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The conversation started, as many conversations at Grounds for Divorce do, with something nobody had planned to talk about.

I slid my phone across the table.

“Tell me that ain’t the most Fort Stockton car you’ve ever seen.”

The picture of the blue 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible made a slow lap around the breakfast crowd.

Chad looked first.

“That thing is blue.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“No,” Chad said. “I mean BLUE blue. Like somebody spilled swimming pool water on it.”

Across the room Lucinda was topping off coffee cups.

“That’s the kind of car that gets parked behind the church during potlucks.”

Pastor Peterson nodded.

“Not because it’s sinful.”

“Because folks would spend all afternoon looking at it instead of eating casserole,” Sister Thelma said.

That earned a round of agreement.

Hairless B29 studied the photograph for several seconds.

“I like it.”

“Of course you do,” said Angus.

Hairless shrugged.

“I ain’t ashamed of being right.”

The picture continued around the table.

Vice Principal Lutz from Jim Bowie High School, was enjoying what appeared to be his first genuine day off since Spring Break. He was wearing a fishing shirt, sunglasses hanging from the collar, and looked vaguely suspicious of anything that might require responsibility.

He studied the car.

“The funny thing is the wheels.”

“Exactly,” I said.

Body-colored steel wheels.  Dog-dish hubcaps.  A bright blue convertible with the cheapest wheel covers Ford would sell you.

Rex Hall laughed.

“That’s Fort Stockton in a nutshell.”

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Everybody nodded.

It was.

The owner clearly wanted people to notice the car.

Just not too much.  The automotive equivalent of buying a giant barbecue pit while insisting you’re not showing off.

“It’s practical extravagance,” Lucinda announced from behind the counter.

Delgado pointed toward the kitchen.  “Like owning three smokers.”

“You own three smokers.”

“Exactly.”

Nobody could argue with that.

The photograph made another lap.

Pastor Peterson adjusted his glasses.

“What’s under the hood?”

“A Z-code 390.”

Several eyebrows rose.

“Three hundred horsepower.”

“Showoff,” Chad said.

“Four hundred twenty-seven pound feet of torque.”

Hairless whistled.

“That’s enough torque to rotate the Earth.”

“Not if the battery’s dead,” Rex pointed out.

The discussion immediately shifted toward practical applications.  Because that’s what Fort Stockton does.  Nobody around the table would ever justify a large engine by calling it luxurious.  The argument would always become practical.

Angus pointed toward the window.

“You know that mesquite stump behind my barn?”

Everybody nodded.

“That motor would’ve pulled it out.”

“There it is,” Lucinda laughed.

“What?”

“The Fort Stockton defense.”

“What defense?”

“Nobody here ever admits they wanted something because it was fun.”

Hairless nodded.

“That’s because fun ain’t a valid purchasing strategy.”

“The giant barbecue trailer?”

“Emergency cooking equipment.”

“The bass boat?”

“Transportation.”

“The 460 in your Impala?”

Hairless paused.

“National security.”

The table erupted.

Delgado nearly dropped a tray.

Even Sister Thelma laughed.

Especially Sister Thelma.

The Galaxie conversation continued.

I pointed out that Ford had spent five years refining that body style.

The 1964 model represented the final evolution of a design introduced in 1960.  My Fairlane 500 being the first version unleashed on the unsuspecting public.

By ’64 the bugs had been worked out.

The details improved.

The rough edges smoothed away.

Pastor Peterson nodded slowly.

“The early bird gets the worm.”

“The second mouse gets the cheese,” said Angus.

“There it is.”

Everybody understood immediately.

Nobody in Fort Stockton wanted to be first.

They wanted to be right.

New restaurants became acceptable after somebody’s aunt ate there three times and survived.

New technology became acceptable after somebody else’s nephew had already broken one.

New ideas required field testing.  Preferably by another town.  The Galaxie had already survived the testing phase.  By 1964 Ford knew what worked.

Power steering.

Coil-spring front suspension.

The odd asymmetrical rear leaf springs designed to reduce squat.

Cruise-O-Matic transmission.

Dual exhaust.

Bench seats.

Simple gauges.

Reliable engineering.

Nothing experimental.

Nothing surprising.

The whole car felt familiar.

Like Fort Stockton itself.

Bright enough to have personality.

Practical enough to defend itself.

Comfortable enough to keep forever.

The conversation drifted naturally toward absent friends.

Which meant somebody eventually looked toward Rusty’s empty chair.

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Nobody said anything for several seconds.

Then Chad did.

“When y’all think Rusty’s coming back?”

A silence settled over the table.

Not uncomfortable.

Just thoughtful.

The kind that arrives when everybody realizes they’re wondering the same thing.

“Eventually,” Pastor Peterson said.

“Profound,” Rex replied.

“Thank you.”

Hairless stirred his coffee.

“I give him another month.”

“Trey’s probably hoping for six.”

That got a laugh.

Nobody doubted Rusty loved his son.

Nobody doubted Trey loved his father.

But Trey had also spent the past several weeks rearranging portions of Rusty Hammer Hardware in ways that might qualify as aggressive modernization.

“He’s gonna have opinions,” Chad said.

“Several.”

“Strong ones.”

“Possibly loud.”

Lucinda nodded.

“Debra Lynn is in on it too.  It’ll be two against one.  About even odds for Rusty.”

That produced another round of agreement.

Everybody had seen the changes.

The displays.

The organization.

The cleaning.

The subtle upgrades.

Nothing radical.

But enough.

The real question wasn’t whether Rusty would notice.

The real question was how many seconds it would take.

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One and a half,” said Sister Thelma.

Nobody disagreed.

“He’s gonna walk through that front door, stop dead, and start squinting.”

Everybody could picture it.

“What’s funny,” Lutz said, “is he’ll probably end up liking most of it.”

The table grew quiet.

That sounded suspiciously correct.

“Eventually,” Pastor Peterson added.

“Profound again,” Rex said.

The bell over the front door rang.

I glanced at my phone.

That reminded me.

“Speaking of people living better lives than the rest of us.”

Everybody looked over.

“Marty sent the Route 66 slides.”

That changed the entire mood of the room.

Within minutes Lucinda had transformed half the dining room into a movie theater.

Two white tablecloths pinned to the wall to create a a projection screen.

A handful of clothespins.

One mop handle.

Three questionable decisions.

Delgado pulled the window shades.

The room darkened.

Chad sprinted across the street to the Piggly Wiggly for the projector adapter.

By the time he returned, Delgado had produced two enormous buckets of popcorn.

Nobody knew where he’d gotten them.

Nobody asked.

Some mysteries improve with age.  Soon everybody was seated.  Popcorn in hand.  Coffee cups nearby.

The first Route 66 image appeared on the improvised screen.

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The room collectively sighed.

“That’s nice.”

“Beautiful.”

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“Look at that! Standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.”

“It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin’ down to take a look at me.” Nobody thought Pastor Peterson had it in him.

“Wish I was there.”

Slide after slide rolled by.

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Old gas stations.

Vintage neon.

Historic diners.

Classic motels.

Desert highways stretching toward impossible horizons.

Weathered signs.

---

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Chrome.

Tourists.

Roadside attractions.

---

---

“There’s Marty! Where’s the old car he was driving?” Lacking answers, I just kept clicking slides.

The occasional giant fiberglass creature.

The comments became repetitive.

Mostly because everyone secretly wished they were the ones who had taken the trip.

---

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“That’s beautiful.”

“Sure is.”

“Look at that sky.”

“That’s a nice picture.”

“Wonder where that was.”

“Somewhere we weren’t.”

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That became the running joke.

Every image.

Same answer.

Somewhere we weren’t.

Somewhere we wished we had been.

Nobody admitted envy.

Fort Stockton residents rarely do.

But it floated around the room anyway.

---

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Not the unpleasant kind.

The inspirational kind.

The kind that makes you think maybe next year.

Maybe after retirement.

Maybe after the kids graduate.

Maybe after the mortgage.

Maybe after harvest.

Maybe after football season.

Maybe after one more thing.

By the seventh or eighth slide everybody had become philosophical.

“The highway turned a hundred this year.”

“It did.”

“Think about that.”

A century.

The Mother Road.

A ribbon of pavement connecting stories.

People.

Places.

Dreams.

Entire chapters of American life.

The pictures continued.

The popcorn disappeared.

Coffee cups emptied.

Then refilled.

Then emptied again.

For a little while nobody worried about work.

Or schedules.

Or responsibilities.

We simply sat together watching somebody else’s adventure.

Which turned out to be almost as enjoyable as having one ourselves.

Almost.

Eventually the lights came back on.

The tablecloth screen sagged.

People stretched.

Chairs squeaked.

Reality returned.

“Well,” Angus announced, “that settled it.”

“What?”

“I need to retire.”

“You’ve been saying that for ten years.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

The crowd slowly returned to ordinary conversation.

The kind that bounces from weather to football to barbecue to politics before ending somewhere completely unrelated.

I finished my coffee.

That reminded me of another problem.

“The Fairlane 500’s still in the shop.”

Several heads turned.

“The leaks?”

“The leaks.”

“Getting fixed?”

“Hopefully.”

Everybody nodded sympathetically.

Old cars are a little like aging relatives.

You love them.

You worry about them.

You spend money on them whether it makes financial sense or not.

---

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Then I made the mistake of mentioning the repaint.

That started another discussion.

The rust spots.

The aging paint.

The cost.

The wisdom.

The lack of wisdom.

The certainty that no matter what estimate I received, it would somehow be twice what I expected.

Pastor Peterson folded his hands.

“I’ll pray for you.”

“I appreciate that.”

Lucinda immediately slid the tip jar closer to the cash register.

“Good luck,” she said.

The entire table burst out laughing.

Which, as far as I could tell, was probably right up there with prayer.

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