The WELCOME TO FORT STOCKTON sign had never looked so good to the folks inside the armored Toyota Sequoia. Sister Thelma vowed to never leave Texas again, but knew that was a promise she might not be able to honor. She’d go wherever God called her.
Delgado, sitting in the front passenger seat, was contemplating the narrow miss that had just happened, the newly found status of his mother and father in the back seat, and how much he regretted his vote for Mayor Goodman last November. “I had no idea what all the consequences would be,” he told Lucinda later. “I just had no idea.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t want to think about it.
When word started to get around town about the deportation of some long standing Fort Stockton citizens, all but one of who were born in town, some were incensed. Others weren’t surprised. Some remarked, “Don’t matter if they were born here. They got no place here.” Truth be told, the families of the basketball players from Jim Bowie High School, “Home of the Fightin’ Knives,” had settled in the area around Fort Stockton long before the ancestors of some of those grumbling had ever left Europe. But no matter.
Deuce Braxton and his “new” wife and son were glad to be home. Though Delgado had really always thought of him as his dad, he still couldn’t call him that. It was complicated. Pastor Peterson worked some of the details of the rescue mission into a sermon series titled “The Least of These,” based on Matthew 25:40. When Mrs. Peterson asked him how he would have looked at the whole thing if someone had gotten killed on the mission, he couldn’t really answer.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” doesn’t really get down into the weeds of all the intricacies, much less the random fatality. But it made him ponder all the gray areas and how it would be impossible to address them all in just one sermon series.
Franklin Danbury Jr., had the Escalade washed and detailed over at the Tiny Bubbles Car Wash. Being the only full service car wash in town, Danbury used their services, despite the fact that he had sued them on behalf of Chad and Prudence. He was sure to always check the contents of his glove box and center console before hopping out of the vehicle and going into the waiting area to watch it come down the line of brushes, foams, sprays, and waxes.
Rusty Hammer and Earl from the salvage yard were kind of energized by the whole thing. His wife found him out in the driveway of their place in RoadRunner Estates washing the crew cab F100. “Maybe there’s more of a call for vigilante justice than I ever would have thought,” he told her as he took a sip of coffee from the CMC mug full of Folgers she’d brought him.
“Maybe you need to just get your ass back to the store and do what you do best, tools and hardware,” she said. If she knew how dangerous the trip had actually been, she’d have wrung his neck. He and Earl would talk about their adventure down into Mexico for a long time thereafter. It got more dangerous every time they told it.
Sister Thelma had conflicted feelings about the whole thing. She felt like she’d shed the demon she’d been carrying for decades: the hate for Heriberto Eduardo Zambada. But she now held onto the fact that she’d witnessed his cold blood murder. She’d even given the murderer his escape vehicle. Maybe she hadn’t freed herself from a demon, just traded one for the other.
Clem, Lucinda’s next door neighbor, was glad to see Delgado’s Imperial back in her driveway. It was better entertainment sitting at the window listening to the sounds coming from Lucinda’s bedroom window next door than anything he and Trudy ever got on cable. That was particularly true the first few days after they got back from Mexico.
It was probably the third day or so after the Sequoia had returned and been pulled into Lucinda’s garage, still covered in Mexican mud, that Clem was in the chair next to the window enjoying a Pearl beer as Lucinda and Delgado were deep into a session of shooting the meat rocket into the sausage wallet when Clem thought he could smell something burning.
Apparently, one of the legs of Lucinda’s antique Amish white oak four poster bed had come to settle on the extension cord she used for the Tiffany boudoir lamp on the bedside table nearby. The repeated rocking back and forth of the bed had stripped the cord of all its insulation and a spark ignited the thin muslin curtains draped from the canopy overhead.
Muslin is thin and dry and ignites like kerosene when subjected to a fire. The whole bed was in flames before Delgado could jump out, grab his boxer shorts, and attempt to beat the flames back. Lucinda ran to the kitchen to grab a pale of water. Clem reached over to the Princess phone on Trudy’s side of the bed and called the Fort Stockton Fire Department.
The pale of water Lucinda brought in wasn’t enough to make a dent in the flames. They were licking the ceiling and headed towards the mahogany and beveled glass Burmese curio cabinet housing her collection of 18th century Peruvian sex toys.
The engine pulling out of Station #2 was based on a 1975 chassis and was converted into a fire engine in 1977. Power was provided by a 534ci V8 paired with a five-speed manual transmission and a two-speed rear end. Additional equipment included an engine-driven pump, a 750-gallon tank, fire hoses, working lights and sirens, a Johnson two-way radio, and more. Lieutenant Tad Crosby led the battalion of firefighters who arrived within minutes. He used an axe to rip through the front door, although it was unlocked and he could have just walked in. He and the rest of the crew followed the smoke and rushed into Lucinda’s bedroom. While seeing Lucinda bare ass naked distracted the rest of the crew, Delgado, still at half mast and flogging the flames with his Calvin Kleins, seemed to divert the Lieutenant’s attention.
Clem kept Trudy abreast of the full situation, as she was in the front room and didn’t want to leave Wheel of Fortune till the puzzle had been guessed. Somehow, they got things under control before the whole house went up in flames. In the end, Lucinda didn’t even file a claim on her insurance. She and Delgado just repainted everything and drove to Marfa for new bed linens. But she can’t help but think of the incident everytime she hears that 90s song that starts, “This bed is on fire with passionate love. . . .”
Anyway, things are settling back into a routine here in Fort Stockton. For now, anyway.
4 responses to “SPARKS FLYIN’”
Our fire engine was a 1951 Ford F-6 with the flathead V-8, 4-speed transmission, and 2-speed differential, built by Boardman in Ohio for the Luling, LA Monsanto chemical plant with a 500 gpm pump, and carried 500 gallons, along with a High Pressure Fog unit on the tail board. It could draft and pump from both sides. Despite the years we enjoyed, our homeowners insurance never offered a discount on our policy, but the F-6 was a hit on local old car tours and the 100 year New Orleans Fire Department Muster. The bumper-, and roof-mounted pair of Federal Sirens would drone on and on, neither of which were equipped with a brake, and parades were fun since a combination of “Granny Low Gear “ and Low-Range differential allow me to walk alongside as the pumper “Drove Itself” with nobody in the cab.
That sucker (pun not intended) would pump itself dry in 1 minute . . .
Actually, it could pump at 250 gpm at 500 psi, or 500 gpm at 250 psi,
so more like two minutes, which is why the connection to a hydrant,
BUT it could also draft out of a pond, and Monsanto built several holding ponds around their Luling, Louisiana facility.
Holy Guacamole!! Still Too Hot Tamale!!
Thanx for the tidy wrap job, Cap’n!