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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 towards the horizon.  “But I never figured that looking back on my laughter would make me cry.”

Lucinda was not one normally given to sentimentality.  She was as practical as she was sultry.  Those two traits, once combined, tend to make someone, especially a woman, seem cold and aloof.  That’s not always the case.  She glanced over at him and laid her head on his chest.

Growing up in a home where the man of the house was never fully acknowledged as being his father, and his mother, while always treated with respect, was the housekeeper, had given Delgado a distorted view of family.  Those perceptions were not made any clearer when the subject of Delgado’s grandfather was mentioned.

Humberto Grimaldo was one of the top Peruvian goal keepers of the late 1940s and 50s.  His fame across all of South America was second to none.  His reputation of rarely allowing anything to get past him in the net was surpassed only by his reputation of bedding the best looking maidens of nearly every village from Ayacucho to San Vicente de Cañete.  Sporting long dark hair and a full thick beard 30 years before such grooming habits were considered mainstream,  Grimaldo had more than a passing resemblance to Jesus.  In a country that was 75% Roman Catholic, that only added to his allure.  Many of the women he romanced would later say it was very near a religious experience.

Alejandra Vargas-Solis was far too proper to ever mutter such platitudes publicly.  Her one and only coupling with the soccer star was an encounter in the cockpit of Grimaldo’s Pegaso Z-102 where she surrendered her virtue while Trini Lopez sang Cuando Calienta El Sol on the radio.  Alejandra later commented to her friends that she had attained such a level of physical stimulation and release that she feared it would never be matched, much less exceeded.  She remained celibate the rest of her life as a result.

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The child she bore nine months later was gifted with the best features of each of her South-Central American parents.  Her mother’s feminine beauty combined with her father’s chiseled features made the child striking, from an early age.  This was the young girl who migrated to Fort Stockton with Humberto Grimaldo in the declining years of his soccer career. He’d been signed to play goal keeper for the Southwest Texas Gallinas de Barros, an expansion team that lasted only a few seasons before being relegated to history and the stadium hosting their games torn down to make way for the Proving Grounds.

Delgado still had memories of his grandfather, many of those centered on a 1953 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special.  Grimaldo had gone to Cactus Cadillac and placed a special order for the coal-black sedan.  The salesman at the dealership was quite taken aback at the thought of a Spanish speaking middle aged male attempting to place the order.  Such things just did not happen in Fort Stockton in the 50s.  However, when Grimaldo flashed the 43 one hundred dollar bills to pay cash for the new car, the salesman had a sudden epiphany that allowed him to put aside his prejudices, appreciate soccer, Spanish athletes, and cold hard cash.

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Delgado’s mother would tell him stories about riding around Fort Stockton in the Cadillac, standing up on the light and dark gray cloth seat.  Grimaldo had covered the upholstery in clear plastic in order to protect it from whatever might soil it, whether that would be treats his daughter might drop, or reminders of dalliances he had with women around Pecos county just beginning their appreciation of soccer.  She’d go on to say, “Patterned green trim adorned the black dashboard.  Additional appointments included power windows, front quarter vent windows, front lap belts, a cabin heater, a clock, an AM push-button radio, and an Autronic Eye headlight dimmer mounted on the left corner of the dash.  The car was a work of art, as was the man who drove it.”

Of course, no man stays young forever, particularly an athlete who treats his body as a tool and often abuses it.  As his talents were ravaged by time, the endless Fernet & Colas he drank, indiscriminate womanizing, and unfiltered Camel cigarettes he enjoyed at the conclusion of each game and each romp in the sheets all took their toll.  While still a relatively young man, Humberto Grimaldo was checked into the Fort Stockton Memorial Hospital & Animal Testing Facility for a multitude of symptoms and never left.

Doctors attributed his early expiration to advanced donovanosis and lymphogranuloma venereum, coupled with biliary atresia brought on by hemochromatosis and multiple ingrown toenails, a result of the leather on his soccer cleats having shrunk up considerably in the Fort Stockton heat.  In his obituary, the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch said it was exhaustion.

Delgado’s mother inherited the Cadillac.  When becoming old enough to get her license, she would drive it around town, never pushing the 331ci V8 factory rated at 210 horsepower to its limits.  It was bittersweet.  The sombrero style wheel covers and La Bamba being sung by Ritchie Valens on the Spanish speaking AM radio station, KSFR, brought back memories of her father and questions she’d never have answered.  That lack of a father-figure was probably what drove her into the arms of Duece Braxton while employed as his housekeeper.  Of course, Deuce’s good looks and piercing blue eyes had a lot to do with those emotions as well.

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Deuce allowed her to park the Cadillac behind the guest house.  Seeing how much it meant to her, he only charged her a small storage fee.   The fee was deducted from her pay each week, always in cash as to avoid the employment taxes and raise the ire of the INS.  As a small boy, Delgado would play in the Cadillac, spending hours behind the wheel.  He’d “drive” up to the Dairy Twin or the Piggly Wiggly, imagining that he could purchase things for his mother and bring them back to her as a surprise.  Later, after seeing Lucinda on the streets of Fort Stockton, he would pretend to drive the Sixty Special sedan to the Naughty Pine Motel where she would be waiting for him.  In Room #7, undressed and in an alluring pose with a chilled Jarritos soda on the nightstand, she would welcome him to the bed and teach him the secrets only few would ever know.

The thought that they would one day lay together in an Airstream overlooking the tranquil beauty of the fifty acres he’d been given just outside Fort Stockton never entered Delgado’s mind, although it did enter his right hand repeatedly.

One day, the Cadillac was gone.  “It’s become too much for me,” his mother told Delgado.  “I fear it is becoming too much for you as well.”  He could not bring himself to ask what had become of the car.  He knew his mother was probably right.  The Cadillac and the places it would take him were becoming an obsession.  He didn’t even ask her what had happened to the car.

Then, a few weeks back, Earl from Earl’s Salvage and Formalwear was in the Grounds for Divorce.  He was sitting in the booth over in the corner, chatting up Mayor Goodman about something insignificant; Rex Hall from the pharmacy joining in when appropriate.  Lucinda, being tied up with all the regulars at the big roundtable in the middle of the cafe, was not able to bring out the order of tasty breakfast tacos for Earl, Rex, and the Mayor.  When Delgado dropped off the fiesta, he happened to hear Earl mention something about the old black Cadillac once owned by a South American soccer player that was wasting away out at the salvage yard.

“You mean the one ol’ Humberto Grimaldo used to drive?” the mayor asked.

“That’s the one,” Earl noted.  “Seems like it’d be a good project for someone.”

Delgado felt his chest swell, and his clear blue eyes started to tear up.  “Can I come out and have a look?”

The next morning, Delgado made his way to the salvage yard.  There, just fifty yards from the warehouse where Earl kept sacks of discarded fender skirts, piles of Vega motors with less than 20,000 miles, salvaged Pinto fuel tanks, and dozens of complete low-mileage Cadillac Cimarrons, sat the 1953 Cadillac Sixty Special.  The one his grandfather had purchased new.  The one he’d played in as a kid and teenager.

The car was both a comedy and tragedy of thoughts.  The skirts were gone, just like those of South American maidens at the hands of his grandfather 70 years earlier.  The sombrero wheel covers had been sold on eBay years earlier, providing some influencer the opportunity to create a chandelier that was auctioned off to benefit endangered coyotes west of Amarillo.  The chrome was as pitted as the olives they sold at the Piggly Wiggly, and the paint in a state of degradation beyond repair.

Inside, the upholstery was as torn and tattered as Alejandra Vargas-Solis’ heart had been when she watched her daughter board the boat to America, hand in hand with her playboy father.  Brushing off the droppings of several different species of rodents and years of southwest Texas dirt, Delgado slid into the driver’s seat and gazed out over the two-spoked wheel.  The cabin smelled like old Cuban cigars, Sanborns Agua de Colonia Flor de Naranja, and sweat socks.

As he sat there, Delgado thought about fate.  And mortality.  And the circle of life, and nothing being permanent.  Soccer careers, shiny new Cadillacs, Naughty Pine fantasies.  Nothing lasts forever.  Nothing stays the same.  Just like his grandfather, Humberto Grimaldo, Delgado realized everyone has an expiration date.  Conquests and accolades may soften the reality, but they don’t forestall the inevitable.

Delgado worked out a deal with Earl to purchase the old black sedan.  It was a deal that was part cash, and part catering services for Earl’s niece’s upcoming wedding reception at Second Baptist of Fort Stockton.  Earl included towing the Cadillac out to where Delgado’s Airstream is parked.

He’s going to restore it someday.  In the meantime, he often just goes out and sits in the driver’s seat, this time  with a cold Modelo Especial in his right hand.  Occasionally he’ll light up a Hoyo de Monterrey Hoyo de San Juan cigar, although Lucinda always says, “You’re not going to kiss me with that mouth, are you?” when he comes back into the Airstream.

But when she looks into his deep blue eyes, he does more than kiss her and she puts up no resistance.  That’s the same effect his grandfather had on Alejandra Vargas-Solis.

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