Mayor Goodman first learned about the ZIS-110B because Rusty Hammer showed it to him on his telephone at the Grounds for Divorce, which was an innocent enough act at the time and one Rusty would later regret. Rusty had discovered the automobile on Bring a Trailer while looking for something entirely different, and by the time Lucinda came around with the Bunn-O-Matic he had already attracted Angus Hopper and Rex Hall to his side of the regular table.
“What kind of Packard is that?” Angus asked.
“It isn’t a Packard,” Rusty said.
Angus enlarged the photograph with two fingers.
“Then somebody ought to tell the Russians they’ve got one.”
The automobile on the screen certainly looked as though Packard had been involved, although not necessarily voluntarily. It was enormous, formal and imposing, with the tall upright grille and long hood of a 1940s American prestige automobile, broad separate fenders, generous chrome, running boards concealed beneath the doors and enough distance between the front and rear bumpers to require separate weather reports. Its paint was a magnificent deep Soviet Parade Air Force Blue, set off by wide whitewall tires and polished hubcaps, while the open phaeton body exposed row after row of matching blue leather.
Rex took the telephone and began reading.
The car was a 1950 ZIS-110B, chassis number 1026, body number 01033, engine number 2847. ZIS stood for Zavod imeni Stalina, or Factory Named After Stalin, which immediately caused Brother Bob, three stools down, to lower his newspaper.
“I’m against it.”
“Against what?” Lucinda asked.
“Whatever they’re buying.”
Nobody had yet suggested buying anything.
The ZIS had been constructed in Moscow largely by hand and was patterned heavily after the Packard One-Eighty of the early 1940s, although its creators had borrowed ideas from Buick and Cadillac as well. Beneath the long blue hood was a 6,002-cubic-centimeter side-valve straight eight producing approximately 140 horsepower and driving through a three-speed manual transmission. The front suspension was independent, the rear axle was live, and four-wheel hydraulic drum brakes were entrusted with stopping a vehicle whose dimensions suggested that planning ahead would be advisable.
“Six liters and a hundred forty horsepower,” Rusty said.
Angus nodded. “Communism.”
Brother Bob folded his newspaper. “Exactly.”
Rex looked over his glasses. “That isn’t what communism means.”
“It’s close enough,” Brother Bob said.
“No, it isn’t.”
Chad had been listening from the other side of the table. “Actually, I think the car is socialism.”
Brother Bob shook his head. “Socialism is when the government tells you what kind of car you can buy.”
“I thought that was communism,” Rusty said.
“Communism is when everybody gets the same car,” Chad said.
Angus took a drink of coffee.
“That’s a rental fleet.”
Lucinda had been standing behind them with the Bunn-O-Matic pot, listening to five grown men use three economic systems interchangeably with the confidence normally reserved for explaining football officiating. She had learned long ago that the regulars were most certain about subjects they understood least, which accounted for roughly half the conversation before nine in the morning.
Finally she set the coffee pot down.
“All right,” she said. “Packards.”
Everyone became quiet.
“Capitalism. Rusty buys a Packard.”
Rusty nodded. So far he approved.
“He owns it. He decides there are rich people in Fort Stockton who would rather sit in the back seat than drive themselves, so he starts a chauffeur company. He hires drivers, charges customers, pays his expenses and keeps whatever profit is left. If the business does well, he buys three more Packards and hires more drivers.”
“Four Packards,” Rusty said.
“Eventually.”
“I like capitalism.”
“We know.”
Lucinda continued.
“Now socialism. Rusty still owns the Packards. He still owns the chauffeur company. He still hires the drivers and makes a profit. But the government taxes his business pretty heavily and regulates how he operates it. Some of the tax money gets used to buy buses, build roads, provide health care or pay for other public services so people who can’t afford to ride around Fort Stockton in the back of one of Rusty’s Packards still get something.”
Rusty considered this.
“How heavily?”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It would be if I owned four Packards.”
Rex smiled.
Lucinda picked up the telephone and held up the photograph of the ZIS.
“Now communism. Rusty doesn’t get to buy the Packard factory.”
Rusty’s expression changed.
“The state owns the automobile factory. The state decides what cars get built, how many get built and who gets them. You don’t have Ford competing with Chevrolet competing with Packard. The government controls production and distributes what gets produced according to what it decides people and the state need.”
She pointed at the enormous blue phaeton.
“So the government decides senior officials and Communist Party leaders need ZIS limousines.”
“What does Rusty get?” Angus asked.
“The metro.”
Rusty frowned.
“I don’t like communism.”
“We know that too.”
Lucinda returned the telephone to Rex.
“So capitalism says Rusty can own the Packard and try to get rich with it. Socialism says Rusty can still own the Packard and the business, but he’s going to help pay for the bus. Communism says the factory belongs to the state, the government decides who gets the ZIS, and Rusty needs to quit blocking the metro doors.”
There was an unusually thoughtful silence around the table.
Brother Bob was the first to disturb it.
“So when I’ve been calling Social Security communism…”
“Wrong,” Lucinda said.
Chad looked uncomfortable.
“What about when I called the city parking ordinance Marxism?”
Lucinda considered this.
“That was just stupid.”
Angus sat back in his chair, absorbing several decades of political vocabulary being repossessed at once.
Rex nodded toward Lucinda. “I believe she has just explained in four minutes what we have been arguing incorrectly for forty years.”
“That doesn’t mean I agree with any of it,” Brother Bob said.
“You don’t have to agree with something to know what it is,” Lucinda told him.
That appeared to be a genuinely new concept at the Grounds for Divorce.
Rex returned to the listing.
Only a little over two thousand ZIS-110 automobiles of all types had been built, and perhaps a hundred were open 110B phaetons. This particular automobile was one of three sent to Kyiv in 1955 for use by senior military officers, government officials and Communist Party dignitaries at parades and ceremonial occasions. It remained in official service until 1980 and eventually passed to Valentin Grigorevich Velichko, chairman of the Kyiv Avtoveteran Club. Decades later it was restored in Ukraine, painted the blue of Soviet Air Force parade uniforms and, after the Russian invasion in 2022, removed from the country.
By then Mayor Goodman had arrived.
Nobody noticed him at first because they were looking at the photographs.
The interior was every bit as remarkable as the exterior. Woodgrain-painted trim stretched across the dashboard and window sills. A cream-colored steering wheel matched the instrument panel, whose gauges were naturally metric. Heater vents in the backs of the front seats warmed the legs of the important people sitting behind them, presumably because one of the fundamental promises of communism was that eventually no Politburo member would have cold shins. There were folding jump seats in the rear compartment, possibly intended for security personnel, and posts for mounting the phaeton top.
Then Mayor Goodman saw the chrome rail.
“What’s that?”
Rusty looked up. “What’s what?”
“That bar behind the front seat.”
Rex scrolled farther down.
“Removable handrail. The officials stood up in the back during parades and held onto it.”
Mayor Goodman took the telephone.
He studied the photograph for a very long time.
Then he turned the phone sideways.
“That would look pretty good in the Fourth of July parade.”
“No,” Rex said.
Goodman looked up.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Still no.”
Fort Stockton had never possessed an official municipal parade automobile, largely because nobody had previously realized this was a deficiency. The mayor corrected that oversight before lunch by establishing the Fort Stockton Municipal Ceremonial Transportation Exploratory Committee. He appointed himself chairman and everybody at the regular table members, including Angus, who said he would serve only if attendance was optional and Rusty, who wanted it entered into the minutes that this was not his fault.
The committee’s first meeting was held exactly where everybody was already sitting.
Goodman explained that the city had for too long depended upon borrowed convertibles, pickup trucks and occasionally flatbed trailers for the ceremonial transportation of public officials. A municipality of Fort Stockton’s stature, he said, deserved a dignified official vehicle of its own.
“You mean you want to ride in it,” Trixie said.
“I said public officials.”
“Name another one.”
Goodman changed the subject.
Brother Bob objected to the purchase of a communist automobile on philosophical grounds.
Rex looked at him.
“The city would be buying it from a private owner at a public auction.”
Brother Bob hesitated.
“Yes.”
“With voluntarily raised money.”
Another hesitation.
“Yes.”
“And nobody is proposing that the government seize the ZIS factory.”
Brother Bob looked irritated.
“I know where you’re going with this.”
Lucinda passed behind him with the coffee pot.
“Capitalism,” she said.
Brother Bob watched her continue toward the counter.
“I still don’t like where it came from.”
“That,” Rex said, “is an entirely different argument.”
Sheriff Vickers wanted to know whether the ZIS had seat belts.
Rusty said it had survived Stalin.
Sheriff Vickers said that wasn’t what he’d asked.
Trixie wanted to know how many Homecoming girls would fit in the back. Angus wanted to know where anybody intended to find brake shoes for it. Chad wanted to know whether the city would allow commercial sponsorship on the doors. Mayor Goodman wanted to know whether anyone was prepared to discuss the automobile seriously.
Lucinda refilled his coffee.
“No.”
The City Council proved even less receptive. Goodman gave them a twenty-three-minute presentation containing the phrases “municipal dignity,” “ceremonial preparedness” and “strategic parade capability,” but the council declined to appropriate a dime. One member asked why the mayor couldn’t continue riding in the back of Rusty Hammer’s pickup like everybody else.
Goodman regarded this as an unserious question.
For two days the matter appeared settled.
Then Trixie asked how much money would actually have to be raised.
That was how Fort Stockton ended up buying a Stalin-era Soviet parade car.
The fundraising campaign had no central organization and therefore operated with unusual efficiency. Lucinda donated a week’s pie receipts. Chad put a jar beside the register at Piggly Wiggly with a photograph of the ZIS taped to it. Rusty Hammer Hardware ordered Soviet-red five-gallon buckets and sold them as commemorative collectibles until Rex discovered MADE IN CHINA molded into the bottoms. Rusty responded by raising the price two dollars and advertising them as historically consistent.
Mayor Goodman contributed twenty dollars.
He also contributed several hundred dollars’ worth of opinions.
He stood beside Lucinda at the register.
At some point during the second week, Brother Bob came into the Grounds for Divorce carrying a twenty-dollar bill.
“I want it understood that this does not constitute support for communism.”
Lucinda took the twenty.
“No.”
“Or socialism.”
“No.”
“I am making a voluntary private contribution toward the purchase of privately owned property through a competitive auction.”
Lucinda dropped the bill into the jar.
“Capitalism.”
Brother Bob nodded.
“I thought so.”
He walked away looking considerably happier.
Auction day arrived with the atmosphere of a high-school playoff game. Rusty brought his laptop to the Grounds for Divorce because nobody trusted Chad’s telephone not to lose its signal at the decisive moment. By noon there were fourteen people crowded around the regular table and another six pretending not to watch from the counter.
Every new bid produced commentary.
“That’s enough,” Rex said.
“One more,” Trixie said.
“That’s what people say immediately before something costs too much,” Rex told her.
When the next bid came in, Angus accused the unseen bidder of being either a museum or an idiot.
When Fort Stockton answered it, Brother Bob looked around the table.
“Would purchasing a Soviet state limousine with pie money constitute redistribution of wealth?”
Lucinda never looked away from the laptop.
“Not anymore. We redistributed it.”
Rex laughed.
Brother Bob did not, although mainly because he was still working through it.
The final minutes slowed down until the whole café seemed to be operating according to the clock on Rusty’s screen. Coffee went cold. Lucinda stood behind the counter with the pot suspended in one hand. Rusty kept tapping his boot. Mayor Goodman had migrated close enough to the laptop that his tie lay across part of the keyboard.
Then it ended.
Fort Stockton owned the ZIS.
For perhaps three seconds there was silence.
Then the Grounds for Divorce erupted.
Trixie hugged Lucinda. Chad immediately began discussing T-shirts. Brother Bob announced that while he remained opposed to communism, he saw no reason for the Russians to get the car back. Angus wanted to know whether the winning bid included any spare brake parts. Sheriff Vickers asked again about the seat belts.
Mayor Goodman stood in the middle of it all smiling with the proprietary satisfaction of a man who had just received an automobile personally, despite having contributed roughly enough money to purchase one of its hubcaps.
“I’ll need to practice getting in and out of it,” he said.
Trixie looked at him.
“For what?”
“The parade.”
Nobody answered.
The ZIS arrived in Fort Stockton several weeks later on an enclosed transporter. Half the town seemed to know when the truck was due, and by the time its rear doors opened the parking lot contained pickups, folding chairs, children, retirees and three men who claimed they had merely happened to be driving past.
The first thing everyone noticed was the size.
Photographs had not prepared them for it.
The blue hood emerged first, followed by the towering chrome grille and headlights, then fenders that seemed to keep coming. The driver eased the ZIS backward down the ramps while its wide whitewalls rolled slowly into the West Texas sunlight. Blue paint caught the afternoon glare. Chrome flashed from the bumpers, wheel arches and trim. The long phaeton body finally cleared the transporter and settled onto Fort Stockton pavement with the visual authority of a government building that had somehow learned to move.
Even Angus stopped talking.
For several seconds.
Then he walked around it with his hands in his pockets.
“Still looks like a Packard.”
“It is not a Packard,” Rex said.
“I know. Russians built it wrong.”
Rusty climbed behind the enormous cream steering wheel. The big straight eight turned over, caught and settled into a deep mechanical idle unlike anything else in the parking lot. There was valve noise, fan noise, the faint smell of warm oil and an exhaust note that seemed less interested in acceleration than in issuing instructions. Rusty depressed the clutch, worked the long gear lever into first and moved the car carefully around the lot.
Mayor Goodman climbed into the rear compartment.
He stood.
Naturally.
With one hand around the chrome rail, he raised the other toward the crowd.
Trixie stared at him.
“Are you practicing your wave?”
Goodman lowered his hand.
“No.”
“You were waving.”
“I was testing the handrail.”
For the next week, he tested it extensively.
By the morning of the Fourth of July parade, Fort Stockton’s People’s Parade Car had been washed, polished and positioned at the head of the procession. The Soviet blue paint was almost luminous beneath the hard West Texas sun. Flags fluttered from downtown buildings. Children lined the sidewalks with paper sacks for candy. Somewhere farther back in the parade a marching band was already attempting to tune brass instruments in ninety-degree heat.
Rusty Hammer sat behind the wheel of the ZIS wearing a clean western shirt and an expression of grave responsibility. He had spent several evenings learning the three-speed transmission and had discovered that the car would cruise happily enough at forty or fifty miles an hour, although nothing about it encouraged haste. Beside him waited Fort Stockton’s Teacher of the Year and Fireman of the Year.
Lucinda stood at the microphone beside the reviewing stand.
Mayor Goodman occupied a folding chair in the front row. He wore his best suit, his longest red tie and the expression of a man awaiting formal recognition.
Lucinda welcomed everyone, thanked the sponsors and introduced the high-school band.
Then she turned toward the ZIS.
“And now, leading this year’s Fourth of July parade in Fort Stockton’s new ceremonial automobile will be some of the most important people in our community.”
Mayor Goodman stood.
There was no hesitation.
He buttoned his jacket, smiled toward the crowd and began making his way toward the car.
Lucinda looked down at her notes.
“Our honored veterans…”
Trixie reached out from the aisle, caught Mayor Goodman by the tip of his exceptionally long red necktie and pulled him sideways.
It was not violent.
It was agricultural.
Goodman’s upper body changed direction before his feet received the information.
Three of Fort Stockton’s oldest veterans walked past him toward the ZIS. Rusty and the fireman helped them into the enormous rear compartment, where they settled into the blue leather beneath the chrome rail once reserved for Soviet generals and Communist Party officials.
Goodman looked at Trixie.
Trixie still had his tie.
Lucinda continued.
“Up front, we’re proud to have this year’s Teacher of the Year and Fireman of the Year.”
The crowd applauded.
Goodman looked toward the ZIS. Every desirable seat was occupied.
Trixie released his tie.
He looked down at it, straightened it, then looked at her again.
“You could have said something.”
“I did.”
“You pulled me six feet.”
“You weren’t listening.”
Rusty engaged first gear.
The enormous blue ZIS began moving.
The veterans waved.
The Teacher of the Year waved.
The Fireman of the Year waved.
Rusty honked the horn.
Mayor Goodman walked.
He walked the entire parade route immediately behind the automobile the town had refused to buy for him, had subsequently bought for itself, and had then filled with people everybody agreed were more important.
The discussion at the Grounds for Divorce the following morning was restrained for nearly eleven seconds.
“I thought you looked good walking,” Lucinda told him.
“I was representing the city.”
“On foot,” Rex said.
“Mayors have walked in parades before.”
Angus nodded. “Usually beside the horse.”
Goodman ignored him.
Trixie was stirring sugar into her coffee.
“I saved you, you know.”
“From what?”
She looked up.
“Getting in.”
Rusty laughed first. Lucinda tried not to. Rex removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Even Sheriff Vickers turned toward the window.
Mayor Goodman sat quietly for a moment.
Then he pointed at Trixie.
“Next year I’m riding.”
“Maybe,” she said.
That became the arrangement.
Not the mayor riding. The uncertainty.
After that, the ZIS became Fort Stockton’s People’s Parade Car. Veterans rode in it. Newlyweds rode in it. Retiring teachers rode in it. Championship Mud Hens rode in it. The Homecoming Court fit, just as Trixie had predicted, although only after two girls agreed to use the jump seats. Once, Lucinda herself was placed in the rear compartment because somebody decided thirty years of pouring coffee without poisoning Angus constituted distinguished public service.
Mayor Goodman occasionally rode too.
But never alone.
And never standing behind the chrome rail.
The old ZIS had traveled a remarkable distance before reaching Fort Stockton. It had been built by hand in Moscow within sight of the Kremlin. It had carried Soviet officials through Kyiv when Ukraine was part of the USSR. It had survived retirement, private ownership, restoration, the collapse of the country that created it and another Russian invasion of the country where it had spent most of its life. Eventually it crossed an ocean and traveled halfway across another continent to a West Texas town whose citizens could not agree whether it was a Packard but unanimously agreed that Mayor Goodman should not get first choice of seats.
Perhaps Lucinda’s explanation that first morning had been more appropriate than anyone realized. Capitalism, socialism and communism had been reduced to Packards because Packards were something Angus could understand. But the automobile sitting in Fort Stockton had actually lived through much of the argument.
It had been created under a system in which the state owned the factory and decided which important men deserved to ride in the automobile. Decades later, it had been offered for sale in a market where anybody with enough money could bid on it. Fort Stockton had acquired it through pie sales, hardware-store buckets, grocery-store donations and twenty reluctant dollars from Brother Bob, who had carefully verified that his contribution remained capitalist.
Then the town had done something neither Marx nor Adam Smith had specifically anticipated.
It gave the best seats to whoever deserved them that week.
Once, important men had stood behind that chrome rail and looked down upon ordinary people lining the streets.
Fort Stockton reversed the seating arrangement.
Stalin had built it for men who believed they owned the people.
Fort Stockton bought it for the people who believed they owned the car.
One response to “THE PEOPLE’S PARADE CAR”
Two political stories in a row!
Hats off to Capitalism!