Hitchhiking with dad
Dire Straits, Selena, and a hot dose of reckless endangerment
It's 105 degrees in the Nevada desert in July, the month before I turn 14. The sun sears down, creating undulating heat shimmers against the beige horizon—the bleak and barren landscape of nothingness.
We're crawling along an endless highway in a bronze Chevy G20 van. My dad bought it used, specifically for this trip. It has a pop-top, a cosmetic ladder on the back, and curtains that make it look like a crime scene on wheels. Before this, he had a motorcycle; before that, it was a hearse.
Prone to carsickness, I'm forever confined to the front seat, shotgun to dad's mumbling rambles, his slow southern drawl taking forever to get to any point. The cloying stench of the beige fabric covering every inch of the van's interior is suffocating. He won't let us use the A/C because it wastes gas. Instead, he devised his own cooling system, placing styrofoam trays of ice cubes on the floorboards below the van's air vents. He claims the vents will push air over the ice and cool our feet (no, it doesn't work). The last ice refill was at 711 hundreds of miles ago. Now, the trays are full of water, sloshing side to side onto the van's carpet with every bump we hit.
My angel-faced little sister is unfazed in the back, her big blue eyes transfixed on a mini TV playing Selena on VHS —for the sixth time in a row. She's smacking a wad of bubble gum while haphazardly applying drugstore press-on nails, too big for her 9-year-old fingertips.
The van starts sputtering. Dad assured us there was a gas station in Clear Springs just up ahead, but that was at least 30 minutes ago. Now, we're coasting on fumes, the needle below "E." I'm soaked in sweat and barely able to contain my rage. Complaining is useless and would only be met with dismissive quips about how I shouldn't feel entitled to such luxuries as air conditioning. Dad reminds me: there are children in the world who don't even have running water!