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There are at least two reliable ways for an automobile to become famous.

The first is to be genuinely extraordinary. Build enough horsepower into it, win enough races, appear in enough magazines, or carry someone sufficiently important, and history will eventually remember it.

The second way is considerably less predictable.

Simply be standing in the right place when something completely ridiculous happens.

That, as it turned out, was the career path chosen by a 1970 Dodge Polara Police Pursuit sedan one warm Saturday afternoon in Fort Stockton.

It had not always lived such a quiet life. Before retirement, the big black-and-white Dodge had spent years prowling the highways of West Texas with a 440 Magnum V-8 beneath its broad hood, a spotlight mounted beside the windshield, heavy-duty suspension underneath, and enough authority to make perfectly innocent people glance instinctively toward their speedometers. It had chased drunks, comforted stranded families, broken up more than one roadside argument, and written enough speeding tickets to finance a respectable stretch of asphalt somewhere between Pecos and Ozona.

Now it spent its retirement attending car shows.

If the old Polara had feelings, it probably found the experience slightly humiliating.

Nobody walked past a candy-apple red Corvette to admire an old patrol car. Children preferred convertibles. Teenagers gravitated toward muscle cars. Retirees spent half an hour debating carburetors on Tri-Five Chevrolets while strolling past the Dodge with the same polite acknowledgment normally reserved for utility poles.

Sheriff Ray Vickers didn’t seem to mind.

The Historical Society had asked if he would bring the retired patrol car to the Annual Fort Stockton Classic Car Roundup, and Ray agreed mostly because somebody ought to remind people that not every memorable automobile spent its life cruising Main Street looking for a date.

Besides, he liked the old Dodge.

It represented an era when police cars were expected to be intimidating before they were comfortable.

Leaning against the front fender with a paper cup of coffee, Ray answered the same questions he’d been answering all morning.

“Yes, it’s a real police package.”

“No, they didn’t get very good gas mileage.”

“Yes, the 440 would absolutely outrun your uncle’s Chevelle.”

“No, you still couldn’t outrun the radio.”

An elderly rancher wearing a sweat-stained Resistol wandered slowly around the Dodge before stopping beside Ray.

“I got one ticket from one of these.”

Ray smiled.

“Only one?”

The old man nodded.

“I learned.”

Ray decided that was probably the finest recommendation Dodge had ever received.

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Across Dickinson Avenue, the rest of the show unfolded with comforting predictability.

Hairless B29 had stationed himself beside a beautifully restored 1958 Chevrolet Impala and was explaining to three bewildered tourists that General Motors had reached the absolute summit of civilization before irresponsibly wandering downhill sometime around 1959.

Angus Hopper had somehow become involved in an entirely separate discussion concerning whether Ford had ever built a pickup truck that wasn’t, in his opinion, superior to everything produced by every other manufacturer before or since.

Mayor Goodman wandered through the rows of classics shaking hands with spectators as though he had personally supervised the design of every vehicle on the grounds.

Lucinda and Delgado had erected a striped canopy beside the exhibition hall where breakfast tacos, barbecue sandwiches, pie, coffee, and unsolicited opinions were served in roughly equal proportions.

Children collected dash plaques.

Owners polished fingerprints that nobody else could see.

Judges tried to appear impartial while competitors casually pointed out interesting details on their own entries.

It was shaping up to be another perfectly ordinary Fort Stockton Saturday.

Then someone yelled.

“BULL!”

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Now, in West Texas, that word enjoys several legitimate meanings. Consequently, nobody reacted immediately.

The second shout removed all uncertainty.

“No…an actual bull!”

Heads turned almost in unison.

A young Brahman bull had somehow escaped a livestock trailer parked behind the exhibition grounds. He wasn’t charging anyone. He wasn’t destroying anything. He simply wandered down Dickinson Avenue with the leisurely confidence of an animal convinced that schedules, traffic laws, and municipal planning were entirely human inventions.

His owner came running after him carrying a length of rope.

Two ranch hands joined the pursuit.

Then another.

Someone in a pickup attempted to head the bull off, only to discover that cattle possess an astonishing ability to ignore human strategy.

Mayor Goodman instantly began directing traffic despite there being almost none left to direct.

The volunteer fire department arrived because Fort Stockton had long ago established that curiosity was a perfectly acceptable emergency response.

Half the car show drifted after the procession.

The other half stood exactly where they were and offered increasingly confident advice.

“He’s headed toward the Dairy Twin.”

“Nope.”

“Courthouse.”

“Stockyards.”

“Piggly Wiggly.”

Hairless announced the bull looked like a Chevrolet man.

Angus responded that no self-respecting bovine would voluntarily approach a Chevrolet.

Neither observation contributed meaningfully to the rescue.

Sheriff Vickers remained beside the Polara.

He took another sip of coffee.

Experience had taught him that not every situation benefited from a law enforcement officer sprinting dramatically toward it.

The bull continued another fifty yards.

He glanced through the display window at Rex Hall Drug.

He paused outside the Dairy Twin.

He considered turning toward the courthouse before abandoning the idea for reasons known only to Brahman cattle.

Then something happened that nobody has ever satisfactorily explained.

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The bull stopped.

His ears twitched.

He slowly turned toward the old Dodge.

Without hesitation, he crossed Dickinson Avenue, walked directly to the retired patrol car, and came to a complete stop beside the driver’s door.

He stood there perfectly still.

Head held high.

Eyes straight ahead.

Looking for all the world like a driver who had suddenly decided contesting the citation probably wasn’t worth the paperwork.

Conversation vanished.

The owner slowed to a walk.

Even Mayor Goodman lowered his arms and forgot to direct imaginary traffic.

It was one of those rare moments when an entire town collectively realized it was witnessing something too ridiculous ever to happen again.

The silence lingered until an elderly gentleman wearing a faded Texas Highway Patrol cap stepped out from the crowd.

He studied the Dodge.

Then the bull.

Then the Dodge again.

Finally he smiled.

“I’ll be.”

Nobody interrupted.

“Back in my day,” he said, “everybody pulled over for one of these.”

Dickinson Avenue exploded with laughter.

The rancher quietly slipped the rope over the bull’s neck.

The animal accepted the arrangement without protest and followed him away as politely as a Sunday school child leaving vacation Bible school.

By the time the excitement subsided, the old Polara had become the most photographed automobile on the grounds.

Children wanted pictures beside it.

Adults wanted pictures pretending to surrender beside it.

Someone suggested giving the bull honorary membership in the Historical Society.

Mayor Goodman proposed installing a permanent historical marker reading:

ON THIS SPOT A BULL EXERCISED EXCELLENT JUDGMENT.

The Corvette still won Best Sports Car.

The Thunderbird captured People’s Choice.

Nobody remembered either by Monday morning.

Fort Stockton has always possessed an unusual relationship with history.

Most communities preserve it.

Fort Stockton edits it overnight.

By the following morning, the bull had gained nearly four hundred pounds.

The chase had become considerably faster.

According to one eyewitness, the Dodge’s spotlight had somehow reflected directly into the bull’s eyes despite never being switched on.

Another insisted the animal had lowered his head respectfully before surrendering.

Hairless confidently informed anyone willing to listen that the bull had looked both ways before crossing Dickinson Avenue.

No one believed him.

Which is how, shortly after nine o’clock Monday morning, the usual crowd assembled at the large back table inside the Grounds for Divorce.

The breakfast rush had mostly passed. Sunlight poured through the front windows, catching tiny clouds of flour drifting out of Delgado’s kitchen every time the swinging door opened. Lucinda moved easily between booths carrying two coffee pots, greeting regulars by name while simultaneously keeping one eye on a table of tourists from Amarillo who had already figured out something entertaining was about to happen.

They were right.

Sheriff Vickers occupied his customary chair, quietly stirring cream into his coffee with the expression of a man who already suspected the truth had permanently lost custody of the previous afternoon.

Hairless arrived carrying three newspapers, none of which mentioned the bull.

Angus carried nothing except opinions.

Mayor Goodman entered last, pausing just long enough to greet three people who hadn’t been expecting greetings.

Then New Guy looked around the table with unmistakable satisfaction.

“I figured it out last night.”

Nobody appeared encouraged.

He leaned back.

“It was just like Dirty Harry.”

Ray looked over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Was it?”

“Exactly like Dirty Harry,” New Guy continued. “Only with a bull playing the part of the punk.”

That observation might have survived unchallenged anywhere else in America.

It never stood a chance inside the Grounds for Divorce.

Angus buttered half a biscuit before calmly announcing that everybody with even a passing familiarity with police cars knew Dirty Harry drove a Ford Galaxie, certainly not a Dodge Monaco. Hairless stared at him for several seconds, apparently hoping the statement might improve if left alone. Instead, it simply remained wrong.

“You’ve got Harry Callahan crossed up with somebody else,” Hairless said. “Probably Sheriff Andy Taylor.”

Angus looked genuinely puzzled.

“Mayberry didn’t have a Galaxie?”

“It didn’t have a Monaco either.”

Rex Hall, who had quietly listened to the exchange while stirring his oatmeal with unnecessary concentration, decided the time had come for accuracy.

“I always thought Dirty Harry drove a ’55 Buick Century.”

Trixie actually closed her eyes.

Not dramatically.

Prayerfully.

When she finally looked back up, she fixed Rex with the sort of expression generally reserved for people who microwave fish in office break rooms.

“You magnificent idiot,” she said affectionately. “That was Broderick Crawford in Highway Patrol. You watched it every week.”

“I did?”

“You owned the television store.”

“I sold televisions.”

“You also watched them.”

Within moments the escaped bull had disappeared completely beneath an avalanche of confidently remembered movie trivia.

Hairless insisted Adam-12 used Plymouths because he’d read it somewhere.

Angus argued that every respectable television sheriff drove a Ford, even if Hollywood occasionally failed to appreciate the fact.

Mayor Goodman contributed the observation that Buford T. Justice deserved honorable mention because “law enforcement is law enforcement,” an argument so magnificently unhelpful that it somehow prolonged the discussion another ten minutes.

Rex managed to combine Dragnet, CHiPs, Kojak, and The Streets of San Francisco into what sounded suspiciously like a single very busy television program.

From the next booth, the tourists quietly abandoned any attempt to follow the conversation. They simply watched the performance unfold with the fascinated expressions of people who had accidentally wandered into community theater without buying tickets.

Lucinda topped off coffee cups and offered occasional corrections of her own, though mostly she enjoyed the spectacle. She had learned years earlier that breakfast conversations at the Grounds for Divorce possessed the same natural life cycle as West Texas thunderstorms. Interfering rarely improved the outcome.

Brother Bob wandered in halfway through the debate, caught only the words “justice,” “law,” and “Highway Patrol,” and sat down believing he’d arrived just in time for a serious civic discussion. Thirty seconds later he realized they were arguing over fictional police cars and accepted a cinnamon roll instead.

The volume rose steadily.

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Hairless borrowed a paper placemat and began sketching what he insisted was a historically accurate family tree of television police cruisers.

Angus corrected it.

Rex corrected Angus.

Mayor Goodman corrected everybody.

Sheriff Vickers wisely remained Switzerland.

Finally Lucinda stopped beside the table, lifted a coffee pot shoulder-high, and announced that the next person to say the word “Monaco” would be drinking decaffeinated coffee until Labor Day.

Silence settled over the table.

For almost four seconds.

The kitchen door swung open.

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Delgado stepped through carrying a tray of cinnamon rolls.

He paused.

Looked at the table.

“Monaco?”

Every head turned.

He shrugged.

“Best chase scene ever filmed.”

Hairless slapped the table triumphantly.

“See!”

Delgado regarded him with patient disappointment.

“No.”

“Bullitt,” Hairless said confidently.

“Steve McQueen.”

Delgado sighed the sigh of a man who had spent too many years correcting people who had no intention of being corrected.

“Steve McQueen drove the Mustang.”

Hairless’s smile weakened.

“The bad guys drove the Charger.”

Now nobody said anything.

Delgado set the tray down.

“The French Connection. Gene Hackman. Under the elevated train.”

Blank faces greeted him.

“I’ve seen that,” Rex offered.

Delgado looked at him.

“No, you haven’t.”

“I haven’t?”

“You fell asleep.”

Even Lucinda laughed.

Delgado reached for the coffee pot, poured himself a cup, and leaned comfortably against the counter.

“But none of that’s really the point.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“The point is people come to the Grounds for Divorce for exactly the same reason they watch FUX News.”

Lucinda folded her arms.

“I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“They come to get riled up, not worrying about any degree of truth that may be presented.  It’s all about the entertainment, not the facts.”

He gestured toward the noisy table.

“Endorphins are good for business.”

Lucinda considered that.

“I hate how often you’re right.”

Delgado looked out the front window toward Dickinson Avenue, shimmering beneath another West Texas morning.

“You know…”

The table quieted.

“There’s just as much bull inside the Grounds for Divorce as there is out on Dickinson Avenue.”

For a heartbeat no one moved.

Then Sheriff Vickers laughed first.

Hairless nearly fell out of his chair.

Even Trixie surrendered.

Mayor Goodman laughed so hard he had to remove his glasses.

Lucinda shook her head, picked up her coffee pots, and headed toward another waiting customer.

She understood something that no chamber of commerce brochure would ever admit.

People didn’t remember Fort Stockton because of its buildings.

They remembered it because of its stories.

Sometimes those stories involved remarkable automobiles.

Sometimes they involved remarkable people.

And every once in a while…

they involved an old Dodge police car, an unusually cooperative Brahman bull, and a diner where arguing had somehow become part of the breakfast menu.

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