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The Duvals had lived in Fort Stockton long enough that most people had stopped asking where they were from, a process that had taken a little over twenty years and involved considerably more paperwork, volunteer labor, church attendance, Little League participation, and cautious purchasing decisions than either Doug or Daisy Duvall had anticipated when they bought the old McLuhan place outside town. They joined Second Baptist before anybody had to suggest it and learned fairly quickly that if something could be purchased locally, it should be purchased locally. If it couldn’t, Midland was regarded as showing off, Odessa as an admission of poor planning, and Alpine as an acceptable destination provided you came home with a receipt and a reasonable explanation.

By every meaningful standard, Doug and Daisy had become Fort Stockton people. Doug coached Little League, ushered every third Sunday, and had once spent an entire Saturday helping Brother Bob replace shingles on the fellowship hall roof despite privately believing the insurance company should have paid somebody who knew what he was doing. Daisy volunteered in the maternity ward at Fort Stockton Memorial Hospital and Animal Research Facility, where she had a particular tenderness for premature babies and an unfortunate tendency to bring home small dogs that had somehow avoided fulfilling whatever contractual obligation had originally brought them to the research wing.

Their children had turned out reasonably well, which in Fort Stockton was considered more useful than turning out impressively. Drew’s only notable brush with disciplinary authority came when he pantsed a freshman during football initiation at Jim Bowie High School. Doug and Daisy spent the remainder of the semester wondering whether the incident suggested something deeper about their son’s gender preferences until Vice Principal Lutz assured them that, in his professional experience, teenage boys were capable of doing extraordinarily stupid things without any underlying philosophy whatsoever.

So the Duvals fit in. They were dependable, respectable, almost local.

And on the Saturday Doug Duvall was scheduled to become chairman of the Optimistic Rotarians, their house backed up.

The first indication came shortly after nine that morning when Daisy noticed the washing machine wasn’t draining properly. She stood over it for a moment, watching the water reluctantly disappear from the tub with the determination of gravy going through a coffee filter, but she had an eleven o’clock appointment at the Klip-N-Dye and there were certain domestic emergencies that could be rescheduled and certain appointments that could not.

The second indication arrived in the shower.

Daisy had shampoo in her hair when she became aware that the water around her ankles was getting deeper rather than shallower. She looked down and discovered that the water had turned gray. Then a bubble rose from the drain and broke the surface with a small, wet blup.

Daisy stopped moving.

Another bubble appeared.

This one brought information.

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There are smells the human brain processes intellectually, and there are smells that bypass reason entirely and speak directly to whatever ancient portion of the nervous system once told our ancestors to leave the cave immediately. Daisy left the shower, wrapped a towel around her damp hair, got dressed with impressive efficiency, and called Doug while driving to the Klip-N-Dye.

Doug was at his office putting the finishing touches on his acceptance speech. He had already spent twenty minutes deciding whether “service above self” sounded inspirational or plagiarized and was presently working on a paragraph concerning responsible stewardship of community resources when Daisy told him the plumbing was backing up.

“How bad?”

“The shower smells like something died in it.”

Doug closed his eyes.

Of course it did. Today. Not Tuesday or some anonymous Thursday in February when nothing important was happening and nobody cared what he smelled like. At seven o’clock that evening Doug Duvall was supposed to stand beneath the chandeliers of the Silver Slipper Supper Club and accept the chairmanship of the Optimistic Rotarians, a position involving five-hundred-dollar scholarships to Pecos County College, uniforms for the girls’ softball team, the annual Christmas Parade float, budgets, committees, minutes, and Doug’s personal determination that the next set of softball uniforms would have sleeves.

And now sewage was coming up through his wife’s shower.

He called Stockton Septic Cleaning and Pool Filling. Clovis answered on the fourth ring and, after Doug identified himself, said, “I know.”

“We’ve got a septic problem.”

“Everybody does eventually.”

Doug explained the symptoms. Clovis listened and finally asked how long it had been since the system had been pumped.

Doug thought about it. “We bought the place twenty-one years ago.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And we’ve never had it done.”

There was a pause long enough for Clovis to contemplate the accumulated digestive history of the Duvall family.

“Well,” he said, “I’d say we’ve identified one possible avenue of investigation.”

Doug gave him the address.

“I know where you live.”

Of course he did.

This was Fort Stockton.

By four o’clock, Daisy’s hair had been sprayed into something capable of surviving both the Optimistic Rotarians Installation Ceremony and moderate artillery fire. Doug had collected his suit from the cleaners. They arrived home within five minutes of each other, intending to dress quickly and leave for the Silver Slipper by six-fifteen.

Neither noticed the smell at first.

They noticed the bulldozer.

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It was a Caterpillar large enough to alter county boundaries, and approximately half of their backyard no longer existed. A trench twelve feet wide extended from the house toward what had formerly been Daisy’s flower bed. Two sections of fence had been removed. A mountain of dirt stood beside the garage, one of Daisy’s rosebushes was lying on its side with its roots exposed to the afternoon sun, and at the center of everything was a hole beside which Clovis and two helpers stood looking downward with the solemn concentration of men who had discovered something they did not yet want to explain.

Doug got out of his Buick and removed his sunglasses. “Clovis?”

Clovis didn’t turn around. “Doug.”

“What happened to my yard?”

Clovis continued looking into the hole, so Doug walked closer.

That was when the smell reached him.

It had weight. It seemed less like an odor than an atmospheric condition, something the National Weather Service might eventually name and track across Pecos County. Doug stopped as his eyes began to water. Daisy came up behind him, covered her nose, and asked what in God’s name that was.

Clovis finally looked at them.

“It’s French.”

Doug stared at him. “What?”

Clovis pointed into the hole.

Doug and Daisy approached cautiously and looked down. About eight feet below them, emerging from the damp West Texas earth like an archaeological discovery nobody had requested, was an automobile.

Not part of an automobile. An automobile.

It had four doors, a roof, hood, trunk and windows. The entire thing was long and low, with an oddly aerodynamic body, enormous glass area and a rear end tapering toward two little red lights mounted high near the roof. Even after decades underground there was something unmistakably elegant about it, or there would have been if sewage hadn’t been dripping from the passenger-side window.

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Doug looked at Clovis.

Clovis looked at the car.

“It’s a Citroën.”

One helper nodded. “DS.”

The other leaned forward. “Twenty-one.”

Clovis nodded. “DS21.”

Doug turned slowly toward the three men. “How do three septic-tank men know what kind of French car that is?”

“Popular Mechanics.”

Doug looked back into the pit. The Citroën’s paint had faded to a dead gray-green beneath years of dirt, moisture and whatever else the Duvall family had contributed to its preservation. Much of the chrome remained. The glass was astonishingly intact. The body rested almost flat against the earth, its famous hydropneumatic suspension having surrendered sometime during an administration Doug could no longer remember.

A pipe entered through what had once been the fuel-filler opening. Another had been crudely attached through the floor.

Clovis pointed to the first. “That’s your inlet.”

Then the second. “That’s your outlet.”

Doug stared at him. “You’re telling me that’s my septic tank?”

“No.”

For perhaps two seconds, Doug experienced hope.

“I’m telling you that’s your septic system.“

The hope died.

Clovis’s best reconstruction was that sometime before the McLuhans sold the property, somebody had acquired an unwanted Citroën, dug a hole, punched openings into the body, connected the household plumbing and buried it. The seats had been removed. Mostly. The engine had not. Neither had the dashboard, steering wheel, transmission, windows or most of the interior.

“There’s still a battery in it,” one helper volunteered.

“Dead,” the other added.

Doug looked at him. “Thank you.”

The helper nodded. “Thought you’d want to know.”

Daisy was staring into the pit with horrified fascination. “For twenty-one years?”

“Could be longer.”

“Everything?”

Clovis nodded.

“The kitchen sink?”

“Yep.”

“The washing machine?”

“Yep.”

“The toilets?”

Clovis hesitated. “That’s generally what makes it septic.”

Daisy put one hand over her mouth while Doug looked again at the Citroën, and suddenly there were calculations a man did not want his brain to perform. Four children. Twenty-one Christmases. Three stomach viruses. Drew’s entire adolescence.

He abandoned the arithmetic.

“Why would anybody do this?”

Clovis scratched his chin. “Well, I reckon they needed a septic tank.”

“Why didn’t they buy one?”

Clovis considered that.

“It’s French.”

This explanation was beginning to irritate Doug. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Clovis looked genuinely surprised. “Have you ever seen how the French build a car? Hydraulic suspension. Semi-automatic transmission. Single-spoke steering wheel. Brake pedal looks like a mushroom. Headlights turn with the steering.” He pointed into the hole once more. “Using one for a septic tank ain’t even the strangest engineering decision anybody made on that car.”

Daisy began laughing.

She didn’t mean to. The first laugh escaped involuntarily, then another came behind it, and within seconds she had one hand on Doug’s shoulder and tears running down her face. Doug was not yet prepared to join her.

“Daisy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We have to be at the Silver Slipper.”

That made it worse.

“We’re going to an installation dinner,” she managed, “and our septic tank is a French car.”

Doug looked at his watch. Four forty-seven.

“Can you fix it?”

Clovis sucked air through his teeth, which was never a reassuring sound from a man standing beside heavy equipment. He said it depended on what Doug meant by fix.

“I mean make the toilets work.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Doug relaxed slightly. Clovis explained that they could bypass the Citroën and install a proper tank.

“Today?”

“No.”

“What can you do today?”

Clovis looked thoughtfully into the pit. “We can pump it.”

“Then pump it.”

“Already did.”

“Good.”

“That’s how we found the car.”

Doug looked down at the Citroën.

There are moments when additional questions improve nothing.

This was one.

By six o’clock Clovis had rigged a temporary holding arrangement that he described as perfectly safe provided nobody took a bath, ran the dishwasher, washed clothes, flushed unnecessarily, or “got ambitious.” Doug decided not to ask what ambitious meant. The Duvals dressed, Daisy sprayed perfume, Doug used cologne, and then, after silently looking at each other, both applied more. They drove to town with the Buick’s windows down.

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The Optimistic Rotarians Installation Ceremony was already underway when they arrived at the Silver Slipper Supper Club at seven twenty-three. They entered quietly through the rear doors.

Forty-eight people turned around.

This was partly because they were late.

It was mostly because everybody already knew.

Hairless B29 was seated near the bar with Angus Hopper and Rex Hall. Hairless grinned. Angus tipped his hat. Rex adjusted his glasses. Mayor Goodman stood near the podium wearing a red tie long enough to interfere with his knees, while Brother Bob occupied the head table and looked at Doug with a warm pastoral smile that somehow proved worse than laughter.

Lucinda, who had somehow been invited despite openly referring to the Optimistic Rotarians as “men who need committees to decide when to eat lunch,” raised her wineglass.

“It’s French,” she said.

The room erupted.

Doug stopped walking. Daisy grabbed his arm and whispered, “How?”

A waiter passing with a tray answered without being asked. “Clovis stopped at the Piggly Wiggly for ice.”

Of course.

Twenty-one years.

That was how long the Duvals had needed to become accepted in Fort Stockton.

Twenty-one minutes was how long Fort Stockton needed to learn they’d been flushing into a Citroën.

They made their way toward the head table through a gauntlet of congratulations, condolences and automotive questions. Hairless wanted to know whether it still had the engine. It did. Somebody asked about the transmission. Apparently. Rex wanted to know whether the original glass remained. Most of it. Then Hairless asked whether there was any rust.

Doug stared at him. “It has been underground full of sewage for twenty years.”

Hairless nodded thoughtfully. “So some.”

Angus wanted to know whether the tires held air. Rex wanted the mileage. Mayor Goodman announced that he’d always admired the DS21 because it was the first automobile with fully independent hydraulic steering, suspension, brakes, windshield wipers and ashtrays.

Nobody corrected him because nobody knew which parts he’d invented.

Eventually Brother Bob stepped to the podium, welcomed everyone, thanked the outgoing officers, recognized the scholarship committee, and spoke briefly about service, leadership and community before introducing the incoming chairman.

Doug walked toward the podium to polite applause.

Hairless called from the back, “Tell ’em about the Citroën!”

The applause became laughter.

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Doug reached the lectern and unfolded the three pages he had spent most of the day preparing. Responsible stewardship. Community commitment. Youth opportunity. Sleeves on softball uniforms. He looked at the pages, then at the room, and finally at Daisy.

She smiled.

Doug folded the speech and set it aside.

“I had some remarks prepared.”

“Probably for the best,” Lucinda said.

When the laughter subsided, Doug began again. “This afternoon, my wife and I learned something about our home.”

Hairless leaned toward Angus. “Here it comes.”

Doug ignored him. “We learned that for more than twenty years, we’ve been depending on something we didn’t know was there. Something buried beneath the surface. Something old. Something foreign. Something nobody appreciated.”

Brother Bob nodded approvingly.

Doug was finding his rhythm.

“And when the moment came that we needed it most, we discovered it had quietly been serving us all along.”

Brother Bob nodded again. Daisy’s smile widened.

“I suppose that’s what community is,” Doug continued, and there was actually a murmur of approval around the room. “Most of the time, you don’t think about it. You don’t see it. You may not even know how it works. But year after year, it’s there, taking care of the things nobody else wants to deal with.”

Brother Bob stopped nodding.

Lucinda covered her mouth.

Angus lowered his head.

Doug heard his own words about half a second after everybody else did and realized where the metaphor had gone.

Too late.

Hairless was already shaking. Rex made a strangled noise. Someone at the back laughed, which gave everybody else permission, and suddenly forty-eight Optimistic Rotarians, spouses, guests, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and one pharmacist completely lost control.

Doug stood at the podium and waited.

Daisy laughed hardest of all.

Eventually Doug did too.

The following Monday, Clovis installed a proper concrete septic tank at the Duvall place, and the removal of the Citroën became another event. Hairless came. Angus came. Rex closed the pharmacy for lunch. Mayor Goodman arrived wearing a hard hat nobody had asked him to wear. The DS21 rose slowly into the West Texas sunlight suspended from two heavy straps, mud and several decades of Duvall family history dripping from its undercarriage.

As it cleared the hole, everybody grew quiet.

It was awful.

It was magnificent.

Its body was battered and oxidized, its upholstery ruined, its hydraulic suspension dead, its tires hopeless and its engine apparently unwilling to participate in the twentieth century any further than it already had.

But it was still a Citroën DS21.

Somebody wiped dirt from the rear window. Someone else opened the driver’s door. The dashboard remained intact, including that peculiar single-spoke steering wheel. Rex leaned inside, squinted at the odometer and announced, “Sixty-eight thousand miles.”

Angus whistled.

Hairless walked around it twice.

Doug stood with his hands on his hips. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

Clovis shrugged. “Could bury it again.”

“No.”

Daisy said it quickly enough that everyone turned toward her.

She walked slowly around the battered old car. For more than twenty years this ridiculous French machine had been beneath her roses. Her babies had grown up above it. Birthday parties had taken place over it. Drew had learned to throw a football in that yard. Puppies had dug holes six feet away without discovering France. Every Thanksgiving dinner, every load of laundry, every bath, every flushed toilet and every ordinary day of their family’s life in that house had passed, in one fashion or another, through this absurd automobile.

For just a moment, Daisy felt something dangerously close to affection for it.

It was grotesque, certainly. Ruined beyond any sensible hope of restoration. But it was also part of their history now, and Daisy found herself imagining it cleaned up and parked beside the old equipment shed. Maybe Doug could pressure-wash it. Maybe they could remove what was left of the interior. Maybe someday it would become one of those peculiar family relics whose story got funnier as the people who remembered the worst parts died off.

“No,” Daisy said.

Doug looked at her. “No what?”

“We’re keeping it.”

Hairless smiled immediately. Angus nodded as though Daisy had made a sound financial decision. Rex leaned through the open driver’s door again, studying the dashboard with renewed professional interest.

Doug stared at his wife. “Keeping it where?”

Daisy pointed toward the old equipment shed.

Then the wind shifted.

It came gently out of the southwest, crossed the excavation, passed through the open Citroën and arrived at Daisy carrying twenty-one years of additional information.

She stopped.

Her expression changed.

“Call Earl.”

Doug blinked. “What?”

“Call Earl.”

“You just said we’re keeping it.”

“I’ve reconsidered.”

“That was quick.”

Another breeze moved across the yard.

Daisy took three steps backward.

“Call Earl now.”

By late afternoon a battered flatbed from Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear was backing through the opening Clovis had made in the fence. Earl himself had apparently decided that twenty-one years of accumulated Duvall family history exceeded the ordinary responsibilities of a salvage-yard proprietor, because he remained near the gate with a handkerchief over his nose while three men in disposable coveralls, gloves and face shields handled the Citroën.

Hairless stayed to watch.

So did Angus.

Rex stayed because he had already closed the pharmacy for lunch and apparently saw no reason to reopen it until France had left the premises. Mayor Goodman continued wearing his unnecessary hard hat and offered several observations concerning hazardous-material regulations that nobody could verify and everybody ignored.

The DS21 was winched slowly onto the flatbed, its collapsed suspension leaving the body barely above the steel deck. Clovis sprayed disinfectant behind it. One of Earl’s men swatted continuously at a cloud of flies while another kept his face shield down despite the afternoon heat. The whole operation had the solemn efficiency of a federal cleanup conducted by people who normally sold used transmissions and rented tuxedos.

Doug stood beside Daisy as the flatbed finally pulled away.

“You sure?”

Daisy watched the Citroën disappear down the road.

“Doug, I carried four of your children.”

He waited.

“I have nothing left to prove.”

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The Citroën arrived at Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear under what Earl later described as “special handling.” Nobody knew precisely what that meant, although the presence of protective suits, disinfectant and a handwritten warning taped to the office door suggested that Earl had expanded the definition of salvage somewhat beyond its customary boundaries.

He parked the DS21 toward the front of the yard.

Not too close to the office.

And definitely downwind.

For the next several weeks it attracted more attention than anything Earl had acquired in years. People stopped to look at it. Tourists photographed it through the fence. Men who had never expressed the slightest interest in French automobiles suddenly knew about hydropneumatic suspension, directional headlights and single-spoke steering wheels. Hairless told people it was one of the most technologically advanced automobiles of the twentieth century. Rex said the odometer showed sixty-eight thousand miles. Mayor Goodman claimed Citroën had originally designed the DS21 to float, which was not true but survived three weeks before anybody bothered checking.

Earl eventually put a small sign beside it:

1966 CITROËN DS21
109 HORSEPOWER
68,000 MILES
FORT STOCKTON SERVICE: 20+ YEARS

Below that, somebody added:

PARTS CAR
INTERIOR SOLD AS-IS

And sometime during the first night, another hand added beneath it:

VERY AS-IS

Nobody ever admitted doing that.

Visitors occasionally asked Earl what “Fort Stockton Service” meant. Earl generally told them they’d have to ask Doug Duvall, which some of them did. Doug would smile and say the car had a complicated history.

Daisy was less restrained.

“It’s French,” she’d tell them.

And after a while, that became enough.

Because the Duvals had finally achieved the last stage of becoming Fort Stockton people. Nobody remembered where they’d come from anymore. Nobody called them outsiders. Nobody even mentioned Drew pantsing that freshman. Their twenty-one years of church attendance, Little League, volunteer work and careful local purchasing had gotten them close, but in the end none of those things had quite finished the job.

A French septic tank had.

From then on, they were simply the family whose Citroën was sitting out at Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear.

Which, in Fort Stockton, is about as permanent a form of citizenship as there is.

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