From the Archives: Pale Cadillac

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00][music] >> This is Six Ghosts.

[00:00:09]>> [music] >> It's Thursday night and death has just walked in through my motel room door.

[00:00:17]He calls himself death, but he looks like a Carlton to me.

[00:00:21]His friends probably regulars at a dive bar somewhere.

[00:00:25]They'd call him Buck or Tex.

[00:00:28]But our death here, he doesn't have any friends.

[00:00:32]Well, I guess he wouldn't, would he? I mean, it wouldn't be traditional.

[00:00:37]Death slouches all gangly and gloomy in a lounge chair across the room. So thin in his ridiculous western getup that any minute now his hip might poke a hole in the cheap vinyl upholstery.

[00:00:48]On his head is a 10-gallon Stetson. It's black like the oily stains that drench his duster from him to waist.

[00:00:55]God knows where this man's been. He reeks of stale incense.

[00:01:00]I'm thinking all of this when he issues a wake-up cough.

[00:01:03]He leans back, bony arms folded across his bony chest as if to say, "I'm waiting on you, buddy."

[00:01:10]Right, sorry. Just a second. I'm stuttering.

[00:01:13]With trembling hands, I switch on a digital recorder and take my place at a rickety writing desk.

[00:01:19]Just uh, you know, start whenever you want.

[00:01:22]I say.

[00:01:24]Tex wants a cup of coffee first. He helps himself to the pot I brewed this morning and doesn't mind that it's stone cold.

[00:01:31]He sits again.

[00:01:33]Death in his cowboy hat and takes a drag on a waning cigarette.

[00:01:37]I can't help but laugh at the image.

[00:01:40]"You know they say these will kill you."

[00:01:41]I joke. But death, he doesn't laugh.

[00:01:45]He doesn't even exhale.

[00:01:47]He just leans back in that tacky lounge chair and stares with his cold gray eyes.

[00:01:53]And I'm awash with embarrassment. It's like I've met the president of China and asked him if he eats with chopsticks.

[00:02:01]Death is surprisingly dignified for a crazy man.

[00:02:05]He has to be crazy, right? I saw him pull up in a dirty white Cadillac.

[00:02:10]Death isn't from the underworld, he's from Kansas.

[00:02:14]And he's talking now, telling me in a gravel voice about the very first lives he ever took.

[00:02:20]This goes back way before Cain and Abel.

[00:02:22]He's talking angels and devils I've never heard of.

[00:02:27]That's my fault for leaving my door open, I guess.

[00:02:30]I had wanted to listen to the rain.

[00:02:34]I mean, who knows who he really is or how he guessed I'm a writer, but this man who calls himself death, {comma} angel of, walked in from nowhere wanting an interview.

[00:02:44]I didn't have the courage to tell him I've never been published outside the Santa Clarita Signal.

[00:02:49]I'm just grateful for my safety that he doesn't shut the door.

[00:02:54]Death drones on and on. The great flood, the black plague, little Jimmy playing on the train tracks.

[00:03:02]I can tell he's not wholly unaffected by all this taking.

[00:03:07]Sometimes he pauses for just a little too long, you know?

[00:03:11]Sometimes his voice is unsteady.

[00:03:14]He tells me about the screams of the Pompeiians and the laughter of Rasputin.

[00:03:21]He tells me he wept at Auschwitz because he knew there would be worse to come.

[00:03:27]Salem, Kent State, Anne Boleyn's execution. He was there for all of it, he says.

[00:03:33]I ask him about Jack Kennedy, but he won't give me any answers.

[00:03:38]He says a good punchline is all in the timing.

[00:03:42]And now he's quiet.

[00:03:44]Staring at me as if considering something I don't want to think about.

[00:03:49]He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a Swiss Army knife, and absently examines each blade.

[00:03:55]Then he closes it, places it back in his pocket.

[00:03:59]"I have to go," he tells me, scratching his sandpaper chin. "I got work to do."

[00:04:05]He rises from his chair, but before he leaves, he tells me he plans to finish this interview one day.

[00:04:11]And in a voice I feel more than I hear, he says, "For the second half, I'm going to interview you."

[00:04:19]Death smiles, walks out, and gently closes the door behind him.

[00:04:24]I hear him start up his pale Cadillac with its Kansas plates, and he's gone.

[00:04:31]Looking down at my recorder, I see pretty much what I expected to see.

[00:04:35]Batteries are dead.

[00:04:39]All I know is I don't want to watch the news, I don't want to listen to the radio or read the paper.

[00:04:44]I don't want to hear the small talk in the motel lobby.

[00:04:48]I'm sure it's silly, but I don't even want to use the phrase check out in the morning.