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Nobody knew exactly when the enormous green-and-white Ford arrived in Fort Stockton, which was unusual because Fort Stockton had long possessed an early-warning system for strange automobiles considerably more effective than radar. A questionable vehicle entering town on Dickinson Boulevard could ordinarily be detected before its driver had located a restroom. Chad might see it from the Piggly Wiggly. Rex might catch it through the front window of Rex Hall Drug. Somebody at Rusty Hammer Hardware would notice it waiting at the light. Within fifteen minutes, enough information had reached the Grounds for Divorce to establish year, make, model, probable engine displacement, state of origin, and whether the driver appeared to have made sound decisions regarding his personal life.

But the Ford slipped through. Or perhaps “slipped” is the wrong word. A 1990 Ford C8000 does not slip anywhere. It arrives. The truck was a former fire engine, the sort of cab-over apparatus originally intended to carry men, equipment and enough urgency toward a burning building to make everybody else pull onto the shoulder. Somewhere along the way, however, this particular C8000 had escaped municipal servitude and entered a second career considerably less urgent and considerably more peculiar.

It was now painted green and white. Behind the cab was a custom flatbed equipped with a gooseneck hitch, while the old rearward-facing crew seats remained in place, allowing passengers the unusual opportunity to travel across Texas while staring directly at everything they had successfully escaped. Underneath was a 10.4-liter Caterpillar turbodiesel V8 connected to an Allison four-speed automatic transmission, which meant that even before you attached anything to it, the Ford possessed sufficient mechanical authority to make lesser vehicles reconsider their plans.

And attached to it was a 1996 Damon Hornet travel trailer.

Twenty-six feet of it.

The combined vehicle had the general proportions of something FEMA might deploy after a hurricane.

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By eight-thirty Tuesday morning it was parked across from the Grounds for Divorce, taking up enough curb space that Mayor Goodman would later claim it had temporarily altered the population density of downtown Fort Stockton. Hairless B29 noticed it first, stopping halfway through raising his coffee cup. Angus Hopper followed his gaze toward the window. Chad was already getting out of his chair before anybody said anything.

“What the hell is that?” Hairless asked.

Angus studied it.

“That,” he said, “is commitment.”

Within seconds, the breakfast contingent had migrated toward the window, leaving Lucinda staring at six abandoned cups of coffee and a plate containing half an English muffin. She followed our gaze, took in the Ford, the trailer and the sheer acreage involved in parking the combination, then placed both hands on her hips.

“Oh, good,” she said. “The circus is here.”

The owner appeared ten minutes later. His name was Dale Whitcomb. He was seventy-one, recently retired, twice divorced, and possessed the serene confidence of a man who had reached the age where criticism merely confirmed he was having more fun than the person offering it. Dale wore khaki shorts, white New Balance sneakers and a Hawaiian shirt containing approximately eleven hundred hibiscus blossoms. He entered the GFD carrying a folded cardboard sign under one arm and looked around as though he had wandered into precisely the sort of place he had hoped to find.

“Morning.”

Nobody answered.

“Friendly place.”

“It was,” Lucinda said. “Then you brought that.”

Dale glanced through the window at his Ford.

“The truck?”

“Unless there’s an aircraft carrier parked behind it.”

Dale smiled, which was the first indication that he was going to fit in. The second came when Hairless asked what powered it and Dale casually answered, “Ten-four Cat.”

Hairless stood. Angus stood. I stood. Lucinda sighed.

There are phrases capable of moving grown men faster than a fire alarm. Apparently “ten-four Cat” is one of them.

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Five minutes later, we were standing around the Ford while Dale opened compartments and explained what he knew of its history. The truck had begun life as a fire apparatus, and enough of that first career remained to make its second one seem even stranger. Chad climbed onto one of the rear-facing seats and looked toward the back of the truck.

“So you ride backward?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Why?”

Dale shrugged. “So you can see where you’ve been.”

Angus nodded thoughtfully.

“Useful in Fort Stockton. Sometimes where you’ve been is the best thing available.”

The Damon Hornet waited behind us, but it remained unexplored until Trixie arrived from the Klip-N-Dye. She had come over for coffee, spotted the commotion from across the street, and immediately recognized that something more important than hair was occurring. She walked around the Ford once, looked at the trailer, then turned toward Dale.

“What’s in there?”

Dale smiled.

“Want to see?”

That was his first mistake.

The Damon Hornet represented a period in American interior design when manufacturers had finally conquered every known surface and were beginning to look for new ones. There were Venetian blinds, woodgrain, a dinette, a kitchenette, a bathroom and a cassette stereo, because nothing said wilderness quite like having Alabama’s Greatest Hits available within arm’s reach of a chemical toilet. All of that might have escaped comment if not for the carpet.

It was green.

There was a lot of it.

Trixie entered the bedroom and stopped.

“Well.”

Trixie could put remarkable mileage on that word. This particular “well” began somewhere around Watergate, passed through Studio 54, lingered briefly inside a custom Dodge van with a wizard painted on the side, and finally arrived in a 1996 travel trailer parked across from the Grounds for Divorce.

Dale rubbed the carpet proudly with the toe of his sneaker.

“Original.”

“I believe you,” Trixie said.

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The funny thing was that there had been a time when all of this really was luxury. Today we look at the greens, browns, oranges, fake timber, long-pile carpeting and brass-colored fixtures of the seventies and wonder whether an entire civilization had suffered a gas leak. But people wanted this stuff. Shag carpeting was expensive. It was modern. It was soft. It announced that the hard floors, stiff furniture and sensible fabrics of your parents had finally been defeated. The American home was no longer supposed to be merely a place where you lived. It was supposed to have a mood.

Once Americans discovered the mood, naturally, we put wheels under it. Conversion vans became rolling dens. Motorhomes acquired captain’s chairs, wet bars, curtains, stereos and enough carpeting to require their own grazing permits. Recreational vehicles gradually stopped asking how little civilization you could survive with and began asking how much civilization could be forced through a thirty-amp campground electrical hookup.

Camping had once involved a tent. Then came the travel trailer, followed by the motorhome, followed by the motorhome towing a car, followed eventually by recreational vehicles large enough to tow another vehicle containing motorcycles and bicycles. Somewhere along the way mankind had essentially reinvented the railroad while eliminating its most useful feature.

Tracks.

The Hornet was not quite that ambitious, but Dale had plans.

Back inside the GFD, he unfolded the cardboard sign he had carried in with him. Lucinda stopped pouring coffee when Dale announced that he was starting a business, because that particular sentence had a history in Fort Stockton and almost none of it was reassuring. He explained that he intended to rent the truck and trailer for weddings, reunions, hunting trips, tailgates and romantic weekends. He had already selected a name.

Then he turned the sign around.

THE SHAGGIN’ WAGON MOBILE RETREAT

Nobody spoke.

Trixie covered her mouth. Hairless looked down. Angus became intensely interested in his coffee. I studied the ceiling. Lucinda was the only person willing to look directly at Dale.

“You thought this through?”

“Absolutely.”

“All the way?”

“Business plan and everything.”

“I meant the name.”

Dale looked at the sign.

“What’s wrong with it?”

Trixie made a sound normally associated with loss of cabin pressure.

“It’s the carpet,” Dale explained.

That did not help.

Brother Bob arrived at 12:17. By 12:19 he had seen the sign. By 12:22 he had toured the trailer. By 12:30 Second Baptist was on a prayer chain. He stood beside the Hornet in his black suit, white shirt and black tie, holding his Bible against his chest while Dale spent the better part of ten minutes explaining that the Shaggin’ Wagon was intended for weddings, family reunions, hunting trips and possibly church retreats.

“Romantic weekends,” Dale added.

Brother Bob’s eyebrows moved.

Dale immediately understood that he had selected the wrong item from the brochure.

“It’s about the carpet.”

Brother Bob looked toward the bedroom.

“That is not helping.”

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By two o’clock, three versions of the story were circulating through town. In the first, Dale was operating a mobile motel. In the second, he was operating something that legally could not be described as a motel. In the third, which had apparently originated somewhere near the Piggly Wiggly produce section, Dale intended to park the trailer behind local churches and rent it by the hour.

Chad denied responsibility for this version.

Nobody had accused him.

By four o’clock, Mayor Goodman had become involved, proving once again that nothing improves a misunderstanding quite like municipal government. An emergency meeting was scheduled for Wednesday evening to determine exactly what Dale was operating and, more importantly, whether Fort Stockton already had an ordinance prohibiting it.

Mayor Goodman opened the meeting wearing the longest red necktie in Pecos County. Dale sat in the front row. Brother Bob sat directly behind him. Rex Hall had brought a copy of the city ordinances. Trixie had brought popcorn. Lucinda had brought nothing because, as she explained, she already worked around enough foolishness without packing it a lunch.

“We are here,” Mayor Goodman began, “to determine the legal classification of a commercial recreational vehicle presently operating within the city limits.”

“It isn’t operating yet,” Dale said.

Goodman consulted his notes.

“Presently preparing to operate.”

“It’s parked.”

“Presently parked in preparation to operate.”

Angus leaned toward me.

“He’s charging by the word.”

The mayor continued. The question before them, he explained, was whether the Shaggin’ Wagon constituted temporary lodging, a mobile commercial enterprise, a recreational vehicle or something falling under the city’s adult-entertainment ordinances. Dale objected that it was merely a camper. Brother Bob pointed out that it contained a bedroom. Dale pointed out that most campers did. Brother Bob countered that most campers were not advertised under the word “shaggin’.”

Dale tried again.

“It’s about the carpet.”

From the back row, Trixie said, “Quit saying that.”

Mayor Goodman raised his hand and called for order even though nobody had been out of order, which seemed to disappoint him. Rex opened the ordinance book and reported that the city had regulations covering recreational vehicles, commercial lodging and adult businesses, but nothing addressing carpeting.

Mayor Goodman frowned.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“What about carpet pile?”

“No.”

Government had encountered a gap.

This could not stand.

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Goodman suggested that perhaps Fort Stockton needed an ordinance establishing the maximum permissible carpet pile in recreational vehicles used for commercial purposes. Nobody spoke for several seconds. I looked at Angus. Angus looked at Hairless. Hairless looked toward the door. Somewhere outside, America continued without us.

Mayor Goodman warmed to the idea. There could be different classifications based upon pile length, location and intended commercial use. Trixie raised her hand and asked whether the carpet would be measured standing up or lying down. Brother Bob closed his eyes. Somebody suggested carpet density should also be considered. Somebody else wanted to know whether indoor-outdoor carpet qualified for an exemption. Rex wondered aloud whether existing shag could be grandfathered.

That caused Trixie to whisper something to Lucinda that sent Lucinda out of the room for nearly a minute.

When she returned, she was still laughing.

Eventually Mayor Goodman proposed a preliminary restriction on recreational vehicles containing deep-pile carpeting while parked within five hundred feet of a church, school or municipal building. That was when Lucinda finally decided she had heard enough.

“So we’re regulating carpet now?”

Goodman straightened his tie.

“We’re regulating intent.”

Trixie looked through the window at the C8000 and Hornet parked outside beneath the streetlights, forty feet of green-and-white American optimism waiting patiently for the government to finish protecting Fort Stockton from upholstery.

“Honey, if that carpet still has intent after thirty years, I say we leave it alone.”

That ended the meeting.

Not officially. Officially, Mayor Goodman tabled the matter pending further study.

But everybody knew Trixie had ended it.

The next morning the truck was back outside the Grounds for Divorce. Dale had changed the sign. Not much, but enough.

THE SHAG WAGON

Beneath that, in considerably smaller letters:

MOBILE RETREAT & EVENT RENTAL

And underneath, apparently added after legal consultation:

SHAG REFERS TO CARPET

Brother Bob stopped on the sidewalk long enough to read the entire thing. Then he shook his head and continued toward Second Baptist without comment.

Dale came inside.

Lucinda poured him coffee.

“You happy now?”

“I liked the old name better.”

“Of course you did.”

He sat down with us, and for the next half hour we talked about the Ford instead. That was easier. We talked about what it had been when new, about firefighters riding those rear-facing seats toward whatever waited for them, about the enormous Caterpillar diesel and the Allison transmission, and about the strange second lives machines sometimes receive after the world decides their first purpose is finished.

That interested me more than the carpet.

A fire truck had become a tow vehicle. A travel trailer from 1996 had survived long enough for its dated interior to become interesting again. Somewhere along the way both had passed through that awkward territory between obsolete and collectible where most old things either disappear forever or wait long enough for us to miss them.

Things pass through ridiculousness on their way to nostalgia.

Maybe people do too.

There was a time when shag carpeting represented prosperity. Then it represented bad taste. Then it became a joke. Give it another twenty years and somebody will probably reproduce it for seventy dollars a square foot and call it Heritage Luxury Fiber.

That is how nostalgia works. We do not preserve the past evenly. We save Mustangs and throw away four-door sedans. We restore neon signs after replacing them with plastic ones. We spend fortunes recreating diners we once bulldozed because they were old. Eventually we become sentimental about the very things we couldn’t wait to get rid of.

The Hornet was still ridiculous.

Nothing could change that.

But standing inside it, surrounded by fake woodgrain, Venetian blinds and enough green carpeting to conceal a putting green, I could understand what somebody once saw in it.

Freedom.

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Not wilderness. Americans have rarely wanted wilderness. We want wilderness with air conditioning. We want a mountain view through a screened window while coffee brews twelve feet from an indoor toilet. We want to escape civilization without surrendering refrigeration. And if the whole thing can be pulled behind a former fire truck containing a Caterpillar diesel the size of a Baptist baptistry, so much the better.

Dale got his first reservation Friday afternoon.

Nobody at the Grounds for Divorce ever discovered who made it. There were theories, naturally. Chad thought it was somebody from Odessa. Hairless suspected a hunting party. Brother Bob feared the worst.

Trixie hoped for it.

Dale refused to say.

“Customer confidentiality.”

Lucinda nodded.

“Good policy.”

Late Friday afternoon, the C8000 fired. The Caterpillar came alive with the sort of low diesel thunder that suggested tectonic activity beneath Dickinson Boulevard. Dale connected the Hornet, checked the lights, climbed into the cab and released the brakes.

The whole enormous combination began moving west.

We watched from inside the Grounds for Divorce as the old fire truck passed the window first, followed by the flatbed, then the Hornet, then the bedroom and finally the last few square yards of green carpeting disappearing down the street.

Brother Bob watched until it was gone.

Trixie sipped her coffee.

“You suppose it’s a honeymoon?”

Brother Bob stood.

“I’m leaving.”

“Could be a church retreat.”

He kept walking.

“Family reunion?”

The door closed behind him.

Lucinda picked up the coffee pot.

“Leave him alone.”

Trixie smiled.

“I am.”

Outside, the Shag Wagon turned south and vanished from sight. Somewhere beyond Fort Stockton, somebody was waiting for twenty-six feet of Venetian blinds, fake woodgrain, cassette stereo and deep-pile American history to arrive.

I never found out who.

I decided I didn’t want to.

There are some things a man is better off not knowing.

Especially when the carpet has intent.

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