The Mustang Chronicles Volume 1: Rockett '68 (Second Edition)

Table of Contents

~ Full-Title Page ~ TMC1 Paperback ~

~ Author's Note ~ Half-Title Page ~ Singularity ~

~ Epigraph ~

CHAPTER 1.1 + CHAPTER 1.2

CHAPTER 2.1 + CHAPTER 2.2

CHAPTER 3.1 + CHAPTER 3.2

CHAPTER 4.1 + CHAPTER 4.2

CHAPTER 5.1 + CHAPTER 5.2

CHAPTER 6.1 + CHAPTER 6.2

CHAPTER 7.0

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~ About TMC1 Paperback ~ TMC1 Art by DSJ ~

~ About DSJ ~ Dust-Jacket Blurb ~

~ Full Copyright ~ Back Cover ~

CHAPTER 1.1: PETTY’S

One August, 1968.

I am Picaro. Get outta my way or git run over.

Mister, I don’t want no trouble! He flits his hands back and forth chest-high.

I gun it. 500 ponies scream. Then get outta my way.

No movement. I gun it again and slam up into First. Pop it good. Figure leaping. Tires smoke. Glass shatters. Wood splinters. Down into Reverse. Pop it mild. Stab the brakes. Flick it into Neutral. Stomp the sissy brake and leave her running.

I jump out. Walk through the ragged hole. Now that bastard is standing in front of the cash register, staring wildly. He musta run around and come in some back door.

Dumb move. I sneer. In a flash I have the sawed-off outta my holster and one of his eyes on each side of the bead. Click Click. Hammers cocked. My trigger finger points straight out pressed hard against the trigger guard.

Blood drains from his face. I motion up with the muzzles. Up. He stabs his hands above his bastard head. Looks all panicky. I level the sawed-off down to his bastard chest. Gonna have to give me the goodies in the register now, Pal. Sack it up.

He grabs a brown bag and turns around. My eyes stay glued to his back. His right elbow moves wildly. I grab blindly at the shelves to my left. Shove everything I can get my left hand on into the backseat.

My new pal’s elbow slows. He tries to snigger some bills into his pants pocket on the sly.

All of it! Now! He jumps at the suddenness of my booming voice. Piss starts running down his right trouser inseam. Jesus. I hate pussies. I raise my muzzles back up. Turn around. He does. Fear blots each of his eyes, now again one on each side of the bead. They transfix on mine. Up. He does.

Throw in a pack of Reds. He keeps his left hand in the air and grabs a pack from under the counter. The pack shakes chest-high in his right hand. In the bag. He does like he’s about to fall off some balance beam. Now fold the top and toss it here, easy-like. He does. I catch the top lefty and sidearm it onto the front passenger seat.

I keep my bead. Grab blind into the cold case behind me. Throw a six pack of cans into the back seat. Gotta bail before this pussy has a chance to do something stupid. He already pissed his pants. Standing there like no kinda man. Hands shaking below the ceiling.

Ponies stand ready. I uncock click click and reholster. Glare that bastard down. Jump back into her. Slam the door. Shift down into Reverse. Gun it. Tires smoke. Glass shards fly. Pussy ducks behind the counter to shield himself from the shrapnel.

Shelby’s front end flies out of the ragged hole. Tears over the storefront’s remnants. I punch her clutch and slam up into First. Pop it good. She spins around on a dime. Tires wail. Choking cloud falls behind. We roar out onto the highway.

I peel open a PayDay bar. Shove it in my grill and start chompin. Pull down hard into Second. Sun glints off the chrome sideview. No hard feelings about Petty’s Gas & Goodies. Fading fast now up in the rearview. I shift up hard into Third.

Adrenaline pumps. I lope Shelby up to ninety five. Keep her wrapped out in Third. I love her throaty roar. Almost perfect. Hold her steady just above 4200 RPM. Scenery flies. Blow past Soldier’s Summit. Then fast down the other side. Shelby’s just achin to go balls out. And so am I. I wish I had me one of them free-loving hippie chicks right about now. Horny enough to turn a couple of nice girls to the dark side.

Gotta focus.

I keep Shelby under 100. Don’t want her blowin her cool after bashin the hell outta that coward’s puny little store.

∞ ≈ ∞

Time for a stop at old Binnsey’s place. Figure it’s about 100 klicks. Plenty of high-test Tetraethyl Leaded to make it there. And then some, courtesy of Petty himself. That bastard filled Shelby to the brim before running to shield his store. He’s lucky he threw in the pack of Reds and didn’t do anything stupid. I woulda blasted a barrel apiece at both pumps leavin if he had.

That pussy pissed himself for chrissake. All weak up between the knees. I’ve seen girl scouts stand taller. To a fatass little bully who swiped a box of cookies. 4300 RPM. Shelby’s blasting straight and strong down the centerline. Probably spitting splinters out of her grill. But no signs of trouble. I flick the knob to turn on the radio. Punch the second button. Jim Morrison belts Riders on the Storm out over Shelby’s roar. Robby and Ray lilt the melody along flawlessly behind old Jim. Right proper.

Maybe Binnsey’s got a better stereo. I fuckin hope. I pop the tab off what turns out to be a Coors Banquet. Chuck the tab out the window and take a pull. Right proper on my parched throat. Taking what’s mine’s a thirsty business. Hold the can and the wheel with my left hand. Shift soft down into Fourth with my right. Ease Shelby up to a hundred and ten.

She’s gonna hold. And that’s pretty fucking alright.

CHAPTER 1.2: BINNSEY'S PLACE

I whip Shelby’s rear end around. Fishtail right. Spray gravel up good against the massive corrugated metal wall. Spin her around parallel to it. Stomp the sissy brake and slip her into Neutral. Gun the engine one last time.

Sundown melts away behind mountains to the west. The last of my adrenaline rush melts with it. I feel a calm satisfaction. Reflect in slow motion on today’s exploits. Every vivid detail. Back to the now. I cut the ignition and look straight ahead.

Old Binnsey comes tearing around the corner of his metal behemoth. He’s a stout man. Like someone fertilized an oversized bowling ball til it sprouted barrel legs, ham hock arms, and a well-proportioned head. Topped with a thick tousle of salt and pepper. Hair cropped short. He may be stout, but he’s quick in bursts. And he’s closing fast.

His squinty eyes draw a bead through thick glasses. I pop myself outta Shelby. Whip back my braid and kill the lights. Binnsey recognizes my silhouette against the gathering dusk. His barrel legs stop pumping. Ham hock arms stop mid-swing. A smile rises like a waxing crescent moon lopsided on his face.

Paco, you rat bastard! You gave me half a heart attack!

I stab the mottled end of a Red between my lips. Whip out my Zippo lighter. Flick it open and spin the wheel. Light the white end. Take a long draught. Sneak a peek at the engraved Semper Fidelis logo as I exhale. Snap the lid shut to kill the flame.

Good to see you too, Binnsey old chap. Maybe next time I’ll ride in on a tricycle. Save your heart.

Jesus Paco… what now? Binnsey looks at the jagged marks on Shelby’s front end. He squats and semi-circles it. Back and forth like a taut little sumo sizing up his opponent.

Binnsey is one of only three men who ever dared call me Paco. Or bastard. Or anything else besides Sir or Picaro, not counting the ladies. After two tours slogging through the stink together in Vietnam, watching each other’s backs, Binnsey’s earned the lifetime privilege. The other two, well. They’re both dead.

As for the ladies, well. They can choose. Baby and Darlin and Sugar Daddy or Whaledick… Gotta get laid son. Binnsey snaps me out of it with his pitchy, oddly adolescent voice.

Jesus Paco. He’s already repeating himself. I haven’t been here more than five minutes.

Just a few scratches and a bent bumper. That’s all I see.

Binnsey shakes his head incredulously. Stares at me like I’m some kinda heretic. Mustangs are a religion to this man. Like their all his blessed children somehow, every fuckin one. He’d rather sail a screaming infant down a river than see any harm done to a proper pony car.

Next time use a Camaro, for chrissakes!

God, I love this man.

I flick the Red butt into the gravel.I know where and how to punch through the side of a shack. She runs right as rain, Binns. I’m tellin ya. Not leaking a thing. She tracks straight as an arrow, maybe out half a degree. Pull her in and look for yourself.

I toss Binnsey the keys. He shakes his head and ducks tightly into Shelby. Fires her up and pulls her around the corner. I walk behind and into the gaping maw of Binnsey’s shop. The place is big enough to park a dozen tyrannosaurs three by four. I slide the massive corrugated door shut.

Time to get down to business.

∞ ≈ ∞

It’s been a good while, so I size the place up. It mirrors Binnsey’s methodical manner. Ready for all contingencies. Mustang carcasses in various states of dissection line the floor next to the right wall. Stacks of tires jut up toward the ceiling along the back wall. A rack above holds a cache of wheels and assorted suspension parts.

A gaggle of machine tools stand sentry in the left rear quadrant. Exhaust pipes and headers hang from hooks high on the left wall. Axles, springs, gears, and drivetrain components stuff large cubby holes high on the right wall, accessed by a rolling ladder. Cannibalized fenders, hoods, monocoques, and assorted body parts dangle from sturdy hooks in the ceiling. If these were human parts, Mary Shelley would be proud.

But Binnsey’s medium is Mustangs—not mortified flesh. Four kick-ass Stangs stand ready in a smart row in the center of the shop. Another stands on a hypotenuse of the right front corner of the shop. It’s covered in a tarp, nose pointed toward the door. Nothing visible except for the few last inches of tire above the floor. Set apart for very good reason, no doubt.

An impossibly long workbench consumes two-thirds of the left wall and bears numerous scars. Divots and saw marks. Black scorches. Three lighted magnifying lamps mount the front edge of the bench at equidistant intervals. Five vices of various sizes follow suit. Shelves low on the wall above the workbench bear stacks of Hot Rod magazines; Petersen’s, Mitchell, and FoMoCo manuals; as well as myriad parts catalogs. Regular professor of his craft, old Binnsey is.

On the wall just above the bench surface, all manner of torque wrenches, ratchets, pliers, timing lights, clamps, and pry bars hang on pegs anchored in pegboard. Black outlines silhouette each tool’s assigned position. More than a few outlines are vacant of their tools. Implements of the moment out for the tasks at hand.

Retractable hand lights hang from the ceiling every twelve feet or so, just within reach down the center of the shop. Ready for quick grabbing and unreeling. Tire machines. Towering tool boxes. Mechanics’ creepers. Wheeled stools. Pneumatic lifts. Air hoses. Impact wrenches. Floor jacks. Jack stands. Drip pans. Gallon jugs of brake and steering fluids. Fat cylindrical barrels marked 10-40 Oil and Fuel and Coolant 50/50 Premix.

Greasy rags and the missing tools are scattered haphazardly around three sides of a recently vacated rectangle of floor.

End of recon.

Binnsey motions me over to the tarp. Home to what made the rectangle, no doubt. He whips off the tarp like some tablecloth trickster. Jesus, that blower is huge. He pops the hood.

He tilts his head back, looks over his spectacles, anxious to wax professorial.

The chassis’s a Sixty-Six two-door fastback that I trailered back from Durango. Some idiot lawyer gave it to his sixteen year old kid as a birthday gift. Shithead promptly wrapped the front end on the goddamn thing around a telephone pole. Got her straightened up real nice though, to better than factory specs. I got a new clamping system and alignment machine. She turned out real nice.

I pull out a Red and spark up the fag.

"I dropped in a 428 Cobra Jet V-8 crate motor, straight from Ford Racing. Now that’s some serious racing iron. Intercooled Roots blower’s belt-driven off the crank with a clutch pulley, with a linkage to the cabin to engage it. That lets me cut parasitic power loss at low revs and idle speed. I had Eustace and his brother over in Wellsville custom machine the throttle body. Tuned the whole shootin match for the perfect 14:1 air-to-fuel ratio, high flow to feed her big bores. Built the accelerator linkages and cams here in the shop myself. An Edelbrock aluminum manifold slams all that potential energy into the block. I hand-polished the intake ports to a mirror-finish. Spent three damn days wet sanding and about 20 boxes of fine grit to get all the ports perfectly smooth. Shiny enough you coulda used them to touch-up your makeup in."

Make up? Really lame, Binns.

Is that how you did yours today? I ask.

But Binnsey just keeps grinding his gear head. The man’s passionate. Gotta respect that.

"Engine’s blueprinted, balanced, stroked, and like I said, bored. Cylinders all hand-honed. Custom forged dome pistons with high-tensile rings and alloy connecting rods. Bumps her up to a 14:1 compression ratio. Had to fly-cut the domes to keep them from bashing into the valve heads. Speaking of which, I put in an Autosports Shelby high-lift cam kit, with matching pushrods, hydraulic tappets, and high-tensile valve springs. The cam’s computer designed, if you can believe that. Precision ground to ten-thousandths tolerance. It all drives Shelby’s oversized intake and exhaust valves.

For spark, I installed an Accel distributor and coil that shoots 48,000 volts. MagnaFlow long-tube headers flow into three-inch pipes then into an X pipe to balance out the exhaust pressure and give her that nasty growl. Three-inch back pipes flow into two three-and-a-half inch glass-packs that I fabricated here in the shop myself. Man do those things sweeten the note. She sounds mean as hell, better than that Mustang Steve McQueen drives in Bullitt. Great movie. Shame he ended up bashing the hell outta that car.

Just a shame.

Anyhow, I had to make some cuts in the engine compartment and underneath to fit it all in. Ripped out everything unnecessary, including the back seat, carpet, and spare tire. She runs 260 pounds lighter than stock."

Christ Binns, you built a monster. He doesn’t hear me.

Beefed-up Ford Toploader four-speed tranny, snagged that one out of a 68 Boss that some asshole from Nebraska totaled driving drunk on Highway 6. Topped the tranny with a Hurst close ratio shifter with a killer billet aluminum T handle. Got it angled off the perpendicular to the centerline, just right for me to precisely control each shift. And the whole rig’s plenty stout, so I can really lay into it.

Shit, I love those T handles man I say it as I glance inside the beast.

He still didn’t hear me.

Dual-plate racing clutch. Set its pedal action nice and stiff. Put in a racing driveshaft I got down in Salt Lake City, they got that thing balanced to a T. Stock Shelby 4.11 Traction Lock rear end. Had to adjust the 66’s speedometer after I upped the rear end gearing.

He stops and smiles.

I nod and take a drag off my fag.

I’m definitely feeling his religion.

"I TIG welded custom aluminum cross braces and mounted them under the hood and in the trunk to stiffen her up and reduce body roll, so she can pull higher Gs in the turns. American Racing forged aluminum wheels. Those knock eight pounds of unsprung weight off each wheel, so she should rip through the curves and corner like a dream. Ford Racing springs and rear sway bar, and some pretty stiff Monroe shocks all around. I put two inch spacers on top of the rears to keep her slightly nose down, like every Mustang should be if you ask me. It all sits on Goodyear Speedway 350s to keep her glued to the road. And the large white letters on those things sure do look purdy. Oh, and I installed wheelie bar brackets underneath on the rear of the frame, just in case she wanders by a straight track. Then I can really open her up."

What, no hood pins? He hears that.

Binnsey looks non-plussed at me. "She dyno-ed out at 784 horses and 740 foot-pounds at the rear wheels. Pretty damn hard to top that. Nothing around here can beat her."

I whistle approvingly. Very impressive. Fast as a fuckin whip, I’m sure. What’s her name?

Sally. Binnsey’s smile is back.

Sally’s deep metallic blue skin shimmers a greenish hue from the yellowing light of the sodium lamps hanging high above. Morphing yellow discs reflect from her two metallic white racing strips that run tip-to-tail. I stare at her angular lines and gleaming paint. There’s no denying that Sally is one badass motherfucker. Man.

Now for the cherry on top. Binnsey walks me around to Sally’s rear end. Smack dab between her tail lights, an ornate hooded cobra stares back at us with fangs bared and bloodied.

Painted that myself. Binnsey always has been a mechanical maestro with an odd, frilly artistic flair.

Why there?

Because it’s the last thing the other guy sees after he’s been bitten by Sally the Snake.

How’s she drive?

Don’t know. Haven’t taken her out yet. Just finished her up today.

I’ll take her out for you. Stacked girl like this shouldn’t be stuck inside a tin barn on a Friday night.

"No, Paco.