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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THREE NIGHTS AT THE END OF THE ROAD, PART 2: Unholy Alliances
[Note to the Reader] If you’re just now tuning in, you’re late—but not hopeless. This is the second chapter tying up the mysteries of The Blonde in Room #3 and A Stranger This Way Comes. If you skipped Chapter One, go read “Receipt of Sins” before the trail gets any colder or more twisted. The…
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THREE NIGHTS AT THE END OF THE ROAD, PART 1: Receipt of Sins
[Note to the Reader] This story threads together the final loose ends of The Blonde in Room #3 and A Stranger This Way Comes. If you haven’t read those, you’ll want to—if only to know who died, who lied, and what exactly got dumped in the stock tank off Highway 285. If you have read…
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THE PEARL OF THE PECOS
For decades, everybody in Fort Stockton knew the upstairs rooms at the Lucky Lady Lounge weren’t for Sunday school. They were for buying an hour’s worth of affection, no vows, no fingerprints, and no questions asked. In a town where sins traveled faster than gossip and dried slower than blood in the summer sun, the…
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NEW GUY GOES DOWN
Mornings at the Grounds for Divorce weren’t just for coffee—they were for ritualistic verbal jousting, spiced with a side of huevos rancheros and a dash of misguided superiority. The regulars had assembled like clockwork: Lucinda behind the counter, Delgado clanging pans in the kitchen, Rusty Hammer hunched over his third refill, Pastor Peterson fresh from…
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THE GROUND BENEATH OUR SINS
The earthquake barely registered on the Richter scale—a hiccup of the earth, really. In Fort Stockton, folks didn’t flinch at a little rumble. They’d seen worse come from a blown tire on 285 or Brother Bob’s fire-and-fury sermon on “God’s Active Volcano of Wrath” down at Second Baptist. When the tremor hit, Lucinda barely paused…
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MOVIE REVIEW: CHRISTINE
“Hell Hath No Fury Like a Plymouth Scorned”Movie Review by Jimmy Don Ventura, CMC Auto Movie Critic Despite my editor, The Captain, insisting I cover Fast X, I opted instead for a film with more chrome, more menace, and fewer people punching submarines with their bare hands. We’re going full tilt back to 1983 for…
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INTEREST COMPOUNDED, CHAPTER 6: The Heir
The sudden death of Whitford Brewster III was not something anyone in Fort Stockton had expected. Found at his desk with a heart attack taking him quietly in the middle of his routine, the event left the town stunned and the family in mourning. But there were strange details to the scene: Whitford III’s pants…
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INTEREST COMPOUNDED, CHAPTER 5: The Reforms
By 1989, Fort Stockton was a town caught between past glories and future uncertainties, much like the Brewster family bank. Bluebonnet Loan & Trust had been built on the promise of progress, but the cracks were starting to show. The oil boom had long since given way to a much quieter, slower rhythm. The new…
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INTEREST COMPOUNDED, CHAPTER 4: The Robbery
The year was 1974, and things at Bluebonnet Loan & Trust were starting to feel like they were slipping, even before the robbery. On that hot day, the air inside the bank was thick and sluggish. Whitford Brewster III sat behind the desk, going through the motions of a slow afternoon. He knew it would…
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INTEREST COMPOUNDED, CHAPTER 3: The Golden Years
It was 1965, and Fort Stockton was standing at the crossroads between the past and the future, though it didn’t always know which way to go. For Clifton Brewster Jr., the question was no longer about survival—it was about growth. Bluebonnet Loan & Trust had weathered the war years, and now it was time to…