Category: PART OF A SERIES
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER VII — “Needles at Sunrise”
THE FINAL CHAPTER OF A SEVEN PART STORY Needles, California didn’t wake up so much as it arrived, like a train pulling into a station nobody remembered building but everybody depended on anyway. There was something ceremonial about the air, though nobody had hung bunting or bothered to make speeches. The desert light came on…
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER VI — “Flagstaff and the Edge of Things”
THE SIXTH CHAPTER IN A SEVEN PART STORY We left Gallup before the sun had the decency to announce itself. That kind of departure doesn’t feel like travel. It feels like retreat. Like you’ve overstayed somewhere you were never meant to understand in the first place, and you’re hoping the road forgets your name if…
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER V — “Gallup, Where the Dust Settles Differently”
THE FIFTH CHAPTER IN A SEVEN PART STORY We didn’t abandon the Expedition so much as we surrendered it. There’s a difference. Abandoning something implies you might come back. That you’ve got a plan, or at least the illusion of one. Surrendering it means you’ve accepted that whatever got you here isn’t getting you out.…
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER IV — Albuquerque Afternoon Delays
THE FOURTH CHAPTER OF A SEVEN PART STORY We hit Albuquerque like a watch that had been wound just a little too tight. Not broken. Not yet. But you could feel something inside it straining. The road widened before the city did. That’s the first thing I noticed. Route 66 didn’t so much enter Albuquerque…
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER III — Santa Rosa and the Blue Hole Truth
THE THIRD CHAPTER OF A SEVEN PART STORY We didn’t so much arrive in Santa Rosa as we slipped into it. One minute the road out of Tucumcari still carried that neon echo, that soft electric hum that clung to your bones like cigarette smoke in a closed car. The next minute—just like that—it was…
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER II — Tucumcari Tonight
THE SECOND CHAPTER OF A SEVEN PART STORY By the time Tucumcari rose up out of the New Mexico dark, it didn’t so much appear as it flickered into existence. One minute we were alone on a ribbon of highway that had more memory than maintenance, the Expedition humming along like it still believed in…
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THE MOTHER ROAD, CHAPTER I — Amarillo by Morning (…and Something Else by Noon)
THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A SEVEN PART STORY There are two kinds of ideas that come out of Fort Stockton. The first kind gets talked about at the big round table at Grounds for Divorce, picked apart between refills of Folgers from the Bunn-O-Matic, and sent out into the world half-finished and overconfident. The second…
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TROUBLE IN PARADISE, CHAPTER VII, The Aftermath
THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THIS SEVEN PART STORY Fort Stockton had seen strange endings before, but the conclusion of the Melba Duncan affair managed to land somewhere between Biblical justice and a county commission meeting that ran too long. Folks who had followed the trial closely agreed on one thing: nobody would have written it…
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TROUBLE IN PARADISE, CHAPTER VI: The Twist
CHAPTER VI OF A SEVEN PART STORY Fort Stockton had a long memory and a short attention span. The first meant people remembered things they probably shouldn’t. The second meant they were usually too distracted to connect those memories until someone interesting showed up and stirred the pot. That someone, lately, was Parker McHale. Folks…
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TROUBLE IN PARADISE, CHAPTER V: Taking Sides
CHAPTER V OF A SEVEN PART STORY If Fort Stockton had a smell that week, it was diesel, damp limestone, and something faintly metallic that clung to the back of your throat and defied any attempt to cough it out. It wasn’t just the kind of smell that lingered in the air. It moved into…