The Kings of Big Spring

by Bryan Mealer

  “Come in, come in,” Grady would say, half rising to his feet. The visitor’s eyes would take in the rich draperies and stuffed leather chairs, the liquor cart with its crystal decanters of whiskey, the glass jar of complimentary cigarettes. The sweeping vista through the window was like its own trophy on the wall. And perhaps for a second, their minds recalled an image from a secondhand story, told to them by their fathers and uncles, of the old man who once sat at the top of the Petroleum Building and how his office was always open. But a young man sat behind the desk now, one who’d managed to get his hands on the old man’s money. They’d ask for a loan anyway, for an investment in the business they dreamed of starting, because they heard the old man had cared about the community and his money still coursed like a river beneath it. Grady listened patiently, then thanked them for coming in, the way he knew the old man had done when he’d occupied that same seat of power. And then he’d open that big checkbook and put his fancy pen to work.

  By the afternoon, the Seagram’s VO was on the desk, the room was hazy from smoke, and Grady was loose and restless. The boys arrived from their half day at school—the same work-study program that Dad had done. Grady would stick his head out and find one of them loafing with his feet up on the desk, dipping snuff, and send him out to wash Ann’s Mercedes or the cream-colored Rolls-Royce he’d recently bought up in Dallas, previously owned. Or he’d ask one of them to gas up the limousine. Grady had granted Ann’s wish and fired the chauffeur, mainly because the Houstonian couldn’t orient himself on the flatland and kept getting lost. They’d pile into the limo and race down I-20, bound for Midland, like a gang of highwaymen, then blow into the Petroleum Club and order half the menu.

  It didn’t take long for Dad to acclimate to the new lifestyle. Like most men when they first entered the oil game, he went into Bob Brock Ford, walked past the Mustangs and Thunderbirds of his youth, and picked out a new F-150.

  The thousand-dollar dinner bills no longer fazed him, and he got accustomed to a life lived by the minute. Like the afternoon when one of the boys in the office said something like, “You know, I’ve never been on an airplane,” whereupon Grady stuck his head out the door and told his secretary to call Southwest—they were going to Vegas. Soon everyone who’d been in the office was crammed into two limousines, speeding to the airport for the six o’clock flight. Dad barely had time to get Mom and take us kids to Bob and Opal’s, much less pack a bag. Grady even said, “Don’t worry about clothes, Bobby. We’ll buy new ones there.” But Mom said that was silly and packed a suitcase anyway.

  When they returned three days later, Mom told us about staying at Caesars Palace and playing the slot machines, how one night they’d gone to see David Copperfield’s magic show at the Hilton. “He made an entire Cadillac disappear,” she said, and I couldn’t even imagine.

  Dad came in wearing a brand-new leather jacket, a pair of snakeskin boots, and a crisp black Stetson. And with this ensemble, I noticed something else for the first time. Dad was wearing a western belt that his coworkers in Alvin—the Sandblasters—had given him as a farewell gift, their own talisman for the boom. On the back, in bold, black letters, it read: BIG BUCKS BOB.

  * * *

  I was still thinking about the disappearing Cadillac when, a few days later, Dad pulled up to the house in a long white Lincoln, a gift from the boss. We all ran outside to behold the thing, then stood in the yard gawking as Dad stepped out to show it off. Aside from my grandmother’s de Ville, it was the prettiest car I’d ever seen. Best of all, it was parked in my driveway.

  “Well, how do like your new car?” he said to Mom. “It belonged to Ann, but she hardly drives it anymore. Grady said I might as well give it to you.”

  Mom giggled. “I think it’s beautiful. But shouldn’t this be your company car?”

  “Those lease roads would tear it apart,” Dad said. “And I’ve got my pickup.” The wife of the vice president needed something better than an old Torino.

  When Dad saw my sister Marci and me peering through the window on our tippy-toes, he said, “Look here,” and opened the back door and motioned us in. “Go on, have a look.” I climbed into the backseat and marveled at the luxury: burgundy carpets, chrome-plated instruments, wood paneling. The white leather seats were as long and wide as my own bed and carried the familiar traces of liquor and cigarettes. I took a deep breath and ran my hand along the cool surface, not knowing that this beautiful car would be the first casualty of the boom.

  * * *

  It happened at the tail end of that long, wild summer of 1981. In early August, Mom received word that her grandmother had died in Snyder. The funeral for Mrs. Curtis was being held that coming Saturday morning and Dad was scheduled to be a pallbearer. Mom’s Lincoln would lead the procession, since everyone agreed it was the nicest car in the family. Mom was distraught by the news, naturally, so the evening before the service Dad hired a babysitter and took Mom on a date to the Branding Iron, hoping to raise her spirits.

  For Mom, it was a much-needed night out. Dad had been working late, staying out until 3 a.m. with Grady and the boys and leaving her at home with us kids. She got Marci and me ready for school in the morning and picked us up in the afternoon, then fed and bathed us and got us into bed—all while tending to my baby sister. Many nights we ate dinner at Bob and Opal’s house because it was easier. Now that it was summer, Mom kept us busy all day with swim lessons and trips to the supermarket, maybe lunch at Uncle Herman’s restaurant to see him and Little Opal. At the same time, Mom was studying to get her real estate license. Each night after we were asleep, she sat up studying at the kitchen table, then crawled out of bed on Saturday and Sunday mornings to attend classes in Midland—forty miles away.

  That night at the Branding Iron, Dad promised he’d talk with Grady about getting off earlier and helping more at home. And he was sincere, for he knew how hard Mom worked to take care of us. They ordered steaks and shared a bottle of wine, which went down so easy that Dad ordered a second one, which he drank on his own. By the time they left the restaurant, he was feeling pretty good.

  He drove the babysitter home in the Lincoln. On the way back, Mom asked him to pick up some Pampers. But as he left the 7-Eleven, the warm August night beckoned, and he got a notion to keep the party going. Figuring Mom was already asleep, he threw a dime in the pay phone and called his buddy Chuck.

  It was good to see his old friend. They hadn’t hung out since Dad had eaten Orange Sunshine and thought Chuck was the Devil. Later, of course, Chuck had said those mean things about Dad being a narc. But all of that was behind them now. Dad told Chuck about driving to the preacher’s house that night and knocking on the door, how he was convinced he was dying, and they both had a laugh. Then Chuck rolled up a fat number and put on a Jethro Tull record.

  Before long, Dad started feeling sleepy and said he had to leave. He told his friend good-bye and walked out to the car, and that’s the last thing he remembered.

  It was his own blood that woke him up—blood running down his face and pooling in the cracks of his lips. He opened his eyes and felt a pain in his head. He saw broken glass covering his lap, the windshield spiderwebbed from end to end, and the hole where his head had momentarily left the vehicle. Outside, the hood was crushed like a beer can where it had hit a telephone pole. His first thought was to run.

  The DWI from Weatherford still hung on his record. Another one would cost him his license, or worse. Dad’s mind went into red alert. He cut the engine and took his keys, then reached over and popped the trunk. As he pushed open the door, he took a quick read of his bearings: he was on Goliad Street, heading south—or, on the sidewalk, anyway, and surrounded by houses. It was only a matter of minutes before somebody called the police.

  He ran around and opened the trunk. Down inside sat the flotsam of his life—a baby stroller, diaper bag, and extra car seat, all of it highly incriminating. He scooped them up one by one, then ran across the street to a small vacant lot. A little
mesquite bush was the best cover he could find, so he dumped it all there, then camouflaged the pile with handfuls of dead grass. He was out of his mind. Whenever the police found the car, he figured, it would be registered to Cunningham Oil.

  The accident occurred less than a mile from our house, and only a few blocks from Bob and Opal’s. But rather than go there and call Mom, Dad turned toward his office downtown. He weaved through empty streets and past darkened windows, his boot heels clicking in the morning silence. At every intersection, he looked for a place to hide—a tree, the shadow of a house—before sprinting across. Whenever a car approached, he dove onto his belly like an infantryman and waited for the headlights to pass.

  He reached downtown in minutes and kept on running, his lungs on fire, his head throbbing with pain. At one point, looking out for cars, he failed to see an open manhole and stepped right into it, badly scraping his leg. He was hobbling by the time he reached Fourth Street and saw the silhouette of First Assembly, standing in high relief against yet another Friday night. For a brief second he considered turning, just as the parapet lights of the Petroleum Building came into view. He quickened his pace.

  He used his key to get in the door, then took the elevator up to the Cunningham suite. In the bathroom, he washed the blood and bits of glass from his hair and examined the scrape on his forehead. The wound was still seeping blood, but it wouldn’t need stitches. He rinsed it off with some paper towels and cleaned up his leg, which was its own mess. He then thought about calling Mom, but decided it was best to stay there and sober up.

  Thinking about Mom, he remembered: her grandmother’s funeral. The service was eight hours away, and her Lincoln—the one they’d promised to lead the procession—sat totaled on Goliad Street. Dad walked into his office and sat behind his desk. There, alone with his brass pump jack, he felt himself well up with shame.

  The old church came to mind again like a haunting. He was taken back to those Sunday mornings, straight-backed in the pews, watching his mother and sisters lead the chorus, listening to how their voices weaved into one another like thread. He saw himself as a young boy during one of the sing-alongs that erupted after supper, all of the family pressed into Grandma and Grandpa’s living room to harmonize on “Just a Little Talk with Jesus.” How the dry summer breeze came through the open window smelling like cinnamon, and how the neighbors pulled up lawn chairs and listened to the music. And he remembered how one night, he glanced up and saw his uncle Herman not singing at all but just sitting there, smiling. The most amazing expression of peace had settled on his face. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and Dad knew at that moment that his uncle beheld the very Kingdom of God.

  How far he’d strayed from that place, and how many times. There had been moments when Jesus had confronted Dad and said, Give up everything and follow me. But Dad was like the rich man described in the Gospels, who was almost ready to commit, but could never surrender it all. He wondered now if it would be up there, at the top of the Petroleum Building, where his testimony would begin. He could hear himself telling the congregation, “I was drunk, stoned, and covered in blood, and still I was running.” And this time, he was running from the law while his wife and kids slept at home. Finally, he’d reached the end of the line. There was nowhere else to run.

  At that moment Dad became very afraid. The police were probably looking for him now, making calls, knocking on his door. Mom would see them, and for an instant she would fear that he was dead. He could see her face as she absorbed that wound, and the image made him physically ill.

  He needed to reach her before the police did, tell her what had happened, perhaps even try and find another car for the funeral. That he could fix. But even if she did forgive him, he still had the law to contend with.

  He picked up the telephone to dial the house, then stopped when he heard a noise in the hallway, near the elevator. He walked out to the reception desk to get a better listen, then heard it again—the sound of men talking. The cops, he thought. He ducked behind a file cabinet just as a key slid into the lock and the door swung open. Dad held his breath and waited. But it wasn’t the police he saw. Instead, standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, was Grady—wrapped in the hard embrace of a young cowboy.

  * * *

  When Dad stepped from behind the file cabinet like a blood-soaked ghoul, the men wheeled around in fright.

  “What the hell are y’all doing?” he shouted.

  He pointed to the cowboy, whom he did not recognize. “I said what the hell are you doing?”

  Grady stammered, but Dad cut him off. “Tell your friend he needs to leave. Now.”

  Grady looked at the man and nodded, and the man walked back into the hallway and disappeared. Embarrassed, Grady tried explaining the situation, but it was too much for Dad to process, especially in his condition. They would revisit it another day, or probably never. Dad stopped Grady short and motioned for the door. “I need you to take me home,” he said.

  * * *

  The police had no trouble finding Dad. A lady across the street had heard the crash and called 911. She then gave the dispatcher a play-by-play of a man who looked just like Bobby Mealer dumping a baby stroller into a vacant field, then running off into the night. Big Spring was a small town. When the police called Grady’s house and Ann picked up the phone, she confirmed everything they needed to know.

  But because Big Spring was a small town, there were escape hatches. There were friends. A squad car parked in front of our house the next morning and an officer knocked on the door. I was up watching cartoons when Dad staggered out of his bedroom, his head wrapped in a bandage. The officer was a guy named George whom Dad used to run with in high school. George told Dad how they’d traced his car and how the lady watched him flee the scene. He asked what happened.

  “I must’ve fallen asleep and hit the pole,” Dad said. “And I hit my head.”

  George nodded, scribbled some notes, then looked up at the bandage. “So you’re saying you left the scene in a confused state?”

  Dad smiled. “That’s exactly what happened.”

  The police dismissed the case as an accident. And although Dad was off the hook with the law, Mom was still furious. That night, he’d called her from the office before coming home, and she was waiting for him when he walked through the door. The sight of his bloody head and the threat of the police had pushed her into action. But after George left, she killed Dad with silence. That morning, they borrowed my grandmother’s Cadillac and drove to Snyder for the funeral, and Dad carried Mrs. Curtis’s casket, looking half dead himself.

  But Mom never stayed mad for long. Dad knew this better than anyone. After a few weeks, he was singing “Brown Eyed Girl” to her again and easing back into her graces.

  As for Dad and the Lord, well, he figured there was always time for forgiveness. And besides, it was hard to stay focused on Jesus when you were busy drilling for oil.

  12

  The gusher … life at the top …

  Cunningham Oil drilled its maiden well, the Guinn No. 1, on a warm day in September 1981, on a little ranch of low-slung hills covered with juniper, runty oak, and mesquite. The land, located in southwest Tom Green County, had belonged to a now-dead doctor, John Guinn, for whom the well was named, although a burly rancher named Bowman lived there now, leasing it for cattle. Up in the rock house by the road, Bowman’s beautiful wife gave Grady’s boys plenty to talk about.

  The oil lease was a farm-out from Amoco, which had drilled the acreage for years and resorted to flooding old wells with water to get them producing again. Although it was a heavily trodden field, the geologist, Orville Phelps, saw potential in a shallow formation called the San Angelo Sand.

  Next to the drill site, Grady parked his mother’s travel trailer to serve as a doghouse and place for Orville and Bob to examine the cuttings. Dad, Grady, and the boys were gathered round, beers in hand, ready to party, when the driller arrived at the gate. Whether Dad realized it or not, t
his marked a family milestone. After fifty years in the oil fields, we’d finally climbed down off the trucks and derrick floors and into the soft shoes of investment and return. Drinking a can of Coors while other men did the work was something akin to evolution.

  But the moment was somewhat spoiled when, to everyone’s disappointment, the driller pulled in carrying only two roughnecks. Furthermore, on the back of his International was a puny drilling rig that lay folded like a fireman’s ladder. Grady looked crestfallen.

  “Isn’t that thing supposed to be bigger?” he said, turning to Bob.

  “It’s plenty big,” the engineer replied. “We’re only going eleven hundred feet.”

  The rig was a Failing 1500, used mostly to drill for water. Its derrick stood maybe forty feet when erect and remained mounted to the truck, requiring no elaborate platform. It looked nothing like the towering rigs Dad and Grady were used to seeing from the highway, the ones that tunneled deep into the Ordovician and beyond, painted red and white and festooned with pretty lights at night—the kind of big iron my grandfather had worked for half his life.

  “Hell,” Grady said, “this thing looks like a peashooter.”

  The driller parked behind a line of trees, then lowered the hydraulic jacks and stabilizer to keep the truck from tipping over. A diesel motor thundered to life and the long pageant of drilling for oil began, a procession that in most places carried on for days and weeks, regardless of weather, the way it had been carried out for a hundred years through sand and deepwater, into mountain and pasture, and now here behind a quiet patch of juniper.

  A large drilling bit chewed into the soft ground about three hundred feet, spitting a gray cloud of sand and limestone. This was the starting hole, which the men filled with casing pipe that would guide the drill stem and keep the hole from collapsing as they bored deeper. A hopper truck arrived and poured cement down the hole to set the pipe in place, and once it was firm, they attached a smaller cone bit and prepared to go to depth. The driller revved the engine to three hundred rpms, the rotary table atop the International started to spin, and the process of drilling and casing repeated all the way down the hole—this one in the name of Grady Cunningham.