The night I went down to Dixie

Ok, before you start laughing your arses off and drift off to another article, please allow me to explain. It was December of 1985 and Ford had just announced the release of a new vehicle that would replace the Ford LTD. They called it the Taurus and although it carried a 1985 manufacturing date the model year would be 1986. It was roomy and it had the engine of a full-sized car. It also had two secret advantages that made it ideal for my intended purpose: it had a large trunk and front-wheel drive. Oh, and there was one other thing. The mint green color made it blend into other traffic like it was invisible.

Hopefully, I've captured your attention and you stuck it out long enough to get past the first paragraph. You are wondering what does all this mean and why should you care? For starters, I run illegal guns from Mexico to the United States and in my off-time, I may moonlight as a hired killer for the cartels. To make all this work, I needed a car that was dependable, efficient, and didn't draw attention to itself or me. When Ford announced the new Taurus, I knew I had found the perfect car. The backseat was big enough to where I could store two weeks of laundry and food. The front passenger seat would hold my immediate needs like snacks, a laptop, several guns, a hitchhiker if she was pretty enough. And the trunk, oh my, the trunk! I could fit enough stolen firearms to outfit a platoon of soldiers or I could easily carry 6 dead bodies, even live ones if the price was right. In other words, I had found my Swiss Army Car and it felt good.

Never mind the gas mileage and low maintenance upkeep. I could easily fill up the tank for a twenty-spot and go 500 miles without ever having to look twice at a gas station. The motor was rock solid and as long as I kept water in the radiator and oil in the engine, it would run all day and night. Tires were cheap and since I got the vinyl seats, inside cleanup was a breeze. The biggest issue was actually locating one for sale. Sure, the dealerships all claimed they could get me one, but when it came time to produce the mint green color, they were next to impossible to find. That is until I came across a small Ford Dealer located in Selma, Alabama.

I've never been to Selma before so I planned to make my trip as profitable and enjoyable as possible. I called around and made arrangements for one of my Atlanta, Georgia connections to meet me there to pick up a load of guns and three, uh... "traveling companions". I had always wanted to visit the American Civil Rights Museum and maybe take a quick trip down to the coast to see what opportunities existed there for an entrepreneur such as myself.

I bought an old Chevy Caprice for the trip. I planned to use it as the trade-in on the Taurus. I gave $750 for the Caprice and I prayed it still had enough get up and go to get us to Selma. Once there, even if they only gave me $500 for it, I figured I was still ahead, but I planned to ask for $1500 since I also planned to pay cash for the Taurus. We packed the Caprice with everything we needed, including extra gas cans and urinals so we wouldn't have to stop unnecessarily, and then we left bright and early on Thursday morning.

The plan was to crossover into Texas from Juarez City into El Paso and take Interstate 10 to just east of Fort Stockton before hopping off onto a series of backroads that would take us across Texas and Louisiana before jumping back onto Interstate 59 in Mississippi and cruising back south towards Selma. If things went according to plan, I figured we would be in Selma before mid-morning, Friday. Of course, I'm smart enough to know that things don't always go according to plan, so I had made alternative plans in the event something catastrophic happened and I had to tuck tail and run.

Fortunately, everything went according to plan and we arrived in Selma at 10 a. m. I stopped at a local motel where I was scheduled to meet my Atlanta connection and waited 30 minutes before he came cruising in driving a brand-new mint green Taurus. I spent another half hour admiring his car before we made the transition of firearms and I collected my cash. Two of three "traveling companions" decided they had traveled as far as they wanted to go and bid us adios. The third fellow wanted to ride with me further but my radar detector suddenly started going off in my head, so I invited him to assist us with delivering the weapons to another party.

He was hesitant at first but then agreed. Sadly, for him, he slipped and bumped his head on a shovel behind a dumpster at the motel. Since we couldn't wake him up, we left him lay, but not before going through his pockets where I discovered his U. S. Marshal's badge. A further search revealed a cellphone and a handgun tucked down inside one of his cowboy boots. I wasn't too sure if he was investigating me, the illegal firearms, the traveling companions, or what, but since I never leave loose ends, we decided to tape him real good and put him inside the dumpster and cover him with trash bags. He was still alive when we left him and who knows. He may have survived the trash truck and the trip to the dump. Either way, it would be a very long time before he could contact anyone if, in fact, he was after me.

After that little incident, I jumped back in the Caprice and headed straight for the Selma Ford dealership. When I arrived, they had 3 mint green 1986 Ford Taurus 4-doors, fully loaded parked in the lot. The dealer wanted to work a deal with me on financing and extended warranties and stuff, but I figured the quicker I bought my car and left town, the better off I would be. When he asked me if I had anything to trade-in, I pointed to the Caprice and handed him the title and registration papers. He looked it over, excused himself while he talked to his "manager" and then came back with what he called a cherry deal. He could give me $2,000 for the Caprice.

I agreed that was a sweet deal and accepted. The icing on the cake was when he tallied the total final price of our "deal" and I reached into my front pocket and pulled out a large wad of one hundred dollar bills and began counting out the total amount due. He interrupted me and said he didn't realize I would be paying cash for the car and that would change the total due to fees. Those fees added another $200 to the total price. Roughly 45 minutes after I arrived at the dealership, I drove off the lot in my brand new Taurus for the total price of $17,690.32. I even tipped the salesman a C-note for taking the time to go and fill it up for me.

As I was driving out of town, I passed the same motel where we had stuffed the marshal in the dumpster earlier and saw a large trash truck there shaking that same dumpster vigorously over the back of the trash truck in order to empty the dumpster. I'm pretty sure I saw the marshal fall from the dumpster into the trash truck as I drove by. Such is the life of a cartel gunrunner, hustler, and hitman.

Since I purchased my Taurus, there have been several occasions where I was leaving the scene of a crime when the police had arrived. If I had been in any other car, they would have nabbed me. Not in my Taurus. I slipped by like I was a ghost. In fact, this leads me to how I nicknamed my car the Raging Bull. For years I had risked my life, limb, and liberty doing what I do using a Ford LTD and moving my products from Mexico City all the way to the windy city of Chicago. There were a few times where I had to outrun and outgun the police as they gave chase. Those days are long passed because, in my Taurus, the police never chase me because I blend into the traffic. It's like I'm invisible.

This all brings me to the end of my story. The older I get, the less risk I like to take. It seems the authorities on both sides of the border have wised up to the mint green Ford Taurus. Thus, I face a dilemma. Do I retire, go into another line of work, or change vehicles? This is an important decision for me because if I were to get caught at my age, any sentence would most likely be a death sentence and I don't want to spend my latter years staring at 4 walls and a barred window when I can be laying on a beach sipping on Cerveza and eating tacos. So, if any of you know where I can find a plain white or light grey 2021 Kia Soul for a decent price, please let me know!