STORIES
If our lives are a book, the cars we drive define the chapters.
These are stories featuring cars, trucks, and even RVs that played a role in the lives of the people who owned or drove them. Many are set in Fort Stockton, Texas and involve a cast of characters in and around the dusty southwest Texas town. A lot of the stories are shared around the table at The Grounds for Divorce, where the ‘regulars’ meet.
Pull up a chair and let Lucinda pour you a hot cuppa joe and enjoy.
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TRUNK LIDS AND FILE CABINETS
By the time the transport rig wheezed into Fort Stockton, the sun had already baked Dickinson Boulevard to the color of overdone toast. The driver was a gray-ponytailed guy from Phoenix who smelled faintly of diesel and beef jerky and kept calling everyone “boss.” He backed the trailer up in front of the Lucky Lady…
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ODESSA LUST
The gold ’68 Ford Galaxie 500 sat in its usual spot outside Grounds for Divorce, the paint so faded it looked more like desert sand than Detroit metal. Cal Runnels had owned the car since Nixon’s first term, and he often joked it was the longest relationship he’d ever managed. The hideaway headlights had given…
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THE BIG STICK
By the time the movie people came to town, the Galaxie was already a relic and so was Sheriff Clay Buster. The car sat like an exhausted patrolman in the courthouse lot, Wimbledon White gone dull as dishwater, black wheels sunk in caliche dust, chrome hubcaps catching just enough sun to remind you of what…
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LET’S BE FRANK
The phone at the Toot-N-Totem almost never rang after midnight. Luella Leander was restocking the cigarette wall when it did. The graveyard shift in League City meant humming coolers, bad coffee, and refinery guys in reflective vests. She wiped her hands on her apron and answered. “Toot-N-Totem Number Seven, this is Luella.” “Ms. Leander? This…
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IT’D BE A CRIME
By the time the wagon rolled past the second time, everyone at the big round table at Grounds for Divorce had decided it was absolutely tied to a crime they half-remembered and probably misheard. The first pass was innocent enough. Rusty Hammer sat hunched over his mug like it was the only warm thing left…
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THE RICHEST MAN IN FORT STOCKTON
There are days in Fort Stockton so ordinary they pass like dust across the highway—dry, forgettable, and in no way exceptional. And then there are days when fate—cold, callous, and entirely disinterested in human scheduling—decides to cram as much heartbreak as possible into a single afternoon. This was one of the latter. The Bridges Funeral…
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THE INCIDENT
The C. Cretors Model D Popcorn Wagon looked like it had rolled straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting and into a fever dream. Bright red sides, yellow wagon wheels, ornate hand-lettered gold striping that shouted Fresh Popcorn & Roasted Peanuts!—and that creepy mechanical clown inside, forever turning the little peanut drum like it was…
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ASH ON THE FINS OF THE FAIRLANE 500
December 30th has a way of pretending it’s a day when it’s really more of a pause button. Outside the front windows of the Captain My Captain World Headquarters—perched above the Ben Franklin like a stubborn thought and directly across from the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store—the sky had gone the color of a dish rag…
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IT’S ALL JOLLY UNTIL….
Brooks Baird had always been a man built on myth. Even before he could shave without nicking himself, he had the kind of jawline that could sell aftershave. Star quarterback for the Jim Bowie High School Fighting Knives, he had thrown more touchdown passes than most men in Pecos County had thrown hay bales. The…
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RUSTY HAMMER AND THE ROSE BODIED FORD
The smell hit first—wet grain and defeat. Rusty Hammer backed the F-250 up to the edge of the Fort Stockton landfill, dropped it into park, and stared at a truck bed stacked with sheep feed that had once been honest, dry, and promising. Now it was a gray-green civilization. Moths wobbled up like regretful angels.…