A Federal Case

Cruising down the boulevard, Denver�s avenue of schemes and dreams.

Comments (0) By Sara Behunek and Drew Bixby and Patricia Calhoun and Jessica Centers and Amy Haimerl and Dave Herrera and Jared Jacang Maher and Alan Prendergast and Michael Roberts and Jason Sheehan and Amber Taufen and Luke Turf and Joel Warner Thursday, Sep 7 2006

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After three color-coordinated games of Regular, Round-Robin and Blackout Bingo, the room clears for intermission. Some players head to the snack bar for nachos and burgers and burritos and soda, but most beeline for one of three exits. Out back, more than twenty people are smoking. Penny, who is wearing green flip-flops and a floral-print dress, drags on a Winston. She's talking with three other women about the Bingo King lottery-ball machine and how it's not doing a very good job of mixing up the balls. She admits that she doesn't understand how to play Bullet Bingo cards. She lights her second cigarette with her first. Out front, more smokers spread out in the parking lot of red Buick Rivieras and purple Corollas and black Lexus SUVs and mutter about the weather.

As intermission ends, players place their final orders at the snack bar. A small line forms in front of a vending machine that sells sixteen kinds of cigarettes for $5 a pop and more than thirty kinds of ink dabbers for about a dollar each. Penny announces that the Yellow round of Regular Bingo will commence in thirty seconds, and straggling smokers and snackers shuffle, hobble and barely make it back to their seats in time. The now-obsolete non-smoking section (maximum capacity: eighty people), set apart by two glass-windowed walls, fills up for no apparent reason. The progressive game (running payout: $3,419.10) goes by without a winner in under 53 numbers. Raffle numbers are called, and the prizes -- a massaging chair pad, a set of candles and a large Halloween-themed pillow -- are distributed to unimpressed winners. One woman looks at her neighbor and whispers, "Who would want that pillow?"

Anthony Camera

Shoppers can get chickens feet at Fiesta Plaza.

Anthony Camera

They can also find roasted chiles there.

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When the final game ends more than two hours after the first began, players pack their dabbers back into their bags and head for the forty-foot-long pull-tab-and-pickle bar, throwing singles and fives at volunteers for one last chance at luck. They tear and peel Wild-Ball and Rakin'-in-the-Chips pull tabs with feigned interest before discarding them in the trash. A few gather in small groups and exhaustedly mutter things like, "Oh, that's baloney sausage, Susan." Some make plans to come back for the 7 p.m. game, others the 10:30 game. Still others simply trudge out to the parking lot, pack their ventilators and wheelchairs into their cars, and slowly pull out onto Federal. -- Drew Bixby

Rocky's Autos
6350 Federal
11:15 a.m.The greeter who directs people onto the lot looks nothing like Officer O'Dell, and the salesman in a white shirt waiting to shake my hand as soon as I emerge from my potential trade-in is no Audra. But the spirit of Shagman and his wacky companions looms large over Rocky's, a bright motley of pennants, balloons, Day-Glo stickers and late-model, fossil-fuel-burning chariots of all makes and persuasions. Well, almost all.

Federal is a car culture, a pilgrimage on four wheels, and Rocky's is its mecca. The business started a generation ago on the cusp of Mile High Stadium but moved four miles north in 1992; it's still family-owned, still churning out dopey commercials that make you wonder if there's a family-sized tank of nitrous oxide in one of the back rooms. You won't find any snobby "pre-owned vehicles" here, just a vast array of used cars, with no particular brand loyalty.

In a recent commercial, Shagman intimated that Rocky's was the most popular car dealer in the state. "Popular" being a term of art, that prompted a mind-bending apology in another thirty-second spot, which ended with Officer O'Dell escorting a sobbing Shagman to the slammer. Shagman has yet to claim that the place has a mile of cars, as in a classic Kurt Russell flick, but he does insist that the place is the highest-volume peddler of clean used cars in Colorado.

The weekend rush is still hours away, and my salesman, Mike, is low-key and surprisingly soothing. I tell him I'm looking for something sharp but economical, and he gives me that like-who-isn't smile. Music blares from speakers around the lot. While Mick tells us to get offa his cloud, we check out a nondescript Kia, a blah Intrigue, even a canary-yellow VW Bug. Can I fit my ego into a Suzuki Esteem? Am I noble enough for a Mitsubishi Galant? Do I yearn for a Ford Aspire?

Sadly, there's not a hybrid on the lot. I set my sights on a little more flash and financing, and Mike leads me to a 2003 silver Honda Accord with all the trimmings. The Accord has 79,000 miles plus change, and I'm beginning to wonder about the criteria behind the "Low Mileage" stickers that grace just about every windshield on the lot. Apparently, the odometer has to be in six figures to earn a different blurb -- "Still Runs," perhaps.

It takes a helpful fellow with a razor blade a couple of minutes to scrape off all the stickers and festoonings so we can take this baby out for a spin. The test drive goes well. No pressure, no hustle, just Mike murmuring a mesmerizing incantation of features and options. Sunroof, leather, six-CD changer. Side-curtain airbags. "Water management system," which has something to do with the way the rain sluices off the roof. The words "heated seats" come up about four times, as if nobody should contemplate winter driving on Federal without a rump roast.