Pernell Barstow got the nickname “Booger” sometime in the third grade when he leaned too close to a glue bottle and sneezed. That was forty-odd years ago, and while most folks outgrow their childhood embarrassments, Booger just learned to wear his like a cheap cologne. The name stuck, the habit stuck, and so did Booger in Fort Stockton, always about a half-step behind the good fortune that seemed to favor everyone else.
That’s why Tug winning the Texas Lottery hit him like a left hook. Tug wasn’t just rich now—he had the Angels from the Skuttlebutt circling him like moths around a neon beer sign, and the town still buzzing over the Battlewagon, a chrome-and-smoke contraption that made grown men clap like toddlers at fireworks. Booger couldn’t stand it. Tug had his story written in big letters, and Booger was tired of living in the footnotes.
Paula at the Klip-N-Dye
Booger’s first move was to find himself a leading lady. He set his sights on Paula, the perm girl at the Klip-N-Dye. Paula had been breathing in Aqua Net and ammonium thioglycolate for so many years that her laugh had a fizz to it, like opening a can of Shasta. But she had a figure Booger described as “honest,” and she looked at him sometimes like he might be more than just Tug’s cousin.
Their first date was at the Dairy Twin, where Booger ordered onion rings and made a point of licking his fingers loud enough to draw stares. Paula, unfazed, dabbed her napkin delicately and said, “You got ambition, Booger?”
“Ambition?” Booger asked. “I got a plan.”
And he did. A plan cooked up on envy, pencil shavings, and the conviction that every butt had a seat—even if it was upholstered in vinyl that smelled like turpentine.
The Baggie of Destiny
Step two was “supplies.” Tug had his mysterious Piggly Wiggly sack from across the border, so Booger figured he needed a baggie of his own. Trouble was, he didn’t know anyone in Mexico who’d sell him anything but lottery tickets or off-brand laundry soap.
Enter Carl Dugan, janitor at Jim Bowie High School. Carl was the kind of man who could sweep a hallway and steal your lunch without breaking stride. He had a knack for finding value in what other folks threw away. Booger met him behind the gym, handed him twenty dollars and a promise of “investment opportunities,” and walked away with a Ziploc baggie full of brownish flakes.
“This here,” Carl assured him, “will expand your horizons.”
Later on it turned out to be pencil shavings from the art room—evidence of Jim Bowie’s commitment to both student creativity and janitorial entrepreneurship—but Booger didn’t know that yet. He stuffed the baggie in his glove box, right next to the warranty for a lawnmower he never owned, and felt halfway to legend.
The Dream Machine
The last step was the car—or in Booger’s case, a pickup. Tug had Earl and the whole salvage yard choir singing backup when he built the Battlewagon. Booger had eBay, two borrowed socket sets, and a vision fueled by spite.
That vision came in the form of a 1964 Chevrolet Corvair 95 Pickup. It wasn’t much to look at—primer patches, rust freckles, and a bed that had seen more hay bales than hugs—but it had something Tug’s Battlewagon didn’t: a chance for Booger to say, “See, I did it too.”
Booger read somewhere on the internet that mid-engine builds were the future of hot-rodding. Never mind that the internet also said you could heal a sprained ankle with pickle juice—Booger believed what he wanted. So he tore into that Corvair like it owed him money, intent on dropping a 350 small block right in the middle, because nothing says “visionary” like ruining the weight distribution of a truck Chevrolet never intended to be fast.
The Process, More or Less
Booger started by ripping out the bed. His neighbor, Earlene, complained that the racket scared her Chihuahua into chewing the legs off the coffee table. Booger apologized by giving her half a gallon of gasoline he swore was “extra.”
He bolted down an engine cradle with hardware left over from a swingset, slid the 350 into place with the help of a borrowed come-along, and reinforced the whole thing with sheet metal stamped “Property of Pecos County Hospital.” Rusty Hammer, seeing the operation one afternoon, muttered, “That’s not so much engineering as it is stapling your dreams to a fire hazard.”
The fuel lines leaked, the exhaust didn’t, and the throttle cable was tied with baling twine. But by God, when Booger turned the key, the thing coughed, sputtered, and roared like a lion with emphysema. Booger stood there in the smoke, arms wide, hollering, “Who’s laughing now?”
The answer, of course, was everyone.
Paula’s Contribution
Paula supported him in her way. She brought over sandwiches wrapped in foil and cheered whenever the Corvair didn’t explode. She called it “Booger’s Folly” after the second carburetor fire, and the name stuck.
But Paula had her own troubles. Years of inhaling perm fumes had done something peculiar to her equilibrium. She’d drift mid-conversation, eyes watering, voice going flat like a dying battery. One morning she told Booger she was checking into rehab “for clarity.”
Booger dropped her off with a box of Sun Drop and a stack of word searches. She kissed him on the cheek, leaving a lip print shaped like an apology.
“Don’t give up on your dream,” she told him.
He didn’t. But he probably should have.
The Auction
When word spread that Booger had built himself a mid-engine Corvair pickup, the town didn’t know whether to be impressed or call the fire department. Earl showed up with his arms crossed, Lucinda brought kolaches out of habit, and Pastor Peterson prayed quietly for insurance adjusters.
Hairless B29 peered under the bed and said, “It’s bold. Bold like wrestling a porcupine naked.”
Booger, chest puffed out, announced that he was going to list Booger’s Folly on the internet—Bring a Trailer, the same site where real legends sold their machines. He posted pictures, wrote up the specs with the confidence of a man who thought torque was just a suggestion, and hit submit.
The listing was everything you’d expect: “Mid-engine, 350-powered, custom vision.” The photos showed primer spots, crooked welds, and one of Paula’s cigarettes crushed into the gravel. The comment section lit up faster than Tug’s stacks on Main Street.
“Is this art or a cry for help?” someone wrote.
“Why does the throttle look like it’s tied with twine?” asked another.
“My cousin built something like this in ’78. We buried him in it,” said a third.
Booger read them all, grinning. To him, they weren’t criticisms. They were proof people noticed.
Epilogue: A Seat for Every Butt
Paula eventually came back from rehab smelling less like perm solution and more like peppermint tea. She moved on, found steady work at the Piggly Wiggly, and only twitched sometimes when she saw a bottle of conditioner.
The baggie from Carl the janitor was tested and confirmed to be pencil shavings mixed with gum erasers. Booger shrugged, tossed it in the trash, and said, “Hell, maybe I was high on ambition.”
As for Booger’s Folly, it never sold for big money. In fact, it never sold at all. Booger kept it, parked under a mesquite tree, where on cool evenings he’d climb into the cab, turn the key, and let the 350 rumble like distant thunder. Kids on bikes would stop and laugh, neighbors would shake their heads, but Booger sat tall in the seat, grinning like he’d pulled off the greatest heist in Pecos County history.
Because in the end, Tug had his Battlewagon, built with chrome, cash, and community. Booger had his Folly, built with pencil shavings, spite, and half-melted ambition. And both of them were just as happy.
Like Lucinda said, “Some foolish things are also beautiful.”
Or as Booger preferred: “There’s a butt for every seat.”
And in Fort Stockton, that was gospel.
One response to “BOOGER’S FOLLY”
Some may interpret this as yet another one of the Captain’s whimsical and entertaining stories.
To me, it’s a stark cautionary tale to avoid the temptation of ingesting pencil shavings.