This is the second chapter in a series of stories that will run all week.
The next morning, after a lukewarm shower and a powdered doughnut from the vending machine, Eddie Ray took the Cadillac on a slow roll through town, windows down, breeze cutting through the heat like a mercy. He passed the Piggly Wiggly, its old sign still hanging crooked, and remembered when he and Junior McClure used to sneak in the back to steal bubblegum and copies of Field & Stream. That was before Junior got real religious and started baptizing folks in a stock tank.
He passed the Rex Hall Drug Store, still advertising cold soda and flu shots, and wondered if Rex’s grandson still ran it. He remembered buying a home pregnancy test there with Brenda Jo in ’88 and praying harder in that parking lot than he ever had in church.
Then he eased past the Grounds for Divorce coffee shop, its hand-painted sign slightly faded but still defiant. He slowed down without meaning to. The window blinds were half-open, and he couldn’t see in, but he couldn’t help wondering—did Lucinda still own the place?
She used to serve sweet tea with a side of judgment and wore lipstick the color of trouble. If she was still behind that counter, Lord help him, it might be the only reason to stick around.
He gave a soft whistle and kept rolling, the Cadillac rumbling low as if it too had memories of Lucinda’s sass and cinnamon pie.
Fort Stockton hadn’t changed much. But Eddie Ray had. And driving those streets, past all the ghosts and memories dressed up as buildings, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
He circled the square a few more times than he should have, pretending he had somewhere to be. But really, he was just hoping to catch a glimpse of Lucinda through the café window or maybe run into someone who remembered him as charming instead of disappointing. After the third loop, he started to feel like he was making a scene, and Fort Stockton folks didn’t miss much—not when it came to DeVille convertibles or old trouble.
Each pass brought back another flash of memory. Some made him smile, like the time he and Tessa Crayton snuck into the water tower with a six-pack of Coors and a transistor radio. Others left him hollow, like the last fight he had with his mama before he left town.
By the time he rolled past Jim Bowie High School—”Home of the Fightin’ Knives,” as proudly displayed on the peeling maroon marquee—he found himself wondering what some of those old girls he’d “dated” were doing now. He used the term loosely. He hadn’t exactly left a trail of hearts so much as a tangle of confusion and apology notes.
The Cadillac growled gently under him, almost like it was reminding him to keep his eyes on the road instead of the rearview mirror.
But Eddie Ray wasn’t ready just yet. Not to turn around. Not to stop circling. Not to go inside anywhere and say anything real.
Not yet.
On a whim, he pointed the nose of the Cadillac out of town, easing past RoadRunner Estates, where the grass was always just shy of green and the HOA president ran things like a petty dictatorship, giving Mayor Goodman a run as being the least liked man in town. The road stretched wide and quiet, lined with creosote and sun-bleached fencing. It was muscle memory that guided him, not intent, and before he knew it, he was rolling toward where his best buddy used to live—Charlie Dunlow, partner in crime, whiskey, and women back in the days when they both still had hair and dreams.
As he crested the hill and eased down the long curve toward the old place, his foot slipped off the gas.
There, in the driveway, bathed in the golden haze of late morning, sat a 1970 Camaro. Devoid of glass, stepped, primed and waiting for a paint job that would never happen, just like the one he and Charlie had rebuilt in high school using more duct tape and cussed-up ingenuity than actual parts.
Eddie Ray pulled over, heart thumping with a strange cocktail of nostalgia, suspicion, and disbelief. It couldn’t be the same car.
But it looked exactly like it. Right down to the bulging hood Charlie never put on it because “it gave the car character.”
Eddie Ray let out a slow whistle, then muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned twice.”
Just seeing that Camaro stirred up memories he hadn’t touched in years. Long summer nights when they took turns tearing down old ranch roads, music blaring from a busted eight-track that only played Skynyrd and Merle. The time they outran a sheriff’s cruiser by turning off the headlights and ducking behind a cattle trailer. Or that weekend they drove all the way to Terlingua for a chili cook-off and ended up sleeping in the car after Charlie got punched by a woman named Rowena for hitting on her daughter—and her aunt. At the same time.
They’d painted that car a god-awful shade of yellow in Charlie’s garage with twelve cans of spray paint and an old bedsheet for a drop cloth. Spent more on beer than brake pads. More time under the hood than in class. That Camaro had been their escape plan, their rebellion, their declaration that someday they’d be more than just two dusty kids in a nowhere town.
The Camaro from his days at Jim Bowie High School had been equipped with a rear decklid spoiler, an Edelbrock four-barrel carburetor, Moroso valve covers, long-tube exhaust headers power-assisted front disc brakes, 15″ Cragar S/S wheels, and an AM/FM radio. The cabin in this one hd front bucket and individual rear seats upholstered in black cloth along with a dashboard, carpeting, and door panels that looked like they’d driven through the Apocalypse and just barely made it out in time. An aftermarket shifter looked completely out of place. The headliner, carpeting, and part of the center console were missing. Based on the condition of the rest of the Camaro, that was probably a blessing.
Eddie Ray sat there, staring at it, feeling like the years had folded in on themselves. A piece of his youth—loud, reckless, and just stupid enough to feel invincible—was parked in that driveway, alive and sun-warmed like it had been waiting on him all this time. Not while he still had charm left to spend. Maybe—just maybe—an old flame would take him in, though it’d have to be her idea. He still had pride, even if it was running on fumes.
