Chapter 1
(MF)
Chapter 1 sets the stage for this new erotic series situated "On the Border"...
Warning: This is just a story. Please do not try this at home.
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"We need to talk," Billie Jean said as I finished printing photos of the Chemical City High School Man O Wars football team losing their bi-district playoff to the Texas City Stingarees, Nov. 30, 1978.
"You don't want a divorce already, do you?" I asked jokingly. We had been married for eight months, and had lived together for eight months before the marriage. We had been friends and coworkers since '69, when we both went to work for the Chemical City Sun. I was eight years her senior.
We caught each other on the rebound. My first wife kicked me out and divorced me six months before Billie Jean's husband deserted her and their 6-year-old daughter, Felicia.
"No, but you might want a divorce after I tell you what I have to tell you."
"Oh shit! What's up?"
"You remember Dave Lyons?"
"The turncoat reporter who went over to advertising, then publishing, and moved up to the corporate office? You're leaving me for him?" I was still joking.
"Yeah, if you don't come with me."
"What!?!"
"Dave left Gulfland Newspapers and went out on his own. He bought the Montenegro Gazette in west Texas, and wants me to be his managing editor. He said I can hire a reporter/photographer at an entry level salary. I want you. You'll own the rights to any photos you take, and can sell prints."
"You got me, Babe. When do we start?"
"New Years Day. I want to leave here no later than the 27th. He's arranged housing for us at The Montenegro Hotel; an ad trade-out. Two rooms connected by a kitchenette. Felicia will have her own room, bathroom and television with satellite."
"Dave must have been pretty certain you'd take the job."
"He knows how badly I want to be a managing editor," she said. "It's a weekly, but it'll look good on my resume' after two or three years."
"You knew I'd go with you."
"I was about 98 percent certain."
"Where the fuck is Montenegro?"
"It's the seat of Montenegro County, east of Big Bend National Park. Montenegro is on the far north end of the county. Dave wrote up an historical sketch of the town," she said, handing me a single spaced typed sheet.
[The Montenegro Hotel, built in 1892, is a family owned and operated business, and has been since 1904. After a vein of cinnabar had been discovered, Cranston Seymour Parsley III had arrived in the territory, intent on becoming a cattle baron. All of the best ranch land had already been purchased, so Cranston Seymour Parsley III invested in the Good Luck Mine, the rich vein of which quickly petered out. He sold his interest in the mine before its petering out became common knowledge.
Mr. Parsley fatally fractured the enraged purchaser's skull with his cane when the man attempted to stab him with a Bowie knife. The Englishman invested his profits in a brothel.
Montenegro was at the northern end of Rustlers' Road, an historic cattle rustling route, first utilized by Comanche raiding parties into Mexico, then by Texican rustlers.
The little town provided an easily defensible position for the rustlers to rest and re provision. It was located between Black Mountain, and Lookout Ridge.
Mexican ranchers ceased their pursuit of the rustlers before getting within rifle range of Lookout Ridge.
That is where Cranston Seymour Parsley III, The Gentleman Killer, established what became known as the fanciest brothel west of the Pecos and east of the Barbary Coast. The brothel attracted ranchers, cowboys, merchants and miners for more than a hundred miles around, and army officers from Fort Davis.
Casinos, saloons, restaurants and hotels sprouted up around Parsley's brothel.
The construction of the Black Mountain Federal Prison in 1903 ended Montenegro's Wild West era. Local ranchers and prison officials didn't want their wives and children exposed to the flagrant debauchery of the wide open town. A reform minded county judge and commissioners got a reform minded sheriff elected. He hired reform minded deputies.
Almost overnight, Montenegro almost became a ghost town. The Gentleman Killer bought up property cheap, usually at tax auctions, including the fanciest hotel in town. The hotel was passed down to his descendants, who were all born in England, and raised in Montenegro, but sent to university in England. Few returned.]
Billie Jean continued, "Quicksilver City is a high dollar resort on the south end of the county, on the Rio Grande. Dave says it looks like a movie set for westerns. There's a spot called Rudy's Butte. There's The Rudy's Butte Store, a motel and curio shop, a rock shop, a laundromat, Red's Cafe, and the EMS/volunteer fire department station. And, believe it or not, art galleries."
"What's in Montenegro?"
"The main employer is the minimum security federal prison. Dave calls it a Club Fed. Other major employers are the school district, the county, and the city. There's the hotel, motels, restaurants, a movie house, an independent grocery store, a couple Mom & Pop shops. They do a good weekend business with the prisoners' visitors--mostly very affluent spouses and lawyers. The city doesn't have a police department. It contracts with the sheriff's office and constables for law enforcement."
"Not exactly a booming metropolis."
The Gazette looks like shit. The current owner/publisher/editor and his family have absolutely no journalism education or experience. They've been publishing it for 25 years. Dave got it cheap. He's giving me a free hand to do whatever I want with it. I have total editorial control. He'll write a weekly letter from the publisher for the op/ed page."
Most of our furniture was second or third hand or picked up from the curbside, so we donated it to the Salvation Army. My vehicle was a silver gray 2-door 1960 Ford Falcon station wagon with mirror tinted windows. The kid who owned it before me in 1969, had recently seen 'Easy Rider,' and thought my Honda 250 motorcycle was cooler than his Fuck Wagon, so we traded. Billie Jean's father gave her a red 1968 Opel GT as her high school graduation present. My Fuck Wagon had a roof rack. We loaded up our clothes, books, typewriters, cameras, lenses, and kitchen paraphernalia. Felicia's stuffed toy boxes were strapped to the roof rack.
We left at midnight on the 27th, and stopped twice on the twelve hour trip. We used a cheap pair of CB walkie talkies to communicate. We arrived at the Montenegro Gazette at 12:30 p.m. It was cold and windy--barely above freezing.
Dave showed us the story announcing the new management and editorial team.
Dave started his career as a reporter, and decided he wanted to be a publisher. He worked as an ad salesman, an ad director, a trouble shooter for Gulfland Newspaper Corporation, before going on his own and buying the Gazette.
Billie Jean has been around newspapers since she was 10 years old, and her best friend's mother was a reporter for the Chemical City Sun. Billie Jean went to work for the Sun as an intern while in college, and worked her way up to city editor. Becoming a managing editor had been her ambition since she was ten.
Philip Lander served four years in the U.S. Navy (Dave didn't mention the fact that I hated the fucking military, and was lucky to get through my hitch without being court-martialed for insubordination.) I worked as a deckhand on a towboat before being hired by the Chemical City Fire Department, where I served two years, then four years as a police officer on the CCPD before going into journalism as a reporter/photographer. I like what I do. I'm good at what I do, and I don't want to do anything else. I have no ambition.
Helen Stillwell, the previous owner's 18-year-old granddaughter, asked if she could stay on as the receptionist/secretary/typist.
"Can you type?" Billie Jean asked.
"I was the third fastest in my typing class."
"Prove it," Billie Jean said, opening a letter to the editor, and handing it to her.
The handwriting was barely legible. Helen typed it up and handed it to Billie Jean.
"No misspellings. No typos. You're hired."
The girl gave a delighted squeal.
"Save your enthusiasm, kid," Billie Jean said. "You're going to be working your ass off for the next three or four weeks until we get this rag in shape, and a workable routine going."
We checked into the Montenegro Hotel, where we were welcomed by general manager Charles Parsley, who was a very proper Englishman, wearing a dark blue suit with a black and white hounds-tooth vest. Felicia was thrilled when he bowed and kissed her hand.
The rooms weren't the choicest in the establishment. They were on the second floor, at the rear of the building directly above the hotel bar, The Backdoor Saloon. Our windows gave us an excellent view of the asphalt parking lot and a black rock cliff face .
During our first official weekend there, we held a big meet and greet in the hotel's ballroom, where I gave a press release writing class. I also designed some fill-in-the-blank forms for press releases, announcements, engagements, weddings, and obituaries. By the end of January, we had met everyone we need to meet in the City of Montenegro and the north end of the county.
No one in the north end of the county had anything good to say about the south end.
"Everybody down there is down there because they're running away from something -- the law, or ex wives, or enraged husbands."
"Nothing good ever came out of the south end."
"Drug smugglers, hippies, drop outs, outlaws, weirdo desert rats."
On January 29, I met with hotel manager, Charles Parsley, and told him that things pretty much settled down at the Gazette, and Billie Jean and I could begin looking for a house or apartment.
"That may be difficult. There's a severe housing shortage, and no one is building new units. There's speculation that the prison will be shut down next year. That has been speculated every year for the past decade at least. I'll be happy to extend the advertising trade out for as long as Dave will run it," he said.
"I cannot thank you enough for the way you and your staff have treated our family, and watched Felicia when we were late picking her up after school."
The school bus picked her up and dropped her off at the hotel. Either her mother or I would meet the bus and take her to the newsroom. She told us she would rather hang out in her room, watching TV, than being stuck in the newsroom.
Mr. Parsley assured us that it would not present a problem. He and the staff would watch out for her during our absence. Felicia loved the old hotel. I would later discover that Mr. Parsley didn't restrict our daughter to her room. She was pretty much given free run of the hotel as long as she didn't disturb any of the guests. She was like the hotel's mascot. Everyone adored her.
After talking to Mr. Parsley, I headed south. It was my duty to establish contacts and cover Quicksilver City and Rudy's Butte. I stopped at Rudy's Butte Shopping Center. There was the Rudy's Butte store and porch, Rudy's Butte Liquor Store, The Rudy's Butte Rock Shop, The Rudy's Butte Re-Sale Shop, and The Rudy's Butte Laundromat. The building was constructed of various building materials. The original building was adobe. The first add-ons were rock. The most recent additions were cinder block.
Across the road from the shopping center was the Chihuahuan Desert Resort and curio shop, a prefabricated motel with 20 rooms in two sections. Next to it was Red's Cafe, the EMS First Aid Station, and The Volunteer Fire Station . Red's was a stuccoed adobe building with a large porch. The first aid station was a metal building. The fire Station was an uninsulated corrugated steel shed. Behind those structures were four adobe huts that housed art galleries.
I went into the store, and introduced myself to the clerk, Josephine (Jo Mama) Hernandez, a hefty Mexican woman with a big friendly smile, that I later learned could be turned upside down into a fearsome scowl when Jo Mama was aggravated.
She pressed an intercom button and said, "Don. Sheila. There's a handsome man from the Gazette who wants to meet you."
"We don't want to buy an ad," Sheila said.
"I don't sell ads. I'm the Gazette's new reporter. I'm told that y'all are community leaders."
"Wait."
Two minutes later Don and Sheila Willis walked in the back door. Sheila was a short fat woman in her early 60s who was probably beautiful in her youth. There was a hint of mischief in her smile.
Don was a sophisticated looking white haired, white mustached, physically fit gentleman in his late 60s. He was also the justice of the peace.
"It's on fire!" Jo Momma shouted.
"What?"
"The Bronco that just pulled up to the gas pumps!"
Smoke was billowing out from under the hood. A young Mexican got out, lifted the hood, then immediately slammed it shut, jumped back in the vehicle and drove away at high speed, lost control, and swerved nose down into a small arroyo. He jumped out and fled.
The smell was easily identifiable. Marijuana. A man grabbed a fire extinguisher from the fire truck, popped the hood and sprayed the CO2. A crowd gathered and stood downwind, inhaling deeply.
The crowd looked like movie extras from central casting from old B grade westerns and pirate movies, with a few hippies and bikers. Nearly all of the males and a couple of females sported facial hair.
The smuggler had wrapped the pot in aluminum foil, and packed it in the depressions of the exhaust manifold, obviously unaware of the fact that exhaust manifolds got very hot.
Sheila took the opportunity to introduce me, reading from my business card, "Folks, this here is Philip Lander, staff writer for the Montenegro Gazette."
A middle aged woman with an Orange Little Orphan Annie hair-do and whorish makeup shook my hand, and said, "I'm Red. That's my joint over there. Are you married?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Damn. You're welcome here anyway. This is Monday. All you can eat hot dog night. Ninety nine cents."
The tall skinny septuagenarian deputy sheriff, Johnny Holder introduced himself. I asked for an on-the-record comment about the pot smuggler. The only thing he told me that I didn't already know was that the license plates were stolen, and belonged to a '69 Camero that was in the sheriff's impound lot.
Everybody took turns introducing themselves. "I hope y'all know that I am not going to remember all of these names. And I probably won't be able to connect the names if I do remember to the face."
There were two names and faces I couldn't forget; Saddle Bag Sam, and Dangerous Dan.
Sam had long hair and a bushy handlebar mustache. He was once blond, but enough gray had invaded to turn his hair the color of a very old urine stained bed sheet.
"Mah frien, ma frien, ah'm Backpack Pete," he said in a deep south accent. "Mah Daddy's a bootlegger, mah sistah's a whore, mah brotha's a queer, and ah'm the black sheep of the family. Could you lend me twenty dollahs?"
I don't know why I did it. I wasn't in the financial position to be giving away twenty bucks. I pulled my wallet out, opened it, and handed him two tens.
I didn't meet Dangerous Dan in Rudy's Butte. I was halfway to Quicksilver City when I saw several adobe and rock huts, and what looked like a small cemetery on a hill on the north side of Quicksilver Road. I followed a heavily traveled jeep trail to the huts, got out, and was photographing the cemetery when I was approached by a handsome man with longish sandy hair blowing wildly in the wind. His demented grin gave me I a twinge of trepidation.
"You look cold," he said, shaking my hand, "You're welcome to come into my dugout and warm up. I got hot coffee on the stove."
The mock cemetery was on a large knoll on the top of the hill. The wild man's abode was dug into the west side of the knoll. A 4-inch stovepipe exhaled bluish white smoke into the frigid air. He explained the mock cemetery was a movie set from some western I had never heard of.
"I'm Dangerous Dan," he said. "Maybe you've heard of me; Dangerous Dan and the Lost Boys Band. I'm lead vocalist, guitarist, and lyricist."
"I'm new here. I'm the south end reporter for the Montenegro Gazette," I said as we entered the welcomed warmth of the dugout.
A pretty blond big titted woman poured cowboy coffee into mugs as we entered. "My wife, Big Boobs Becky. You can call her Boobs. My son, Hawkeye."
"I'm almost seven!" the shaggy haired kid announced. He had his father's grin.
"And our baby, Delilah. She'll be a year old tomorrow. She hasn't earned a nickname yet."
Boobs put a splash of Kahlua into two of the mugs, and raised the bottle. "Want some?" she asked seductively.
"Sure. Why not?"
"This is Phil Lander. He's the reporter for the Gazette. He's going to make me and the Lost Boys famous."
"I don't do reviews," I said. "My wife's the music, theater, and movie reviewer."
He gave me a hard look, squinting his left eye. "Far all I know, you're an undercover narc, posing as a newspaperman. If so," he said, opening his coat, and withdrawing a hand rolled cigarette from his shirt pocket, "you'll have to bust me, because I'd love to share this joint with you."
My smile gave him my answer. He handed me the joint, and struck a large kitchen match. We toked and talked and sipped Kahlua laced cowboy coffee. Danny had served time in prison for burglary. "If you want drugs, go to an old fart's medicine cabinet."
He gave up his career as a petty thief and house burglar to become a petty pot dealer. His music hadn't taken him north of The Portal, a gap in the foot of Pregnant Squaw Mountain, that served as the northern boundary of the south end. He played for drinks and tips. The Lost Boys got experience. The band members were high school kids, who played drums, bass guitar, and an accordion. Dan was also a part time river guide.
I asked the price of pot. It was astoundingly cheap. "Pablo Acosta's farmers sell a little of the crop themselves to locals. If they get too greedy and sell too much, the Federales come in, rip up the crop and beat the shit out of the farmer."
"Pablo Acosta?"
"El Zorro de Ojinaga--The Ojinaga Fox. The drug lord who controls the marijuana and heroin trade along more than 200 miles of the border. He's got Sheriff Dee in his back pocket. Hell, he smuggles tons of pot and heroin in the sheriff's horse trailer."
"Bullshit!" I laughed.
"Check it out. Rick Dee is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. On second thought, don't check it out. You'll get yourself killed."
Sheriff Richard 'Rick' Dee was one of the first officials Billie Jean and I met. He was a classic good old boy. In addition to having been the county sheriff for more than 16 years, he was a deacon and lay preacher at the First Baptist Church of Montenegro. Everyone on the north end sang his praises.
Criminals--and Dangerous Dan was a career criminal--always suspect the law of being corrupt.
"Deputy Buddy's a different story. He's a cool dude. He doesn't hassle anybody. He ain't a pushover. You don't want to get on his wrong side. He doesn't sweat the small stuff. He won't bust pot heads for just being pot heads. You don't smoke when he's around. You show him respect, he shows you respect. He's been known to give drunks rides home. Everybody down here has his back. Threaten Buddy, and you've got a lot of pissed off desert rats to deal with. The constable, John Klingerman, is in cahoots with the sheriff."
I thanked Dan and Boobs for the coffee and the high, and went to Quicksilver City. It was a western movie set town. All of the employees and merchants dressed in 1880-90s costumes. The security officers wore tin stars and Colt Peacemaker replicas. I saw a security officer stop at a billboard that had old wanted posters. He tore two things off the board, wadded them up, and threw them into a wastebasket.
I retrieved and unwadded them. One was an UnWanted poster with Patrick Hershel Brown's photograph, date of birth, hair color, eye color, height and weight. The other piece of paper was a sign:
THE FIRINGS
WILL CONTINUE
UNTIL MORALE
IMPROVES
It was obviously not an official Quicksilver City announcement.
The shops along the boardwalk included a drug store with an old fashioned soda fountain, over the counter drugs, and various candies at tourist trap prices; a saloon, a restaurant, a western boutique, a souvenir shop, a barber shop, and, of course, an old timey photography studio, where you could get a wanted poster of yourself made. The Quicksilver Stables at the dead end of Main Street were about a block away from the other buildings. The stables complex also housed Quicksilver River Tours.
At the restaurant, I had a very good, but overpriced burger, while I eavesdropped on conversations around me. Disgruntled employees had posted the 'Morale posters,' because the new general manager was a megalomaniacal petty tyrant.
I went to the petty tyrant's office and introduced myself to the secretary.
She pressed the intercom button, "A Mr. Lander from the Montenegro Gazette to see you, Mr. Brown. He's a reporter."
"I'm busy. Tell him I'll be with him in a few minutes."
The secretary rolled her eyes.
I took out another business card and wrote on the back, 'I don't wait for anyone,' and handed it to the secretary. "Tell Mr. Brown to call me at the Gazette before noon Friday to set up an interview appointment. I am never late, and I don't expect to wait."
The secretary suppressed a chuckle.
I interviewed the head wrangler, Doug Davis, for Thursday's Down South Personality Profile. He told of accidents and funny incidents on the trail, and the ups and downs of dealing with dudes. Davis and the other wranglers were private contractors, not Quicksilver City employees, meaning the resort didn't have to pay employee tax or provide benefits, or pay minimum wage, although they were treated like employees.
I visited with the wranglers and river guides and got an earful of General Manager Patrick Brown stories. Davis said that he'd have some recently fired employees contact me.
When I returned to The Gazette, Billie Jean said, "A mister Patrick Brown called and complained about your behavior. I informed him that you had a lot of territory to cover and a lot of people to see, and didn't have the time to sit in someone's waiting room. I scheduled the interview for 9 A.M. Monday. Don't be late."
"Am I ever?"
It had taken less than a month for my efficient, and highly organized wife to organize the operation and assign duties. Either of us could have run the editorial department single-handedly. Our workdays were no longer long and hectic. We had plenty of free time.
Helen proved to be an enthusiastic and efficient receptionist, typist, secretary. Life was good.
I processed the film and made prints of the pot fire, Deputy Buddy Holder, and Doug Davis with his wranglers mounting their horses.
"I'll write the stories tomorrow," I said. "It's been a long day, and a nearly 200 mile round trip."
"I hope you won't be too tired to fuck tonight after Felicia goes to sleep."
"If I'm asleep, you'll have no trouble arousing and energizing me with your magic mouth and tongue, Babe."
Billie Jean and I both began our journalism careers at our hometown newspaper, the Chemical City Sun, on the Texas Gulf Coast. My wife divorced me within a year after I left the police department. She found someone who made enough to support her extravagant shopping addiction. She had never been good in bed, and didn't seem to enjoy sex. Not with me, anyway. I fucked around on her a lot. It seemed my wedding band attracted, rather than repelled lovers.
I also had an ongoing affair with the Sun's managing editor, my boss, Mary Ann Borden. Her husband, Mick, was aware of and consented to our extramarital activities. I also fucked the advertising department's photographer, who once gave me a blowjob in the darkroom. After the divorce, I was in pussy heaven. My playboy reputation was well known in the county.
Billie Jean was eight years younger than me, and was a drugs, sex, and Rock 'n' Roll hippie in the sixties. She believed in the adage that you shouldn't have affairs with coworkers. Then, she married, and took her vows seriously. We flirted, but it never went further than that until her husband deserted her and their baby.
We dated, and made out, but she wouldn't go all the way until the divorce was officially final.
Then we fucked. It was the most incredible sexual experience either of us had ever enjoyed. As soon as her cunt sucked my cock in to the hilt, we both lost any and all inhibitions. It was a wild, dirty-talking, no-hold-barred, sexual extravaganza that lasted the entire weekend. Neither of us remember stopping to eat or drink until we had to go to work Monday morning. When we weren't fucking, we were feeling, fondling, caressing and kissing while listening to Janice Joplin and Don McLean.
We were inseparable after that.
That night, I dozed off before Felicia went to sleep. Billie Jean woke me with a fantastic blow job. That woman knows how to suck cock. I believe she could suck-start a motorcycle. She got me off, and brought me up again. And I believe she could milk a cow with her cunt if you could get a teat in it.
In Chapter 2 - 8-year-old Felicia finds out Mommy and Daddy are wannabe swingers...
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