Category: PART OF A SERIES
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SHAKESPEARE IN THE STOCK TANK, Chapter Five: The Bishop Cometh
The night before opening had that crackling tension that usually precedes tornados, shotgun weddings, or the announcement of a new Whataburger going in on the bypass. Fort Stockton hummed with gossip. The mayor’s wife claimed she’d heard Trixie and Sugar Plum got into it over lipstick shades at the Lucky Lady bathroom. A woman at…
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SHAKESPEARE IN THE STOCK TANK, Chapter Four: Is This a Pontiac Which I See Before Me?
If there was one thing Fort Stockton had never asked for, it was a theatrical dress rehearsal with a suggested donation and full concessions. But thanks to Sister Thelma, her never-ending grant spreadsheet, and Lucinda’s unstoppable lemon bar hustle, the town was getting one anyway. Flyers had gone up on telephone poles, post office cork…
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SHAKESPEARE IN THE STOCK TANK, Chapter Three: Enter Sugar Plum, Stage Left
Dress rehearsal in Fort Stockton was a bit like a baptism in a dry creek—mostly dust, a little water, and somebody was bound to end up in their underwear. Hairless B29 had hoped for something resembling cohesion, or at least memorization, but the only thing consistent was how creatively his cast found ways to mess…
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SHAKESPEARE IN THE STOCK TANK, Chapter Two: The Rust Beneath the Rouge
It was the kind of morning Fort Stockton hadn’t seen since the last time the chili cook-off ended in food poisoning and a conga line. The sun was doing its best impression of judgment, the wind was more suggestion than breeze, and over by the Almost United Methodist Church, Sister Thelma stood in a folding…
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SHAKESPEARE IN THE STOCK TANK, Chapter One: The Curtain Rises on the Pecos
Hairless B29 wasn’t anybody’s first choice to direct Fort Stockton’s first-ever outdoor Shakespeare production, least of all his own. But he was the only one with a degree in English, a booming voice that carried over diesel engines, and the kind of presence that made even Pastor Peterson hesitate before offering unsolicited notes. He’d earned…
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COMIN’ HOME, Chapter VI
This is the final chapter in a series of stories that have run all week. The whiskey drowned out the couple on the other side of the wall in Room 3 at the Naughty Pine, but it didn’t do much for the memories that were bouncing from his head to his heart and back again.…
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COMIN’ HOME, Chapter V
This is the fifth chapter is a series of six stories that will run all week. Eddie Ray turned the Cadillac back toward town, melancholy clinging to him like dust from the Bastrop road. The pecan tree, the fields, the ghosts—they stayed behind, but not out of mind. He rolled through the edge of Fort…
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COMIN’ HOME, Chapter IV
This is the fourth chapter in a series of six stories that will run this week. Eddie Ray got back in the Caddy, the door groaning like it shared his disappointment. His hopes—of spending time or anything else with Lucinda—had been dashed clean. The reminder of who he’d been putting off seeing ripped the scab…
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COMIN’ HOME, Chapter III
This is the third chapter of a series of six stories that will run this week. It was time. Eddie Ray wheeled the Cadillac back toward town, taking the long way so the engine could warm up and his nerves could settle. He turned onto Main and rolled up to the Grounds for Divorce. The…
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COMIN’ HOME, Chapter II
This is the second chapter in a series of stories that will run all week. The next morning, after a lukewarm shower and a powdered doughnut from the vending machine, Eddie Ray took the Cadillac on a slow roll through town, windows down, breeze cutting through the heat like a mercy. He passed the Piggly…