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WE PICK UP WHERE WE LEFT OFF IN THE TALE OF KELLY KERR AND HIS TEMPORARY RELOCATION TO FORT WORTH AND SUBSEQUENT RETURN TO FORT STOCKTON IN TWO RECENTLY DISCOVERED CHAPTERS. THIS IS THE SECOND OF THOSE TWO LOST CHAPTERS.

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And so it was that Kelly Kerr settled in.  Settled into Fort Stockton.  Settled in to the Eggs & Ammo.  And settled into middle age.  If someone would have asked him, “Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?”  Kelly would have responded, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

He dated some, but not much.  He never found another woman to be as attractive as Mindy had been.  Nor did he ever want to trust one the way he had trusted her.  He had his ’67 Mustang, his little bungalow not that far from the Eggs & Ammo, and neighbors who sort of looked out for him.  When Tessa, his neighbor across the street, made a King Ranch casserole, she’d always make a small one for Kelly and have her husband take it over to him.

He joined a bowling league over at Back Alley, the bowling lanes here in town.  He even occasionally played in a band that would play for tips in the lounge there, The Cactus Pricks.  

None of the band members were all that good, but people would still come in and have a couple beers after they’d bowled a few games.  There would always be enough tips in the jar at the end of the night to surprise Kelly and the rest of the band. Most of the time the tips covered the band’s own bar tab.

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All in all, Kelly felt like he had a good life, if not one that many might want to emulate.

In the fall of 1979, right after the new cars had come out, Kelly was working the early evening shift at the Eggs & Ammo.  It was actually his day off, but he’d come in to cover for Bud Borden.  Bud’s wife’s sister was giving birth and he didn’t want her driving all the way to Abilene by herself in the LTD, as the brakes had been acting finicky.

The sun was going down earlier and seemed to be shining right into the widow of the store when the Cadillac pulled up to the gas pumps.  It was a brand new 1980 model, a Cadillac Sedan DeVille.  Based on the color, it reminded him of the ’72 Mark IV his cousin had driven down from Dallas-Fort Worth several years back.  He noted that GM had taken some liberties with the new model, making it seem larger than the 1979 model it replaced.  More substantial.

The sedan had a factory vinyl roof, and appeared to be loaded from what he could tell.  The sun made it hard to tell much more about the car.  It also partially obscured the driver, who appeared to be heading into the store rather than pumping gas from the pump right next to the car.  The driver was no more than a kid.  Certainly didn’t seem to be someone who could afford a brand new $13,000 car.

The Cadillac wasn’t from Fort Stockton, as far as Kelly could tell.  He didn’t recognize the kid driving it, either.  In fact, he was startled when the kid walked right up to the counter rather than looking around the store.  It was like he had business with Kelly.

“You Kelly Kerr?” the kid asked.

“I am.”  Kelly was cordial, but was trying to figure out what was taking place.  “How can I help you?”

The two men looked at each other, neither having seen the other before.  Then something slowly began to dawn on Kelly.  The approximate age of the kid. His overall appearance. The brand new Cadillac.

“So you’re the one that knocked up my mother, and then left her at the hospital the minute I was born.  Never had a thing to do with me?  Not in 17 long years?”

“Oh good Lord.  You must be Mindy’s son!”  Kelly looked into the boy’s eyes.  “You don’t understand!”

“I understand that you disgraced my mother and caused pain for both of us.  It took me this long to find you.”  The young man was getting more animated by the minute.

“Let me guess.  That’s your grandfather’s car.  He’s still with GM.”  Kelly was putting all the pieces together.

“Don’t you worry about my grandfather.  Just like you didn’t worry about my mother.  Just like you didn’t worry about ME!”  The kid reached into his pocket and pulled out a chrome revolver.  He brought it up to eye level, pointed straight at Kelly.

Kelly was shocked that things had escalated so quickly. He put both his hands in the air.  “Son, you don’t understand.  I don’t know what you’ve been told, but you obviously do not know the entire story.”  He wondered how the boy did not recognize that Kelly was not who he thought he was, just by virtue of sheer appearance.  But the kid’s mind was not functioning like it should have been.  He was unleashing something that had been pent up for a long time, possibly influenced by drugs. The kid seemed to be high on something.

“I understand everything I need to,” the kid said.  There were tears beginning to stream down both cheeks.

The shot startled Kelly.  He and the kid looked at each other, each of them wanting to say something, neither of them having the ability.  It seemed like two or three minutes, but it was only that many seconds.  The kid crumpled to his knees, face down on the tile floor in front of the counter.  Blood began flowing from his abdomen, quickly surrounding the display rack of Moon Pies beside him.

Just outside the door was Arch Kerr.  The father Kelly hadn’t seen since his 16th birthday.  The chrome revolver in his own hand was smoking at the end of the barrel and his hand was shaking slightly.

Before Kelly could even come around the counter to check on the kid or address his own father, another shot rang out.  Arch Kerr’s knees buckled.  He remained upright from the knees up, confused by what had happened, but not surprised.  Kelly ran towards his father, stepping over the bleeding kid, throwing open the shattered glass door to the store.  Arch looked up at Kelly, said, “I’m sorry,” and fell over on his side.  His eyes remained wide open as he stared at nothing.

Officer Phil, still behind the wheel of the squad car with his service revolver pointed at the newly deceased Arch Kerr, didn’t know whether he had just committed the act of heroism that would define his career, or end it.  But he knew there would be reams of paperwork to fill out and that two men had just expired right in front of him. Twice the number that ever had before.

In the aftermath of the investigation that followed, it was learned that Arch Kerr had been silently keeping his eye on his son for quite some time, fearful of him being robbed at the convenience store.  Of course, that is only part of what was learned about the older Kerr.  Video cameras proved that it appeared the kid from the Cadillac was about to shoot Kelly, but Kelly always felt like he could have talked him down.  Even the autopsy showing numerous drugs in the boy’s system didn’t convince Kelly otherwise.

The fact that Officer Phil was an eyewitness to the murder and quickly acted to prevent what he thought was a routine robbery was noted in his file and within the third paragraph of his Letter of Commendation. Nonetheless, he didn’t sleep well at night for several years.

Kelly was not invited to the boy’s funeral.  He was left to speculate why the kid had never been told Kelly was not his actual father.  The questions that were raised were never able to be asked, as he discovered Mindy had been gone for quite some time, possibly at her own hand.  She’d been found dead in a halfway house in Bakersfield suffering from addictions of her own.  The boy’s grandfather would never return Kelly’s calls.  Someone from GM was sent to retrieve the Cadillac, even before the boy’s body was claimed, tellingly.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the entire ordeal was the one that was left out of all the reports published in the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch.  It was the one most shocking to Kelly.  The one the Fort Stockton Police Department found the most sobering.

It was the note in the jacket pocket found on Arch Kerr’s body.  The paper it was written on was brittle with age, the writing faded with time.  It explained his love for his son, as well as the fact that he knew his actions, if ever forced to commit them, would probably result in his own death.  “And if that is the case,” the note read, “I must confess not only to those actions taken to protect my only son, but also to the murder of a girl named Becky out on Lake Leon in 1953.  In both cases it was for love.  I regret the pain I have caused. To everyone.”

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