This is the fifth chapter is a series of six stories that will run all week.
Eddie Ray turned the Cadillac back toward town, melancholy clinging to him like dust from the Bastrop road. The pecan tree, the fields, the ghosts—they stayed behind, but not out of mind. He rolled through the edge of Fort Stockton, the town painted gold in the late light, and thought maybe a drink would help him decide whether to go see Shyla or keep pretending he hadn’t already made up his mind.
The Lucky Lady Lounge glowed like temptation on the horizon, but Eddie Ray knew himself too well. If he went in there, he might not come back out until closing time—or sunrise. And he didn’t want to be drunk if he ended up on Shyla’s porch.
So instead, he pulled toward the strip mall near the highway, where the sign over the door still read Eggs & Ammo. Where you could pick up a breakfast burrito, a bottle of whiskey, and a box of .22s all in one transaction.
But before he could even put the Caddy in park, a gut-wrenching noise erupted from under the hood—a grinding cough followed by a bang that sounded like judgment day arriving early. Steam burst from beneath the front end like one of those fancy saunas he used to stay in when he could afford nice hotels.
“Sweet merciful mother of mopar!” he hollered, jumping out like the leather seat had caught fire. His heart was racing, and for a moment, he was certain he’d just soiled his Fruit of the Looms.
The Cadillac hissed, shuddered, and settled into a cloud of shame.
Eddie Ray popped the hood, though he already knew whatever lay beneath was way beyond a roadside fix.
“Well,” he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow, “looks like she’s got opinions too.”
With steam still curling like ghost fingers into the dry Texas sky, Eddie Ray dug his phone out of his pocket and stared at it like it might offer better news than reality. He thumbed in the number for the old Esso station—half out of habit, half out of hope.
“Esso,” came a familiar gravelly voice on the other end.
“Tex, it’s Eddie Ray Sinclair. I’ve got a Cadillac with a wounded soul outside Eggs & Ammo. Think she blew her last gasket.”
“Well, ain’t that poetic,” Tex chuckled. “I’ll send the wrecker out as soon as it gets back from jump starting the team bus over at the high school. Can’t have the Fightin’ Knives showin’ up late to the game against Marfa.”
Eddie Ray sighed, glancing back at the Caddy steaming like a crawfish boil. “Appreciate it, Tex.”
“She’s a ’67, right? We’ll be gentle. Well, as gentle as we can be with a winch and a chain.”
Eddie Ray hung up and leaned against the brick wall of the strip mall, the heat of the day pressing against him from every side.
It was going to be a long wait.
Too much time on his hands. Too many thoughts in his head.
Too many ghosts riding shotgun in a town that remembered everything.”
With the sun beating down and nothing to do but stew in his thoughts, Eddie Ray shuffled across the parking lot and into Eggs & Ammo. He nodded to the kid behind the counter, who looked up briefly from a catalog of camo recliners, and pointed toward the shelf behind the counter. “Pint of Old Crow,” he said.
The kid raised an eyebrow, then grabbed the bottle and rang it up.
“No point in waiting till I get back to the Naughty Pine,” Eddie Ray muttered to himself as he twisted off the cap. “I ain’t driving, anyway.”
He stepped back outside, found a shady spot behind the ice machine, and took a long pull. The burn settled low in his gut, warm enough to make the steam from the Cadillac seem like a bad dream.
By the time Tex rolled up in the 1986 Ford F-350 Vulcan Wrecker Dually Diesel 4-Speed, the bottle was half gone and Eddie Ray was half tempted to just walk off into the desert and see what came looking for him.
The truck groaned to a stop, brakes wheezing like a lifelong smoker, and Tex climbed out, wiping his hands on a rag that looked like it had once been white in the late ’70s.
The truck was finished in Shadow Blue Metallic (7B) with blue and silver graphics, making it look less like the Angel of Mercy it really was. The Vulcan Model 868 wrecker utility body and a Wheel Snatcher boom were accompanied by a Ramsey hydraulically-operated winch, an under lift, Public Safety Equipment Force 4 XL light bar, J-hooks, rear-facing floodlights, and Tow World rear mudflaps. An angel disguised as a workhorse.
“Well hell,” Tex said, taking in the scene. “She blow a gasket or just needed attention?” As Tex claimed out of the wrecker, Eddie Ray noted the diamond-plate running boards, tow mirrors, cab clearance lights, side window visors, and a front push bumper with a brush guard. His Angel of Mercy had been gussied up to look more like a Lady of the Evening.
“Bit of both, I reckon,” Eddie Ray said, holding up the bottle in salute.
Tex nodded. “Aren’t we all.”
Seeing the Cadillac at the end of the hook tugged at Eddie Ray’s heart more than he wanted to admit. That car had been his entrance, his armor, his mask. And now it hung behind Tex’s wrecker like an old boxer being dragged from the ring. But then, the whole trip back home had tugged at him in ways he hadn’t expected—squeezed memories from corners he’d thought were dry.
“She’ll be alright,” Tex said, tightening the last of the chains. “Gimme a day or two, I’ll have her back on the road before Monday.”
Eddie Ray nodded, stepping back as Tex slammed the toolbox shut and walked around to the driver’s side of the wrecker. Eddie got a few things out of the Cadillac’s backseat—his duffel, the guitar case with busted clasps, and a pack of menthols he hadn’t planned to smoke but probably would.
He was halfway into the passenger seat of the F-350 when he paused, eyes narrowing across the road.
“Hold on,” he said.
Tex raised an eyebrow as Eddie Ray jogged back across the asphalt, boots clapping like regret against pavement. He ducked back inside Eggs & Ammo and emerged less than two minutes later, another pint in hand.
“Figure I might need reinforcements,” he said, settling into the cab. “Ain’t much waiting for me back at the Naughty Pine but a broken AC and dreams that don’t know they’re broken yet.”
Tex just grunted and turned the key. The old diesel rumbled to life, pulling away from Eggs & Ammo with the Cadillac bouncing behind like a monument to every heart Eddie Ray had ever broken.
And they rolled on toward another night of fitful sleep and broken dreams.
