Category: Every car is a story.
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BUZZ KILL
The mosquito had been in Fort Stockton considerably longer than Lyle David Goodhue, and if seniority counted for anything, it intended to remain. It had survived drought, flash flood, cattle, sheep, screen doors, rolled newspapers, kerosene, profanity, and generations of West Texans who believed anything small enough to be killed with one hand did not…
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I’LL GET TO IT NEXT SATURDAY
There are automobiles that are preserved deliberately. They are washed with special soap, dried with towels softer than anything in the bathroom, parked beneath fitted covers, and occasionally awakened on Sunday mornings when the humidity is low and there is no chance whatsoever that a bird has recently eaten berries. Then there are automobiles preserved…
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THE LAST TEXACO MAN
There are certain vehicles that arrive in Fort Stockton already carrying a story, whether the story belongs to them or not. A red 1957 Chevrolet 3800 panel truck with TEXACO painted across both sides in letters large enough to be read from the courthouse is one of those vehicles. You don’t park something like that…
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THE MISTRESS
They met at Pecos Baptist College, which was neither in Pecos nor large enough to justify the confidence with which it used the word College, but it had accreditation, a respectable baseball team, and a chapel requirement that ensured every graduate could locate Habakkuk under moderate pressure. Daniel Mercer first noticed Emily Carter during an…
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DON’T CRY FOR ME LEON MARINA
There are automobiles that become valuable because they are rare, automobiles that become valuable because somebody famous owned them, and automobiles that become valuable because somewhere along the way enough people told enough stories about them that separating history from nonsense would require subpoenas. The 1956 Continental Mark II that spent the better part of…
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THE LAST FAMILY IN FORT STOCKTON
Nobody in Fort Stockton realized the American family was in danger until the Chamber of Commerce received a magazine. This was in 1991, when magazines still possessed the authority to frighten people several weeks after events had actually occurred. The publication had been left on a conference table at the Chamber office by somebody who…
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THE PETERSEN WOULD LIKE ITS CAR BACK
There were several reasons nobody in Fort Stockton believed Earl when he announced that the Petersen Automotive Museum had entrusted him with one of its automobiles, but the most compelling was that the Petersen Automotive Museum had not entrusted Earl with one of its automobiles. Earl had bought it. This distinction mattered to everyone except…
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SECOND DATE
By ten-thirty Tuesday morning, Trixie had Lucinda under a cape at the Klip-N-Dye with enough foil in her hair to receive crop reports from the Panhandle. Lucinda had left Delgado in charge of the Grounds for Divorce, where he was probably already making the biscuit adjustment she had specifically forbidden. His experiments usually began with…
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RUNNING AND DRIVING PROJECT
Indigo Dreamweaver had not always been Indigo Dreamweaver. There had been a time when he was Robb Bigelow, which was a perfectly respectable name for a boy growing up in Grand Island, Nebraska, and considerably less useful for a tattoo artist operating three blocks off Dickinson Boulevard in Fort Stockton, Texas. Robb had become Indigo…
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THE LAST BUS OUT OF FORT STOCKTON
Nobody knew exactly when Greyhound stopped being an important part of life in Fort Stockton, because things like that rarely happened on a Tuesday afternoon at three o’clock with somebody standing nearby taking notes. They happened gradually. One year buses were still coming through town carrying soldiers, grandmothers, college students, oilfield hands, salesmen and people…