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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DAYS OF MALAISE
Daryl Bates was not a man who trafficked in illusions. He had started in advertising back in the sixties, the golden age of “Mad Men,” when copywriters wore slim ties and believed they could sell hope by the yard. Daryl had written his share of clever slogans for margarine spreads and electric can openers, but…
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CAUSEWAY TO NOWHERE, Part II
Part II of a two part story of Fort Stockton greed and betrayal. Sunny downshifted and rolled forward, frowning as if he could pull the tollbooth up by its roots with nothing but facial expression. Burris tugged his cap and held out the cigar box that counted as treasury. “Nickel for the view,” Burris said.…
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CAUSEWAY TO NOWHERE, Part I
Part I of a two part story of Fort Stockton greed and betrayal. The phone on the linoleum counter at Rex Hall’s Pharmacy had a ring like a hornet caught in a snuff tin. Everyone heard it—Rex, who was measuring out aspirin like it owed him money; Mrs. Whitley, comparing rouge shades to moral decline;…
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THE YEAR THE WHEELS TURNED
The argument started the way arguments usually do in Fort Stockton: with too much coffee, too little pie left in the cooler, and Rusty Hammer trying to sound like an expert on something he only halfway knew about. The subject this time was cars, which meant everybody in the café leaned in whether they wanted…
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SALT & SOIL, CHAPTER SEVEN: A Black and White Ending
The last of seven chapters. Morning came slow to Fort Stockton. The sun had to climb over the Davis Mountains before it could lay a finger on the courthouse square, and that delay always gave the place a feeling of suspended judgment, as if the town were waiting for its sentence. On this particular morning,…
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SALT & SOIL, CHAPTER SIX: Devil’s Ride
Chapter Six of seven. The roadhouse lot had always been a bad place to stop. The kind of place where fights outnumbered parking spaces, where moths beat themselves stupid against neon beer signs, where the jukebox rattled out country hits like funeral dirges while half the bar forgot the words. Cutter idled the Highboy at…
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SALT & SOIL, CHAPTER FIVE: Highboy Hymnal
Chapter Five of seven. The Flying Cloud’s aluminum kept the night like a secret, but morning pried at the seams. By first light Shannon was outside, hands on hips, studying the Dodge the way a woman appraises a dress she can’t wear twice. “Too loud,” she said. “We need denim, not sequins.” Lalo Cantu answered…
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SALT & SOIL, CHAPTER THREE: Shannon’s Gambit
Chapter Three of seven. San Angelo smelled like hot tar and cattle trucks. Cutter eased the Dodge Sportsman off the loop and into the gravel lot of a roadhouse that promised Chicken-Fried Steak and Cold Lone Star in letters half burned out. The van’s flames looked less like decoration in the midday sun and more…
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SALT & SOIL, CHAPTER TWO: BODIES IN MOTION
Chapter Two of seven. Dawn came on slow, the road turning the same pale color as Cutter’s knuckles on the two-spoke wheel. The Oldsmobile ate the miles the way it did everything—without hurry, without apology. The Rocket under the hood rumbled its steady hymn, and the coffin in back gave a dull, occasional thud over…