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(Fort Stockton, Texas — 1975)

Carl Woodbern had never intended to fall in love with an automobile.

Cars, to Carl, had always been tools. Like a printing press, a stapler, or a well-sharpened pencil kept behind his ear. They got you where you needed to go and, if properly maintained, didn’t embarrass you along the way. His 1969 Chevrolet Impala had been exactly that kind of companion. Dependable. Predictable. About as exciting as the classifieds section on a Tuesday.

Which is why, on a dry West Texas morning in early 1975, Carl pointed that same Impala toward Odessa with the firm intention of replacing it with another one just like it.

Consistency, in Carl’s mind, was the backbone of both journalism and transportation.

Now, it should be said that Carl did not buy cars in Fort Stockton. Not out of arrogance, but out of survival. As owner and chief editor of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch, he had a delicate ecosystem to maintain. Buy from one dealer in town and you risked offending the others. Offend the others, and suddenly their advertising dollars developed legs and walked out the door.

So instead, Carl offended them all equally.

Odessa was neutral ground.

Flatland Chevrolet-Buick-International Harvester sat baking in the sun like a mirage made of glass and chrome. The lot shimmered. The flags snapped lazily in the wind. Somewhere, a salesman was rehearsing sincerity in the reflection of a showroom window.

Carl parked the Impala, straightened his tie out of habit more than necessity, and stepped inside.

He came for an Impala.

He never made it that far.

Because sitting on the showroom floor—no, occupying the showroom floor like it had paid rent—was nearly nineteen feet of burgundy authority.

A 1975 Buick Electra 225 Limited Coupe.

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And it did not look like a car so much as a decision already made.

The paint—Burgundy (code 74, though Carl would not yet know that)—had a depth to it that suggested secrets. The white vinyl landau top hovered above it like a hat worn by a man who owned both oil wells and opinions. Quad headlights stared forward with quiet confidence. Chrome bumper over-riders jutted out like cufflinks. Fender skirts smoothed the rear quarters into something almost architectural.

Carl stood there longer than a man should stand anywhere without being offered coffee.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” came a voice from somewhere near his left elbow.

Carl nodded, because language had temporarily abandoned him.

He had never been a man given to automotive infatuation. But something about this Buick…

Well.

It hit him the way a teenage boy might encounter a certain issue of National Geographic left unsupervised in a barber shop. Confusion mixed with curiosity, and a dawning awareness that life had just offered something he hadn’t known he wanted.

He walked around it once.

Then again.

The plastic hood deflector caught his eye—slightly damaged, like a beauty mark that had seen a little weather. A small dent in the front valance gave it character. Not perfection. Something better.

“Go ahead,” the salesman said, already sensing the inevitable. “Sit in it.”

Carl opened the long, heavy door.

And stepped into a different life.

The interior was upholstered in red quilted velour that looked less like seating and more like an invitation. The old Impala’s vinyl had always reminded him of a saddle—functional, unforgiving, something you endured.

This?

This was a boudoir on wheels.

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The power-adjustable split front seat yielded to him with a soft electric hum. A fold-down armrest settled into place like it had been waiting on him personally. Wood veneer traced the dashboard and door panels, not as decoration but as declaration.

He placed his hands on the three-spoke steering wheel and stared at the 100-mph speedometer, complete with a speed alert feature that seemed less like a warning and more like a polite suggestion.

Somewhere, deep beneath all that comfort, a 455 cubic inch V8 waited patiently. Four-barrel carburetor. Three-speed automatic transmission. Power that didn’t need to shout because it already knew.

“Go ahead,” the salesman said again. “Start it.”

Carl did.

The engine didn’t roar. It announced.

And just like that, the Impala was already gone.

The ride home was not transportation. It was a transition.

Every mile between Odessa and Fort Stockton seemed to rearrange Carl’s understanding of himself. The Buick didn’t just carry him. It stroked him. The suspension floated over the highway like it had diplomatic immunity. The eight-track stereo—once he figured out how to feed it—filled the cabin with a kind of confidence he had never previously associated with music.

By the time the Davis Mountains appeared in the distance, Carl Woodbern had convinced himself of something dangerous:

He deserved this.

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Fort Stockton did not agree.

The town noticed the Buick before Carl even had time to form a defense.

It appeared first as a rumor.

“Woodbern bought himself a Buick.”

Then as a detail.

“One of them big ones. Electra.”

Then as a judgment.

“Must be nice.”

Fort Stockton, in 1975, was a Galaxie-Impala-Fury kind of place. Big cars, yes—but practical ones. Honest ones. Cars that said I work rather than I’ve arrived.

The doctor had an Electra. That made sense. He dealt in life and death and billing codes. A lawyer or two might have one, though folks preferred not to think too hard about that.

But the newspaper man?

That was different.

Especially when, not two weeks earlier, subscription rates had climbed from $3.65 to $3.95 a month.

It wasn’t the amount. It was the timing.

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At the Piggly Wiggly checkout line, conversations began to sprout like weeds.

“I reckon I’m paying for more than just the news now.”

“You see that car he’s driving?”

“Looks like my subscription got crushed velour seats.”

Carl heard about it all, of course. A man in his position always did. But hearing it and understanding it were two different things.

He told himself it was because he was only third-generation Fort Stockton. Still “new,” in a place where “new” could stretch across decades.

But things didn’t get better.

Dot and Bob Bridges of Bridges Funeral Parlor canceled their ads.

“The dead don’t take the paper anyway,” Dot said at the Klip-N-Dye, loud enough to be overheard, which was the point.

Carl ran the numbers. Losing the funeral home hurt. Not financially as much as symbolically. When the people who profited from inevitability decided they didn’t need you, it said something.

He just wasn’t sure what.

By late June, the Buick had become less of a car and more of a conversation.

Carl pulled into the parking lot of the Grounds for Divorce one afternoon, the big Electra settling into place like it owned the gravel beneath it. The BFGoodrich Radial T/A whitewalls—slightly flat-spotted from sitting too long in the heat—gave a faint rhythmic thump as they cooled.

Inside, the air smelled like coffee, pie, and opinions.

Carl took a seat at the counter and ordered a wedge of buttermilk pie and a Dr Pepper.

Lucinda, efficient, and entirely unimpressed—set it down without comment. But her eyes flicked once, just once, toward the window. Toward the Buick.

Carl noticed.

Everyone noticed.

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He had just taken his second bite when Pastor Peterson slid onto the stool beside him.

“How are you, Carl?”

Carl chewed, swallowed, and considered lying.

“Not going to lie,” he said instead. “I’m beat.”

The pastor nodded. “Is it the Buick?”

Carl looked over. “How’d you know?”

Peterson gave a small smile. “It’s a small town. You might print the news, but you don’t control it.”

Carl let that sit for a moment. Then he finished his pie like a man trying to outrun a thought.

“What is it, exactly?” he asked. “I mean… what’s the line? What constitutes being covetous? How much is too much?”

The pastor didn’t answer right away. He watched Carl instead. Not judging. Not absolving. Just… observing.

“Why is it okay for Doc Gentry to drive an Electra,” Carl continued, “but not me?”

Peterson folded his hands together on the counter.

“Same reason my wife puts out nuts for the squirrels during the winter months,” he said, “but poison for the mice.”

Carl frowned. “That’s not the same thing.”

The pastor shrugged gently. “It is if you’re the one being sorted.”

Carl stared at the Formica countertop.

“It’s all wildlife looking for a meal,” Peterson added. “Some find favor. Some don’t.”

By fall, the Buick was still beautiful.

But Carl was tired.

Tired of explaining. Tired of justifying. Tired of walking into rooms where conversations paused half a beat too long.

So he sold the paper.

A group of out-of-town investors came in with fresh ideas and sharper pencils. Subscription rates went up again. Editions were cut back. The paper got thinner. The opinions got louder.

Carl took a reporting job with the Houston Herald.

And the Buick?

The Buick came with him.

Two years later, Carl Woodbern won a Pulitzer Prize.

The series had been on a set of NASA experiments—quiet, unsettling work exploring how isolation and time could turn men against each other in the vacuum of space. It was the kind of story that required patience, precision, and a willingness to look at uncomfortable truths.

He turned it into a book.

On the inside of the dust jacket was a photograph of Carl leaning against a burgundy Buick Electra 225 Limited Coupe. The white landau top gleamed softly in the light. The chrome still held its edge. The car looked exactly like it had the day he first saw it.

Only now, it seemed to understand something he didn’t back then.

If you looked closely—really closely—you could make out the personalized plates.

SKRU FS.

Subtle. But not that subtle.

And somewhere, back in Fort Stockton, a few folks probably saw that picture and nodded to themselves.

Because they’d known all along.

It was never about the car.

It was about who got to drive it. 

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