw the three extra quarters down on the table.  Almost did it willingly.

Pastor Peterson finally couldn’t wait any longer.  “Is it alright if we go out and take a look at your car and camper?  This is a group that really has an appreciation for craftsmanship and detail.”

“Be my guest.  I am happy for any of you to enjoy anything that is mine.”  The group filed out and surrounded the sports coupe and camper.

“This car is the most astoundingly perfect automobile I have ever seen,” Lucinda said.  “It is perfect from every single angle.  And not a speck of dust on any surface.  I thought you said you just came in from the wilderness after forty days?”  He just smiled.

New Guy asked to pop the hood.  The glare coming off the heavily chromed 2.6 liter Aston Martin straight-six was nearly blinding to everyone gathered around the engine bay.  The dude lowered the hood, and the blind could see again.  Rusty claimed, “I’d kill anyone whoever put a scratch on this thing if it were mine!”

The stranger just smiled.  “It’s only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is a way to solve problems without resorting to violence.”  Rusty had no idea what he meant, but it reminded him of the time he got poison ivy on his scrotum as a kid when he was camping and had to drop a deuce behind a tree, so the reference wasn’t completely lost on him.

Sister Thelma and Lucinda had gone back to the trailer, opened the door, and stepped in for a look.  The trailer was as beautiful as the car.  “It’s paneled in olive wood plywood,” the stranger said.

“Love the upholstery,” Sister Thelma noted.

“It’s just sack cloth,” the stranger said.  “But it wears like iron.”

Funny, as everyone stepped in and took a look around, they were all impressed with the design and contents of what was inside.  “It has everything I need, which isn’t really much,” he said.  And yet, most people say they could be extremely comfortable in such a space.”

Lucinda glanced at the shelf behind the couch and noticed a basket of fresh apples.  When she started to reach over and grab one, the stranger gently pushed her hand away and noted she probably shouldn’t eat it.

“My gosh, look at the time!” Sister Thelma said.  With that, we realized that we’d been looking at the Aston and camper for well over an hour.  “How long are you going to be in town?”

“Probably several days.  I believe there’s a lot of work to do here.  I need to spend some time with Mayor Goodman.  A lot of time, in fact.  But we’ll see.”

Chad from the Piggly Wiggly saw the stranger seated at the bar over at the Lucky Lady a couple days later.  “Let me buy you a drink,” he said.

“I’d like nothing better than a fine wine, but thanks.  Just have them bring me a glass of water,” the dude replied.  Chad learned long ago not to ask questions.

That Sunday, Pastor Peterson invited him to the quarterly church picnic out at James Rooney Memorial Park.  It was awkward.  Belinda-Marie had forgotten to send out the sign-up sheets asking for volunteers to bring food.  Everyone thought the church must be providing all the meat and fixin’s.  However, the church hadn’t provided anything, and everyone brought a pretty big hunger with them to the park.

Seeing what was going on, the stranger ducked into his camper and brought out a three-piece catfish combo from the Long John Silvers.  Somehow, they had enough to feed the whole crowd.  There were even leftovers folks rounded up and taken to the night shelter.  Rusty had missed the picnic, having to work at the hardware store that afternoon, but Chad told him all about it at coffee the next morning at the GFD.

“You swear?” Rusty asked.

“Gospel truth!” Chad said.

That’s when Sister Thelma started putting two and two together.  “Think about it,” she said.  “There are a lot of dots to connect here.  I think the stranger, his car, and his camper could all be divine.”

“The stranger did say that he would be back, but none of us would know when,” Rex said.

“As smooth as that 2.6 straight six was, it’ll be like a thief in the night, that’s for darn sure,” Chad noted.

“I think you’re all way off base.  There is no way that guy was who you think he was,” Brother Bob said.  Everyone looked at him questioningly.  “Says right in the good book that he’ll be driving a Honda.”  That really puzzled the assembled crowd.  “John 12:49 says, ‘For I do not speak of my own Accord’”.

It wasn’t till the cub reporter for the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch started doing some digging that we all got any real information.  Turns out the Aston-Martin was a full numbers matching coupe, the only one ever made.  It actually sold at Sotheby’s in December for $1,105,000.  The camper, a one of one designed by the original engineer of the Corvette, Ellis J. Premo.  It’s been in the Volo Auto Museum the last eleven years.

“Funny thing.” Sister Thelma said reading the STD article outlaid to everyone gathered around the GFD table, “Neither the Aston Martin, nor the Premo camper have ever been in the state of Texas, much less all the way down to Fort Stockton.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Pastor Peterson said.

“That he does,” Lucinda added.  “That he does.”