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In the Escalade on the highway headed back to the home in Fort Stockton she shared with fourth husband Doyle Lipscomb, Janice Amos thought about the fact that she didn’t feel guilty.  She chalked it up to the fact that monogamy was unrealistic.  Despite the best efforts and intentions Doyle put forth, there was something about a younger, more virile Cadillac salesman that did something for Janice that Doyle just couldn’t duplicate.

In town, Deuce picked up Sally-Sue from the back door at the K-Bob’s.  He was running late, having had to load up all the instruments in the back of the Country Squire by himself.  He was already behind schedule before that process even began.  The parking lot at Jim Bowie High was a mad house with people decorating their cars for the big game against Balmorhea, the football team packing their gear into the back of the bus, teachers making their way out to their cars while loading papers and projects to grade into their back seats and trunks.  

Cheerleaders were weaving in and out of all the cars handing out flyers for the Car Wash fundraiser to be held on Saturday in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Officially called ‘Suds-4-Sadie’, this year’s event was dedicated to help Sadie Sweeny pay for the operation to have her uterus lifted and wired back into place with metal mesh.  An unfortunate accident on the jungle gym in middle school did not heal itself over time, as doctors had hoped, and surgery was required.  Guys over at the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store took to calling these annual fundraisers the ‘Tits-n-Towels’ because the more clothing the cheerleaders removed, the greater the donations seemed to be.  Anyway, the cheer squad did all they could to promote the event ahead of time. “You’d never see the girls from Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern acting that way just to raise money,” some said.

By the time Deuce pulled in behind the restaurant, Sally-Sue was starting to get concerned.  She was relieved at the sight of him sitting behind the wheel of the rusty old wagon and slid in next to him.  As soon as she’d buckled her seatbelt she wrapped her arms around his neck and slid her tongue so far into his ear he thought it might come out the other side.  His physiological reaction was involuntary and immediate and just what Sally-Sue was hoping for.

Deuce’s blood flow was immediately diverted from his brain to areas demanding more immediate attention as his foot hit the accelerator and the Country Squire headed towards the highway to Marfa for the Stankforce gig.  Sally-Sue reached over and unbuckled his seat belt.

Janice took a phone call from Doyle as she got closer to Fort Stockton.  “Will you be home soon?  I didn’t think you would be gone this long just to run some errands.” She glanced at the clock atop the center stack of the dash.  The time had gotten away from her.  She realized just how much time she had spent staying in the motel room for one more round of Dipping the Stinger in the Honey.  In a voice that was as fake and thin as the wood veneer enveloping the dash, she said, “Lost all track of time.  Then I had to stop for gas.  I should have called.  I’ll be home soon.”  Doyle was placated for the moment, but she didn’t have time to waste.  Her rhinestone-covered Jimmy Choo spike heel pressed down on the accelerator like it was Kent Borden’s pelvis.  The digital readout on the Escalade’s speedometer was near triple digits.

In the Country Squire Sally-Sue reached over, unbuckled Deuce’s leather belt and then his Levis 501s with two fingers, showing the ambidextrous skill she’d learned stacking dishes and clearing tables at K-Bob’s.  Her hand was as soft as the words she was whispering into his ear expressing her admiration for his girth.

Four miles away, Janice realized that there was a greater than zero chance she may still smell like a combination of the motel room, Kent Borden, and the Rice Krispie Treats they’d enjoyed an hour before.  She reached down and opened up the center console between the leather covered captain’s seats and fumbled around for the package of Wet-Wipes she always kept hidden under the owner’s manual so she could freshen up as needed.

When the distance between the Escalade and the Country Squire was a mile apart, Deuce began Dancing in the Dragon’s Fiery Breath and was temporarily unable to focus on the road in front of him. His eyes were diverted from the road upwards to the bare metal roof of the wagon as they rolled back in his head and then closed.

Less than a half mile away, Janice glanced down into the console, her fingertips not feeling the package of wipes they were searching for. She rummaged through the console in a furious search for the wipes.

On a highway outside Fort Stockton, two cars traveling opposite directions swerved towards the middle of the road at full speed, the driver in each one distracted by the sins they were focused on trying to complete or attempting to hide.

With both vehicles straddling the yellow lines separating the opposing lanes of highway, the impact was devastating when they met head on.  The airbags in the Cadillac all exploded in a fury of life-saving energy that slapped Janice harder and with more force than Kent had earlier in the motel.  The seatbelt that Sally-Sue was wearing kept her tethered to the front bench seat of the Country Squire, but felt like it almost sliced her in half.  Deuce had become airborne instantly, exactly at the apex of his euphoric zenith.  The lack of a seatbelt allowed him to soar through the windshield of the Country Squire, much like Icarus of Greek mythology, heading towards the sun to meet his end. Only in this case the sun was in the form of the hood of a Cadillac Escalade.

It was minutes before the woman in each vehicle regained full consciousness.  A passerby stopped and ran to the entangled cars, calling 9-1-1 as he ran.  Eventually both Janice and Sally-Sue stumbled out of their respective damaged vehicles and made their way to Deuce atop the wreckage.  He was bleeding profusely.  His neck had likely been broken.  Sally-Sue didn’t know whether to attempt to get his pants pulled back up or try to get the smile off his face.  Instead, she just wept.  Janice called Doyle and told him she’d be later than she thought.

At Station #2, no sooner had Lieutenant Tad Crosby hung up the phone and dispatched the fire truck over to Jim Bowie High School at the behest of Principal Pough when the phone rang again and someone was yelling about a nasty wreck out on US 385.  “Two cars. An old Ford wagon and a Chevy Suburban.  It looks bad.  Don’t think the kid is going to make it!”

A female voice in the background shouted, “It’s a Cadillac Escalade, not a Chevy Suburban!”

“It’ll be the only two cars that have collided with a kid that looks dead with his pants around his knees on top of the SUV,” the caller shouted into the phone. He was annoyed at the driver’s priorities, but impressed with her obvious enhancements that had somehow survived the impact.

Lieutenant Crosby took down the exact location. He called back the Seagrave HB-40DH that was barely out of the driveway of Station #2 and rerouted it. “Get over to what sounds like a train wreck on US 385,” he shouted. “Pull the Pontiac ambulance out of Engine Bay #1 and take it over to Jim Bowie High School. There’s a medical emergency in the faculty parking lot!”

“Anything that might affect the big game tonight?” the rookie asked. “I’ve got money on the Knives!” Lieutenant Crosby could only shake his head and marvel at the results of Fort Stockton having lowered the standards for civil service employment.

A call was placed to Fort Stockton Memorial Hospital & Animal Testing Facility.  Angelina Newton picked up the phone.  She nodded as the voice on the other end gave instructions.  At the end of the call, she slammed the receiver down and yelled, “Everybody get ready.  We’re about to be hit with a Code-Two!”

Nobody knew what a ‘Code-Two’ was.  A couple of the other nurses got out the handbook to look it up when Dr. Teague, fresh from his nap, strolled in and said, “It’s not ‘1’ emergency, ‘it’s ‘2’.  A silent panic settled in on the nurses in the Emergency Area of FSMH & ATF.  They’d never had two emergencies at once.  “This is what we’ve trained for,” Angelina said.  “This will define who we are.  Get ready, ladies.”  Gavin Giddings, the only male nurse, took offense.

The Pontiac ambulance pulled into the Jim Bowie High School parking lot, sirens blaring and a shimmering river of transmission fluid leaking in its wake.  Principal Pough waved them over to the Russet Metallic 1978 Mercury Zephyr Sedan, driver’s door open.  Lying next to the boxy mid-sized sedan was Titus Walker, collapsed on top of a spilled Big Gulp and crushed half eaten bag of Cool-Ranch Doritos.  He’d obviously suffered a massive heart attack and had lost consciousness.  Firefighters grabbed the defibrillator from the Pontiac and yelled, “Everyone get back from this Fairmont!”

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One of the JBHS cheerleaders, placing a car wash flyer on the windshield, looked up and shouted, “It’s a Mercury Zephyr, not a Ford Fairmont!”  Once again, badge engineering was threatening the safety of the community.

Confused, but trained for just such interruptions, the firefighter ignored the distraction but made a mental note to be sure and look for that particular girl at the car wash.  She had spunk.  He wanted to give her even more.  The crowd collectively took a step back as the firefighter yelled “CLEAR” and applied the paddles to Titus’ massive chest.  When the current went through him, Titus’ body heaved upward off the pavement and then back to the ground with a thud.  The engine on the Pontiac sputtered and the siren quit working.

“Is he going to make it?” The cheerleader cried out with a shrill shriek that was both overdramatic, yet somehow appropriate for the situation.  She nearly dropped the bundle of flyers.

The fire and rescue team tried three more times to shock Titus back to life, but feared if they tried any more they would kill the engine in the Pontiac and not be able to get it restarted.  “We’ll work on him on the way to the hospital!”  It took all four of the firefighters, Principal Pough, and two cheerleaders to wrestle Titus Walker into the back end of the Bonneville.  On the way to FSMH & ATF the fire fighters took turns pounding on the beloved janitor’s chest, stopping only long enough to take a drag off the vape one of them had brought along.

On Highway 385, the scene was every bit as gruesome.  It was obvious to Lieutenant Crosby that Deuce was already listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and feeling the warm embrace of Jesus.  Though he still registered a faint pulse, he’d lost a lot of blood and had apparently suffered some type of traumatic brain injury causing an odd smile to remain frozen on his face.  He assumed the kid’s pants had slid down as he exited through the windshield.  Janice just looked at Sally-Sue and winked.

With the Pontiac ambulance not available, they had to wrangle the boy’s body into the cab of the Seagrave HB-40DH for the trip to the hospital.  The other firefighters argued for a moment about who would have to ride in the back before the lieutenant showed them who was in charge.  The rookie rode the ass end of the Seagrave back to town, hanging onto his hose for dear life.

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At the ambulance dock of the emergency entrance of the hospital, chaos broke out.  Nurses struggled to get Titus Walker out of the Pontiac.  Luckily, Gavin Giddings stepped up and heaved the big man the stretcher out singlehandedly, then wheeled him towards the OR.  When the Seagrave HB-40DH wheeled up, Dr. Teague was still on the receiving dock.  He and Lieutenant Crosby locked eyes, both of them instantly thinking back to the time in the locker room after the game against Crane.  Nurse Angelina Newton broke that spell when she opened the passenger door and slid the bleeding kid from the passenger seat into the wheelchair that had been brought out.  It was obvious the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was well into the final verse of their last song.

What took place in the twenty four hours that followed is still talked about in Fort Stockton, and small towns all over Southwest Texas.

Being told their boy had already passed to the other side and had no hope of coming back, Shamus and Minerva Alvord made the painful decision to allow his organs to be harvested so that others might live.  Dr. Teague and Lieutenant Crosby shared a Chesterfield and warm embrace after the doctor performed the delicate 20-hour long procedure of transplanting the boy’s heart into Titus Walker, with only Angelina Newton and Gavin Giddings assisting.  Deuce’s corneas were transplanted into Doyle Lipscomb’s eyes, so he could see what was taking place right under his own nose. Tendons from the boy’s leg were harvested to be used instead of metal wire mesh to hold up Sadie’s prolapsed uterus, saving her from a future life of painful sex and countless hours in airport security. Several firemen visited the hospital during her recovery to extend their well wishes.

At the hospital, an uncomfortable Kent Borden, the Cadillac salesman, met Doyle Lipscomb in what could only be described as an emotional encounter.  Janice was able to put her feelings into words, which she scribbled down on the back of a medical chart at the nurse’s station.  When set to music, Escalades and Escapades eventually became a top hit on the country western chart.  The royalties allowed her to eventually divorce Doyle.  Right after that she took up with Roger over at Frontier Ford-Lincoln, “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal,” who put her in a new Navigator at dealer cost plus $50. (Of course, she had to pay full price of $2,995 for the dealer installed Appearance Protection Package.)

The “Tits and Towels” fundraiser was still held, but the proceeds were used to pay off Sally-Sue’s Crossfire.  “It will help her move beyond her grief and show her just what kind of town Fort Stockton is,” Principal Pough said in the interview with the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch.  Of course, other folks pointed to the Hummer H2 Victory Red Limited Edition parked behind Fire Station #2 at all hours of the night a couple times a week to describe what kind of a town Fort Stockton is.  But those are the “glass half empty” folks that always try to bring down the room.

Every town has to deal with its own tragedies.  Some do it better than others.  Nothing will bring back Deuce Alvord. But a little bit of him lives on in the chest of Titus Walker, a testament to the benefit of second chances. Sally-Sue is young enough to find true love again; Janice Amos has proven that possibility over and over again. Dr. Wells Teague has shown that even a douchebag has a place, if his talents outweigh his downsides.

Around the big table in the middle of the Grounds for Divorce, folks still just shake their heads at how the whole thing turned out.  Lucinda reminded people, “Everyone involved marched to a different beat, just like the new one in Titus Walker’s chest.”

New Guy said, “It takes a village.”

“You’re both right,” Pastor Peterson said, nodding with a solemn tone in his voice.

“And New Guy is the village idiot,” Rusty said to the assembled group.

Turns out all three are right.

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