Cluster fun.

I think I figured it out. The two black wires in the picture were once one wire. The guy who owned this car before me cut the wire as it entered the connector that bridges the front of the car to the back of the car. He did the same thing with the fuel sending unit wire in a failed attempt to install an aftermarket gauge.

I had the kick panel out because I accidentally thought I was missing a connector in my headlight clip. (See above posts)

Then I remembered the fuel gauge issue and how I saw two black wires that didn't seem to go anywhere and both just read as ground when I used my volt meter back when I was dealing with that whole issue. I realized it might have read ground because the switch was off.

So I found those "two" wires again and decided screw it and clipped a wire from one end to the other and sure enough my tail lights work!

I have to get the cluster back in place before I'll know if my instrument lights work but the fact that my tail lights didn't work and now they do is promising.