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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WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS….
The Brysons of RoadRunner Estates were the sort of family that made Fort Stockton seem like a place where things were, if not perfect, at least steady. Their ranch-style home sat near the end of Palo Verde Drive, a three-bedroom with a tidy patch of St. Augustine grass and a basketball hoop that leaned slightly…
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THE BUFFALO BUS, Part II: The Resurrection
Part II of a two part story involving sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Or, just another day in Fort Stockton. Then the title to the Buffalo Bus wandered into a fog most of us call paperwork and reappeared in the name of Iwania Goodman, the mayor’s newest wife and longest-standing donor to his campaign, though one…
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THE BUFFALO BUS, Part I: The Arrest at the Amphitheater
Part I of a two part story involving sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Or, just another day in Fort Stockton. They called it the Buffalo Bus because calling it a miracle would’ve made the Baptists nervous. Thirty-five feet of pearl white and silver aluminum, the coach pulled into Fort Stockton like a traveling moonbeam: black-and-red stripes…
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THE LAST WOODY STANDING
It was a strange place to find something holy.But then again, Earl’s Salvage & Formalwear had always been a place where heaven and rust shook hands. Will Wharton had come out that Saturday morning to be fitted for a tuxedo for his daughter Lacey’s wedding. The morning air smelled of transmission fluid, hay, and stale…
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SKINS & NEEDLES
If Fort Stockton had a “weirdo quota,” Indigo Dreamweaver blew it sky-high the day he rolled into town. The man arrived in a rumbling, candy-dark-blue 1965 Pontiac Bonneville that looked like it had been dipped in midnight and buffed with sin. The blacked-out grille and bumpers gleamed like obsidian, and the halo headlights stared down…
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DRAGNET, FORT STOCTON STYLE
He asked if I wanted to go whole-hog.This is Fort Stockton. We don’t do half measures. We do heat, dust, and paperwork. My name’s Thursday. Joe Thursday. Badge 714. The week started the way too many do out here—wind up, mood down, the Pecos throwing sand like a cheap barber slinging talc. I was parked…
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THE PASSENGER IN THE BACK OF THE PACKARD
The Packard came to town like a hymn sung in the wrong key—beautiful, but unsettling. Folks at the Fort Stockton depot had grown used to Studebakers and Buicks gliding down Main, but this one? This one looked like it knew secrets about the world’s wealthiest sins. The 1947 Packard Custom Super Clipper Eight 7-Passenger Sedan…
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THE GUTTER QUEENS, PART II: After the Strike
(Part II of II) By the summer of 1975, the legend of The Gutter Queens had settled into Fort Stockton like dust that refused to sweep off. Their brass plaque gleamed beside the water-payment window, their Kodachrome portrait hung over the Lucky Lady jukebox, and Big Brown—the ‘69 Ford Country Squire that carried them to…
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THE GUTTER QUEENS, PART I: The Long Roll to Glory
(Part I of II) If you go to City Hall in Fort Stockton and stand in line to pay your water bill, you’ll see it there—just to the right of the window where the clerk never looks up fast enough to catch you rolling your eyes. A modest brass plaque reads: THE GUTTER QUEENS —…
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ONE TRICK PONY
The bell over the door at Grounds for Divorce jingled like it was announcing trouble. Outside, a white-and-blue streak of Americana rolled to a stop in front of the café, chrome glinting like a badge of honor. The sound of a 351 Cleveland rumble cut off, leaving a silence that felt like applause withheld. Lucinda…