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“If Brother Bob claimed this was the opening act of the apocalypse, I wouldn’t have a very strong argument to prove him wrong. Of course, I’d feel obligated to run it past Pastor Peterson first, just to get a proper ecclesiastical reading. Maybe talk it over with Sister Thelma across a cup of Folgers, since she tends to notice details the rest of us pretend not to see. But yes. I’d be inclined to believe it.”

I realized I was rambling about the same time my coffee went cold, which felt appropriate.

“You talkin’ about the weather or the world situation, darlin’?”

Lucinda had been listening beside the table with a fresh pot of Folgers from the Bunn-O-Matic and that look she wears when she already knows the answer but wants to hear how you’re going to lie about it.

“Yes,” I said.

Outside, the weather had gone judgmental. Not just cold, but accusatory. Single digits. Ice laminated over everything in a white shell, that made Fort Stockton look temporarily forgiven, like a sinner in a borrowed choir robe. The storm stretched from Mexico to Canada, which felt less like a weather system and more like coordinated punishment. Ice is good that way. It doesn’t fix anything. It just freezes things exactly where they stand and calls it clean.

With Delgado in the kitchen banging pots and pans like he’d been reassigned to the percussion section of the Fort Stockton Philharmonic, and me being the only fool in town who’d ventured out into conditions better suited for reflection and regret, Lucinda set the pot down and slid into the booth across from me.

---

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“It’s comin’ up, ain’t it?” she said.

I had a strong suspicion what she meant, but I didn’t want to look rehearsed. There’s enough self-importance sloshing around town already.

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“Story number one-thousand on the blog.” She smirked. “Don’t try decoyin’ me. That’s never been your gift.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s right around the corner. February third, if my calendar hasn’t turned on me.”

She studied me for a moment.

“That’s a lotta words to be leavin’ behind you.”

“Well,” I said, “I figured if I went all-out with a seven-part series and made the last one number one-thousand, then every milestone after that would just feel like extra ballast. That’s a heavy burden to keep rattlin’ around in the trunk of a 1960 Fairlane 500. It’s just a regular story.” She looked at me, serious for a moment. “As regular as any of ’em, I s’pose.”

She laughed, just a little, in that way that’s caused more than one man to reconsider a signed certificate. Maybe it’s the way her neck tapers as it works its way down.  Then she leaned in, lowered her voice, and let curiosity sharpen into something closer to concern.

“Just where in the hell do you come up with this stuff?” She glanced to either side, then behind her, like inspiration might overhear and file a complaint. “A thousand stories. How?”

“Honestly?” I said. “I couldn’t tell you.”

She didn’t buy it. Fair.

“Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that comes outta nowhere,” I went on. “I have to crawl outta bed and scribble it on the back of an envelope or a Piggly Wiggly receipt so it doesn’t evaporate. Then I lie there starin’ at the ceiling, workin’ out the details until sleep either returns or files a restraining order.”

Lucinda shook her head slowly, like she was watching a nature documentary about an animal that probably shouldn’t be encouraged.

“And sometimes,” I added, “they don’t come from wonder or beauty at all. Sometimes they come from irritation. From watchin’ someone misuse a turn signal. Or confidently explain somethin’ they know absolutely nothing about. A fair number of stories are born outta spite that’s learned how to behave in public. Maybe that’s how I cope.”

She smiled. “That tracks.”

“Some of ’em come from other places,” I said. “You remember that story that just ran about Cody Laramie wreckin’ a Porsche Speedster?”

She snickered and nodded.

“That one’s actually a parody of an 1884 French short story called The Necklace. Poor woman, unhappy with her life, borrows what she thinks is an expensive necklace from someone she envies. Loses it. Spends years breakin’ herself replacin’ it. Never realizes it was fake the whole time.”

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Lucinda leaned back. “So you took that, swapped the necklace for a Porsche, and set it here instead of Paris?”

“Exactly.”

“Well thank God,” she said. “No one’s ever confused those two places.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Fort Stockton is Paris on the Pecos.”

“What else inspires ’em?”

“History. True crime. Human frailty.” I tapped the memo pad in my pocket. “Anything that makes me stop and write somethin’ down before it gets away.”

“And maybe even stories from your own past?” she added.

“Yeah,” I said. “Even those. There’s ten thousand stories in the naked city. Some of ’em are semi-autobiographical.”

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“And some you just pull clean outta your butt.”

I thought about Hairless once telling me I had a gift for the absurd. About students saying I explained things sideways enough to make them stick. About old record album covers and the unspoken weekends they suggested at the Naughty Pine Motel. I looked forward to hearing what Lucinda has to say when she reads that one coming up soon. I thought about sitting down to write a thousand-word story and looking up four thousand words later and having no idea how it wound up where it did. I wrestled with one thought leading to twenty and new characters wandering through my mind like it was a train station.

---

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“Yeah,” I said. “Right outta my butt.”

“And still figure out a way to post a story or so a week on Bring a Trailer?” It wasn’t really a question, more like an observation.

“Those are different,” I said. “Short and sweet. A different purpose for a different audience. Sometimes just the short version of something winds up on BaT. The whole story gets shared on the blog. It’s the difference between a quick trip to the plate at the end of a tie game instead of playing all nine innings.”

Lucinda always appreciates a baseball reference. She’s a big Mud Hens fan.

That’s when a car pulled up out front with New Mexico plates. The couple inside looked road-worn, like they’d been negotiating with the storm all night and losing. Lucinda slid out of the booth with two menus and two mugs. They looked like they needed coffee and distance from each other. Lucinda could help with one of those.

Delgado fired up the grill.

Across the street, Rusty Hammer was re-stapling the deer-blind banner for the third time that morning, the wind proving yet again that it didn’t respect capitalism or adhesives.

---

Chad was in the Piggly Wiggly lot chasing down shopping carts like it was civic duty, muttering curses at every citizen who refuses to return one. Civilization is a thin line. Sometimes it’s made of bent wire and resentment.

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Brother Bob was outside Second Baptist changing the sign:

CHURCH PARKING ONLY!
VIOLATERS WILL BE BAPTIZED.

Misspelled the same way it always is. At this point, it felt intentional.

---

Trixie pulled up in front of the Klip-N-Dye in her ’60 Buick Electra 225 convertible, the top up in a rare concession to winter. Watching her unlock the door, I was reminded why so many readers swear she’s their favorite character, whether I intended her that way or not.

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Mayor Goodman rolled past in a military vehicle on his way back from the Armory, snapping me back to reality faster than a fat kid spotting a cupcake. Delgado, looking out from the kitchen, muttered something about irony, bone spurs, and senility. It reminded me to write more and read less news.

---

When the New Mexican travelers were settled, Lucinda returned to the table.

“You ever think you’d write a thousand stories when you started?”

She’d been saving that one.

“When I first started postin’ on Bring a Trailer,” I said, “I wrote down every car-related story idea I could think of. The list had twenty items.”

She nodded. “Every car’s a story.”

“Sure enough,” I said. “I oughta write that down.”

She held my gaze a second longer than necessary.

“Just make sure you leave yourself one to drive home in.”

Then she stood, refilled my cup, and let the town keep watch.

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