Contest #204 shortlist ⭐️

Gordita

Submitted into Contest #204 in response to: Set your story in a desert town.... view prompt

86 comments

Western Funny Adventure

This story contains themes or mentions of substance abuse.

You won’t find it on any map. When spoken of, it’s usually by old men drinking coffee at the local Dairy Queen. The town is part legend, part myth, a relic of the old west that left nothing behind to mark its existence save a lot of old bones and a half-buried, rotted sign displaying the town’s name.

Not that anyone has lately seen these bones, or the sign; they are lost in the vast West Texas desert, bleached by the sun and sniffed at by coyotes. The sun returns daily to further ossify the bones, and the coyotes abandon the bones in search of something worth eating.

Gordita.

Even the name of the town is debated. Some say the name was Gordia, not Gordita. Arguments ensue. The old men’s grandfathers’ recanting of the tale are passed around from old man to old man. Everyone under the age of sixty don’t care. The employees at the local Dairy Queens want the old men to leave, to make room for people who desire to eat their life-shortening burgers and fries.

The one thing all the old men agree on is that something calamitous happened to the town for it to disappear so completely.

They are right.

                                                        **************

Gordita (Gordia?) met its end because of three seemingly innocuous situations:

1.   The astounding level of laziness and bureaucracy in the state cartographer’s office.

2.   A traveling circus coming through town.

3.   The mayor recently discovering tequila.

                                                        **************

                                                                1832

Joe and Marylou Statler stopped midway through their journey to California. This was due to Joe’s indolence; he never saw the advantage of working hard when one could work less hard. Marylou had married him, despite knowing of this shortcoming. She vowed to remake Joe in her own image.

They built a small house in the desert. Marylou planted a vegetable garden and Joe planted a baby inside Marylou. Jessie, when born, saw a world that made little sense to him. This would not change much over the years.

Jessie’s father died when he was twelve. Rather, he watched as his mother shot his father over a dispute about her culinary abilities. To wit: he complained about undercooked corn one too many times. Jessie had to dig a grave and plant his father.

His mother died ten years later. A rattlesnake bit her. She didn’t die, though, before prying the snake off her ankle and bashing its brains out.

She also didn’t die before creating a budding empire in the desert. She and Jessie built a general store, catering to travelers going west. She soon added a saloon that sold cool beer and whiskey of sketchy provenance. She added a sheep ranch to provide the restaurant with mutton and cheese. The year before she died, she brought in prostitutes from New Orleans and Ft. Worth.

Jessie, now a young man, buried his mother and continued their legacy. Like his mother, he was ambitious. Like his father, he was a bit lazy. This combination worked until it didn’t.

                                                       **************

                                                                 1855

One warm June evening, Jessie got gloriously drunk. Not an unusual occurrence. He also eschewed female company for the night in lieu of doing something productive. This was very unusual.

He desired to name the town, and it seemed fitting to name it in his mother’s honor. He thought about it for a few minutes before coming up with a) an appropriate-sounding name, and b) one that he could spell.

Gordita. Pudgy woman.

Conchita, a sporting woman (and the one who introduced Jessie to the pleasures of female intimacy), called his mother by this name, though never to her face.

Jessie found a thick piece of wood and some paint. He started working. The first four letters were legible and evenly spaced. Unfortunately, there was little space left for the remaining three letters. Jessie squished them in anyway. He attached the sign to a post and planted it in the ground. It fell over. So did he.

Conchita got a couple of ranch hands to secure the sign the next day. It stayed up, firm and true.

                                                         **************

                                                                  1893

Jessie appointed himself mayor of Gordita on his sixtieth birthday. He had appointed himself sheriff on his fiftieth birthday, so it seemed right that he would become – at least in his eyes – more important every decade.

Because of his new-found status, Jessie decided to contact the state of Texas and ask that they put Gordita on the map. Surprisingly, they acquiesced. They arrived in August. Four bespectacled men in gray suits, accompanied by strange instruments and wide eyes. They had never seen such a place, a veritable oasis in the desert.

Conchita, too old to be lying on her back for a living any longer, now managed the bar and the girls. She brought in better whiskey and friskier girls. The bar no longer carried a sour, musty odor. Jessie was so happy about this that he gave her a month off work to go back to Sonora and visit her family. She came back with a husband and several bottles of something that Jessie had never heard of: tequila.

He liked it. He liked it a lot. He liked it so much that he appropriated the twelve bottles of the magic elixir for himself. Conchita’s husband went back to Sonora to procure as much as he could of the clear, peppery liquid.

Conchita went back to work. She provided the cartographers with female company for the duration of their stay, had the bar cleaned up again, and whiled away her free time mixing the tequila she had hidden from Jessie with lime juice and sugar water. She considered selling it in the saloon at some point.

To commemorate the presumed status of Gordita as a place on the state map, Jessie also managed to get a traveling circus to perform while the cartographers were there. Jessop Witt’s Amazing Spectacles arrived a day before the cartographers. Elephants and lions and tigers made their way down the main street, advertising the circus. Bearded ladies cavorted, strong men flexed, clowns danced around, handing out sweets to the kids, and Jessop Witt himself led the procession.

This is where things got interesting.

                                                       **************

Jessop Witt wasn’t simply the owner of a traveling circus; he was also the ringmaster and the lion tamer. Although a skilled orator, he wasn’t much of a lion tamer. He would saunter into the cages, crack his whip a few times, getting the lions to roar, and then leave the cage.

He was prone to drinking, and somewhat less prone to quality control. These didn’t seem like terrible sins. Until the animals escaped.

It had happened before, but never in such a vast landscape. Rounding up the animals would prove much more difficult in such terrain.

The elephants were easy. The monkeys were less easy, but still accomplished in a few hours. The lions, though, proved impossible. Men searched for them every night, but to no avail; they had simply vanished.

But that wasn’t quite true. The lions left evidence of their existence: dead sheep. The ranch hands would find a half dozen slaughtered sheep every morning, half-eaten. The hearts and livers were always gone because lions, apparently, liked hearts and livers.

Jessop Witt decided to do a flit. The circus, like the lions, had disappeared. They could do without the lions but they didn’t care to face an increasingly hostile populace. There was talk of incarceration, or worse. Jessop decided that discretion and distance was the better part of valor, so the circus high-tailed it to New Mexico.

The lion problem remained, as did the cartographers. They tarried, more because of the free drink and free women than anything else. The lions tarried because of easily-had food.

Jessie was distraught. When Jessie was distraught, he drank.

Tequila has an amazing effect on people. It soothes the soul, warms the belly, and goes down as easily as a good cup of coffee. Too much, however, causes a person to lose any sense of perspective. Jessie was good at having too much of everything, and tequila was no exception.

He was drowning his sorrows with tequila and adventurous prostitutes the day the circus left town. Both revived his spirits, to a point. The early-morning hours found him crawling over nubile bodies on his way to the outhouse. He felt like shit, and his mind was once again troubled by the lion problem.

Morose and full of self-pity, Jessie decided to hunt the lions himself. He would wait no longer. It was dark, feeding time for the lions, and he was ready to tackle the problem himself.

The effects of the tequila became apparent almost immediately. The waning crescent moon created a dim, hazy atmosphere. Shadows lurked in the desert. Ghosts appeared out of nowhere. A low, guttural growl pierced the air, terrifying Jessie. He started shooting wildly at the dark.

He didn’t manage to hit anything carbon-based except for the town sign. He had shot off the sign at the spot after the “i” and before the “t.” Jessie didn’t know this; he had run screaming back to his hotel room. The growls of the lions scared him more than his mother ever did.

A couple of ranch hands found the damage as they were heading into town for coffee and supplies. After gathering what they needed, they consulted Conchita on what to do about the damage done to the town’s name. Conchita, shrugging, told them to just attach the pieces together and let it go at that.

“The “t” is gone, Conch,” one of the men informed her.

Conchita thought about this bit of news for a moment.

“No one’s gonna miss one little ‘t.’ We all know the name of our town, anyway.”

The men nodded at Conchita’s good sense and went off to repair the sign. They attached the two pieces together with a couple of bracing boards on the back and set the sign back in the ground. Standing back to look at their work, the men noticed that the remaining letters were now evenly spaced and more pleasing to the eye. Gordia looked a hell of a lot better than Gordita ever did, they reasoned.

Conchita had been almost correct in her assumption that no one would notice the difference. Unfortunately, the cartographers noticed.

Discussions took place in the saloon. These mutated into arguments. Two of the four cartographers swore that the name of the town was, and always had been, Gordita. The other two swore that the name of the town was, and always had been, Gordia. The impasse remained unresolved, even when they left town on their way back to Houston.

.

.

Dominic Farleigh was the head of the mapmaking division for the state of Texas. He took his job seriously enough to work diligently to create a department rich in graft and corruption. He made friends in the accounting department so that he could eat and drink on the state’s money. He greased the palms of several other bureaucrats to procure nice clothes, a fine house, and the occasional frolic with women of loose moral character. He, in turn, aided and abetted the schemes of his fellow bureaucrats. Texas may be a young state, but its bureaucrats were wise in the ways of greasing the wheels for the government.

The cartographers were fortunate enough to find their boss present and fairly sober when they returned. The quandary regarding the town’s name was put to Dominic.

Dominic grimaced; he actually had to make an official decision. Dominic lectured the cartographers on many things, most of them dealing with the fact that they brought him a problem to deal with. After a couple of snorts of whiskey, he calmed down. After lighting a cigar, he became downright philosophical.

“That’s a knotty little problem you boys gave me.”

The cartographers nodded, contrite. They had no idea that decision-making was frowned upon by the state’s machinery.

“Listen, boys. A town that can’t decide on what to call itself has no business being on our map. We’ll just leave it off.”

The cartographers looked at each other, frowning.

“But – but it’s there,” one of them said.

“That’s as may be, son, but is it really worthy of being on the map of the great state of Texas? This is a state of boldness and decisiveness, boys. Hard men, forging empires and becoming legends. This Gordita Gordia thing doesn’t sound like it belongs on my map. Sounds like it belongs in Oklahoma.”

The cartographers couldn’t think of any argument decent enough to put forth to their boss, so they left it at that. Dominic waved them out of the office so that he could take a nap. It had been an exhausting thirty minutes.

.

.

Jessie got gloriously drunk the night after the cartographers left Gordita. The tequila had invaded his system once more, dulling his senses to the point that he thought of a brilliant plan to get rid of the lions. The problem, of course, was that the plan wasn’t at all brilliant.

Jessie did what he had to do, then went to bed; he slept well, certain that his brilliant plan would be the talk of the town. He was right.

This is where things got very interesting.

                                                              **************

The sheep were dead. All of them. White clouds of wool dotted the landscape, fluttering in the breeze and beginning to decay in the desert heat. Several men wandered through the carnage, looking for a reason why every sheep in the area had died.

They found the reason soon enough. Someone had put out poisoned food.

Jessie was stunned – and silent. He wasn’t going to tell anyone that it had been his doing. He thought about his plan, and realized, in his sober state, where he had gone wrong. He had thought that the lions would eat the poisoned food, neglecting to think that the lions’ diet had consisted exclusively of sheep. The sheep, however, ate the poisoned food.

The townspeople were unusually quiet and sober when nighttime arrived. This was a fortunate occurrence, for several lions wandered into town, looking for a new food source. Bedlam erupted.

People ran, screaming, for cover. The lions roared at the screams, pawing the air as if they could rid the air of such a terrible sound. Men grabbed guns and started shooting. The lions evaded the bullets, slinking towards the shadows.

In the chaos, someone had knocked over a lantern. The fire spread from building to building in the stiff desert breeze. Soon, the horizon was alight with fire and people running. Lions prowled, looking for food. No one was killed by a lion that night, miraculously, but Gordita had burned to the ground.

The lions all died that night, in the fire. The knotty problem of ridding the area of lions had been solved, but at great cost. Jessie found no comfort in this.

Everyone left. Nothing remained of the town except smoking embers and singed lions.

Jessie, still drunk and very distraught, climbed on his horse to join the exodus. He slipped off and fell to the ground, under his horse. The horse stepped on Jessie’s skull, thereby sending Jessie off to God’s judgment.

Jessie Statler was the last victim in Gordita to die from drinking and driving.

Conchita and her husband found Jessie’s body. They buried him beside the repaired sign that had altered the town’s name, figuring that the sign would double as Jessie’s burial marker. After saying a few words over the grave, the couple left Gordita. Sonora was their destination. Conchita wanted to have a bar of her own so she could sell her new concoction.

The town’s sign fell over a few months later. The Statler legacy was left to the tender mercies of the desert.

                                                       **************

                                                             2023

“I’m sick of those old men. All they do is argue about cattle prices and some stupid town that probably never existed,” Larry Gregson said, shaking his head before returning to the grill to flip a few burgers.

“They’re harmless. Tall tales aside, I like ‘em,” Jill said. She popped a couple of steel cans into the milkshake mixer.

“Don’t know why,” Larry grumbled.

“They have great stories, and they tip well,” Jill said.

“Made up stories,” Larry said.

“Yeah. Maybe. But stories are all they have now.”

Jill eyed the old men with a mixture of sadness and pity. She prayed that she would never wind up in a Dairy Queen, telling old stories, probably apocryphal, at the end of her life. It was tragic, she thought.

Like all those Greek mythology stories old Mrs. Crannick made us read. Someone rises to glory and then dies. I never got why that was so great.

Somewhere in the deserts of West Texas, a coyote urinated on the very spot where Jessie Statler was buried.

The universe, it seems, has a very twisted sense of humor.

June 30, 2023 11:31

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86 comments

Amanda Lieser
16:29 Jul 24, 2023

Hi Delbert! Congratulations, my dear friend on the incredible shortlist! Naturally, you’ve done a brilliant job with the prompt and the idea of the western town. How many moments in history have we let go of in the modern age simply because we weren’t aware that they existed in the first place? I loved this cast of characters and the way that you decided to tell the story felt like a wonderful film. All of these people were dynamic and outstanding in their own right, but have been forgotten due to the sands of time. What a wonderful, story a...

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Delbert Griffith
17:20 Jul 24, 2023

Wow, thanks so much for the praise and the congrats, Amanda. I really appreciate your comments and your insights. Truly. Yes, moments in history. I'm positive that history is rife with forgotten moments - perhaps very important moments and events. That was definitely one of the ideas behind the tale. Amazing things have happened, and we don't even know it happened! I'm pleased that you liked the characters. Although some of them are sketchy, to say the least, they all contribute to the whole. My favorite is Conchita; she invented the marga...

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Mike Panasitti
17:14 Jul 12, 2023

With another illustrious (and shortlisted!) Western under your belt, Del, you're that much closer to having a publishable collection. Nothing like an infusion of fresh plasma into a tried, true (but, to some, tired) genre. I think you'd be the perfect man to do it. Delbert Griffith's Big Tales of Texas - even sounds like it belongs on a bookshelf! Cheers, my friend.

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Delbert Griffith
19:00 Jul 12, 2023

Wow, thanks so much, Mike. That's an intriguing idea: Tales of Texas. I like it! Yes, this one could be classified as illustrious. Lots of colorful characters and odd happenings, right? It was a fun write and a wild ride. I do like the genre, though, I admit, it's been a little overdone. Still, people seem to like western-themed stories, even nowadays. Something to think about. Thank you again, my friend. Your confidence in me is inspiring. Cheers!

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Unknown User
20:24 Jul 06, 2023

<removed by user>

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Delbert Griffith
22:30 Jul 06, 2023

Thanks so much, Joe. I always appreciate your comments. I'm also pleased that it all came together for you. That was my aim - pardon the pun. LOL Again, thank you, my friend. Cheers!

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05:36 Jul 04, 2023

The unique format of this story really worked. it was like reading a wikipedia entry about a real town's history. I had just been reading about some mining ghost towns in the old west a few days ago, and many of them had stories of an epic rise and fall not that much different than Gordita / Gordia, but with fewer escaped lions involved.

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Delbert Griffith
09:19 Jul 04, 2023

LOL Yes, the escaped lions causing a town's downfall is a distinctly rare event. Thanks for the kind words, Scott. Always appreciated from an excellent writer like you. I attempted a "Gordian knot" allusion, but I'm not sure it came through. Epic rise and fall seemed like a good way to work in the Gordian knot thing. Thanks again, my friend, for reading and commenting. Truly. Cheers!

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Michał Przywara
03:15 Jul 04, 2023

Ha :) The framing device here was a great idea, because that opening grabbed my attention as soon as it began. An amusing story of mishaps - mostly self-inflicted - and events coinciding in the least convenient way. There's a strong theme of shirking work and corruption, with the exception perhaps of Conchita. Poor lions though :) Thanks for sharing!

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Delbert Griffith
09:07 Jul 04, 2023

Thanks so much, Michal. I appreciate you reading and commenting on my little tale. Yes, the men were shirkers and the women were doers. My little dig at tales of how the west was won by men, with nary a word about the women. I also hinted at an allusion to Greek mythology. Specifically, the town of Gordius and the Gordian knot. Their messy problems were solved effectively, but those solutions led to their downfall. I liked Conchita. The creator of the margarita! LOL Again, thanks, my friend. The self-inflicted harm that befalls everyone ...

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Michał Przywara
20:45 Jul 07, 2023

Woo! Congrats on the shortlist! The legend of Gordita lives on :)

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Delbert Griffith
20:48 Jul 07, 2023

Thanks so much, Michal. I appreciate you always reading and commenting on my tales. Truly. Liked: The legend of Gordita lives on Cheers!

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Ela Mikh
23:15 Jul 03, 2023

This was a fun read, one of the best, I dare to say. I'm always looking forward to your stories. It's never what I expect

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Delbert Griffith
01:01 Jul 04, 2023

Thank you so much, Ela, for the kind words. It was a fun write as well. A little irreverent, but that's what made it fun, at least for me. The zany events conspired to do the town in. Tragedy and comedy. Again, thanks so much, my friend. Cheers!

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Helen A Smith
21:06 Jul 03, 2023

All these disparate incidents and fun characters are highly entertaining and made the place come alive. Sprinkled with a good dose of old fashioned bureaucracy, mad lions and other drunken confusion, it captured me from start to finish with its quiet humour. Made me want to taste the tequila and put the place back on the map. Highly entertaining.

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Delbert Griffith
21:23 Jul 03, 2023

Thanks so much, Helen. I appreciate the kind words. The saga of a ghost town has to involve some crazy events, right? Texas wouldn't be Texas without tall tales and a dose of bad decision making. The bad decision making, at least among our politicians, continues to remain strong. LOL Thanks again, my friend. I always like to get comments from you. Cheers!

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Chris Miller
19:59 Jul 03, 2023

Fun story, Del. The idea of a ghost town is just inherently fascinating and a great thing to use in a story. As I write this I am in Ireland, which would fit into Texas ten times. That's a big enough space to lose more than one carelessly labelled town!

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Delbert Griffith
21:20 Jul 03, 2023

LOLOL Losing a carelessly labelled town. That's good, Chris. I'm pleased that you liked the tale, my friend. It was a fun write. Since I live in Texas, it seems fitting that I would find a lost town, yes? Cheers!

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Chris Campbell
01:16 Jul 03, 2023

Another coincidence, Delbert. Five minutes after reading an article on ghost towns, I read your story. This was a funny and entertaining piece, and judging by the article link below, very believable. In today's society, it is frowned upon someone or something leaving a carbon footprint; however, without any footprints, how can history be told and people remembered? That's enough convoluted philosophy for one day. (I swear I've not touched a drop of Tequila). Very engaging story, mate. Here's the link: https://www.quora.com/qemail/tc?...

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Delbert Griffith
09:10 Jul 03, 2023

I read that same Quora article about two months ago. Wow, the coincidences keep on coming! LOL Thanks for reading and enjoying my tale, Chris. Ghost towns have always fascinated me, so writing about how a ghost town came about seemed like it would be fun. The history of ghost towns can fade away if something isn't written down, just like the history of anything. Sometimes, leaving a footprint is a good thing, right? Again, thank you, my friend. I appreciate a Chris Campbell review, always. Cheers!

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Chris Campbell
15:37 Jul 07, 2023

Congrats on the shortlist, Delbert.

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Delbert Griffith
17:20 Jul 07, 2023

Chris, thank you very much. I'm humbled to get recognition because there are so many really good writers here. And, yes, you are one of the best. Truth! Cheers!

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Chris Campbell
02:55 Jul 08, 2023

Thank you. You are certainly proving your worth, as well.

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Tommy Goround
22:48 Jul 02, 2023

-The employees at the local Dairy Queens want the old men to leave, to make room for people who desire to eat their life-shortening burgers and fries. EXCELLENT truth. Title: inviting Opening tone: just my mood; good prose: he never saw the advantage of working hard when one could work less hard. Marylou had married him, despite knowing of this shortcoming. She vowed to remake Joe in her own image Clunky: (and the one who introduced Jessie to the pleasures of female intimacy), called his mother by this name, though never to her face...MAYB...

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Delbert Griffith
01:24 Jul 03, 2023

Tommy, my friend, thanks so much for the kind words and the sterling analysis. There was an allusion to the Gordian knot (Gordita became Gordia), so I played around with the idea of taking messy problems and solving them in a quick, decisive way. The lions died and Gordita never made it on to the state map, so - problems solved. I'm really happy that you liked the prose. Not my usual stuff, but I wanted to write something with an irreverent tone. Must be your influence. LOL In the end, it was meant to be a fun read with some moral/mythol...

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Tommy Goround
06:46 Jul 06, 2023

:)

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William Richards
07:10 Jul 01, 2023

Lots of gentle humor here which I enjoyed. I particularly liked the joke of how his father died. The second paragraph also drew me in as I enjoyed the description of how the bones were weathering and the coyotes sniffing them.

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William Richards
07:13 Jul 01, 2023

And I liked how the lions were on the loose. It reminds me of one of my favourite books by James Patterson, called Zoo. And, bizarrely, also of a children's book called Nee Naw Goes Bananas, where they have to get the escaped monkeys back into the circus

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Delbert Griffith
09:58 Jul 01, 2023

Thanks for the kind words, Richard. I appreciate you reading my little tale and commenting on it. Yes, I went irreverent on this one, and it was great fun. The old western sagas have always fascinated me, so I wanted to pay homage to that great tradition. Also, lions in a story are fun! LOL Thanks again, my friend. Cheers!

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Lily Finch
19:43 Jun 30, 2023

Del, you got that story down. Great job! I thought something had to happen since the town no longer existed but I couldn't figure out how the lions were going to kill them all. I didn't see a fire coming at all. Nice twist. I enjoyed his mother shooting his father and then ten years later she dies by a rattle snake bite. That was great nesting, Del. Too bad that everyone was a drinker and Houston was full of people on the take. You definitely kept the reader engaged. Well done. For some reason I feel like having a Margherita - LOL ...

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Delbert Griffith
22:34 Jun 30, 2023

Thanks so much for the kind words, Lily. I always appreciate an LF6 analysis. I, too, want a margarita. LOL Again, thanks for the praise and for the critique. I'm gonna revisit those lines and ponder on them. You're a true friend, Lily. Cheers!

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Lily Finch
22:38 Jun 30, 2023

Ditto Del. LF6

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Zatoichi Mifune
19:10 Jun 30, 2023

Funny and engaging. A great read. ' under the age of sixty don’t care.' Is it supposed to be didn't/doesn't care? Otherwise amazing, as always.

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Delbert Griffith
22:32 Jun 30, 2023

Thanks so much, Zatoichi. I appreciate the heads up and the praise. Cheers!

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Chad Eastwood
05:56 Jul 14, 2023

Excellent story! This is the first one of yours I have read but I will be sure to read more now.

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Zack Powell
14:29 Jul 01, 2023

Welp, just like you told me, Del: Irreverent and light-hearted. What a fun origin story this was. As always, I appreciate the way that you play with time in your narratives. I don't see a lot of short stories that hop around from year to year (and, in fact, we were actively discouraged from biting off that much time in our stories during my college writing courses). But as with this story and a lot of your others, it can work well if the author and the narrative have good reasons. Which is my long-winded way of saying that I appreciated the...

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Delbert Griffith
17:02 Jul 01, 2023

Once again, Zack, I am heartened and overjoyed by your praise. Thank you so much, my friend. Yes, I had a lot of fun with this one, though it took some work to make all of the events fit. You mentioned the proportion thing, and I did work on that. Well spotted. Joe and Marylou had to be there. They added something to Jessie's character that I just couldn't find a way to bring out without it. I have major holes in my writing skills. LOL No one has yet to comment on the allusion to Greek mythology. The cutting of the Gordian knot in two pla...

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