Month: August 2024
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CHEVETTE OPULENCE
The people that showed up in one of these back in the day used to just steam my clams. I mean there was nothing wrong with the base model Chevette Scooter. But no, these people had to go FULL Chevette. Show-offs. Why not just pull up in a Porsche 911? Is a back seat and a door on…
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CHRYSLERS & CASTLES, Part II
Justice may be blind, but she can still look good in a gray two-piece suit. At least Veronica Hidalgo did, anyway. Top of her class in law school at UT, she came back home to go to work in the DA’s office before being elected to the office on her own. She had a gift. There were hopes…
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CHRYSLERS & CASTLES, Part I
Idle hands are the devil’s tools. “Particularly if they are at the end of the arms of a group of young men who could be considered tools themselves.” When the prosecutor said those words she sealed the fate of the three on trial for murder. There had been four of them initially, all seniors from Jim…
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THE INDIAN AND THE MARINE
“Women are stupid and men are no damn good.” If I had a dollar for every time I heard Lucinda mutter those words I’d be able to buy new shocks for the Fairlane 500. Pastor Peterson always cautions her to not paint people with such wide brush strokes. But most of us know she’s only referring to…
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NOW AND THEN
Lucinda and Delgado were naked in the Airstream, the sheets in a damp heap at their feet as a musty breeze whispered through the open windows of the polished aluminum mobile mansion. “I always figured that looking back on my tears would one day make me laugh,” he said as he gazed out the window…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 8/25/2024
Well, it’s been hotter than hell in Fort Stockton, hitting 107 a couple days this week. A fairly mild July had given way to a brutal August to the point that the National Weather Service has issued instructions on how to bake a lasagna in your mailbox. The heat had affected everyone’s attitude at the Grounds…
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DRAW ME LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH CARS
Rose was an uppity rich girl from the Montrose section of Houston. Born beautiful. Grew up wealthy. Had an attitude. Jack was a devil-may-care rogue from Fort Stockton who lived by the seat of his pants, romancing young girls and living in an old cabin about fifty yards off the shore of Lake Leon. Gambled for his income. Had…
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IT’S A BIRD. IT’S A PLANE. IT’S….
So there I was, out in the woods behind the garage harvesting mushrooms in preparation to sit down and write the next Thad Gunter series when the phone rings. Now the fact that I even had the phone on me was a miracle. Normally I’m not wearing pants when it’s time for the harvest. But Mila said…
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LAST CHANCE
Everybody wandered into the Grounds for Divorce after the service, numb and reflective. That’s what funerals do. They slap everyone upside the head with reminders of their own mortality, while they grieve folks unexpectedly gone in the blink of an eye. Parker McHale’s Hollywood studio shipped in a special hearse for the service. It was the same one…