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Epilogue? Too final. Let’s just call this a follow-up to the MERCURY, GOLD AND IRON series.

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When the 1961 Dodge Dart Phoenix D-500 Convertible rolled to a stop in front of Grounds for Divorce, it looked like the future had side-swiped the past and decided to park in the present. The black MoPar glistened with the morning sun barely breaking over the courthouse roofline, bugs splattered across the concave grille like a Jackson Pollock fever dream. The wide whitewalls still shimmered with fresh dew, and the red interior practically glowed against the worn blacktop. Its sweeping tailfins pointed like chrome accusations at the Piggly Wiggly next door. The car’s push-button transmission and wraparound windshield might have made sense in 1961, but they looked like alien tech next to the beige Ford Granada parked nearby.

The man who stepped out moved like he’d driven all night. Which he had. Whether he’d come from New Rochelle, New York, or from some undisclosed crack in the time-space continuum was up for debate. His gait suggested exhaustion. His face, depending on the angle and your own beliefs about aging, flickered somewhere between early-60s Dick Van Dyke and centennial celebration Dick Van Dyke. Either way, there was no question as to exactly who he was, only his age and era. In some light, he looked ready to trip over an ottoman with comic timing. In others, he looked like he had just buried Buddy Sorrell—his old TV writing buddy—and was still trying to make sense of a world without Morey Amsterdam in it.

Inside the Grounds for Divorce, the usual suspects were holding court. Rusty Hammer leaned back in his chair, hat pushed up and coffee going cold. His red beard bristled with the impatience of a man who’d argued with drywall anchors before breakfast. He wore his usual “Jim Bowie: Home of the Fightin’ Knives” T-shirt, faded nearly to transparency.

“Did you know that a man’s heart beats quicker when he sees a woman in a leather dress? Throat gets dry. Knees weak. Irrational thinking sets in. You know why?”

Rex Hall, owner of Rex Hall Drugstore, nodded like a metronome. His lab coat was spotted with the remnants of a cherry phosphate he’d spilled somewhere around ’93. “Because she smells like a new truck.”

“Bingo.”

Sister Thelma didn’t even flinch. She sat prim and upright, hair as tightly wrapped as her opinions, and she never missed a chance to pierce the din with doctrine. “When we ban books before we ban guns, we’re just saying we’re more afraid of what kids are learning than of them dying.” She sipped her black coffee like she’d just checkmated the conversation.

Even Pastor Peterson kept quiet. He looked like a man who’d been defeated by youth group lock-ins and rogue deacons alike, his tie half-committed and his expression even less so.

Delgado, midway through balancing receipts and browsing Facebook Marketplace, looked up. He wore his usual black apron and the look of a man whose last good night’s sleep was during the pandemic. “What are evangenitals?”

Lucinda, behind the counter with a fresh pot of coffee, didn’t blink. “Fundamentalists obsessed with what’s in your pants.”

That prompted a soft chuckle from Chad, on break from the Piggly Wiggly. He wore his store badge upside down and had a smattering of facial hair that spelled out his mood better than anything verbal. “Mark Twain said, ‘It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.’” No one knew what part of the conversation he was referring to. Chad didn’t either.

That’s when Dick, driving the Dodge Dart drop-top, walked in, his shadow long and his eyes red from highway miles. He looked around the room like a man who had found the town at the end of a map. He took a deep breath and asked, “Where’s the guy that writes the blog?”

That stopped everything.

“You talking about the Captain?” Lucinda asked, already not liking where this was going.

“He’s not here this morning,” Rusty added. “Probably still chasing a carburetor gremlin out on the edge of town in his Fairlane 500.”

Dick—he hadn’t introduced himself but everyone just knew—rubbed his forehead. “I’m more confused than the first time I saw Laura Petrie show up on Lou Grant’s newsroom floor,” he said, blinking like the fluorescent lights in the ceiling were lying to him. “I drove all this way. I need him to explain the MERCURY, GOLD & IRON story. I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to know what it means.”

“Oh honey,” Lucinda said, pouring him a cup without asking. “He’s never gonna explain it. That’s not how it works. You don’t get the answers. You get the ride.”

That didn’t stop the table from trying.

“What was that town called again—New English, Iowa?” Rex asked, stirring what used to be coffee.

“Clearly a metaphor,” Sister Thelma offered. “A place where tradition pretends to be progress. Like Eden with a four-way stop and a sandwich shop. A symbol of the intersection where Heaven meets Hell.”

Chad said, “I thought it was a nod to the Puritans, except with more weird sex and less theology.”

Rusty added, “I figured it was just the Captain tipping his hat to the Midwest. Somewhere so bland, so neutral, it had to be a front for something sinister. Like a town made entirely of expired grocery store receipts, with a thunderstorm about to roll in. An enigma wrapped up in white bread and corn salad.”

“I thought it was real,” New Guy mumbled. “I mailed a postcard there once. Never heard back.”

Lucinda rolled her eyes. “You sent it to New Hampshire, sugar. And that was a coupon for foot powder.”

Sister Thelma tapped her teaspoon on the edge of her saucer. “The women in that story were angels. Sent to guide the hero, but not able to intervene directly. It’s theological, yet mystical.”

“Angels don’t sleep with the protagonist in two different chapters,” Rusty muttered. “Not unless Heaven’s been holding out on us.”

“Those were metaphorical acts,” Thelma insisted. “Representations of deeper meaning. The back end of that ’56 Plymouth wasn’t a place of sin, it was a place of symbolic rebirth.”

“I’m not sure I like deeper meaning,” Delgado said, grinning into his phone.

Rex chimed in. “It’s all metaphor. The Mercury symbolized immediate gratification at the expense of the future. The gold represented temptation and man’s need for accumulating more than he can ever actually enjoy. Iron—the Dodge coupe used to debilitate evil—represented force used for the greater good. The motel in Dickson symbolized redemption, the Aston-Martin a stand-in for man’s futile search for purpose. Classic guns-versus-butter economic conflict.”

“Can I get a metaphor to touch me like that?” New Guy asked. Everyone decided to ignore him for the greater good.

Chad offered, “The Captain’s just a guy who blends history, classic cars, and the human condition into something that gives people a reason to read before noon.”

Rusty nodded solemnly. “I read it on the toilet every morning while I’m taking my morning constitutional.”

Everyone stared at his iPad on the table, right next to his breakfast. Sister Thelma dry-heaved into her napkin.

“But was he really saying it’s okay to run over a high-ranking military official just to change history?” Dick asked, voice full of crumpled faith. “Does the end justify the means?” He had the same look on his face as he did in the episode where he meets a character named Kolak and suddenly finds himself in a world that includes walnuts, missing thumbs, and extra eyes.

“Who says that general didn’t have it coming? What’s worse, a high-ranking military officer who suffers a couple broken legs and gets early retirement—or three hundred million dead around the world?” Lucinda said. “You ever made an omelet without breaking a few eggs?”

Delgado bolted for the kitchen. “Crap—the eggs!”

Hairless B29 sauntered in, carrying a burlap sack that hissed and growled, protesting like it wanted to sue for freedom. He just kept walking back toward the kitchen, muttering something about when the Aston-Martin DB5 actually debuted, completely oblivious to the fact that Dick Van Dyke was standing there. The sack growled. Hairless smelled like motor oil, moist alfalfa, and unresolved trauma. Dick was even more confused.

Pastor Peterson noted quietly, “Vegetarian special for the next few days, please.”

Dick sat back and sighed. “So no real answers?”

Lucinda shrugged. “Not the kind you came looking for.”

He stood, cup untouched. He looked older than when he walked in—which was saying something, given he’d turn 100 in a few months. Maybe wiser. Or maybe just defeated.

Lucinda watched him go, then wiped down the counter. “Ted Cruz was in Greece during the Hill Country floods,” she noted casually.

“That man uses the American Flag like a Kleenex,” Sister Thelma added.

“Is it even legal for an elected official to be out of the country on the Fourth of July?” Rusty asked. “Seems un-American.”

Chad, back on his iPhone, noted that the Texas Attorney General’s wife just filed for divorce as the Attorney General sets his campaign in motion for U.S. Senator. “She says here in the article, ‘I believe marriage is a sacred covenant and I have earnestly pursued reconciliation. But in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage.’”

Before Lucinda could even respond to that little newsflash, Rusty sidetracked the discussion of Mrs. Paxton’s recent “discoveries and biblical grounds,” with a quote from Governor Abbott read from his iPad comparing the floods that killed 150 people over the 4th of July to being behind at halftime in a football game. Sister Thelma didn’t know which was more disgusting, the Governor’s comment or Rusty’s iPad.

By then, Dick was in front of the Dairy Twin, behind the wheel of the Dodge.

The D-500 fired up with a grumble that shook the windows. The cross-ram V8 coughed, cleared its throat, then roared. A time machine on bias-ply tires. Dual snorkel air cleaners in Hemi orange peeking from under the hood, ready to churn out 330 horses of unexplained intent. The red vinyl bench seat groaned as he settled in. The dash lit up dimly like a pinball machine remembering its prime.

He thought for a moment that Laura was in the seat next to him riding shotgun, Ritchie in the rearview mirror mounted on the dash. He blinked and they were gone. Ted Baxter was there instead, jabbing the push-buttons on the AM radio like the news still mattered.

Everyone watched him drive away.

“Think he found what he came for?” Chad asked.

Lucinda stared down the street, then poured herself a cup. “He’ll know when he stops looking.”

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