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In a way, Eileen Parker and Chance Collinsworth got together because of Pastor Peterson.  He would never lay claim to that distinction, but the dots do connect.

After taking her Maserati out to the old McCullough place so Eileen could pay her last respects to where Mason’s ashes had been scattered, he could have insisted that Eileen take him back to his office at Almost United Methodist so he could call it a day and go home.  He knew Mrs. Peterson was making King Ranch Casserole that evening, and it was always one of his favorites.  But Eileen insisted that he allow her to buy him a beer for all of his help in attaining closure.

The pastor had one foot on a banana peel and the other in the parking lot of the Lucky Lady before he knew what hit him.  The last thing he wanted to do is have to explain to members of the congregation what he was doing in a bar with an attractive woman who’d made millions off murder and sex, both in print and on film.  He got nervous just being seen in line at the Cactus Theater for an R-rated movie, for heaven’s sake.  The rings of wetness under each armpit were telltale signs of him being smack dab in the middle of the commission of a sin that he couldn’t even identify.

As he stood up and stretched his back from being in the cockpit of the Maserati he was silently saying a prayer.  Before he and Eileen even reached the front door, that prayer was answered.  “The Lord does work in mysterious ways,” he said to himself.  Into the parking lot drove Chance Collinsworth in his Lincoln Navigator L Reserve 4×4.  It was a miracle.  The only thing that would have made it more biblical is if Chance had had a basket under his arm with five loaves and two fishes.

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“Chance!” the pastor yelled, as though it was the second coming.  “I’m so glad to see you.  Timing couldn’t have been better!”  And standing there next to the silver-blue 1961 Maserati, Pastor Peterson introduced Eileen Parker and Chance Collinsworth to one another.

“Ms. Parker had asked me to join her in a cold adult beverage, but I just remembered a commitment to Mrs. Peterson.  I’m afraid I have to be on my way, but perhaps you’ll exhibit some of the hospitality Fort Stockton is famous for and escort Ms. Parker into the Lucky Lady.”  Chance could see Pastor Peterson was befuddled.  Eileen didn’t really care whose arm she was on as she went into the bar; she just needed a drink.  The pieces all just seemed to fit.

The pastor walked back to Almost United Methodist, finished up his sermon notes for Sunday, and was home before the King Ranch casserole came out of the oven.  Chance escorted Eileen into the Lucky Lady where they sat at the bar and got to know each other.  Later, folks would argue that this is where the pastor had to bear some of the responsibility for what followed.  But just like Revelations, that is all so subjective as to not really be provable.

There may not have ever been two more interesting people to come out of Fort Stockton, Texas than Eileen Parker and Chance Collinsworth.  One had researched, written about, glorified, and perhaps even committed murder.  Her specialty was death, something Chance had evaded more times than anyone else in town.  It was natural the pair would have a lot in common.  The fact that they had each aged well, remained unencumbered with partners, built fortunes, and attained notoriety did not go unnoticed.  

The two of them sat at the bar for quite a while, eventually moving to the booth in the back in the corner in the dark.  Eileen ordered a continuous string of Gin and Dubbonets, specifically served with a slice of lemon, two ice cubes and every last pip taken out.  Chance order Whisky.  Straight.  

She relayed the fact that, as a small girl, seeing someone jump to her death from the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building started her fascination. One after the other, Eileen recounted stories of murder and kidnapping in Kansas from the fifties. Chance told her what it was like, speaking of Kansas, to see people falling to their deaths from skywalks being torn from their concrete anchors.  He was glad to be sharing some of the things he’d never talked about.  She was finding herself becoming aroused.

“Why have you never married?” she asked him.

“Long story.”  He looked into his Whiskey glass and had Hank bring another round.  “I was close at one time.  A burned out bulb took care of that.”

He recounted the story of crashing into the Florida Everglades and losing Connie.  Eileen then told Chance of the sordid, prolonged, and not easily defined relationship that she’d shared with Mason McCullough.  They both shared stories of loves lost. The alcohol allowed them each to see something in the other most people missed. That created a sexual tension that was palpable.  Eileen suggested they take the conversation to her suite at the Cattle Baron Hotel.

“Screw that,” Chance said.  “My emotions are raw, just like I want your thighs to be.  Let’s go to the Naughty Pine Motel. It’s closer.”  Eileen tried to pay with her American Express, forgetting she was in Fort Stockton.  Chance paid with cash and opened the door out to the parking lot.  

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At the Naughty Pine Vern had been in the hospitality game long enough to know when people weren’t in the mood for small talk.  He gave them the key to Room #7 and then stuck his head out the door and watched a 1961 Maserati 3500 GT and a 2019 Lincoln Navigator L Reserve 4×4 park right next to each other in front of the room on the very end.  That was a sight he’d never seen before and figured he’d probably never see again.  He thought he’d go back into the motel office and get his camera.  That shot would sure look good if he ever updated the Naughty Pine website.  Class the place up a little bit.  Then he noticed the pool had a bit of a green tint to it.  More than a tint, actually.  He couldn’t see the bottom.  He figured Chance and his guest wouldn’t be using it, but nonetheless went to the storage closet to get the chlorine and forgot all about the pictures.

Inside Room #7, Eileen had emotions stirred that she hadn’t felt since Mason McCullough was tied to the bedpost in her Hollywood mansion.  For his part, Chance knocked off her clothes faster than Borrani wire wheels secured by three-eared knock-offs wrapped in 185VR16 Pirelli Cinturato CA67 tires.  Once Chance got started, Servo-assisted braking handled by Girling discs up front and finned aluminum drums at the rear couldn’t slow him down, not that Eileen wanted him to slow down.  Eileen’s skin was softer than Pelle Neutra upholstery and he intended to navigate every square inch of it.

The couplings that took place were hotter than an aluminum block and cylinder head, with the latter featuring hemispherical combustion chambers and dual overhead camshafts.  At the conclusion of the final act, the two collapsed into a sweaty heap as Chance shoved quarters into the Magic Fingers and they drifted off.  Vern, back in the front office by then, had a cigarette.

The next morning the two inhabitants of Room #7 didn’t wake till nearly noon.

When Chance rolled over, the other side of the bed was empty, but glancing out the window he saw the sunlight glimmering off the Maserati.  Eileen was in the bathroom, finishing her makeup and putting on the frilly lingerie she kept in her purse.

“I need something to eat.  And some sunshine.  And maybe Round Two, but not here.”  Eileen was always specific with her desires.

“You mean Round Five, don’t you?”  Chance snickered.  “I’ll call Chad over at the Piggly Wiggly and have him put together a gourmet picnic basket for us.  I’ll shower and we can jump in the Navigator and pick it up on the way out to Lake Leon.  I know a place out there.  I think you’ll like it.”  Eileen looked at him like he was wearing a CMC cap and her lady parts got tingly.

“Except we’ll take the Maserati,” she said.  “I’ll drive.  I think you’ll enjoy it. I’ll run into the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store while you pick up the picnic basket.  Just grab a few things for the afternoon.”  She always loved control.  Chance figured he would let her love the control however she wanted to.  It was a win / win.

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At the Piggly Wiggly, Nadine Thompson was writing a check at the checkout counter, then entering the amount in the check register and doing the math to confirm the balance in her account.  The line grew longer behind her.  In the Manager’s cubicle, Chad was putting the finishing touches on the gourmet picnic basket, making sure the soda crackers didn’t get crushed by the Vienna sausages and confirming the six pack of PBR was ice cold.  

Nadine voiced her displeasure at how much things had gone up since she was last in the store while she instructed the bag boy that he should be double bagging the canned goods.  Her frustration caused Nadine to decline the kid’s offer to take her bags out to her car and load them in the trunk of her 1967 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Luxury Sedan.  “He’d probably expect a tip,” she muttered to herself as she pushed the half full cart out to the parking lot.

As Chad looked up from putting the complimentary cellophane bow on the basket, he saw Nadine’s Oldsmobile pull out of the parking lot and make its way down Houston Street.  He thought he glimpsed a vintage Maserati out in the distance.  He was irritated that Nadine had left her cart in the middle of the parking lot rather than putting it back in the cart coral like any decent human being would do.  He told Mrs. Drury, “As soon as I finish this basket, I’ll go retrieve that cart.  I’ve got to get this done; Chance will be here any minute.”

He didn’t see Shannon Hudspeth pull into the parking lot going a lot faster in her Cadillac than she had any right to.  The pointed bumper on the passenger side of the Vortec-Powered 1964 Cadillac Coupe DeVille caught the cart that Nadine had left in the middle of the parking lot and sent it sailing.  By the time it sailed past Mrs. Drury’s Fury III sedan, it had gained enough momentum that when it hit the curb in front of the store it became airborne.  

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Behind the wheel of the Maserati 3500 GT, Eileen spotted the flying cart.  It wasn’t often that Eileen could be caught off guard, but the chrome-plated-wire food cart flying towards her windshield caused her to nearly soil the custom French lingerie she’d slipped on back at the hotel.  She grabbed the three-spoke steering wheel sitting just ahead of a body-color dash fascia housing Jaeger instrumentation including a 250-km/h speedometer, a tachometer with a 5k-rpm redline, a clock, and gauges monitoring coolant temperature, fuel level, and oil pressure.  Eileen jerked the wheel way too hard to the right in order to avoid the flight path of the incoming errant airborne cart.

As women sometimes do, she over compensated.

The Maserati hit a tanker truck full of jet fuel head on that was making its way to the Fort Stockton Regional Airport and Feedlot.  The driver of the tanker truck heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing before his foot could ever hit the brake.

A rescue crew was dispatched to the scene after myriad calls into the Fort Stockton Fire Department reporting a giant fireball out in front of the Piggly Wiggly.

In an investigation by the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch that lasted nearly a year, it was determined that Eileen and Chance might have been saved had the city had the proper response equipment.  But the fact that the funds for a new ambulance had been diverted by Mayor Goodman to projects surrounding his golf course that he’d deemed more “worthy” meant that it took the 1970 Pontiac ambulance nearly 30 minutes to arrive at the scene despite being only a block away from the scene of the accident. It may have been a bad fuel pump.

Folks at Second Baptist whispered that Eileen Parker finally got what she had coming.  Over at the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store, Rusty told anyone who’d listen back by the Weedeater display, “You can only outrun fate so long.  It’s gonna catch up to you at one point or another.  Poor Chance finally figured that out.”  Of course, most people wished he had discovered that someplace less traumatizing than in front of the Piggly Wiggly right as school was letting out over at Alamo Elementary. It was pretty traumatic for those youngin’s.

Chad brought the picnic basket Chance had ordered over to the Folgers-N-Fenders at the Grounds for Divorce the following Saturday morning.  “It’s too nice to let it go to waste,” he told Lucinda.  She gave it away as a door prize after deciding it was probably too elaborate for a Comment of the Week award.  

Vern slept in Room #7 the night of the accident, atop the wrinkled moist sheets Eileen and Chance had shared on their last night alive.  “We all mourn in different ways,” he said.

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