Topless in Natchez

Based on a true story from my friends Kippy and Ricky, growing up wild in Natchez, Mississippi. Written from Kippy’s point of view.

[embed]Kippy’s song dedicated to Ricky……..

Every dumb legend starts somewhere. Ours started with a red Mustang and too much confidence.

We were rolling four deep in Clyde — my ’67 Catalina, technically still registered to my old man — me behind the wheel, Ricky riding shotgun, and the Williams brothers, Mark and Gene, stretched across the backseat like royalty. It was a four-door Pontiac, long as a barge and twice as stubborn, painted that factory white you only saw on your grandpa’s last sedan. Black vinyl roof peeling at the edges, rust freckles blooming along the seams, radio knob busted clean off. But it moved, and the 8-track deck could still spit out Waylon and Willie if you banged on it just right.

We named it Clyde. Two reasons. First, Ray Stevens sang that line in Ahab the Arab — “He had a camel named Clyde” — and second, because we’d wear out the BTO tape singing “Slide, slide, slide… ridin’ Clyde.” It stuck. The name, the vibe, the attitude. Clyde wasn’t just a car — he was the fifth passenger.

We were easing down Homochitto, windows down, warm early fall, when a cherry-red Mustang convertible passed us going the other way. Blonde hair flying in the backseat, radio thumping something newer than us.

Gene watched it vanish and let out a whistle. “Damn, I wish we had a convertible.”

I glanced in the mirror. “No problem.”

Now see — that’s what you’re never supposed to say when you’ve got a torch, a chisel, and no adult supervision.

We detoured off the main road and headed toward the old shop where my daddy used to work — back before we ever went into business for ourselves. The place was half storage, half graveyard for machines that had seen better decades. I still had the key. Inside, the air smelled like welding dust, motor oil, and bad decisions waiting to happen.

We rolled Clyde in and parked under the corrugated tin overhang. No planning. No measuring. Just four guys with a mission and a full tank of crazy.

We pulled the torch off the wall, bled the valves, and struck flame. The vinyl roof curled up like black bacon. Sparks flew. Hammer met chisel. The Catalina howled like it knew what was coming. Gene held the flashlight. Ricky played foreman. Mark dug through drawers looking for safety glasses and came up with a pair of cracked Ray-Bans.

It took a couple hours and two 8-packs of Miller Ponies to get the job done. When we finished, Clyde looked like he’d been mugged. Sheet metal curled jagged along the roofline, chrome trim drooping like sad eyebrows, upholstery still smoldering around the headrests. But hell if it wasn’t open to the sky.

We had a convertible.

We wiped our hands, tossed the tools back in the crate, and loaded up. I cranked the engine, jabbed the 8-track in hard enough to catch, and Waylon came roaring back to life — Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys — like he’d been waiting for the moment.

So we rode. Down Canal. Up Franklin. Along back roads, past gas stations and porches full of people we knew, waving like conquering fools — Ice chest full of Miller Ponies. Gene stood up in the backseat at one point, arms wide, hair flying.

The sun was dipping low when we made the mistake of passing a cop outside the Chevron. I saw his head turn. Didn’t even make it to the next intersection before the blue lights lit up behind us.

I pulled over like I had a choice.

He walked up slow, hand resting on his holster, with the look of a man who’d seen too much stupidity in one county. He paused, took in the car — scorched edges, roof gone, upholstery melted in places — and leaned through the empty frame.

“Son,” he said, voice flat and tired, “you can’t drive that piece of shit on the roadway.”

Silence.

The kind of silence where nobody wants to be the first to speak. He didn’t yell. Didn’t even seem mad. Just tired — like we were one more dumb story he’d have to explain to someone back at the station.

Then Mark burst out laughing. I shrugged and killed the engine.

The cop didn’t write a ticket. Just made us swear not to take it past city limits and shook his head like he wanted to forget the whole thing.

Then there was Charlie — Kippy’s dad — waiting in the driveway, arms crossed, expression carved from granite.

“You cut the roof off my car,” he said flatly in the voice that Charlie had.

“It was a design choice,” I offered. “Seasonal. Very autumn-forward.”

Charlie stepped closer, rain dripping from his nose. “You’re gonna drive that son of a bitch for the rest of the year. Rain, shine, sleet, or birds shit falling from the sky.”

Ricky tried a grin. “Better gas mileage without all that roof weight?”

Charlie didn’t answer. Ricky shut up.

And so we did. We drove that jagged-top Pontiac through the rest of the fall. Every gust of wind reminded us of our sins. We kept ponchos in the backseat and a pile of towels to dry the dash. It creaked. It leaked. It smelled faintly of wet carpet and bad choices.

But damn if it didn’t feel like freedom.

Even now, when the air cools and the leaves start to turn, I’ll glance out the window and mutter, “It was worth it.”

And that, gentlemen, is how legends are born.

Gene and Mark have mostly settled down — well, sorta. And Ricky… Ricky’s no longer with us. Been a few years now. We miss him terribly. But every time the breeze kicks up and some fool kid guns a ragged-out car down Homochitto, it’s like you can still hear him grinning from the passenger seat, whispering just loud enough:

“Hell yeah.”

I’d love to be young and stupid again. Wouldn’t we all.