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Scott Williams combed his hair twice that morning—once for practice, the second time for luck. He didn’t know what the inside of a car dealership looked like, but he was sure it held the same weight as a courtroom or church sanctuary. It was where big decisions were made by men in ties and women who didn’t speak unless asked to.

Janice’s mom wasn’t one of those women. She was a widow, a former bank teller turned Avon rep, and she still drove the same faded blue 1961 Falcon she’d bought new with her husband. The driver’s seat leaned left, the dash rattled like dice in a Yahtzee cup, and the exhaust whistled on left turns.

But today, she had declared, was the day. “We’re going to Frontier Ford, and I’m not going alone. Scott, you’re coming with me.”

Scott said yes before she finished the sentence. He wore his best Levi’s, his second-cleanest polo, and shoes he’d only scuffed a little the night before.

“I’m part of something,” he told his best friend Mason McCullough. “She’s trusting me. I help her get a good deal, and her daughter will see me in a whole new light.”

Mason had nothing better to do. He was a seventeen-year-old with a learner’s permit and a comic book rolled in his back pocket. “Let’s go change the world,” he said, climbing into the back of the Falcon with a bounce that nearly cracked the rear springs.

The trip to Frontier Ford was a quiet one. The Falcon chugged along the streets of Fort Stockton like a reluctant pony. The boys kept their jokes light—something about how the car had “authentic character” and “a built-in vibrating massage feature”—but Janice’s mom stayed focused. She had the look of a woman ready to face a firing squad.

The dealership hadn’t changed since the Eisenhower administration. The showroom floor could hold two cars comfortably, three if one was a Pinto. Rodger, the salesman, greeted them in a short-sleeved shirt and tie that looked like it had survived a bar fight.

“Well, well,” Rodger said with a politician’s grin. “Let’s find you somethin’ dependable, with a little class and just enough sass.”

He handed her a brochure. It was clear she wasn’t interested in flipping pages. “I don’t like decisions like this,” she said.

Rodger chuckled. “Then let me make it easy for you. We just got a four-door Maverick in Saddle Bronze. Factory fresh. I know this car. It’s not gonna raise eyebrows, but it’ll never let you down.”

Janice’s mom looked at Scott.

“It’s a good car,” he said, trying to sound like he knew what the hell he was talking about. “And bronze is underrated.”

Rodger jingled the keys to his own car—a dark green LTD with a cracked vinyl roof. “Let’s head over to the warehouse. That’s where we keep the good stuff. Boys, you wait here.”

“Wait?” Mason asked. “We came for the experience.”

Rodger was already opening the passenger door. “This is grown-up business. Insurance won’t cover if you bust something.”

With that, he and Janice’s mom drove off.

Scott and Mason stood in the showroom for a full minute before Rodger’s voice echoed from the street. “Second thought, come with. But don’t touch a damn thing.”

The warehouse was three blocks east—an old red-brick monolith with chain-link fences and a faded sign that read “FRONTIER STORAGE – KEEP OUT.” The LTD clattered into the gravel lot like a lazy boat docking onshore.

Inside, the boys were awestruck.

It wasn’t just a warehouse—it was a candy store for the mechanically underaged. F-100s lined the wall like sentries. Pintos in circus colors sparkled under the skylights. Galaxies, LTDs, Gran Torinos, and Mustangs sat idle, their engines never yet knowing disappointment.

Rodger pointed. “There she is.”

Stock #16742177MAV74. The 1974 Ford Maverick four-door sedan. Saddle Bronze with pinstripes. Bench seats in striped tan cloth. Clean hubcaps and a dash so simple it could calm a storm.

“This’ll get you where you need to go,” Rodger said, opening the driver door. “Without apologizing for how you got there.”

Janice’s mom hesitated. “It’s… nice.”

“Take it around the block,” Rodger said. “Feel how it wants to behave.”

He turned to the boys. “Stay put. That means butts in seats, feet off pedals.”

They nodded solemnly. The LTD pulled out, Maverick in tow, and the metal door clanged shut behind them.

A beat passed.

Scott looked at Mason. “He said stay put.”

Mason raised an eyebrow. “He also said not to touch anything. We’re already in violation of paragraph one.”

They wandered the rows like kids who’d stumbled into a sacred place. Every car was unlocked. Every ignition bore a key. Temptation dripped from the air vents.

Then they saw them—two Mustangs, side by side.

A Mustang II Ghia in Champagne Gold with tan vinyl. And next to it, a red Mach 1 with black striping, slatted rear windows, and a face like a barfight waiting to happen.

Scott walked around the Mach 1, reverently. “I had a pedal car just like this when I was five.”

Mason slid into the Ghia. “I’m more of a luxury man myself.”

They nodded, grinned, and turned their keys in unison.

The Ghia coughed to life. The engine sounded like a sewing machine and a squirrel arguing in a coffee can.

Scott’s Mach 1 didn’t start—it leapt.

The tires chirped. The car jerked forward three feet, bounced once, and smashed through a section of concrete block before wedging into the brick.

Light poured in. So did silence.

Scott sat still. Hands frozen on the wheel. Eyes wide enough to catch flies.

Mason stood outside the Ghia, mouth open, then closed, then open again.

“Oh God,” Scott whispered. “I just assassinated a building.”

The damage wasn’t huge. Not from the outside. A section of brick was cracked open, like a missing tooth in a smile. But the Mach 1’s nose was bloody and bruised, and the wall was no longer whole.

“Help me push it back,” Scott begged.

They shoved. Grunted. Nudged the car enough to make it look as if it had merely rolled a few inches in its sleep.

Then they fled.

By the time Rodger and Janice’s mom returned, Scott and Mason were sitting on the curb outside the warehouse, knees up, heads down, like dogs who’d seen the wolf.

Back at the dealership, Janice’s mom worked the deal. Rodger slid papers across the desk like a blackjack dealer, talked trade-in value and monthly terms. He clawed back the Falcon’s $200 trade value as a “processing adjustment.”

Scott sat fifteen feet away, staring at the floor tile. Mason leaned forward in a chair too low for his legs. Neither spoke. Neither blinked.

On the drive home, the Maverick’s heater worked well, the ride was smooth, and the only sound was the occasional wheeze of the Philco AM radio trying to tune in Glen Campbell.

Scott excused himself the moment they arrived. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

He went straight to his room, opened the medicine cabinet, and downed three tablespoons of Pepto-Bismol like it was sacramental wine.

Then he lay on his bed and waited.

Waited for the phone to ring. Waited for the judgment to begin.

Waited to be branded “The Idiot Who Broke the Wall.”

But the call didn’t come that day.

Or the next.

Three weeks passed. Janice’s mom loved her Maverick. She said it made her feel younger, like the future wasn’t closed for renovations.

Scott eventually told Mason, “Maybe he never noticed.”

Mason nodded. “Or maybe he did, and he knows what it’s like to want something so badly you mess up trying to have it.”

Scott considered that.

He never told Janice. Never told anyone, really. But every time he passed the red brick warehouse, he looked for the patch—the spot where the wall didn’t quite match.

And he remembered.  Five years later, his junior year at the University of Texas, Pink Floyd’s album The Wall came out.  He couldn’t listen to the whole thing.

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