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There are certain honors a writer secretly hopes to receive in his lifetime.

The Pulitzer Prize is one.

The National Book Award would be nice.

A Presidential Medal of Freedom would probably look good hanging on the wall, although in Fort Stockton accepting one would immediately cause half the people at the Grounds for Divorce to ask what you had done to get it and the other half to wonder whether charges were still pending.

I had never seriously expected any of those.

What I had also never expected was the Wurlitzer Prize.

The Wurlitzer Prize is presented annually by the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch for distinguished achievement in journalism, literature, or anything else likely to be discussed while standing in front of the jukebox at the Lucky Lady Lounge by people who have been overserved and cannot decide between George Jones and Waylon Jennings.

The award dates back to 1958, when an STD reporter named Buford Wainscott wrote a six-part investigative series revealing that the county purchasing agent had bought forty-seven miles of barbed wire from his brother-in-law at approximately twice the market price. Nobody paid much attention to the articles until somebody mentioned them at the Lucky Lady one Saturday night. By closing time, three marriages were in jeopardy, somebody had punched the jukebox, and the county purchasing agent had resigned.

The newspaper’s publisher realized journalism had finally made a difference.

The Wurlitzer Prize was born.

I won it for my series about Rusty Hammer’s journey across America.

Competition had been unusually fierce.

Roy Lavaca finished a close second with his nine-part investigative series, A Honey of a Deal, which explained how owners of small Pecos County properties could raise bees and qualify for an agricultural exemption without possessing enough acreage to support a cow.

The series transformed local agriculture.

Within six months, Pecos County had approximately eleven thousand new beehives, thirty-eight amateur apiarists, four professional beekeepers, two lawsuits, and what Fort Stockton Memorial Hospital and Animal Testing Facility described as “a statistically significant increase in bee-related admissions.”

Roy himself was stung twenty-three times during research.

He considered that proof of journalistic integrity.

The original plan was to hold the Wurlitzer ceremony in the Jim Bowie High School gymnasium. That changed when advance ticket sales reached seventeen, including four purchased by my wife.

The STD Wurlitzer Committee released a statement explaining that the event was being relocated to provide “a more intimate atmosphere.”

It was moved to the banquet room at K-Bob’s.

I knew something was wrong when they told me transportation would be provided.

Naturally, I pictured a Lincoln Town Car. Perhaps a Cadillac sedan. Nothing extravagant. Just something long, black and dignified that would allow the recipient of Fort Stockton’s highest literary honor to arrive with approximately the same solemnity as somebody being taken to testify before Congress.

At six-thirty Friday evening, I heard an electric whine outside the house.

Buttercup looked through the window.

“You better come see this.”

I went to the door.

Mavis from the Department of Motor Vehicles was sitting in a red-and-white 1969 B&Z Electra King three-wheeler.

There are automobiles that announce success.

There are automobiles that communicate dignity.

The Electra King suggested somebody had escaped from a Shriners parade.

It was perhaps six feet long and looked like a telephone booth somebody had taught to drive. It had a bright red fiberglass body with a wide white stripe, tiny eight-inch wheels, black bumpers and a passenger compartment large enough for two people provided neither had recently eaten.

Someone had mounted a Tesla emblem on the front.

This was technically accurate in the same sense that writing AIR FORCE ONE on a wheelbarrow makes it presidential transportation.

Mavis slid open the little sliding window.

“Get in.”

“You’re my chauffeur?”

“Committee couldn’t afford a limo.”

I looked at the Electra King.

“What could they afford?”

“Electricity.”

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Mavis leaned across and opened the passenger door.

The interior contained one brown-and-tan bench seat, a steering wheel, several switches and considerably less available space than I had anticipated.

“Where does Buttercup sit?”

“She doesn’t.”

Buttercup was already walking toward Rusty and Debra Lynn’s car across the street.

I climbed in beside Mavis.

This was an intimate experience.

Mavis had been employed by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles long enough to have personally denied licenses to three generations of the same family. She was not a small woman. Once the doors were closed, we became less two passengers than a single upholstered civic unit.

She flipped a dashboard switch.

“Forward.”

The electric motor whined.

Nothing happened.

Mavis pressed the accelerator.

The Electra King launched itself approximately eighteen inches.

I hit the windshield.

Mavis nodded.

“Sensitive.”

We proceeded toward K-Bob’s at what I estimated to be fifteen miles per hour.

There was no speedometer.

There was no odometer.

There was, however, a DC current gauge that wasn’t connected to anything.

This made it unusually well suited to Fort Stockton municipal transportation.

Cars stacked up behind us on Dickinson Avenue. Two people honked. Mavis waved pleasantly.

At one intersection an elderly man in a Buick stared at the Tesla emblem.

I could actually see him reconsidering everything he thought he knew about electric automobiles.

By the time we reached K-Bob’s, Rusty and Debra Lynn had already arrived.

So had Buttercup.

So had most of the people I had spent years writing about.

Hairless B29 was there with Angus Hopper and Rex Hall. Trixie had taken possession of a table near the front. Sheriff Ray Vickers sat with Pastor Peterson. Chad from the Piggly Wiggly was explaining something to Mayor Goodman, who had apparently interpreted “literary awards banquet” to mean that his red tie should extend almost to his knees.

Lucinda was near the podium.

Delgado had somehow gotten into the kitchen.

Nobody knew why.

K-Bob’s management didn’t seem to know either.

The evening began badly and improved from there.

Rusty had been advised by his doctor to limit alcohol.

Rusty interpreted “limit” as evidence that alcohol remained medically permissible.

By seven-fifteen he had consumed enough medically permissible alcohol to begin correcting my journalism.

This became a problem because the journalism being honored concerned him.

A man from the newspaper approached our table.

“Rusty, that part about Montana, when the hailstorm hit the trailer. Was it really as bad as the Captain described?”

Rusty looked at me.

“No.”

The man blinked.

“No?”

“Was worse.”

I relaxed.

Then Rusty continued.

“But that thing about me backing into the picnic table didn’t happen.”

Several people looked at me.

“It improved the pacing,” I said.

Rusty pointed at me.

“See?”

That opened the gate.

Within ten minutes, Rusty was retelling the entire trip.

Utah.

Montana.

British Columbia.

The Airstream.

The old F-100.

The breakdown near Pampa.

The people he’d met along the road.

Every few minutes somebody would look toward me after discovering that one of my carefully constructed scenes contained certain structural improvements to reality.

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Mavis finally spoke.

“Artistic license.”

I smiled gratefully.

She continued.

“Which is nothing like a driver’s license.”

Everybody looked at her.

“Driver’s license,” Mavis explained, “you gotta prove you know what you’re doing.”

The room erupted.

Mavis had discovered comedy.

This was unfortunate.

For the next fifteen minutes she performed what can only be described as DMV observational humor.

She explained that nobody over seventy should be allowed to take an eye test after lunch because “that’s when they get sleepy.”

She described people who arrived without identification to obtain identification.

She told us about a man who failed the written test three times and finally accused the state of Texas of changing the answers.

“I told him we do,” Mavis said. “Every time we see him pull into the parking lot.”

Even Sheriff Ray put his fork down.

By the time Mavis finished, Lucinda was leaning against the podium laughing and I was beginning to suspect the Wurlitzer Prize might be presented sometime around breakfast.

Then the banquet-room doors opened.

A woman with brilliant copper-red hair stood there.

Beside her was Olive.

Rusty stopped talking.

For perhaps the first time all evening, the room became quiet.

“Well, hell,” Rusty said.

Red grinned.

“Nice to see you too, old man.”

They had driven all the way from Kansas.

Rusty got up.

Red hugged him first. Olive hugged him longer.

These were the two people Rusty had met at Horse Thief Reservoir, the couple who had fed him fish and beer and tropical slaw, introduced him to tiramisu under circumstances that had somehow resulted in it being permanently remembered as gay lasagna, and once asked him, with alarming sincerity, whether he might be willing to make a contribution toward their efforts to have a child.

Rusty had been forced to explain that a surgical procedure many years earlier had removed him from the active donor market.

That had been one of the few moments in Rusty Hammer’s life when he had been genuinely speechless.

Now Red stood in front of him smiling.

“We got something to tell you.”

Rusty glanced at Olive.

Olive shook her head and pointed at Red.

Rusty looked back at Red.

Red put a hand against her stomach.

“We’re pregnant.”

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For once, nobody had a joke.

Rusty’s face changed.

He looked at Red.

Then Olive.

Then back at Red.

“You’re serious?”

Olive nodded.

Rusty wrapped both women in his arms.

Debra Lynn joined them.

And for perhaps thirty seconds, the K-Bob’s banquet room became the kind of place nobody makes jokes about because jokes would only make it smaller.

I remembered Rusty telling me about that night beside the reservoir. About Red’s impossible propositions and Olive’s gentleness. About the specimen cup. About Red informing him she was going to Hell on a full scholarship.

Somewhere between that ridiculous evening and this one, something they desperately wanted had finally happened.

Then Red looked over Rusty’s shoulder at me.

“You wrote about the turkey baster?”

The room exploded again.

Eventually Lucinda reached the microphone.

“Can we give him the damn award now?”

That restored order.

Sort of.

Lucinda had prepared remarks.

She unfolded three pages.

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“I was asked to say something tonight about the Captain and what these stories have meant to Fort Stockton.”

Mayor Goodman sat straighter.

Lucinda looked at him.

“Most of it has been positive.”

Goodman relaxed.

“Not enough to counterbalance the mayor, but we’re gaining.”

Goodman stopped relaxing.

Lucinda continued.

She talked about people discovering Fort Stockton through stories about automobiles, diners, churches, hardware stores, pharmacies, beauty shops and people who occasionally made decisions that would not survive examination by a competent attorney.

Then she mentioned something I had nearly forgotten in all the commotion.

The story just posted on Friday was number 1,200.

“Twelve hundred stories,” Lucinda said.

The room grew quieter.

“Now, the Captain claims the average one takes about fourteen minutes to read. That means he’s inflicted roughly two hundred eighty-seven hours of entertainment on everybody.”

She looked toward me.

“That’s almost twelve straight days.”

Hairless whispered something to Angus.

Lucinda heard him.

“No, Hairless. Nobody is required to read them continuously.”

She returned to her notes.

“At an average of roughly twenty-five hundred words apiece, we’re talking somewhere around three million words. That’s enough words to fill about thirty ordinary novels, although most ordinary novels don’t contain this many carburetors.”

A few people laughed.

“Those stories have probably consumed several thousand cups of coffee. They have caused hundreds of people to be late for work, delayed lawn mowing throughout West Texas and given retired men something to do every morning before beginning the more important business of forwarding things to people who didn’t ask for them.”

She looked around the room.

“They have probably mentioned the Grounds for Divorce enough times that somebody in New Jersey believes it’s a real restaurant.”

Lucinda paused.

“Which it is.”

That got applause.

“They have increased the resale value of several automobiles that shouldn’t have had resale value. They’ve preserved the reputations of people who didn’t deserve preserving and damaged the reputations of several who did.”

Mayor Goodman shifted in his chair.

“And somewhere along the way, they did something else.”

Lucinda lowered the pages.

“They remembered us.”

The room changed.

“Not the big things. History remembers big things. Elections. Wars. Buildings. Important people.”

She looked toward Rusty.

“These stories remember who drank coffee where.”

Toward Hairless.

“Who talked too loud.”

Toward Rex.

“Who knew things nobody asked.”

Toward Trixie.

“Who corrected him.”

Then toward the rest of us.

“They remember the cars we drove. The stores where we shopped. The places where we ate. They remember somebody’s first job and somebody else’s last day at work. They remember people falling in love and people getting old and people leaving town and people coming home.”

Rusty looked down at the table.

Debra Lynn took his hand.

“They remember that an old man once pulled an Airstream across America because sometimes you have to travel thousands of miles before you understand where you belong.”

That one landed.

Rusty had seen things on that trip he never expected to see. He had laughed with strangers, broken down beside highways, watched friendships begin in campgrounds, and watched one end violently on a Wisconsin road when Dell Larson’s Porsche crashed.

He had nearly died himself after finally reaching Fort Stockton.

And somehow he had come out the other side understanding that home was not where your furniture was.

Home was where people noticed you’d returned.

Lucinda glanced at Red and Olive.

“And sometimes these stories remember people who were strangers when they first appeared in them.”

Red quietly wiped one eye.

Olive didn’t bother pretending.

Lucinda looked back toward me.

“Friday made twelve hundred.”

She lifted the Wurlitzer Prize from the table.

“So on behalf of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch, and everybody whose life has been improved, exaggerated, rearranged or completely fabricated for narrative purposes…”

“HEY!”

Hairless was standing.

That was never promising.

He held a drink in one hand.

Hairless had apparently visited the open bar beside the Salad Wagon often enough that the distance between his thoughts and his mouth had been eliminated.

“I got something to say.”

Lucinda closed her eyes.

Hairless walked toward the front.

“We made a movie.”

Nobody spoke.

“Me and Jimmy Don.”

Jimmy Don Ventura suddenly became fascinated by his napkin.

Hairless pointed toward a projector on a rolling cart.

“Highlights.”

He attempted to explain that he and Jimmy Don had assembled photographs and film clips commemorating the Captain’s finest stories.

Unfortunately, public speaking had never been among Hairless B29’s gifts.

Alcohol had not added it.

His remarks included three false starts, two forgotten names, a lengthy description of a 1958 Chevrolet Impala unrelated to the subject, and the sentence, “You know what I’m talking about,” addressed to an audience that increasingly did not.

Eventually Lucinda took the microphone away from him.

Hairless turned toward his table.

He made it three steps.

His hip caught the projector cart.

The projector rolled sideways.

There was a brief moment during which several people could have prevented what happened next.

None did.

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The projector entered the bleu cheese dressing.

Not some bleu cheese dressing.

The entire stainless-steel container of bleu cheese dressing on the Salad Wagon.

Electricity, dairy products and cinematography met.

The lights went out.

Someone screamed.

Mayor Goodman shouted something about emergency management.

Sheriff Ray told everybody to remain seated.

Red yelled, “Save the baby!”

Olive said, “You’re over here.”

“Oh.”

The emergency lights came on.

Hairless stood beside the Salad Wagon holding a power cord.

Jimmy Don stared at what remained of their documentary.

“That,” he said, “was the only copy.”

At 10:17, the manager of K-Bob’s entered the room.

He was apologetic but firm.

We had to leave.

Another event had booked the banquet room.

Mayor Goodman looked surprised.

Then remembered.

The Skuttlebutt Dancers were holding their anniversary celebration.

The theme was:

BONE SPURS AND BOOB JOBS

According to Goodman, awards would be presented to several of the establishment’s longest-serving performers.

Nobody asked what the judging criteria were.

Within fifteen minutes, Fort Stockton’s premier literary event had been dismantled.

Chairs folded.

Tables cleared.

The surviving bleu cheese was removed.

The Wurlitzer Prize had still not been presented.

We ended up in the K-Bob’s parking lot.

Rusty was in no condition to drive.

Buttercup and Debra Lynn loaded him into the car.

Red and Olive stood beneath a parking-lot light saying goodbye to everyone. Rusty hugged them again before Buttercup maneuvered him into the passenger seat.

“You take care of that baby,” he told Red.

Red kissed his cheek.

“We will.”

“And don’t name it Rusty.”

“We weren’t.”

He considered that.

“Good.”

They drove away.

Eventually only Mavis, Lucinda and I remained.

The Electra King was parked beside the building with an extension cord running from an exterior outlet to its built-in charger.

Lucinda looked at the award still in her hands.

Then at me.

“Forgot something.”

There was no podium.

No microphone.

No newspaper photographer.

No applause.

Behind us, K-Bob’s employees were preparing the banquet room for Bone Spurs and Boob Jobs.

Lucinda handed me the Wurlitzer Prize.

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“Congratulations.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

I took it.

“Good speech.”

“Would’ve been better without Hairless.”

“Most things are.”

Mavis unplugged the Electra King.

“Charged.”

I climbed into the passenger side.

Lucinda leaned down to the window.

“Twelve hundred.”

I nodded.

“That’s a lot of stories.”

“Yeah.”

She smiled.

“Better get started on twelve-oh-one.”

Mavis flipped the toggle switch to forward.

The little electric car jerked away from the curb.

I nearly hit the windshield again.

“Sensitive,” Mavis reminded me.

We drove home through Fort Stockton at fifteen miles per hour.

The Wurlitzer Prize sat in my lap.

There are probably more dignified ways for a writer to return home after receiving a major literary honor.

Hemingway never rode home from Stockholm in an electric three-wheeler driven by a DMV desk clerk.

Steinbeck probably never had his Nobel ceremony displaced by topless dancers.

Faulkner almost certainly never lost a retrospective documentary to bleu cheese dressing.

Their loss.

Mavis pulled into my driveway.

I climbed out.

She leaned across the seat.

“Captain?”

“Yeah?”

“I liked the one about Rusty.”

“Thanks.”

“Some of it wasn’t true.”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

“Good thing you don’t need a license.”

Then she drove away.

The next morning, Lucinda placed a large glass jar beside the Bunn-O-Matic at the Grounds for Divorce.

She taped a handwritten sign to it.

TIP JAR FOR THE CAPTAIN

The regulars objected immediately.

Hairless wanted to know whether contributions were tax deductible.

Rex said technically it wasn’t a tip because the Captain hadn’t provided table service.

Angus put in a dollar.

Trixie put in five.

Mayor Goodman asked whether the city should receive a percentage because Fort Stockton constituted the underlying intellectual property.

Lucinda told him to finish his eggs.

By eight-thirty there were twenty-seven dollars, three quarters, a Canadian dime, a Piggly Wiggly coupon and somebody’s AA battery in the jar.

A tourist asked what it was for.

Lucinda poured his coffee.

“If you’ve enjoyed twelve hundred stories, some of them Wurlitzer Prize worthy, toss something in there to show your appreciation.”

The tourist looked puzzled.

“What stories?”

Lucinda pointed around the room.

“These.”

He looked at Hairless arguing with Rex.

At Angus drinking coffee.

At Trixie correcting both of them.

At Mayor Goodman wearing a red tie that had no business extending that far below a man’s belt.

At Rusty sitting quietly beside Debra Lynn, looking considerably worse than he had the night before but undeniably alive.

Then the tourist looked back at Lucinda.

“Are they true?”

Lucinda considered the question.

“Parts of them.”

“Which parts?”

She smiled.

“Depends who’s telling it.”

The tourist put five dollars in the jar.

By noon, it held forty-three dollars and seventeen cents.

Not exactly a Pulitzer.

But that’s the thing about writing twelve hundred stories.

Eventually you stop counting them.

You stop thinking about how many words you’ve written or how many hours somebody has spent reading them. You stop remembering which story got the most comments, which one made people laugh hardest, or which one somebody forwarded to a cousin in Amarillo.

You begin measuring them differently.

In people.

Some are still here.

Some aren’t.

Some were strangers until a story introduced them.

Some left Fort Stockton decades ago and somehow found their way home through a paragraph.

Some climbed into old trucks and went looking for something they couldn’t name.

Some discovered it was waiting for them where they started.

Some fell in love.

Some got sick.

Some nearly died.

Some stood beside a reservoir in Kansas and wondered whether they would ever have a child.

And sometimes, years later, they walk unexpectedly through the doors of K-Bob’s and tell you they will.

That is what twelve hundred stories amount to.

Not three million words.

Not two hundred eighty-seven hours.

Not a Wurlitzer Prize.

Twelve hundred little arguments against forgetting.

Places disappear.

Buildings come down.

Cars rust.

Restaurants close.

People move away.

Voices become harder to remember.

But every morning, through the miracle of the inter web, somebody somewhere opens another story.

And for a few minutes the Grounds for Divorce is open again.

The coffee is hot.

Delgado is in the kitchen.

Lucinda is making the rounds with the Bunn-O-Matic.

Hairless is saying something that almost certainly requires further review.

Angus is watching.

Rex knows more than is useful.

Mayor Goodman is wearing entirely too much tie.

Rusty Hammer is still here.

Maybe that’s worth something.

Apparently, as of noon Saturday, forty-three dollars and seventeen cents.

Plus an AA battery.

I’ll take it.

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