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Dang. I had been sitting in the booth in the back in the corner in the dark at the Grounds for Divorce for so long that I fell asleep face first on the Smith Corona and just about missed this one. Been working on something that’s taken up way too much time. Thank goodness @HAN2014 wandered in and nudged me.

Obviously this ostentatious tank for the well-heeled is from Texas. Pretty sure it might have spent some time in Fort Stockton. Last I saw it, the cover was still on it in the garage at Miss Maddie’s house on San Jacinto Street. Of course, it’s not hers. She’d never drive anything so indiscreet. It’s her son, Bo’s.

He moved away for college and never came back, a pretty common occurrence here in southwest Texas. Apparently he’s done pretty well for himself, and I say good for him. He doesn’t get back often, maybe a couple times a year. But when he does, he likes to drive around his collector’s condition Cadillac convertible, rather than his mother’s Taurus. Who can blame him?

Funny thing about ol’ Bo, he was always kind of a wallflower in school. Maybe HAN2014 remembers, I think he taught Bo in one of his classes. Best anyone can recall, Bo never had a date. I seem to recall him going to the prom alone, driving his Chevette over to the Silver Slipper Super Club, where prom was held that year. The ‘wallflower’ must have really blossomed when he went away to Texas Tech. It happens all the time.

Now when he comes back to town, it’s usually with a girlfriend, sometimes even two!

Strangest damn thing. Not necessarily the type most boys would bring home to mother, either. But they fit with the Eldorado, I’ll give ‘em that. In fact, they have a lot in common with the Caddy. Tops that come off quickly and lots of leather on the seating areas. Come to think of it, they look pretty horny, too.

Anyway, the kid must be doing pretty good for himself. He drives the Eldo around town, just kickin’ it old school, but I hear he’s got a Ferrari back home. Some say two or three. I guess three Ferraris in 2024 is about the same as one Eldorado ragtop in 1976. It all evens out.

He tried to get Maddie to move out of the house she’s lived in ever since she can remember, the home she had when she and Kyle brought Bo home from the hospital. Of course Kyle’s been gone for years. Maddie stays there on San Jacinto for the memories, I’m guessing. “It’s all I need. Don’t need anything fussy. Just more to clean,” she says. So the McMansion Kyle had picked out over in Morningwood went to someone else trying to keep up with the Joneses.

The one thing she does make sure of with the extra money Bo sends her way is to be sure Second Baptist is supported throughout the year. She always gives a big donation in the spring to send the youth group to Six Flags up in the Metroplex to minister to the needs of the urban heathens that live up Highway 35. Maddie’s donation covers most of the expense of sending Brother Bob and his wife to the annual “Meeting the Needs of the Flock” convention in San Antonio. That just gets more expensive every year. Brother Bob says that he can hear God much more clearly if he’s on one of those floating barges that go up and down the river just outside their hotel.  Lucinda says he must have heavenly inspired hearing because all she can hear when she and Delgado go on one of those same dinner barges is the damn mariachi band singing One Ton Tomato.

A while back Brother Bob asked her just what Bo did that afforded him such grand generosity a while back. She was so proud. “He’s a highly paid veterinarian of some kind. A feline specialist, I do believe,” she went on. “He’s got a successful cat house in Las Vegas and one in Reno.”

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